My Trouble

This story is Margaret & Bitsy's first appearance and was published in the

January 1990 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

My Trouble

Molly MacRae

My mother came to live with me in November. Which is only really interesting if you consider that she died in October. No, she isn't a ghost. I'm not haunted. Give me some credit, we aren't that sort of people.

She's in the closet on the shelf. You know, it's funny, I'd never realized how heavy the cremains of a 180-pound woman would be. She's in a neat, shiny, brown plastic box about the size of an economy-size Kleenex box. It's pretty hefty. It's sealed, otherwise I suppose accidents might happen. One of the cats could get up there and push it off the shelf, for instance, and it would fall and open up and all hell would break loose, figuratively speaking, and possibly literally speaking depending on where..., oh, well, never mind.

My sister, Bitsy, (we are that sort of people, I'm afraid) wanted to keep Mother at her house until all the far-flung relatives meet down in Georgia for the burial this summer. She couldn't handle it, though. She and Mother were very close and it bothered Bitsy to have that trivial looking brown plastic reminder of her in the house. She would rather contemplate Mother serenely floating somewhere in the spiritual hereafter, than sitting someplace where she might have to shove her aside to find the extra vacuum cleaner bags.

Bitsy, needless to say, thinks I'm crass for treating Mother's presence with such nonchalance. I don't. It's just that at last I can relax, because I finally know exactly where Mother is and what she isn't doing.

She isn't, for instance, sitting on the sofa telling me that I ought to lose weight. In fact, I think I'll have another cookie right now, excuse me while I go get one.

She also isn't explaining to me how I should be using my MBA for something other than running a second-hand bookstore. That the second-hand books I deal in are usually first editions and often rare, cost the earth and usually fetch it, didn't, to her mind, make up for the fact that I sell used merchandise and operate out of my living room. Once, when I got wind of one of her infrequent and always unannounced visits, I screwed a red light bulb into the porch light. I'm sure it only served to cement her convictions.

"Your mother never really did much for you, did she?" That was my mother's cousin meowing over the garden fence soon after Mother's death. "She was always coming down on you in favor of Bitsy."

"Well, now, Leona," I tried to pour oil on these acrid waters. "I wouldn't go so far as to say that."

"And that's your trouble," snapped Leona and tottered away on her 75 year-old toothpicks.

I snapped off the dead head of a rose and stared after her. Leona was probably right. Mother's presence in my life was no great windfall. But I've never dwelt on that, and I don't think my lack of publicly aired grievances is my trouble.

Leona sounds like it, but she really isn't a nasty old lady. She just tries to improve me by telling me what my trouble is. She pinpoints a new one every so often, though she's most fond of telling me that I don't smile or laugh often enough.

Actually my most immediate trouble was finding a ride to the opening of an acquaintance’s new restaurant over in the next town. My car was in quarantine suffering from some near fatal fuel pump - warp speed function failure or something.

I thought Bitsy and her husband, Rodney, might like to go and so I called and asked her over for a cup of coffee. You can't just ask Bitsy a favor, you have to approach her the right way.

"Oh, no, no, no, I don't think so, Margaret. You certainly aren't going are you? You are! I can tell by the way you're trying not to blush. Margaret, Mother died only last month."

"I know, Bitsy. But I think it would be good for all of us and it would be nice to help make the opening a success. We could just make an appearance."

Bitsy started fiddling with her rings, something she does when she's aggravated. She slips them off and puts them down and then slips them back on again, over and over. It drives me crazy. I could see my cause was already lost so I decided to aggravate her a bit more.

"You could just be yourself, you wouldn't even have to have fun."

She slammed her rings back on and arranged her face to show me that she was not amused. "Why don't you go with your friend what's-his-name?"

She knew why I didn't want to go with what's-his-name, whose name is Gene. Gene is my very dear friend who has a Lamborghini and a drinking problem. It's hard to believe that the two coexist for one person, but Gene is responsible enough to know when he's had enough, and he never drives his jewel drunk. He also never lets anyone else drive it even if they are sober.

I try not to encourage Gene to go places where he'll fail. It means we sometimes don't go places together, though we often end up there together. He doesn't need my encouragement.

