The Doctor Is In (184)

PSI-2

Hyacinth had successfully declined an invitation to be a living emotional crutch for an afternoon. On that basis, she was pleased with herself, even though she was stuck with the breakfast dishes and whatever else crazy happened at home.

They knocked on the front door, which Hyacinth supposed was excusable. They weren’t local to her end of Strawberryfield and the last time they’d been at her house was a storm, when normal operations were suspended. After she yelled that it was open three or four times without taking her wet hands out of the wash bucket, the two men appeared in the kitchen doorway. The purple one, who liked to call himself ‘Hayes,’ was holding a push broom, a rake and a suitcase — which Hyacinth discounted. Maybe they were landscapers. The yellow one (‘Donovan,’ there was no way Hyacinth could forget a reference that tortured), was curled over holding his stomach. She assumed a patient and would need to diagnose a possible emergency. She took his arm and helped him up the kitchen step. “You guys should come around the back next time. What’s up?”

“I’m in some pain and I heard you do these things at cost?” Donovan said.

Hayes abandoned the tools and the suitcase against the counter and attended him with a concerned expression. “I think it’s food poisoning. I told him not to drink it. It was the color. I said — Do y’all have a support group or something?”

Hyacinth assumed he had just noticed the Recovering Arsonists Ltd. sign and that was not what he meant to say he said. She was getting a lot of remarks like that now and it amused the hell out of her. “We are a support group,” she said. “Don’t let it bother you, we have extinguishers.”

“Uh.”

“We were out drinking,” Donovan said. He sat down with a groan. “I don’t know. Maybe I had a bad peanut.”

“It was that janky-ass piña colada and you know it,” Hayes said, disregarding the arsonists.

“Are you sure you’re not just hung over?” Hyacinth said. “Head hurt?” She pressed her hand on his forehead and had a look for herself.

“No, it was a virgin. I was… I guess I shouldn’t say I was driving, but I was navigating, if you get me.”

“More or less, but it doesn’t matter. Did you eat the pineapple wedge?” She’d gotten wasted at a lot of bars and she knew they just left that stuff out. Even the candied cherries were suspect.

Hayes and Donovan exchanged a glance, which she ignored because she was trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with this guy’s shoulder. It was like he had shrapnel in there, but it wasn’t metal.

“Gods no, I hate pineapple,” Donovan said. “I have them leave it out. It’s just ice and that coconut stuff.”

“It was expired,” Hayes said.

“Coconut milk doesn’t expire, you’re thinking of cow milk.”

“All food expires! If it doesn’t expire it’s not food, Dee!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t get past your shoulder,” Hyacinth said. “It’s too loud. What is that? Can I have your shirt off? Were you… I don’t even know. I’d say someone got you with a sharpened stick, but it’s not even sharp…” She undid a couple buttons and he put his hand on her hand.

“No, no. Wait. It’s kind of an open wound, I’m not supposed to let people mess with it,” he said. “It’s old. It was during the siege.”

“Is it a merger?” She put her hand on his head again. It sure as hell wasn’t any kind of a merger she’d ever seen.

“Yeah…”

“I swear, that shit was green, Dee!” Hayes broke in.

“It was the lime juice, Hayes. I always throw a lime wedge in my virgin piña coladas with just coconut and ice. Lime wedges are free. It makes up for the pineapple and the rum.”

Hyacinth slowly withdrew her hand, until only two fingers were touching. “What,” she said.

“I don’t know if it was the lime or the coconut, but something was expired,” Hayes said. He covered his mouth with a hand.

“Don’t you have anything I can take?” Donovan said.

She took a step backwards and put her hands on her hips.

They both smiled at her.

“Let me get this straight,” she said.

Both smiles became expectant grins. She recalled that the two of them claimed to be identical twins, despite the height and the racial disparity, and she could damn well see it.

“…You hiked up here from wherever you live south of Pine Street just to get horrible music stuck in my head?”

“Did it work?” Hayes said.

“We didn’t hike,” Donovan said.

“We were going to the movies.”

“You were on our way.”

“Aren’t you even going to say it?”

“Yes it is stuck in my head now and no I am not going to say it!” She picked up the push broom and swatted Hayes across the back with it, as he didn’t have any delicate mergers that she was aware of. “Take your stupid word games and your gardening tools with you and get out of my house!”

“Ow! That’s expensive, Miss Hyacinth!” Hayes said.

