Maeve was not a day drinker—not normally, anyway—but after spending a practically silent morning with her angsty daughter, she felt like she might need a little something. Another cup of coffee would have to do; if she gave into alcohol today, she might start finding excuses for the subsequent days.
She wished she could really talk to Cora, tell her things, but the girl was already broken enough. She hadn't deserved anything that had happened so far, and she wouldn't deserve what might come if Maeve started talking too much. It was hard, though, keeping secrets. Maeve had kept them for years, but secrets had a freaky way of threatening to reveal themselves, and it was sometimes better to run than to face the revelations.
Cora trudged into the house, no mail in hand, and slammed herself into her bedroom. Maeve didn't ask any questions. No doubt Cora would go off and write some of her bleak poetry, now.
Not that Maeve had ever read any of it. Her daughter's writing could be about ponies and rainbows, for all she knew . . . though she doubted it.
There was a lot to do in the next two weeks before Cora went back to school. Maeve had to start her new jobs, first of all. In a past life, she'd been a pharmacist, long, long ago. But since taking in Cora, she'd held down a number of odd jobs, mostly secretarial at a number of places: a vet clinic, a salon, a real estate agency. The most recent job, before they'd left, was at a home for the elderly. She'd cleaned rooms and cleaned people and helped them eat and dress and wheel themselves about, and she'd listened. Even when they'd said strange and incomprehensible things, she'd listened, and nodded, and acted as if she cared. And she did care, sometimes. When she wasn't wrapped up in her own concerns.
But whatever jobs Maeve had managed to keep, she'd tended to work retail on top of them, whatever was needed to keep them afloat. Cora hadn't really understood what her mother did or why she did it, but she'd definitely been annoyed that Maeve wouldn't help her get a car when she'd turned sixteen. A car! That was the last thing her daughter had needed, even if Maeve could've afforded it, which she certainly couldn't. Their rent and electricity and water and phone bills not to mention food had kept them living paycheck to paycheck. Cora had been good enough with it all, never minding shopping at Good Will; at least Maeve's mother had taught the girl how to thrift. And overall, lately, Cora hadn't given her much cause for concern. Maeve had other reasons for being strict with her daughter.
Oh, Maeve missed her mother. The old woman had been quirky and annoying in her blunt, southern, overbearing ways, but she'd also been a shield against the things that went bump in the night. Maeve had felt confident placing her daughter in her own mother's care; nothing could've hurt Cora under Luce's protection, but when that scare had occurred, when it'd been made clear that the old woman was showing signs of dementia, Maeve could no longer risk Cora's safety. She'd pulled her away as fast as she'd been able to, and Maeve had felt like a fugitive ever since.
There'd been another scare, about a month back, some wayward comment at a bar that she'd probably taken too seriously; it'd prompted their move.
Maeve poured black coffee into the one mug she could scrounge up, sought milk in the refrigerator and added just a bit. She wasn't sure how much longer she could really do this. It'd been five years since she'd taken in her daughter; how long could they run? And how long could she hide it from Cora?
She started work tomorrow, she reflected, heading toward her bedroom to grab a book she'd been reading. Her new day job was in another elder care home, nothing crazy. In fact, one of her purposes in driving through town was to check the place out. She'd been hired over a zoom interview; it was a nothing job with dirt pay, so she'd have to find something else on top of it, but for now, it would do. Maeve still had some money her mother had left her when she'd died.
Oh, that was one of the most difficult secrets she'd kept from Cora--that her beloved Grandma Luce was dead. As far as Maeve knew, Cora still wrote to her Grandmother (who, surprisingly, was quite adept with email), though she couldn't possibly have received any responses. Maeve just hadn't had the heart to tell her daughter the fact that her grandmother was dead, let alone how the old woman had died.
Someday, everything would be out in the open; Maeve would be able to really talk to her daughter. But as it was, they'd just have to keep their secrets for now.
