Elizabeth's Daughter Read Free Page A

was not as fitted as it used to be, hanging loose and looking almost like one of her shapeless house dresses. She’d lost weight since Grandfather became ill, and she didn’t even know it.
      She brushed her hair hard, trying to relax the awkward curls from the last home permanent she’d given herself. Then she applied mascara and a bit of powder. She looked around for the lipstick, but couldn’t find it.
      “Strange...” She peered into the nearly empty medicine chest. “Where could it have gotten to?” As she looked around on the floor, a prickly sensation crawled up her forearms and down the back of her neck.
      She turned quickly, feeling watched. “What...?” she rubbed the prickles away from her neck, “you’re rattling around too much in this cavern of a house. And now you’re talking out loud to yourself.”
      She looked around the bathroom one more time for the lipstick when the front doorbell rang. She hurried to her room, grabbed a small clutch purse, a note pad and pencil, then ran down the winding front stairs. When she opened the door, there Martha stood in designer sunglasses, a mauve business suit complemented by a gorgeous white silk blouse and simple black patent heels. Elizabeth wanted to run back to her room and never come out again.
      “Ready?” Martha asked.
      “Sure.” Elizabeth screwed up her courage and locked the door behind her.
      Martha chatted non-stop while she drove to the museum. But Elizabeth hardly heard any of what she had to say, answering in monosyllables. She recounted to herself the odd events: today, the Mademoiselle in the trash, the vanished lipstick, last night, the strange woman’s reflection in the window....
      “What are you studying out?” Martha finally asked bluntly.
      “Pardon me?”
      “You’re like on some other planet.” Martha pulled down her sunglasses to give Elizabeth a pointed look.
      “Yikes, Martha, eyes on the road!” Elizabeth squealed as their car drifted into the other lane.
      Martha refocused on her driving. “ What is on your mind? You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
      “Yes, I have a lot on my mind,” Elizabeth agreed. “With Grandfather... gone, I’ve been... I have a lot to think about.” Elizabeth was about to share with Martha the weird events, but Martha reached over and squeezed her hand.
      “I know kiddo, of course. Sorry, sometimes I forget that things are about other people... sometimes.” She laughed. “It seems it’d be easier if everything was always about me, but such is not the case.”
      Elizabeth giggled.  Oh, she felt happy to be with Martha, she had a way of always making her shift her mood to something better. Plus the bright sunny day was so real and normal that the weird events faded away.
      Martha started struggling while driving with flinging her heels into the back seat and pulling on Reeboks at the stop lights. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said to Elizabeth. “I don’t imagine there’ll be anyone at this exhibit I want to impress.”
      “I don’t care what you wear on your feet, just as long as you stay in our lane.” In truth, Elizabeth loved the incongruity of the Reeboks with the designer suit.
      She sighed a sigh of relief as they pulled into the museum parking lot. “We made it!”
      “Of course we made it, you silly girl. I’ve never had an accident.”
      “What a miracle,” Elizabeth breathed as she got out of the car.
      “I heard that,” Martha called back to her, already halfway to the museum entrance.
      That was the one thing about Martha that disconcerted Elizabeth – always in such a rush, as if she simply had to get to the next thing. She hoped Martha wouldn’t ruin the exhibit by flying through it, dragging Elizabeth along behind like a trailing kite.
      But then, Elizabeth had the most amazing realization. She could come again! She could come alone, and she could spend all day. She could take notes and make