The Cinderella Deal - Jennifer Crusie [54]
“Thank you.” Gertrude’s voice was faint, and Daisy was really alarmed. She ran downstairs and called the doctor who lived across the street.
“This is Daisy Blaise. It’s my mother-in-law. She’s really ill and I don’t think she can make it across the street. It’s either you or the rescue squad.”
“I’ll come,” Dr. Banks said. “The rescue squad makes too much noise.”
Half an hour later he came downstairs. “Flu.”
Daisy felt her own stomach heave at the thought. “Flu?”
“She’ll be sick for about a week. This is that nasty strain they’ve got up north. And we want to keep it up north. This place is in quarantine.”
Quarantine. With Gertrude. And Linc. Oh, Lord. “Can Linc go to work?”
“Only if he promises not to breathe on the students. You keep the students out, understand?”
Daisy nodded. The last thing she needed was a lot of people while she coped with Gertrude, a woman she was fairly certain saw illness as something only weaker people encountered. “I understand. What about Gertrude? What do I do?”
“Keep her warm and give her plenty of liquids. She should be through this by Friday.”
“Great.” Daisy sighed. “Thank you. I know you don’t make house calls, so I really appreciate this.”
“Across the street isn’t a house call.” He looked around at Daisy’s painted walls. “Besides, it’s a nice house.”
I’m going to miss living here, she thought as she watched him cross the street. Such nice people. Such a nice town. Such a nice house.
She lettered a sign that said Flu Quarantine and taped it to the front door and then went to make vegetable soup. Vegetable soup had a lot of liquid in it.
“Is that a joke?” Linc gestured to the sign as he came through the front door, and Daisy flapped her hand at him to shush him.
“Shhh. Your mother’s upstairs, and she’s really sick. You can go up and sit with her after dinner.”
“Do I have to?” Linc asked appalled.
“Yes.” Daisy restrained herself from saying something exasperated. “You have to.”
After dinner that night, Linc reluctantly climbed the stairs.
“Read her this.” Daisy shoved a book into his hands as he went up, and he carried it with him when he went in to see his mother.
He was as shocked as Daisy had been at the change in her. She looked old and fragile, not the Iron Mother he’d grown up with. “Hello,” he said softly. “Daisy sent me up to read to you. Would you like that or would you rather just sleep?”
“I would like a little reading.” She tried to focus on him. “I have been sleeping all day. And the dinner was very good. Real homemade soup.” She sighed a little. “Daisy is a good woman.”
“Yes, she is.” It was unlike his mother to be so mellow, and it made Linc nervous. “Let’s see what she’s given us to read.” Linc opened the book and then laughed.
“What is it?”
“‘There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright,’” Linc began. He looked over at his mother, who was blameless and upright, and she smiled weakly and he smiled back, and for one moment he felt united with her in affection for Daisy.
“This is good.” His mother relaxed into her pillow. “I feel better. The boils I have not got yet.”
“‘He feared God and turned away from evil,’” Linc read on, and his mother closed her eyes, and when he glanced over as he read, she was smiling slightly, and she looked comforted. God bless Daisy, he thought, and read on.
Later that evening, after Daisy had checked on Gertrude and given her aspirin for her fever, she went into Linc’s bedroom and climbed into bed with him. He was still reading the Bible.
“Job.” He shook his head. “I would never have thought of it, but she liked it.” He looked over at her, smiling. “She really liked it.”
“I love it.”
He watched as Daisy wriggled down in the bed to get comfortable. His mattress was harder than hers, and it took her a while to get situated, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her as she punched pillows and tried to find a softer place for her hip. Finally she was where she wanted to be, and she went on.