Live to Fly Another Day Read online

  “The procedure went well. His breathing is already a bit better. He’s in his room, resting peacefully. And he’s awake.”

  We shot up from our chairs.

  “He’s awake?” Mom said.

  The nurse nodded. “But he’s quite tired and a bit incoherent.”

  Mom smiled wide. “But he’s awake.”

  We bolted down the hall to George’s room.

  George was lying in an upright position against the bed, looking groggy, head bobbing from side to side. No longer wearing an oxygen mask, he was reciting the nursery rhyme, “Hickory Dickory Dock.” His speech was slurred, his voice raspy from days without drinking water or talking. He was using Grandma’s brooch to imitate a mouse crawling down his leg. It reminded me of the times I was high on laughing gas at the dentist.

  Mom walked cautiously over to the bed, not wanting to startle him. “George, it’s Barbara, Caity, Rachel, and Declan.”

  He peered at her through heavy lids. “I know that.”

  We thought he was referring to knowing us, until he began reciting “Georgie Porgie.” “Georgie Porgie pudding…and pie”—he gasped for a breath—“kissed the girls…” His gaze narrowed while he searched for the words.

  “And made them cry,” Mom said.

  “When the boys came out to play,” Rachel, Declan, and I joined in. “Georgie Porgie ran away.”

  George closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  Mom smiled, despite the concerned look on her face. “Well, wasn’t that fun?”

  More like totally bizarre, but we all nodded.

  * * *

  After leaving the hospital, Mom decided we needed more charcoal. It wasn’t easy finding briquettes in England’s off-season. Grilling probably wasn’t a popular pastime even in the summer, with all the rain. We’d had to stop at two fuel-oil companies and a garden shop to find eight bags.

  England was about to have a run on charcoal.

  Mom hadn’t said a word about George’s odd behavior since we’d left the hospital. We were almost to the estate when she burst into tears.

  “Omigod, Mom, what’s wrong?” Rachel scooted over next to Mom in the backseat and slipped an arm around her shoulder.

  Declan and I exchanged worried looks. I crawled over the front seat and into the back with them.

  “What if he has brain damage?” Mom removed a tissue from her purse. “All of his breathing problems and meds might have caused a lack of oxygen to his brain. Marjorie’s husband had some memory loss and mobility issues after suffering a severe case of pneumonia. He was never right again.”

  Marjorie’s husband had been a bit off prior to the pneumonia, but that was beside the point.

  “I’m sure the nurse would have told us if they had any concerns with George’s behavior,” Rachel said.

  I nodded. “Yeah. She said the procedure went great. And that other nurse mentioned he’s been coming to for a bit at night but hasn’t been real coherent.”

  “Maybe the doctors don’t know what George was like before the pneumonia.” Mom peered at me through tear-filled eyes. “He wasn’t like that when you two met, was he?”

  I shook my head. “Of course not. He’s going to be fine. I’m sure he is.”

  When we pulled up to the gate, no sheep lurked around. I hopped out of the car and opened the gate using the key Thomas had given us after a locksmith fixed it that morning. I stood guard while Declan pulled in and then secured the lock. We headed up the drive. Thomas was still performing cosmetic surgery on his damaged artwork, attaching limbs from the shrubs fully intact.

  David now had prosthetic private parts.

  “Jaysus,” Declan muttered, grimacing. “That looks massively painful, and it’s only a shrub.”

  “I don’t think we should mention our visit to Thomas,” Mom said. “Our nursery-rhyme recital might worry him.”

  We all agreed.

  I told Thomas about our confrontation with Cousin Enid and the letter on Edwards and Price stationary advising George he was being sued.

  Thomas tightened his grasp on the hedge clipper’s wooden handles and sliced the blades through the air, almost snipping off David’s new private parts. An inspired look seized his face.

  Cousin Enid was toast.

  “Why didn’t I think of this sooner? There’s furniture in the shed. There might be something of use. George hadn’t yet been desperate enough to dig through the mess back there. It’s been a dumping ground for years.”

