Page 17 of Locke

Locke told her that he’d done the same thing. Thinking of keeping someone away when their family was dying. It hurt him to think about it. Alex leaned her head on his chest while he spoke to Dusty when he returned with her glass.

Dosing off, she woke up when Locke tried to move from under her. Getting up when she saw the police in the room, she had to wait to be caught up on what was going on. The officer seemed to be just as confused as she was with what he’d come to tell them.

“I’m sorry. What do you mean when you say that Margaret is going to be given more time for her sentencing? What happened?” The officer told her, and she had to sit down. “All because he wouldn’t help her take his grandchildren from their mom, she killed him? My goodness. I wonder how she supposed that the courts would give her the kids after killing off her husband. Or, for that matter, their cook. People get odder every time I’m around them. That’s insane.”

“You should have seen my boss’s face when we went by to do a welfare check on Mr. Landry. Mrs. Margaret had already told us that she’d killed her husband and cook, and she’d have no trouble killing off a couple of nosey cops, too. I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t the elderly man on the floor of his shower naked and stone-cold dead with his head all bashed in. And then Margaret telling us when we got back and asked her what had happened, and she said that he won’t disagree with her again about her children.” He shook his head as he took the offered glass of water from Dusty. “The poor cook had been rolling out biscuits when she’d been killed. Margaret said that she’d told her that she wasn’t going to be cooking for a bunch of kids that she’d stolen and said she should be locked up. I guess Margaret thought that was the wrong thing to say and bashed her a few times.”

She nearly laughed at the police officer. He was so sincere about what he’d heard Margaret talking about killing off her husband. Alex had to wonder if she had always been like this or if it was from the grief of losing her son, her only child, that was making her so nutsy. She didn’t know what she’d do if something were to happen to Locke. She’d not even been in love with him for that long, but it felt in her heart that it had been forever since she’d known him. After the police left, telling them that Margaret was getting a doctor to visit her in the morning, the two of them just sat there on the couch, Alex wishing that they were home right now.

Little Fred woke up once in the middle of the night. He had a very wet diaper on and seemed to be just as happy when she took it off of him. Getting him bundled back up in his sleeper, she only had to lie him on his bed, and he was out again. She went to check on Amanda and found that she was awake and moving around.

“I can’t believe that I slept this long.” Alex pointed out that she must have needed it. “I guess I did. I do feel a good deal better than I did. Do you mind me taking a shower before you leave?”

“No, not at all. And if when you’re finished with your shower, you want to go to the hospital, I’ll stay here with the kids until you return. We are finally getting into a routine, the five of us.” Amanda laughed and then burst into tears. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to upset you again.”

“You didn’t. It feels like I’m on edge all the time. I just want to be normal again. Or something like that. But it’s not going to be right away before I can put all this behind me and move forward.” She didn’t mention her mother-in-law killing her husband but did tell her that she’d been arrested. “There is something seriously wrong with that woman. To think that I’d be all right with her taking my children from me is completely insane. What on earth was she expecting me to do? No, I just can’t wrap my head around it. If you don’t mind, I’m going to take you up on seeing Fred. I have all the paperwork finished up now, and I swear to you that both of us sighed a sigh of relief.”

She cried a bit more as she was headed to the bathroom. Once she heard the water turn on, Alex went to check on the kids once more and felt good that they were all sleeping peacefully. They all had needed a good night’s rest, she thought.

Making breakfast for Amanda, mostly by reading the microwave instructions on the size and still burning the leftover pancakes from earlier, she was ready to call a nearby restaurant to have them bring by something for the family to eat. She was dumping the burnt pancakes in the trash when someone knocked on the back door.

“We’re here to take over, Mrs. Erikson. We’ve been watching you and your husband taking care of things, so I got on the phone and started calling around.” She was handed a cake that was in one of those carrier things while the woman surveyed the room. “Spotless, just like I thought it would be. Thank you for that. But you go and put your feet up, and we got this. And I swear to you on my husband’s heart that we’re her real neighbors and won’t take those kids from this poor woman on threat of life. You go on now. We got this.”

“We?” The woman went back to the door and opened it. About a dozen women, all with containers of food in their hands, marched into the kitchen like they were ready for anything. “My goodness. Why are you all here? Amanda told me she didn’t know her neighbors all that well because almost as soon as they moved in, Fred got sick. She told me that she feels so bad about that.”