“It’s from the war,” Donovan said. He gently tugged it from her hands.

“I’ll give you the war if you try to involve me in any more pranks!” she snarled. “Don’t come back here unless you’ve got something wrong with you that modern medicine can fix! I will call your parents and report you!”

Hayes picked up the rake and the suitcase. He smiled at her. “Can we call you in the morning?”

“Hey, bro, we wouldn’t want to wake her up.”

“I have mutilated men for less than this,” Hyacinth said. “Do I have a fork?” She plopped her hand in the wash bucket.

They ran out the back door, laughing. They both started singing the conventional wisdom about lime and coconut before they even got down the stairs, but it faded fast amid wild cackling.

“If I had a phone and a refrigerator they’d call me in the morning,” she muttered. “If there was a dumb song about running refrigerators.” She returned to the dishes and couldn’t help whistling to herself.

———

She was still humming it, and putting the plates away, when a little dark-haired girl opened the back door and peeked in.

“Hey, random child,” said Hyacinth. “I’m sure we’ve met but I don’t pay attention. Broken toy or broken person?” She suspected a toy, but it was hard to gauge emotional reactions in Strawberryfield kids. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, she didn’t think, but they were very practical and fatalistic. On the one hand, I love my brother, but if he does happen to die, I can have all his stuff.

As far as she was concerned optimism and psychopathy were both mental disorders and only a few degrees separated from each other.

“Toy,” said the girl. “But it’s Edie’s and she doesn’t want to come in. She’s scared of you.”

“Aw,” said Hyacinth. “It’s the candy-colored house, isn’t it? It’s not a trap. It’s a sincere expression of my fun-loving nature and willingness to make lemonade when life gives me stupid paint. I’m a good witch. Tell Edie she is welcome to lick my house and make sure. You just think I’m regular-crazy when I say things like that, don’t you?”

The girl nodded gravely.

“Welp, let’s see if I can convince your friend I’m harmless.” Hyacinth pulled open the door the rest of the way and looked out, in search of a frightened child.

“She’s my little sister,” the girl said. “I’m Kelly Weaver and my big brother is Joe.”

“That’s nice, but I’m probably not going to remember it unless one of you almost dies. Even that’s about fifty-fifty. Hi, Edie.” Edie looked about five. She was wearing a smock-style outfit with straight-legged bloomers underneath which Hyacinth diagnosed to be hand-me-down clothing about fifty years out of date, unless they were bringing those back. It might also be a hand-me-down pattern and a family with a sewing machine, but even the mothers who did piecemeal work rarely had time to sew outfits for their own kids. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs and staring up them suspiciously.

She had a toy monkey whose fur had been zipped up the back with a neat line of staples.

“I see you’ve got a Monsieur Al-Mufti,” Hyacinth said, smiling. She recognized her own work. She’d bribed Seth’s entire class with toys when she had to fill in for him in January. All of them had gone home with grinning devil monkeys that did horrible things, but she hadn’t been able to make any that breathed fire.

The little girl in the smock shook her head.

“His name is Flip,” Kelly said.

“That’s fine. He’s yours. You name him,” Hyacinth said. “That’s just how I call toy monkeys. I had one and I’m sure that wasn’t his original name either.” She sat carefully at the top of the stairs. “Has Flip stopped flipping, Edie?”

Edie shook her head.

Hyacinth grinned. “That’s right. Because I helped make Flip and I am kick ass at modding toys. It’s something else in him I didn’t fix. Don’t tell me, let me guess.” She shut her eyes and put her hand to her mouth, although she was already pretty sure. She forgot names, but she never forgot the insides of things she had taken apart. She snapped her fingers and pointed at Edie. “The voice box! He’s stopped laughing! Right?”

“He screams,” Edie said. She put her thumb in her mouth and looked away. “It’s scary.”

“I know exactly what that is and how to fix it. Flip’s voice box is in his tummy, it has a tiny wax cylinder in it. The cylinder has Flip’s laugh on it, it’s recorded in little grooves like a fingerprint. The same mechanism that makes him flip turns the cylinder and makes him laugh, but it can also jiggle the cylinder out of place. I made him flip better, but I didn’t fix the cylinder. He’s not making a scary noise because it hurts or he’s mad, it’s just the only way he can tell you his cylinder isn’t working right. If you let me fix it, I can show you how it looks inside when it’s working and I can reinforce it so it stays working a long time. What do you think?”

