All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighty-eight)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Eight

Things Relative

(part one hundred eighty-eight)

They followed into the hall, then through ceiling-high curtains, pulled and pouffed into silk-tasseled restraint. The drawing room was decorated with settees and slipper chairs, cozied into semicircles.

One of a consciously male set by the fireplace held Mr. Demrose.

He stood and waved a cigar. He was aged by a moustache, a growing gut, and a listless, soft-cheeked pallor. He did not speak.

Regina had been speaking the while. “Luce! And did I hear Fannie Rutherford? Ma’am, I know all about you! Luce, sugar, come give me a hug! Goodness alive! I had no idea you all were visiting! Come draw up a seat, you two! What can I get you? Coffee? Patty, see what’s in the other room. Some of that strudel we had at breakfast. You don’t mind breakfast for lunch? Patty, is the ham and eggs warm?”

 I’ll have her make more, she was telling them.

Oh, no, if we’d thought you were back, we’d have…

Called properly. Patty and a helper already were placing a table for Fannie. Élucide’s chair had its table, and they both got a tray.

Also Regina. “I shouldn’t, but my appetite’s just back today. I’ll tell you what I’m down with.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear…”

“You never mind, Luce. I’m built sturdy. All that bleeding was hardly more than a nuisance, but…” Regina patted the floral sateen. She was feet-up on an ottoman, feather pillows at her back, a lap rug covering below the waist. “I have to sit on my special cushion in case.”

They ate and drank despite the pancakes of an hour past. Dr. Quackenbush had told them early afternoon; they had chosen 2:30, and hoped, if this still meant lunch to him, gracefully to refuse.

Unless the lunch were already fixed. “Did you finish your story, ma’am? You said you weren’t feeling well…”

“Manfred, did you tell that cabby to go away? You’ll drive these ladies over yourself. He’ll drive you over himself. I don’t know about Monroe Street, Luce. Well, we were going to have a baby. Now the doctor thinks I’m past my time, so we’ll just adopt.”

“A baby,” Fannie said. “Or…” She looked moment-by-moment changing the tack of her response. “One a little older?”

“That’s a question! You’re a kind of nurse, aren’t you? If I didn’t pick that up wrong. For all I know I ought to be reading something. I’d rather just be lazy and ask.”

“Oh, I would never be in any hurry. Ask as many people as you can.”

“All that whipping and beating that goes on at some of those places! And if the family’s got six or seven, they give up the one that seems puny or halfwit. But I’d even ask the Catholics, just because…” Regina dropped to a whisper. “It’s a business for them, isn’t it?”

“I was at Rainbow Springs, the resort, down in Missouri,” Fannie said. “I never had to do with an orphanage.”

“Rainbow Springs! Oh, that’s just too precious! Now who was in charge?”

201

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighty-nine)

(2025, Stephanie Foster)