“That little one, Mandy, a talkative little thing, told my grandson what was going on. To be honest with you, child, I didn’t know what to think about some of the—never you mind. We got the scoop now.” She laughed. “My name is Caroline. It’s Wilkerson, but that doesn’t mean that you’re to call me Mrs. Wilkerson. I’m adopting you as my friend now as will the rest of the women here. Now, sit there since I can’t get you to go to the living room, and I’ll make you a good cup of tea to tie you over until the kids are fed. Yes, that’s the ticket. We’ll get Amanda in the right direction. Her poor husband and Milly, her cook. Why she went and killed them off, one might never know.”

After getting the rundown on the murder of two people at the Landry home, Alex sat down and sipped her tea. She wanted to be upset with Locke for not telling her more details about the murders, but she knew that he was sparing her more heartache. As the women, they were all scattered around the house, giving the home a once over, she enjoyed the honesty of Caroline about the goings on of the neighborhood she and the other women seemed to run.

~*~

By the time the kids were up and moving, Locke had sent a car to pick her up and take her to the hospital. She was well armed with information for her husband, such as that all the paperwork had been filed and that the insurance that he’d had on him since childhood was in her name. It had a substantial amount of money on it when he passed, and she was never so happy that his grannie had taken it out and had paid on it up until her own death. Then she and Fred had taken care of it. It alone was going to help her and the kids with a fresh start.

She wondered, however, if she was ever going to be able to move on after losing the man of her heart. Time, she’d been told, will be in her favor. She was so glad to see him sitting in a chair by the window that she could have danced for him. However, when she touched him, just putting her hand on his shoulder, she realized that he was already gone.

Amanda didn’t call for help right away. Enjoying the fact that he had a huge smile on his face gave her some comfort. Sitting in the chair next to his, she held his still-warm hand in her own, sobbing quietly with her grief. Being so grateful that he’d not been in the bed hooked up to all the monitors that drove him crazy, Amanda told him how much she loved him with all her heart.

She managed to take the heart monitors off of him so that he could rest well. She knew the chances of this very thing happening that he’d die alone in the room before anyone came to check on him. Touching her fingers to his cheek, where a single tear slid down his face, she wiped it away and took it to her lips.

“I love you so very much, Fred. I hope you knew that when you left this world. I’m not even upset that you didn’t wait for me to make it to be with you. I told you that you weren’t to try and hold onto life. That when you were ready, to just close your eyes and go.” It hurt her again that she’d not been here, but she was thrilled to have been with him now. In the quiet of the room, just the two of them. She thought about the things that she’d brought with her to tell him.

“Everything is in place now. The house, along with the cars, are paid off as of now. That was a good insurance rider that you had on the loans. I hope more people learn about that.” She cried a little, wondering if she’d ever be able to drive the car that they’d created so many good memories in. I should tell you about your mother, but I find that I don’t want to. There is no point in bringing her up right now.”

She told him of her plans to have purchase them a smaller home. But they’d made so many new friends now that she didn’t have the heart to leave them. All the women at the house, she told him, were volunteering to keep an eye on the children if she were to get herself a job.

“Which they told me that I needed to have because I wouldn’t like hanging around the children all day. Right now, I don’t see that happening, but I think they’re right. Just talking to them and Alex has taken away so much stress from my shoulders.” The nurse came in to check on Fred, and she told him that he was gone. That he had been before she entered the room.

When she rushed out and then back in, she was asked to move so that they could check on his heart. Amanda told the nurse that she wasn’t going to leave her husband right now and that they worked around her while she held his hand. The doctor told her that she should have called someone as soon as she knew, but she ignored him. She had needed this time much more than he had to have a precise time of death.

When they left her to make the arrangements that had been put into place, she called Alex. Telling her that Fred had passed and not to tell the children just yet, Alex said that she’d come into the hospital to be with her.

She nearly told her no, that she was all right, but decided in the end that she’d like the company. Almost as soon as Alex arrived with Locke, things started to hit her that hadn’t in all his time. Her husband was gone. Forever. And she was suddenly feeling all alone in the world.

Locke was able to talk to the staff and the doctor that had tried to shame her. The doctor did come in and tell her how sorry he was and he seemed to be sincere in it. He even allowed her to hug him when he asked her if she needed anything else.

It was nearly three in the afternoon when they took his body from the room. She was ever so glad that they didn’t cover his face up when they took him away. He just looked like he was sleeping and was off to have a test done or something. She stayed with Alex and Locke when she was unable to follow her husband’s body when taken to the crematorium.

“Are they sure that he’s gone?” Locke didn’t answer her. She knew the answer to that as surely as she was breathing. “I don’t know why I asked you that. I know that he’s finally at peace. I’m not, but I know that I’ll get there soon.”

---