“Do you eat little kids?” Edie said.

“Stupid candy-colored house,” Hyacinth muttered.

“Henri told her that.” Kelly sighed. “He said you didn’t eat me or Joe because we’re too tough. And you didn’t eat anyone at the school because of the witnesses. I told her it’s dumb. I was littler when Joey brought me with him and you fixed his wagon and you didn’t eat me.”

“I eat chocolate pudding,” Hyacinth said. “Whenever I want. Because I’m a grown-up and they let grown-ups do whatever they want. They keep trying to tell me that’s not how it works, but I’m smarter than they are.”

“Do you got any now?” Edie asked.

“I don’t give chocolate pudding to kids who think I’m trying to fatten them up,” Hyacinth said. “It’s a trust thing, you understand? I’ll fix your monkey out here where it’s safe and send you home, then I’ll finish my pudding by myself.”

“I promise not to think you’re gonna eat me if you promise not to hurt Flip and you’re not lying about the pudding,” Edie said.

Hyacinth smiled. She always picked something she had in the house. There were kids out there who thought she ate nothing but potato chips or candy bars, and at least one who thought it was pickles. She’d been hard up for kid-friendly food that time. “It’s a deal,” she said.

———

They were eating instant pudding out of three separate bowls and watching a toy monkey do repeated backflips and cackle when the man banged on the back door and opened it. He was the color of cottage cheese, with dark hollows under his eyes. “My hand,” he said. “My hand…” He was holding it against his coat. It was clawed and purplish.

Hyacinth stood with a frown. “Kids, take your pudding and your monkey and go home. I want my dishes back, but I don’t care about the silverware. Go out the front.”

“That’s…” Kelly said.

“I know what it is and I don’t want to scare your sister. I’ll deal with it. Go home.”

Kelly grinned at her. “Edie, come on.”

Hyacinth sat the man at the table and tugged his hand away from his coat. “What did you do to it? What happened?”

He glanced aside. “I don’t know.”

“I can’t fix it if you don’t know what happened to it. I don’t know what people have told you about me, but I’m not psychic, monsieur.” She suppressed a smile. “Has your hand been with you all day today? Don’t worry about anything illegal it may have done, sir. You and I have doctor-patient confidentiality. I can’t go to the police or testify, it’s like we’re married. I disavow all knowledge of you and your hand.”

“I don’t know how it happened!” he snapped. “It was a kid. A kid did it!”

She made her eyes wide. “A kid did this?” She tweezed his smallest finger between her thumb and forefinger, giving it a tug which made him yelp. “Did they run it over with a truck?”

“She broke a dish,” he muttered. “They work for me. The workhouse hires them out. I got the little one at the workhouse and I don’t know where the big one came from. We’re allowed to discipline them. That’s not illegal. The little one broke a dish and I didn’t even do anything, the big one screamed some nonsense at me and this happened!”

“‘Fudge suitcase?’” Hyacinth said sweetly.

“Huh?” he said.

“It doesn’t matter, I get a lot of fudge suitcase-related injuries. I was just curious.” She put his hand on the table and selected a few pieces of silverware from the drawer. “Where are they now? The kids?”

“I don’t know. They ran off.”

“Textbook fudge suitcase,” Hyacinth said, nodding. “Well, lemme just patch you up here, won’t take a minute. It shouldn’t hurt. Much. Don’t look at the light.” Using most of a spoon, she welded a large tin V on the back of his hand. Then she sharpened up a butter knife and stabbed straight through the center of it, nailing him to the table.

He screamed and shot to his feet, upending his chair, but she had him pinned.

“So, I think it’s fairly obvious this is not the usual way I treat my patients,” she said, leaning casually on the knife’s handle. “Sir, if you don’t lower the volume on the screaming, I will weld your mouth shut. As I was saying, you get special treatment because I recognize Maggie’s spell, which is simple enough that most of the kids in Strawberryfield have learned it for self defense. Every once in a while one of ‘em gets trigger happy, but they usually have good judgment, which you’ve confirmed for me. That’s a great big V for ‘vicious’ I’ve put on your hand, it’s permanent, and all the kids around here know what it means, as does the schoolteacher. I expect you’ll get a visit from him if you have any kids of your own. He gives excellent parenting advice, and I understand he’s not bad at killing lots of people in clever ways.