  A dumping ground didn’t sound real promising.

  We followed Thomas out to one of several stone buildings behind the house.

  “Do you think there are mice in there?” Rachel asked.

  There were mice in the house.

  Thomas smiled. “They are more afraid of you than you are of them.”

  “I doubt that,” she said.

  He opened the door, and a damp, musty smell poured out. He brushed away the cobwebs stretched across the doorway. No electricity, merely a few dirty windows provided light. He propped the door open with a chair.

  “Only a few more hours of daylight, so we best be quick.”

  Occasional tables, lamps, assorted wooden chairs, stacks of boxes and crates, and odds and ends filled the building. A porcelain figurine of a two-headed camel sat on a bronze table with a base that resembled a flying monkey from The Wizard of Oz. Next to it stood a wooden carving of a man wearing merely a seashell necklace, with big eyes and small feet, dancing. The items looked like souvenirs from the Daly family’s exotic travels. Only the person who’d schlepped them thousands of miles home had cared enough to display them, so eventually everything had made its way to the shed.

  Thomas pointed out a wooden cuckoo clock with deer antlers on the top. “A friend brought that back from Germany for Isabella Daly. We weren’t allowed to play with it. Had supposedly been purchased at an antique shop and of some value. It was one of only five made with the cuckoo bird upside down. Diana thought it was hideous and stuck it out here.”

  Too bad the Antiques Roadshow wasn’t in town.

  “Maybe we could convince Cousin Enid it’s a treasured family heirloom. Along with that.” Rachel gestured to a demented-looking stuffed owl.

  “And the flying monkey table,” I said.

  Declan nodded. “She can be taking it back to Oz with her.”

  I smiled. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  We were so in sync.

  Mom walked over to a cradle with ornately crafted wooden spindles and headboard. Chewed-out stuffing and mouse droppings covered the soiled mattress. Rachel glanced around for small critters. Mom placed a hand on the side and gently rocked it.

  “This must have been George’s.” She wore a melancholy expression as if imagining Grandma rocking George to sleep. “Wonder if he’d mind you girls using this when you have children.”

  I avoided Declan’s gaze. We weren’t to the point of discussing children, except Mac. And if we couldn’t discipline a dog, how would we ever control kids? Besides, did Declan even want kids? He’d commented in Paris about having no desire to deal with zippies and nappies, but had he been serious or had Little Henry, the VIP’s kid I’d played nanny to, temporarily soured his opinion on children?

  “I’m sure he’d love that,” Thomas said.

  We divided and searched through the clutter.

  “I found books,” Rachel called out. “Enough to fill at least one bookcase in the library.”

  “A few charcoal briquettes and nobody will know they’ve been stored in a shed for decades,” Mom said. “Certainly don’t want the house to smell any mustier than it does.”

  We ended up with twenty-three boxes of books, three cocktail and occasional tables, fourteen assorted wooden chairs, and a slew of eclectic décor we’d use if we were desperate, which I had the feeling we would be.

  * * *

  We didn’t eat dinner until almost nine. The meal included tuna fish on little croissant rolls, cucumber and cream c
heese on rye bread, and peanut butter and jelly. I sat at the library desk sipping tea from my pink English cottage teacup, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and checking e-mail. Declan was in the foyer painting. Rachel was on the couch, wrapped up in George’s robe, typing away on her laptop. And Mom, in her velour robe, was sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, wiping down books. Some books had been stored in vintage wooden milk crates that read Lancaster Dairy, while others appeared to have been stashed in the shed more recently in cardboard boxes. Mom replaced the cleaned books into a crate with charcoal briquettes on a piece of aluminum foil.

  An e-mail from Nicholas Turney popped into my inbox.

  He’d come up empty at Mullingar’s registrar’s office. No birth certificate on file for Grandma, at least not one that had been correctly documented. I collapsed back against the chair with an overwhelming sense of defeat, despite Nicholas’s pep talk to not give up hope. Tomorrow he planned to visit Catholic churches near Killybog and review baptismal records.

