At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [32]
When the front door opened, and the screen door creaked, no one was surprised to see Lori standing there. “Mom,” she said excitedly, “I’ve got it! I’ve figured it out!”
Cici pretended polite interest. “A new business plan?”
“No.” She shook her head impatiently. “The alcove—the painting. I know what’s wrong with it. Come inside, I’ll show you.”
Curious, the three women threaded their way through the furniture to join Lori inside the main living area. “Look,” she said, gesturing grandly to the opposite wall, as though the answer should be obvious.
The only light, since all the lamps had been removed from the room, came from the grand chandelier over the staircase, and the smaller one in the foyer. The fireplace wall, with its recently uncovered muraled alcove, was in shadows. Even if it had been obvious, they could not have seen the answer in the dark.
“Don’t you see?” Lori prompted. “It’s uneven! There’s got to be another one—one on either side of the fireplace! So,” she added happily, “I measured the same distance from the fireplace on the other wall, and sure enough—it’s hollow. Do you want me to go get the sledgehammer? Can we open it up tonight?”
Cici looked at Lori, then at Bridget and Lindsay. The other two women shrugged. Cici went forward to the place Lori had indicated, and rapped the wall with her knuckles. Sure enough, it sounded hollow.
“Damn,” she said, straightening up. Hands on hips, she surveyed the wall. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“We’re going to open it, aren’t we?” Lori insisted. “Don’t you want to get started?”
“We are not going to start swinging sledgehammers this time of night,” her mother said firmly.
“But it’s not even dark!” Lori protested.
Cici’s tone brooked no argument. “Morning is soon enough.”
Lori’s disappointment was replaced almost immediately with a grin. “Well, I guess I can wait. See Mom, I told you I’d be good at this! This is just the best job in the world!”
When she had skipped back up the stairs again, Cici drew in a long breath and released it through pursed lips.
“Too much energy,” Bridget said.
“Too little impulse control,” added Lindsay.
“Too damn smart,” Cici concluded with a final mournful shake of her head.
6
In Another Time
Pearl, 1863
The next day Mother did go to the house with teas and medicines, and she went the day after that and the day after that, which made Mama Madie mad. They whispered about it in low harsh voices whenever Mother came back to the cabin at night, all pale and worn-out looking, but in the end Mama Madie would make Mother sit down and drink some broth and she’d wrap Mother’s feet in warm flannel. And then Mother would ask Pearl to show her how the quilt was coming, but sometimes she would fall asleep before Pearl could unfold the portion of the square she had finished that day.
Pearl worked on the quilt all day, because she was not allowed to leave the cabin while the soldiers were there, and after a time she came to understand that was why Mother thought the quilt was such a good idea, so that Pearl would have something to occupy her days while she sat in the cabin waiting for the soldiers to leave. Pearl did not mind staying in Mama Madie’s warm cabin, because outside was an ugly, scary place. All the chickens were gone, eaten by the soldiers. Once she heard a heart-stopping sound, like a woman screaming, and she rushed to the door to see a pig—Mama Madie later said it had had the bad sense to wander up near the house looking for scraps—running crazily around the yard with a sword sticking out of its neck and blood flooding everywhere. Later that day the smell of roasting pork was so sweet it made Pearl’s stomach hurt, and her mother brought back a big hunk of it wrapped in a napkin, plus a slab of bacon big enough to last more than a week. Pearl couldn’t eat very much of it though, because she kept seeing that pig running around screaming with the sword in its neck.
Mostly the smells that drifted across that yard and down the little trail that led to the cabin weren’t so sweet as cooking