“Sir, please control the screaming, I’ve told you once. I’m trying to give you medical advice. I am not a cunt. I have a cunt. There’s a difference. Anyhoo, you’ll want to hook up to Our Merciful Lord and let them take a look at that. I’ll stop the bleeding, but you’ll have to have someone else fix the bones, which will never work quite right ever again. So even if you happen to be wearing gloves, the children around here will suspect from the way you hold your hand, and they may assume you have a P there, for ‘predator,’ which is worse. If you go to the police about this, I’ll report you for child abuse. I’m not a real doctor and we have no doctor-patient confidentiality, you twit. I’m sorry I can’t call you a taxi. I don’t have a phone. Okay. Bye-bye.”

She yanked up what was left of the knife, leaving a cooling tin filling in the soft tissue of his bloody hand. He ran out of the back door and fell down the stairs, still screaming. She paused for a moment and listened. The screaming seemed to be retreating, so he didn’t break anything badly enough to prevent him from lurching towards the hospital.

She shrugged and filled in the divot in the table with a little more of the knife.

“Another fudge suitcase incident?” said the General in the kitchen doorway. She was holding a stack of hardcover books with the handwritten library receipt sticking out of the top one. G. D’Iver. Aug. 22, ‘77.

Hyacinth startled and then combed back her hair with a hand. She shrugged again and said, “Heh.”

“I appreciate the value of stabbing these offenders, but you are ruining our kitchen surfaces.”

“I clean up after them,” she replied. She just hadn’t had a chance to mop up the blood yet. “It’s my kitchen. What’re you learning this week?”

“I am continuing my study of child development with additional books on the history of modern cinema, basic engine repair, and kitten care to break up the monotony.”

“Well, for gods’ sakes don’t get ‘em mixed up, and if you want to build an engine later, let me know. It sounds like fun.”

“Is that chocolate pudding?”

The bowl was turned over on the floor and the contents had splattered the table and tile.

“Why? Do you want some?”

The General allowed herself an appropriate expression of disgust before turning and departing.

“Your loss,” Hyacinth said. She picked up the bowl and cleaned the inside with a finger.

She caught herself whistling  ‘Coconut’ again as she was wiping the floor.

———

She had neatened the crime scene, done a bucket of laundry, ruined one of Erik’s stockings and taken the bread out to make herself a sandwich. A knock at the front door diverted her on her way to the basement for the cold cuts. She opened her mouth to yell at whoever that it was open, before deciding an instant later to walk the extra ten steps and open it herself.

Standing on the porch, there was a young woman in a maid’s outfit with a white apron and long black skirt. “You’re a woman,” she said, blinking.

“Last time I checked,” Hyacinth said. “Cerise made me wonder about it for a while, but I’m pretty sure. Help ya?”

The young woman’s eyes spilled over with tears. “I’m late and I’m scared,” she said.

Hyacinth did not require further clarification. “Okay.” She put her hands on the woman’s shoulders. “I promise when you leave here you won’t be scared anymore, and you don’t have to be pregnant anymore if you are and you don’t want to be. I’m here to help. Come inside and I’ll make us some tea.”

The woman drew back from her. “Will it…?”

Hyacinth snickered. “No, no. Regular tea. That’s not how I do business. It’s this damn candy-colored house. You can have coffee or plain water if you want it. I’m not going to do anything to you unless you ask. If you want to leave here with some pamphlets or the number for a good shelter and adoption agency, that’s fine too.”

“I can’t go to a shelter, I’ll lose my job!” she cried.

“I understand,” Hyacinth said. “Come on inside and let’s talk about it. Is tea okay?”

———

She preferred coffee, even after confirming the tea came in bags from a cardboard box with a nice safe label on it.

Hyacinth decided her giant novelty coffee mug was tasteless under the circumstances. She used the coconut tea set, which set off the song in her head again. She put the sugar bowl on the table with a spoon and sat down across from the young woman. “Okay, Amelia. I’m going to tell you right away I’m not a regular doctor, so no matter what you tell me there’s no law saying I have to involve the police. I do my own unofficial policing, nobody’s caught me yet, and I have lots of friends who can help me. If someone has hurt you or you’re scared someone might, we can take care of that. That’s a separate thing. I’m about to ask you a million questions to make sure you’re safe before we start in on the healthcare, but we will get to the healthcare. This is like a script for me, so if I’m going too fast or you need a break, just let me know. Are you worried about someone hurting you?”

