The Happy Housewife (Samantha Sherman Book 1) (10 page)

Sam felt herself weakening, “Well, maybe we don’t need to make a decision tonight. Perhaps there isn’t a need to tell the police. Maybe they’ll catch the burglar tomorrow!” Sam said this a little too brightly and she didn’t really think it was true.

Helen nodded meekly, “Sure, hon. Do you want me to find somewhere else to stay?”

“No, Helen, you can stay here. I don’t agree with what you did but I’m sorry for your loss and I’m glad you’ve turned your life around.”

“What a day.” It was a statement of fact from Helen and Sam nodded in response.

“I think we could both use a good night’s sleep. We’ll talk in the morning after I take Lindsey to camp. Is that all right with you?”

“That sounds good. Thanks, Sam,” Helen spoke quietly and Sam again thought about how much older she looked than she really was.

“I’ll be up right behind you,” said Sam. She watched as Helen pushed herself up and slowly left the kitchen. Sam busied herself tidying up the family room, which didn’t need to be tidied up.
Maybe Lynette was right after all, you just never know about people
, she thought.

Sam wasn’t worried about having Helen at the house but she really didn’t know what to do about the police. She wished she could call Doug back and ask him how to handle this, but she knew what he would say. He would want Helen out of the house immediately. Besides, she hadn’t even told Doug that Helen was at the house to begin with! She laid out some things for breakfast in the morning and when she thought she’d given Helen enough time to get in bed she checked the front door and followed her upstairs. Helen’s door was shut so Sam continued to her room and began her bedtime routine.

Sam finished up and thought about reading for a minute but realized that for once, she had no interest in her books. She drummed her fingers on her dresser and stared at the lock on her door. She made a quick decision and crept softly out of her bedroom, turning off the light as she left. She went by Helen’s room to Lindsey’s room. Sam quietly opened the door and peeked in at her sleeping daughter. Lindsey looked so soft and sweet as she lay there. Sam mentally said a thank you that Lindsey was a sound sleeper and moved into the room. She went over to her bed and drew the covers back. She lifted up her sleeping daughter who made a few noises but stayed asleep. Sam brought Lindsey back to her bedroom and tucked her into the bed. Sam and Doug never let Lindsey sleep in their bed so this would seem really strange to Lindsey in the morning. She would just say it was a special treat because Daddy was gone.

Once Lindsey was settled, Sam stood over by her side of the bed. This was crazy but she would sleep better. How well did she really know Helen anyway? Probably she was being silly but when it came to her daughter she didn’t care.

Smiling to herself, Sam pulled out a hair from her hair brush and slipped back out of her room.
Now this is really crazy
, she decided
.
She grabbed some tape from the desk in the study and went back to Lindsey’s door. She taped the hair across the bottom of the door, just like a detective on a television show. Sam stifled a giggle at how weird she was being but she left the hair in place.

Sam was still smiling as she went back to her room, locked the door and slipped into bed next to Lindsey. What a day. How would she be able to sleep?

S
am slept soundly after struggling to fall asleep and was jolted awake when her alarm went off at 7:00 a.m. She had the momentary confusion of someone woken while sleeping ‘hard.’

“Mom? Huh?” Lindsey was waking up beside her and was also confused.

Sam was silent for a second while she adjusted. She shook her head and dived right in. “Good morning, cutie!! What a fun sleep over!! A special treat since Daddy is gone.”

Sam’s enthusiasm was contagious and Lindsey got a big smile on her face. “Can we have a pillow fight?”

“Sorry, babe. We need to be quiet because Mrs. Thomas is sleeping. Tell you what though; we’ll do another slumber party tonight!”

“Yeah!” Lindsey said in a loud whisper. Then she bounced up off the bed and headed for the door.

“You remember that you have gymnastics camp, right?”

“Of course, Mom.”

Sam tried not to smile at her daughter sounding like her mother was an idiot. She wondered what the teenage years would be like?

Sam quickly got ready and headed out to check on Lindsey. She was relieved to see that Helen’s door was still shut. Good. This would give her time to think about how to handle Helen today. Maybe she should just mind her own business? How long would Helen be here, anyway?

She looked in on her daughter making her bed. “Great job, Lindsey. Let’s go get some breakfast.” She realized that she hadn’t checked her hair on Lindsey’s door before Lindsey had gone to get dressed. It seemed like an extra silly thing to do now, in the morning.