  I needed to go to a church and light a few dozen candles.

  Maybe I could visit George’s church and check on his baptismal record. Fanny hadn’t mentioned if the pastor had found it. Was there a reason I hadn’t asked about it and that Fanny hadn’t gotten back to me? If Grandma’s and Michael’s names weren’t on the baptismal certificate, would I share the truth, or would it be Fanny’s and my secret? But why would George’s mom have lied on her deathbed—when she’d confessed that his biological mother was Bridget Coffey, my grandma, and his birth father was John Michael Daly? Maybe she hadn’t lied but had been babbling incoherently like George had today…

  I shoved the thoughts aside and opened an e-mail from Mindy, which included ideas for our art-mystery event. She thought someone should get killed and die a slow, painful death. Like maybe with a paintbrush to the heart. Her program with Blair was apparently getting worse.

  “Have you checked ticket sales?” I asked Rachel.

  “Two more than the last time you asked, fifteen minutes ago. So that puts us at ten. Not bad for just going live today.”

  “I’d expected more after Enid’s scene in town. Maybe we should stalk her tomorrow and cause an even bigger one.”

  “Word will spread,” Mom said. “It’ll just take time.”

  We didn’t have time.

  I tried to focus on work and not have a panic attack over all the problems bombarding my head. What if George had lost oxygen to his brain and the only thing he and Mom would have to discuss was their love of childhood nursery rhymes? What if the event didn’t succeed and George lost the estate? Could Enid really sue over the family belongings being sold? Would I be able to sleep tonight without having confirmed Richard had indeed been James McKinney’s oldest son? And why wasn’t I as concerned about my Flanagan job as I was about everything else?

  “I need to get away from this computer before I go blind.” Rachel set her laptop on the cocktail table and joined Mom in wiping down books.

  A half hour later, I was sending a request for a proposal to a Vienna hotel when Rachel gasped.

  “Omigod.” She stared at the inside cover of a mauve cloth-covered book. “Happy Christmas to my dearest Michael. I will forever love you. Bridget.” She handed Mom the book. “It’s dated 1935. It had to be Grandma’s.”

  “A year before Michael died,” I said, sitting next to them on the floor.

  The cover had fancy gilt lettering in the center of an ivy emblem. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

  Mom nodded. “It’s her handwriting.”

  “What if it’s a first edition?” Rachel pointed at the roman numerals on the cover page. “I have no clue what year that is. It’s in great shape, besides the slightly worn edges and the cover being a bit faded. Why would she have left the book here? And why did they store such a valuable book in a shed?”

  “Maybe the book wasn’t that valuable in the 1930s,” I said.

  Mom slammed the cover shut. “Because she left behind everything of value to her. Even if it wasn’t of high monetary value.” She tossed the book aside.

  “We can’t sell it,” I said.

  Mom nodded. “We will if needed.”

  “The writing on the cover page might decrease the value,” Rachel said.

  It was priceless to me. No way were we going to get desperate enough to sell that book.

  “I’ve been talking and working so fast, I haven’t been paying any attention to titles,” Mom said.

  We went back through several boxes of books. Other than a first-edition Mary Poppins, we didn’t recognize many of the titles or authors. Based on a Google search, the Dickens book was a third edition published in 1843. Estimates varied widely depending on the condition, but it seemed likely it was worth at least five grand. I still refused to sell it. Most boxes and crates had been stored on top of furnishings, having protected them from water damage. The books were in good shape except for the slightly musty smell Mom was convinced the charcoal would eliminate. It would take a while to examine twenty-three boxes of them.

  “We’ll be lucky to get what they’re worth since we don’t have time to put them on eBay and wait for a bidding war,” Rachel said. “We need to find local book dealers or an auction house.”

  A chill raced through me, and I snuggled into Declan’s wool sweater. I glanced over at the flames dancing around in the fireplace. “Are you guys cold?”

  “You mean colder than usual?” Rachel said.