The woman in the maid outfit nodded tearfully. She pulled out another tissue from the box on the table and buried her face in it. “My boss… My boss… My boss’ll kill me!”

“No he won’t because we won’t let him,” Hyacinth said. “It’s going to be all right, I promise. Now do you mean kill, harm or fire? I need to understand so I know how to help.”

Amelia shook her head. “Fire. Fuh-fuh-fire. No letter of reference. I signed a contract. I have nowhere else to go!”

“Are you live-in help? You live with your boss?”

Amelia shook her head again, then nodded. “Ap… Ap… Apartment… Spare apartment… Shop…”

“You have a separate apartment but he owns it or he’s in charge of it somehow?”

She nodded and sniffled. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I know how the housing situation works. You can’t get a new place to stay without a job, and he’s going to kick you out with no letter of reference if he finds out about this. I’m guessing any of this, like, even if he finds out why you came here. Yeah? It’s okay. Just nod.”

She did.

“Okay. Now, I’m not asking this to moralize at you. I only want to know if I should be more mad at your boss than I already am. Could your boss be the one who knocked you up? It’s okay either way. I’ll still help you. I just need to know if your job and your housing depend on a permanent threat to your job and your housing. That’s different than just having a boyfriend the guy doesn’t know about.”

Amelia stared into her coffee cup. “It’s the other thing. Boyfriend.”

Hyacinth smiled at her. “You wouldn’t make up a boyfriend to keep me from kicking your boss’s ass, would you? I won’t do anything you don’t say is okay, I swear.”

“I don’t want you to kick my boyfriend’s ass either,” Amelia said. She gave a little gasp and covered her mouth.

“I won’t. Don’t worry. Does he know?”

She shook her head. “He… He’d try to marry me, Miss Hyacinth. That’s why. He can’t make enough money for both of us.”

“That’s okay. I get why you’re scared, but I’ve fixed a lot worse. We’ve got Calliope living here, and she actually got herself fired and evicted.” Hyacinth snickered and shook her head. “Don’t worry. She’s a special case. The General wanted to keep her and she liked our paint job. I won’t kidnap you. Let me just check you out and see if I’ve wasted your time with all these questions. I need to touch you on the head to check you, that okay?”

“Yes.” The young woman shut her eyes and turned her face away. “I’m still really scared.”

Hyacinth took hold of her hand and squeezed. “It’s okay. I gotcha. I’m going to help you no matter what. And I have a really great excuse that works on all kinds of bosses. You can hang out as long as you want, or even come back later. This is just some more information about what we need to fix. Okay?”

“Okay.”

———

Hyacinth got back to her sandwich two hours later, after three cups of coffee with Amelia and a minor medical procedure. She sent the woman home with an official-looking note that said she had been treated for a benign ovarian cyst which was causing her menstrual pain, and that she might need to return for a follow up if the pain continued. Most men shut down when they saw anything to do with ovaries or menstruation, let alone both at once. She’d never yet heard of one who wanted to argue about one of her notes.

She made sure to sign her doctor’s forgeries with an illegible scrawl. People assumed an authoritative male with a head mirror and a stethoscope. If she had to make a phone call or show up in person she could always tell them they’d misread it.

There was a polite knock on the back door. They did not wait for her to yell that it was open, they were just giving her a warning to be nice.

A purple and a yellow gentleman were standing on her back stairs holding a rake and a push broom.

Hyacinth put down her sandwich and stood up. She’d had that damn song stuck in her head all day. “No,” she said flatly.

Donovan bowed. “Miss Hyacinth, we want to apologize. You found my brother having a nervous breakdown in the purple rain and you saved him for me. I can’t think of any one or any thing that compares to you, and we’ve both treated you horribly.”

“Seriously, we would die for you,” Hayes said. “We’ve been all over SoHo buying you gifts.” He lifted a large shopping bag with jute handles and gave a light laugh. “I think we went a little crazy.”

“Oh, no,” Donovan said, shaking his head. “Anyway, we brought you this bag of nuts.” He lifted a paper parcel from the bag. “I said to Hayes, let’s get Hyacinth nuts. I think they’re pistachios. You’re not allergic, are you?”

“Get out,” Hyacinth said.

He put the parcel on the kitchen counter and dipped his hand back in the bag. “And this little red car. I think the kids might like that.”

