LITMIR.BIZ

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towel to her chest, she shrieked, “Jesus Chr-ist, Mom. You scared the livin’ hell out of me.”

      By Harriet’s expression, she was gratified to know she hadn’t lost the ability to strike terror in the heart of her kid from ambush. “That pizza joint closes at eleven on weeknights.” She sniffed several times, then puckered her lips. “This is Thursday, you look like you’ve been dragged through a knothole backward and what I smell ain’t pepperoni.”

      “Oh, yeah?” Dina flinched. Sure, her defense strategies were years out of practice, but they hadn’t been that lame since fourth grade. What popped out was a snotty, even lamer, “Technically, it’s been Friday for almost two hours.”

      “You said you’d be home before midnight.”

      “I said I’d probably be home by midnight.” Dina hung the damp towel on the bar behind her, smoothing the wrinkles and leveling the hems. “If you needed me, all you had to do was hit the panic button.”

      An emergency alert device hanging like a pendant around Harriet’s neck was programmed to automatically dial Dina’s cell phone. An autodial to 911 would be faster, but a city ordinance prohibited a direct connection to an emergency dispatcher. It was up to Dina to contact emergency services.

      “Too many false alarms for a direct call,” a city official told Dina. “An average of sixteen a day when the city council passed the ordinance. And that was twenty years ago.”

      A subscription service would relay confirmed panic-button emergencies, but it cost forty dollars a month. Dina couldn’t afford it and a cell phone, too.

      “I’m sorry, if I—” The doorway was empty. Peering out, Dina glimpsed the tail of a seersucker housecoat rounding the corner into the dining room. When Dina caught up with her mother, she was fumbling with the tote bag’s zipper.

      “What do you think you’re doing?” coincided with the TV announcer’s “Only thirty seconds left. Act now, before it’s too late….”

      “Since you won’t tell me what you’re up to,” Harriet said, “I have to find out my own self.”

      Paper crackled as she jerked out three white pharmacy sacks, their tops stapled shut. Her righteous scowl deflating, she delved for paydirt at the bottom of the bag.

      “What’s this?” she inquired, an “Aha!” implicit in her tone. The alleged contraband emerged, cocooned in a plain plastic bag.

      “Okay, you got me,” Dina said. “You’d think I’d learn it’s impossible to put anything over on you for long.” She pulled out a chair and sat down hard. “Go ahead. Open it.”

      Hesitating, her eyes downcast and despair evident, Harriet unwrapped whatever Pandora’s box she’d imagined and now wished she’d left alone.

      While she stared transfixed at the carton, Dina said, “The pharmacist on the graveyard shift had customers stacked up three deep when I walked in. That’s why I was so late. I wanted to ask some questions, or better, get his recommendation, instead of buying just any ol’ electronic glucose monitor off the shelf.”

      Feeling guilty, among other things, for leading on her mother, letting her deliver her own comeuppance, Dina added, “The pharmacist showed me, it really is almost painless. No more finger-sticks to dread three or four times a day.”

      Harriet ran a knuckle under one eye, then the other. “I shouldn’t have—”

      “Oh, hush. It’s as good a surprise now as it would’ve been in the morning.”

      “Yes, and you’re the sweetest daughter in the world for buying it, but—” She picked up the empty bag and started fitting the carton back into it. “These things aren’t cheap. Why, a fancy gizmo like this—”

      “Is top-of-the-line and worth every penny.” Dina snatched the receipt from her mother’s hand and crumpled it. The shopping bag was taken away and wadded. “You’d buy one for me, if I was being poked and pinched bloody all the time, so end of discussion.”

      Oops. She grinned, hoping to magically turn the last part, that teensy finis which might be interpreted as an order, into a joke. A witty rejoinder. A—

      Her mother bent down and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, baby. You shouldn’t have spent the money, but it is a trial when my fingers are too sore to work a crochet hook.”

      She was quick to grouse about everything from foods she craved that were on the restricted list to unwed celebrities who hatched their young like guppies. Aches, pains and physical discomforts were endured in silence.

      Bravery was admirable. Except it forced constant vigilance, attentiveness to every subtle twitch, grimace, blemish—any deviation from whatever constituted normal. Had Harriet hovered over Dina and Randy as diligently when they were children, they’d have whistled up the stork and demanded a change of address.

      The paper bags contained an anti-inflammatory prescribed for arthritis and two types of ophthalmic drops to control Harriet’s glaucoma. One of the latter required refrigeration. As she moved to the kitchen, Dina cocked an eyebrow, angled sideways in the chair, then looked back toward the hall. No oxygen hose trailed along the carpet.

      “Something seems to be missing. But jeepers, I can’t imagine what it is.”

      Her mother shrugged and closed the fridge. “So I left my leash on the bed for a minute or two. What’s the harm?”

      Dina dropped her head into her hands. Maybe it wasn’t too late to whistle up that stork.

      

      Jack raised his head from his hands and blew out a breath. It stank of beer, rancid onions from the chili dog and rings he’d gulped for dinner and the five pots of coffee he’d chased them with.

      A scrambled egg, dry toast and a glass of milk next door at Al’s diner would absorb the acid gnawing craters in Jack’s stomach. A glance at his watch, then at the parking lot visible out the office window nixed the idea. Neighborhood bars had poured their customers out on the street over an hour ago, but Thursday-night-into-Friday-morning crowds were different from weekenders.

      Rebels without a brain, in Jack’s opinion. As if knocking back a sixer the night before the work week ended was a form of social commentary. Clock in Friday with a killer hangover and perfect impression of a toilet bowl’s rim carved on your face and that’ll by God show the boss who’s boss.

      “Nice attitude, McPhee,” he muttered. “Speaking from experience, I presume?”

      He was. His throbbing neck and shoulders brought back memories of regular worship services at the porcelain altar. Hunkering over a desk for hours on end exacted similar punishment with none of the fun of getting there.

      Sitting back in his chair, he surveyed the ream of photocopies and newspaper stories separated into categorized stacks. A case beginning with little or nothing to go on was common. One with an old-growth forest in paper form splayed across his desk should solve itself. And might, if he could see the pattern for all the damn trees.

      It was there. He was just too bleary-eyed to find it. The usual remedy for mental fatigue was a good night’s sleep. A fabulous idea, if he could unplug his overloaded brain and stuff it in his sock drawer. Otherwise, the yammering in his head would be like the New York Stock Exchange after the opening bell.

      A legal pad lay on the floor a few yards from his desk. Handwritten notes and jagged scratch-outs covered the fanned yellow sheets. A few minutes ago, the pages rattled merrily when Jack threw the pad in frustration. Tantrums were juvenile and counterproductive. That’s why they felt so good.

      His bowlegged, knee-bent scuttle to fetch the tablet was peculiar to the elderly, toddlers and those whose spines had conformed to nonergonomic chairs. Jack plopped the pad on the desk, then stretched for the ceiling’s acoustic tiles. Crackles and pops sounded like chicken bones in a garbage disposal. He yawned so hard that black specks jittered behind his eyelids.

      “Think,”

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