They headed downstairs together, had breakfast and left to drop Lindsey at camp. Sam kept running ideas through her head about what to do with Helen but wound up halfway home and still didn’t have a decision on a course of action. Maybe she should just call Doug. She started to drift again. It was like no time had passed and she was back in the helicopter, THAT night …

Lt. Lee and her crew departed the scene as she had planned and passed the information they had on to an approaching Coast Guard vessel, an 87’ cutter. As they landed at Torrance Airport to drop off their survivors, they heard the report of the 87’ to the Sector, the Coast Guard hierarchy that managed searches, “we’ve spotted the last survivor, he’s with the wreckage, oh my God, he’s slipping …” Lt. Lee’s stomach twisted painfully as she strained for the next line … “He’s under, he’s slipped under …” At this point, Lt. Lee was twenty minutes away from Catalina, too far away to get there in time. She wished she could stop the sharp twisting in her abdomen. She tried to focus on getting the patients out of the helicopter and the information on their condition passed to the Torrance medics.

As Sam pulled up back from her musings and into her driveway, the twisting from THAT night seemed to still be in her stomach. She felt sick and uncertain. She was so tired of that feeling. She walked slowly up to her house staring intently at her front door. She was so focused on the past that she didn’t see the car parked by the curb, a dark green sedan.

She reached her front door and paused.
This is ridiculous
, she counseled herself. I will not be intimidated by this woman
.
She could hear voices coming from inside her house. Perhaps Helen had the television on? She took a deep breath and stepped inside.
Hmmm,
Helen had unlocked the door.

As Sam headed for the family room, she realized it wasn’t the TV she was hearing...

“You really can’t be here, Marjorie,” she heard Helen say.

“What do you mean, you ...” Marjorie trailed off as Sam stepped into the kitchen,
her
kitchen. She felt her heart pounding and fought an overwhelming urge to give the Black Panther closed fist salute to lighten the awkward silence that quickly settled over the room.

The woman she now knew to be Marjorie sat at the kitchen table with Helen while the guy she now knew to be Clint leaned against the kitchen island. They were staring at her as though
she
was somehow intruding. Sam’s initial discomfort oddly turned to a jolt of excitement. She used to love a challenging situation.
Maybe I still do?

Sam forced a smile and said, “Good Morning.”

She didn’t introduce herself, putting the impetus on Helen to lead the conversation and explain herself. It was not up to her to make this easy.

“Hi, Sam,” said Helen. “This is Marjorie and Clint Edwards. They are two of the friends I told you about, from my past.” Helen’s strained her eyes out at this, she was obviously asking for Sam’s understanding and to give her some time.
Not in my house, Helen
, Sam thought.

She kept the smile on her face, stuck out her hand to both and said, “Nice to meet you.” After she shook hands and noted Clint’s too hard grip and Marjorie’s limp one, she went over to the table and pulled out a chair. She could see Clint rolling his eyes as she did so but she pretended not to notice and asked, “So what are you discussing?”

There was silence for a minute and then Clint broke in, “We were just stopping by to see if Helen was okay. We were going to take her out shopping if she needed anything.”

Sam nodded and looked right at him. She let her skepticism show on her face, “So is Edwards your real last name?”

Again silence in the room. She looked at all three of them. Clint was glaring at her and Marjorie looked away. Helen’s mouth was hanging open. She quickly recovered, snapped it shut, and then looked at Sam quizzically
. I wasn’t always a mouse, Helen
, Sam thought to herself. Sam did not back down, she continued to stare straight at Helen and then over at Clint.

Clint was the first to speak again, “Look, this doesn’t concern you, understand? This isn’t some big conspiracy; our friend was murdered by a burglar, period. All that other stuff is in our past. We have nothing to hide from the police. We are not ‘wanted’ criminals. And choosing to go by different names is our business.”

“Really? Well, I think what happens in my house concerns me. What do you do for a living?”

“We’re teachers like Helen.” Marjorie spoke for the first time. Clint turned his head and fixed his glare towards Marjorie who looked away again.

Sam leapt forward at this news, “So you don’t think a school would want to do an accurate background check on you? How do you think parents would feel if they knew that former terrorists were teaching their kids? Terrorists aren’t so popular these days, you know.”