“It’s some kinda convertible,” Hayes said, smiling. “I don’t know cars. Dee, do you know anything about cars? Anyhow, we stopped by this fancy coffee house and got you a pound and a half of their house blend, they said it was all right.” The car and the coffee went on the counter with the nuts.

“And some cream, for the coffee…”

“I don’t know what you’re doing but I want no part of it,” Hyacinth said.

“And these jelly candies, they’re shaped like little starfish, for the tourists. We thought that was cute.”

“And this bottle of maple syrup, and this current jam, a tangerine — that’s from our store — and a canned ham!”

“It’s a small one, you can serve it on the side. Side meat is an Iroquoise tradition, Miss Hyacinth.”

At this point her ‘gifts’ were starting to fall into the sink and she grabbed the pile with both hands to prevent the whole thing from going onto the floor. “What the actual hell…”

Hayes held the bag open and Donovan yanked out a largish painting. “And these two sad birds on black velvet! I think it looks very tasteful!”

“You don’t have any art on the walls in your front room Miss Hyacinth, it’s weird,” Hayes added. “What kinda birds are those, Dee? You know birds?”

“Passenger pigeons or something. They’ve been extinct so many times, I’d cry too if I were a passenger pigeon.”

“I wonder what it sounds like?” Hayes said.

Hyacinth’s expression twisted. “Fuck. You.”

“And this whole gallon of raspberry sorbet!” Hayes declared. He pulled out the carton and dropped the empty bag.

“I refuse to believe you bought these things today, this was planned!” Hyacinth shrieked. “You had this hidden somewhere when you pissed me off this morning!”

“Is this from the second hand store, Dee?”

“You’re mental, bro. They don’t sell ice cream second hand.” The yellow man beamed at Hyacinth. “It must’ve been next to the second hand store. The one with the pink hats.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s good, though.”

“If it were a little warmer you wouldn’t want to eat much more.” Donovan bowed and offered her the carton.

Hyacinth heard a thud somewhere behind her and the sound of rapid feet on stairs. “Don’t throw it at them, Alice, it’s free food!” Barnaby cried. He skidded to a halt in the kitchen doorway a moment later, breathless. “I’ll eat it if you don’t want it. And the candy.”

“These people are doing prop comedy on my back stairs and it is not okay!” Hyacinth snarled. “I didn’t consent to this! This is assault!”

Hayes and Donovan looked wounded. “It’s a little funny, though, right?”

“I’m not going to give you the satisfaction!”

“We should’ve just given her the money,” Donovan muttered.

“The money wasn’t funny,” Hayes said.

Donovan grinned at him. “Honey.”

“Hyacinth, these are usable items,” Barnaby said. “Except the hideous painting. Do you care if there’s a theme?”

“Deeply,” she said. “They were in here this morning trying to get me to prescribe Harry Nilsson music.”

Barnaby considered that for a moment and then snickered. “Did you, doctor?”

“No. I’m going to find out where you live and send Erik over to your house to play that song about the spearmint until you scream,” she said.

Hayes and Donovan beamed at her. “We’re the greengrocer’s on Abberline Road!” they declared.

“Oh, gods,” said Hyacinth. “What the hell did you do during the siege? How did you keep from being shot?”

“I didn’t,” Donovan said.

“We were starcatchers,” Hayes said.

“Oh, well, they’re incurably insane, Hyacinth,” Barnaby said, inserting a spoon into the sorbet. “You can’t hold them to any standard. Mm! This tastes expensive!”

Hyacinth snatched the spoon out of his mouth. “And I’m not going to let you get your germs in it.” She considered the items on the counter. “If I forgive you, do you promise to come back tomorrow and do something like this to Mordecai?”

They both smiled at her and nodded in tandem. Donovan gave her a salute.

“He has breakfast around eleven on the weekends and he hates ABBA,” she told them. “After that, I will consider your bills paid. Thank you for the Prince tribute. I can hardly wait.”

She watched out the window as they mounted their landscaping implements and rose out of view. “Barnaby, get your hand out of the sorbet,” she said absently.

“Ha,” he replied. “That shows what you know. I didn’t put my hand in the sorbet, I licked all the candy.” He dropped the lid back on the box and carried it back upstairs tucked under his arm.

———

Mordecai answered the back door holding a thin slice of pressed ham on a fork. “Just a minute. The doctor is…”

Two gentlemen with a push broom and a rake were standing there, smiling at him. “Happy New Year!” they said.