Page 48 of Perfect Tragedy
Speaking of which, I look at my watch and see it’s about time for me to leave for the day. I’m meeting my dad and his girlfriend, Meghan for an early dinner.
“Sienna?”
“Yes?” I ask turning to find one of my new dental assistants Shari standing in the doorway of my office.
“Can you show me where I need to go to sign up for that training you were telling me about?”
“Sure,” I smile and gesture for Shari to come stand at my computer while I explain how to manage our training platform.
My leaving is delayed by a few more questions from other team members, and I’m racing to meet my dad. On the way, my phone rings and my car phone shows a call coming in from Vanessa which makes me smile.
“Hello?”
There’s garbled noise when I answer and then I hear, “No, Sam! Stop putting the dog’s tail in your mouth. It’s not a chew toy.”
I can’t help but laugh, “V?” I call wondering if she meant to call me or if it was an accident.
“Yeah, hey, sorry. As soon as you picked up, your godson put Murphy’s tail in his mouth again.”
“Well they do say that babies will put anything in their mouth at that age.”
“Drives me crazy.”
“How are you? Do you need a break? Where’s Scott?” I ask referring to Vanessa’s husband. They met in college and had a whirlwind romance. They were married soon after graduating and Sam was already a one year old. He was the happiest baby I’ve ever seen - he started walking early – at about ten and a half months - and he’s into everything. Scott’s an accountant and given that it’s tax season he’s working a lot of hours. Vanessa worked as a teacher for a little while, but once Sam was born, she decided she wanted to stay at home with him full time.
“Oh, I’m fine. He’ll be home soon. It’s just amazing how fast that kid can move for being so small. And he’s into everything.”
“I’ll come spend some time with him this weekend and you can go get a pedicure or something.”
“A pedicure? Forget that. My toes be damned. I’ll take a nap instead.”
“Sounds like a deal,” I laugh.
“Hey, I remember you’re having dinner with your dad tonight, but I heard something and wanted to give you a heads up.”
“Okay, what’s up?”
“I was at the market earlier. Alana was working and checked me out because one of the other cashier’s was on break. Anyway, she told me that when she was at Sal’s Meats getting some stock that she ran into Bess, our town’s dispatcher and-”
“Oh my gosh, Vanessa. I know who Bess is and I don’t need the whole entire low down on where the gossip you’re about to tell me came from. Just spit it out.”
She hesitates, “Okay…”
My stomach turns a little at the hesitation in her voice, “What?”
“Virginia Walker passed away,” she says so quickly I’m not sure I heard her correctly.
“What?”
“Mrs. Walker, Blake’s mom, passed away.”
“Oh no…” my mind begins to spin. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her. She may still live next door to my dad, but she kept to herself and honestly the stories I heard about her various drinking escapades were the only news I ever really heard.
“Yeah, so Bess said that she heard that the medical examiner-”
“Vanessa,” I say her name impatiently knowing she was about to go through the whole list again of how the news traveled. One of the annoyances of living in a small town.
“Oh, sorry. I guess she was dead for a little while before someone found her. She didn’t show up to a doctor appointment and word traveled when there was another appointment she didn’t make either and anyway they went to check on her and found she’d passed. No doubt she finally managed to drink herself to death.”