Marjorie opened her mouth to speak but Clint broke in again, “We changed our names legally years ago. They can do accurate background checks on us for the past twenty-five years. We made some mistakes when we were kids but that is the past and we’ve been making up for it ever since. We’ve paid our dues.” Clint spoke forcefully and stopped leaning against the counter, pulling himself up to his full height as he spoke.

Sam switched her tack to try and throw them off balance, “I thought you guys didn’t believe in marriage?” She felt bad openly using what Helen had told her the night before but, she reminded herself, this was her house, her family.

“We’re not married,” Marjorie said, a bit angrily perhaps?

Clint glared at her again, “Yes, but we’re monogamous. We happened to take the same last name.”

Helen finally spoke, interrupting the couple as Marjorie looked away yet again. “Sam, I know you think I need to go to the police with this. I was nervous about your advice and since I don’t have family I needed to discuss it with my friends. I called them and they decided to come by and talk in person. I’m sorry that you were surprised by them being here.”

Sam again resisted speaking too much. If she did, she would help Helen explain everything away. “So which school do your friends work at? The same as you?”

“Yes, we’re all at the same school,” Helen responded.

“Are there anymore of you?”

Again, silence from everyone. Sam pressed on, “I don’t know if you realize this, but you all come across as secretive, like you have something bad to hide. If you talk to the police you are going to have to be more forthcoming.”

Clint fired back, “Who said we are going to the police?”

Sam was getting a little tired of his aggressiveness, “Well, for starters there haven’t been any reports of murder-burglaries in Fairfax for years. Second, most people who are murdered are killed by people they know. Do you really think the police aren’t going to come back to Helen and question her again? They are probably doing a background check on her right now and they are going to figure out that she changed her name. This will all come out and you guys are going to look guilty if the police have to drag it out of you.” Sam was uncertain if everything she had just said was totally correct but it sounded good and she knew with people like Clint it was important to be forceful right back at them.

Clint was glaring at her and his lip was curling ever so slightly as he shifted his weight from side to side. It was very clear he was trying to hold himself back from shouting. Hopefully he was thinking about what she said. Marjorie and Helen eyed each other.

Sam sighed. She wanted to push the group further but she sensed she had gotten all she could from them. Instead of pushing more, she put up both her hands and said, “Fine, I’ll give you guys some time. I’ll be in my bedroom.” She didn’t wait for them to respond but, instead, got up and left the room. As she headed up the stairs, she reminded herself to breathe. Maybe she was being too cautious but they should at least tell the police, right? Was she just trying to punish them for their activities of so long ago?

She reached her room and shut the door firmly behind her. Then she locked it. She wasn’t really scared. After all, she was many years younger than everyone in her kitchen. However, she didn’t want Helen, or anyone else, to sneak up on her like the other day when she was researching ELF and ALF. She was about to do something embarrassing.

Sam went over to the vent in her bedroom floor. While the kitchen was almost on the other side of the house, somehow they had always been able to hear into the kitchen from their bedroom. Until now it had always been an annoyance but today it was downright useful.

Sam got on her hands and knees and put her ear to the vent. She didn’t hear anything. Oh goodness, she hoped they hadn’t moved. Then she could make out …

“I heard her door shut.” Good old Marjorie.

“Quiet,” snapped back Clint in a loud whisper. “Helen, what do you think?”

Helen’s voice was almost impossible to hear it was so soft. “I just don’t know anymore. I don’t know what to do.”

Clint spoke up, “Really?” He sounded doubtful. Clint continued, “You know, the Sherman woman might be right. If they do a background check on you, there are going to be holes and they won’t be able to find your husband as a Thomas. And then there’s Dan’s name change of course. It’s possible this could come up. We’re probably being paranoid though. I mean, think about how many of us are above ground. Bernadine Dohrn is teaching at Northwestern, Bill Ayers is teaching at University of Illinois, Mark Rudd teaches community college, Brian Flanagan owns a bar in New York, Naomi Jaffe runs a foundation in New York, and Laura Whitehorn is an activist in New York City. The
New York Times
did a whole profile on Bill Ayers when his autobiography came out. I realize we don’t quite have their protection, not being ‘elite,’ but this isn’t the 70s.”