"Damnit!" Upon entering her bedroom, Maeve startled so much her coffee sloshed out of her mug and onto the floor, scattering the ants that were running amok across the boards. Where were the horrible things coming from? They weren't clustered in one particular area but were helter skelter across the entire floor, several running in one direction, several more running in another, and so on and so forth. She should've picked up spray or traps at the grocery store, but she'd forgotten, assuming she'd taken care of the problem earlier.
One of the neighbors surely had something. It was a good excuse to go out and try to meet them again, anyway.
Unlike her daughter, Maeve was a social person. Circumstances had kept her from making and keeping many friends, but she was by nature friendly. Isolating herself had been one of the most difficult aspects of the past several years. So she left her room, poured her remaining coffee into a thermos and topped it off, and headed out into the sunshine to knock on some doors.
The weather here was by far better than the summer they'd left behind in the Midwest, where August temperatures could break into the hundreds. Here, nearer the coast, the projected highs for the next few weeks were in the low eighties. Whether or not that was the norm or just luck, Maeve didn't know, but she was grateful to actually feel comfortable in her tee and shorts. A quick glance told her the only person out and about was that kid whose father she'd met the day before. He was on his porch with a friend, it appeared. Maeve waved, and the boy waved back, seeming good-natured enough. They looked about Cora's age—Maeve fleetingly considered telling her daughter to go out and introduce herself, but the notion quickly passed when she remembered that Alan had implied his son was a deadbeat.
She'd try that old woman next door; what had Cora called her? Niecey. Short for Eunice. Maeve hadn't met her, but Cora had mentioned she'd seemed nice during their minimal conversation that morning.
Eunice's flowers were actually gorgeous. Either the woman was an octogenarian gardner or she paid someone to garden for her because everything was laid out beautifully. Maeve wasn't particularly knowledgeable about flowers, but she definitely recognized marigolds and petunias, and the deep red flowers along the path to the door were dahlias, she thought. The colors were stunning, and they were more noticeable now that Maeve had passed the fence separating Eunice's house from the street.
The house itself was nothing special; in fact, it was very similar to her own--a stone ranch. The smaller houses on the street were rather cookie-cutter, as if someone had just followed the same blueprint. The few larger, newer houses had no doubt replaced similar small ones.
Maeve rang the bell, knocked. This old woman had to be home. Her car was in the drive. But that was the trouble with solo elderly neighbors, Maeve reflected as she rang the bell for the third time: one always had to worry about whether or not they'd died inside their homes, how long to wait before trying to go in or call the police. Thankfully, though, just as she was about to turn around, the door creaked inward, and out popped a wispy-haired head, bobbing like it were part of some strange marionette puppet.
"Oh hi!" Maeve put on her brightest smile. "My name is Maeve. We--my daughter and I--we just moved in to the house at the end, on the hill? I believe you met Cora."
"What is it you say?"
Maeve faltered; her smile froze, wavered. "I'm sorry, I--I'm your new neighbor." Perhaps this woman was addled. Surely that was it. "My apologies. My name is Maeve. Are you Eunice?"
The head bobbed a little more, its eyes pinching their eyelids as if they had tics. Looking entirely past her, up at the sunny sky above, the old woman showed her teeth slightly, grumbled, and then slowly shut the door. It was as if she hadn't really seen Maeve at all.
Left standing alone on the quiet porch, Maeve tried to process what had just happened. No matter how used she was to strange conversations with old people, she hadn't been mentally prepared to be entirely ignored by Eunice. The way Cora had described her, Maeve had assumed she'd be lively and sharp, still with it in spite of her years. And maybe Eunice had been that way when speaking with her daughter; those mental lapses could certainly fade in and out. Ah well. Eunice surely wouldn't be able to help her out.
The ants! Yes, the ants. Maeve remembered why she'd come outside in the first place. She'd try the retired couple . . . what were their names? Tim--no, Tom! And Ann. That was right. Surely they had some insect repellent. They'd looked like the sort who were prepared to exterminate anything that irritated them.