The Accidental Florist

the staff people got to use it sometimes and the water would be dirty and maybe carry diseases. She was rude to the waiters. She thought most of them didn’t understand English and would say right in front of them how lazy they were. She’d always have bottled water in her big purse to wash off the silverware before we could eat.“
    “Go on,“ Jane said.
    “Well, Mom, I finally got fed up and was so embarrassed at being with her that I told her not to be so rude and mean and loud.“
    “How’d she take that?“ Jane asked.
    He took one more fruitless sip of the melting ice in his cup and said, “She said she was so disappointed in me speaking to her that way, but since you raised me, she wasn’t at all surprised that I’d learned to dislike old people. I’m sorry, but you asked me.“
    “It explains a lot of things, Todd. First, why she never took you on another trip.“
    “I wouldn’t have gone if she’d invited me,“ he said. “Not after the way she was nasty about you. It’s awful to talk ugly to strangers, but worse to talk ugly about a guy’s mom.“
    She gave him an affectionate fist thump on his shoulder. “Now it’s my turn,“ Jane said. “She’s been very nasty to me, too, recently. She hired a detective to follow me everywhere I went alone or with Mrs. Nowack. She wanted to know how we were dressed and how long we were gone, and if he could tell what we were eating or buying.“
    “That’s horrible, Mom!“
    “She’s done worse things. At dinner with Uncle Ted and Aunt Dixie she called their little girls `Chinks’ and made Aunt Dixie cry all night.“
    “ `Chinks’? What’s that mean?“
    “It’s a nasty word for anybody Chinese. Just like calling a black person the N word.“
    “I know what the N word is. In sixth grade a new girl who was black started the year in my class and a boy called her that. The teacher took him to the principal and they called his parents to take him home for the rest of the week. He never came back. I think his folks thought it was okay to say the N word and put him in another school. I see what you mean. Poor Aunt Dixie and Uncle Ted. Did Mary and Sarah understand it?“
    “No. They are too young to know a word like that. And Uncle Ted and Aunt Dixie aren’t ever going to let your grandmother be around them again.“
    “Good for them!“
    “That’s why Mel and I aren’t inviting her to either of the wedding services. And be sure if she asks you when and where they are going to be, you must pretend you don’t know or have forgotten.“
    “I won’t. I promise. It’s sorta sad. When I was a little kid, she was a nice Grandma. She isn’t even a nice person anymore.“
    “Todd, my dear son, sometimes old ladies turn mean. If I do, promise you’ll stash me away somewhere.“
    He put down his cup on the floor of the Jeep and turned and gave her a big hug. “You’ll never turn mean. You’re the nicest mom anybody could have. Could we go home now? I’m stuffed and need to figure out something about my computer.“
    “What’s that?“
    “It’s going weird and doing tabs wrong. Maybe it’s also turning into an icky old woman.“
    Both of them laughed.

Chapter Fourteen

    Jane was once again sitting outside, in spite of the fact that every day became a little hotter as spring was getting ready to turn into full-blown summer weather. She was thinking about the talk with Todd earlier in the day. She hadn’t especially wondered why Thelma hadn’t taken Todd on her usual summer vacation for the last two years. If she had, she would have assumed Thelma simply thought she was getting too old to travel. Or that Todd was getting too old to go on trips with a grandmother.
    No. That wouldn’t play. Thelma wouldn’t have thought about anyone but herself. So chalk it up to age.
    All in all, it had been a good conversation and cleared up a lot of things. It allowed her to tattle to Todd about what his grandmother had said and tried to do to her in the last week without feeling guilty and whiny.
    There was something else at the back of her mind that she’d been trying to grasp all day that finally emerged. It involved the next book she was writing. And the case of Miss Welbourne’s death. But in reverse, so to speak.
    A woman who had been in an accident and had already set up a trust for her children with a secondary trustee who was her cousin. How did she have enough money to do this, though? She had to be a widow and she’d inherited a