A funny little hitch
socked me in the chest, when I looked at Doni and realized something. Aunt
Lenore was dead, but in all the fuss of Doni showing up and getting her
settled and being so furious on her behalf, that little fact had slipped right
past us. Who was going to tell my mother that her sister was dead? Had anybody
thought of that yet?
I felt about twenty
years older all of a sudden, and tired. Tragedy sure created a lot of work and
a lot of things to think about. Even if--maybe especially if?--that tragedy was
four months old.
What was wrong with
those Hallidays, that they couldn't be bothered to call and say, "Oh, by
the way, your daughter is dead. We don't want her daughter. She's on her
way"?
Doni turned and
looked at me with those big, sad eyes, and I shuddered at a new thought: Maybe
it wasn't that they didn't care about her. Maybe they hoped
something nasty would happen to her. Then there would no one to claim whatever
inheritance she had coming to her, so they could take it over.
Of course, that begged the question of just what these people had done to Doni in the four months since her parents died. Why had they held onto her all that time, and only now cut her loose?
No comments:
Post a Comment