Whiskey Rebellion (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 1 (Addison Holmes Mysteries)

wall.
    So much for control.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

    Wednesday

    “Fuuuuuuuuccccccccccckkkkkkkk!”
    In the grand scheme of things I thought I handled the new disaster in my life fairly well. I woke up vaguely depressed, mostly because I was alone and the people around me seemed to be dropping like flies, but I think part of it was the fact that my eyes were swollen almost completely shut. Apparently, I ha d some kind of allergic reaction to cucumber. Who knew?
    So I did what everybody does when they’re faced with sickness or something else equally horrible. I called my mother.
    I reached for the phone on my nightstand and congratulated myself for buying the kind with the large buttons, so at least now I could feel out her number. When my mother answered I had a sudden urge to cry. Just the sound of her voice, vaguely questioning and oddly comforting made me yearn for something I couldn’t explain. The only thing that kept me from crying was that I didn’t know where the tears would go since my eyes were swollen shut. Would it make my eyelids explode from the tear buildup? It wasn’t something I wanted to find out first hand.
    “Addison, is that you? Stop blowing your nose into the phone. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
    “I’b gob a lurbic abtion,” I said and cried harder.
    “What was that? Are you sick?”
    “Yeb.”
    “I’ll be right there.”
    I hung up and waited for her to arrive. I laid spread eagle in bed and traced invisible maps through my mind of my mom’s route to my apartment. My thoughts eventually veered back to the night before and what would have happened if Nick hadn’t been called in to work. He gave me a hard kiss on his way out the door and promised he’d be back. I hoped it wouldn’t be any time soon, considering this newest predicament.
    I heard the key turn in the lock on the door and whimpered a little, knowing my mother would be able to fix everything in no time at all. I tilted my head and listened closely as my mother made her way to the bedroom. I’d never noticed before how distinctive her walk was.
    “Mom?”
    “I’m here, sweetheart. I dropped off a few groceries in the refrigerator. I know you don’t take the time to eat a balanced meal now that you’re living on your own.”
    I refrained from reminding her that I’d been living on my own for ten years now and hadn’t died of malnutrition yet.
    “Dear God! What happened to your eyes?” she asked, dropping something on the floor and sitting beside me on the bed.
    “Is it really that bad?”
    She hesitated too long before she lied, so I knew it must be pretty bad indeed.
    “No, it’s not bad at all. We’ll just get some cold compresses on them and I’ll give Dr. Jones a call to see if he has any suggestions.”
    Mom didn’t wait around to see if I was going to ask her to tell me what I looked like. And of course, that’s exactly what I was going to ask her. She practically ran to the kitchen to use the phone before I could tell her to use the one on the nightstand.
    When she came back in she told me she was holding a bag of ice and the Aloe Vera plant I kept on my windowsill and not to be surprised by the cold.
    “See, we’ll have you fixed up in no time,” she said, taking her place beside me again.
    “So, what do they look like?” I was trying to envision the expression on my mother’s face as she described my newly deformed face. I could practically hear the corners of her mouth pinch tight and her eyes squint in concentration.
    “Do you remember that time you fried your eyeballs in the tanning bed?”
    “Yes,” I said, dreading what was coming next.
    “This is worse. How in the world did you do this anyway?”
    “It was the cucumber.”
    “Oh, no,” my mother said, horrified. “I had no idea you were allergic to cucumbers. You’ve always loved cucumbers.”
    Not really, but I wasn’t going to break my mother’s heart by telling her that. “It seemed to work so well. All the swelling was gone by the time Nick came by last night.”
    She began rubbing the Aloe on my itchy lids and the cool, soothing balm was like an answered prayer. “And how is Nick?”
    “He’s good. And still hanging around despite the fact you gave him the third degree.”
    “He seemed very excited about getting a home-cooked meal. Not everybody is as blessed as you are to have a mother who likes to cook. I’ll make meatloaf. Everyone loves my meatloaf.”
    “Hmmmmm,” I said for lack of