  “It does seem a bit chillier.” Mom rubbed the sleeves of her velour robe.

  I went out to the salon to ask Declan’s opinion on the temp, Mac following.

  Declan walked in from the dining room. “The thermostat reads ten Celsius. Boiler must be banjaxed.”

  “We’ll have to take turns getting up during the night to make fires, or we can all sleep huddled around the space heater from the bathroom. Don’t want everyone getting sick.”

  There went any earnings from the sale of books, and we’d all end up with pneumonia to boot. Running an English estate was turning out to be one step up from glamping.

  I let out a frustrated sigh. “What’s next?”

  A squeal pierced the air. “A mouse!” Rachel screamed.

  Declan grabbed Mac’s collar so he couldn’t run and catch it, if Rachel hadn’t already given it a heart attack.

  I really needed to stop saying What’s next.

  “Shit! There’re two!”

  I needed to even stop thinking it!

  Chapter Fifteen

  We’d been sheep-free, mice-free, and Enid-free for two days. The wretched woman certainly hadn’t given up trying to sabotage the event and George’s life. She was probably deep in the trenches determining her next tactical move. I welcomed whatever she wanted to throw at us. Her interference was turning out to be quite motivating.

  Rachel’s meltdown had freaked out the mice, and they’d raced for cover under the couch, straight into one of the humane mouse houses. Declan released them at the edge of the property. It would be lovely if they, or their family and friends, didn’t find their way back inside before the event.

  George was still quite weak and sleeping through the days, except for a brief period yesterday. The nurse called early afternoon, and we raced over to the hospital to find he’d fallen back to sleep. I was actually relieved, not wanting another nursery-rhyme incident to dampen Mom’s spirits and worry her even more. We hadn’t spoken about the episode since her meltdown in the car.

  Rachel and Mom had sold the more valuable books to a dealer in Lancaster and made enough to replace the boiler. At least the unexpected expense hadn’t had to come out of the event’s profit. It was one less thing for George to worry about when he got home from the hospital. Mom hadn’t searched for Grandma’s book when they’d taken the others to sell, so that was a good sign. The book was tucked away in my suitcase. I wasn’t giving it up unless we were desperate. George should keep it. The books of no monetary value helped fill the l
ibrary’s empty shelves.

  Money flowed in from the upcoming events. The Saturday evening ones were almost sold out, and the others were filling up fast, thanks to Enid’s scene in Dalwick and the video promo. Declan was savvy about Facebook ads, having assisted a client with them. I’d insisted he use my credit card as he was fronting the money for all the paintings. I’d get reimbursed after the event, before my payment was due.

  The video had over ten thousand likes and several hundred comments. I’d only had time to read a few. An elderly man in Manchester thought my dress was lovely and wondered if I wanted to wear it to the opera with him at the end of the month. A woman asked where I had my hair colored. Um, my hair was a natural auburn. And a marketing company offered a discount to produce our video trailer. How rude. With over ten thousand likes, did it look like we needed their services?

  I held the front door while Thomas and Declan hauled Fanny’s blue velvet couch inside. Mac was sprawled out on the matching love seat in the salon, his head resting on a frilly lace pillow. Her blue upholstered wingback chair sat in a corner, the flying monkey table next to it, displaying a vintage book and teacup. The table was starting to grow on me, but Mac growled every time he passed it. I could picture George sitting in the chair, wearing his robe and slippers, smoking a pipe, reading a book. If Rachel would give up his robe and slippers. A navy-and-cream-patterned rug, also Fanny’s, covered most of the wooden floor, giving the room a much cozier feel. Ireland was known for forty shades of green. Fanny was known for forty shades of blue.

  I feared her bedroom set might be next. No way could poor Thomas help haul that up the stairs, and a bed wouldn’t be appropriate for people to sit on at afternoon tea. Those would be my excuses for turning away the woman’s bedroom furnishings. It appeared that Fanny had lost sight of the original purpose for her loaning us the furniture.