"Why don't you get Gene to drive you?" Bitsy is offended by any sort of moral failing. She left and went next door to call on Leona. I can guess what they had to talk about.

Gene called later that morning while I was checking through a newly arrived collection of W.W. Jacobs first editions.

"How's your car?" He had driven me home when I'd had to leave it in intensive care.

"If it doesn't respond soon I might have to consider euthanasia."

"Well, don't despair, I've got great news for you. I've got strep throat."

"That's wonderful. Why are we thrilled?"

"I'm on penicillin. No drinking."

This is true. Gene is an amazing drunk. He won't stop because his doctor or his mother or I ask him to, but he'll read on a bottle of penicillin that drugs and alcohol shouldn't be mixed so he quits drinking for the duration. You figure it out. Anyway, that was fine and we made glorious plans. He would wear his tweed jacket with the penicillin in his pocket. I would wear my small black, an outfit so-called because, though I look stunning in it, it is on the snug side.

Then Bitsy phoned to ask if she had left her rings behind on the kitchen table. I said no, because she hadn't.

"Margaret, are you sure?" That question doesn't sound like what it really was. In fact, it was a thinly veiled accusation suggesting that I might have found the rings and kept them. I'm very sensitive about that sort of thing. When I was a child I did pick up pretty things that caught my eye. Then I was caught. I was about seven, I guess, and I've yet to live it down.

"Margaret?"

There isn't any satisfying answer for that kind of question. I've found the plain and simple ones are best. "No, Bitsy."

Bitsy came over to check for herself. I met her at the door, I in my small black and she in a snit.

"Margaret, I can't imagine what has happened to my rings."

"Neither can I." Gene drove up at that point and you could see her thoughts tripping over each other trying to take in the implications of my outfit and Gene's appearance.

"Do you have another ride home?"

Plain and simple. "No."

"No."

"Well, you're certainly not going to let him drive after he's gotten drunk, are you?"

"When he's had too much he spends the night."

"And what are you going ... then you're going to spend ..."

Her indignity went into hyperdrive and she started to splutter. I enjoyed this display of her outraged sensibilities so much that I just left her thinking what she would and climbed in beside Gene. He honked a merry goodbye that made her jump.

The opening couldn't have been lovelier. The food was delicious and my small black got smaller yet. There was live piano music and impromptu singing. But damn, if I didn't get a boiling headache. Gene was gallant and drove me home, promising to call in the morning to see how I was doing.

I always leave one or two low watt lights burning at night. I operate on the theory that one doesn't hear strange noises if it isn't dark. I was in the bathroom swallowing a couple of industrial grade aspirin when that theory was blown right out of the water. Someone was in the living room.

I'd locked the doors. I know I'd done that because I always do that because I'm very careful about doing that because I am mortally terrified of the dark and all things associated with it like people breaking into my house at night.

Footsteps were coming towards the bedroom.

I slipped quietly from the bathroom into the closet, hoping that my small black would help me blend right into the corner. I could just barely, over the sound of my heart crashing around in my throat, hear someone rummaging through the drawers of my desk and then my bureau.

The closet door started to open.

I'm good at assessing a situation with lightning speed and coming up the appropriate solution. I reached over my head and grabbed from the shelf the first heavy box my hand touched and I brought that sucker down hard.

I was standing there still feeling stunned when two policemen arrived. Leona was behind them.

"It's a good thing I put the cat out when I did. I saw someone crawling in through your kitchen window and called the police. That's your trouble. You should have a burglar alarm. Who is it, anyway?"

Bitsy sat up, moaning and holding her head.

"Did this woman break into your house, ma'am?"

"I think maybe there's been a mistake, officer."

Leona helped Bitsy to sit up on the bed. The police looked askance at the three of us and left.

"By the way, Bitsy, you left these on my coffee table." Leona dug around in her apron pocket and produced Bitsy's rings. Bitsy moaned again. She grabbed the rings and ran out the front door. Leona and I watched her go.

"What did you hit her with, anyway?"

I looked down at my hand. I was still holding the box. Leona looked at it.

"Hmph. The first time your mother's come down on Bitsy in favor of you." And she stalked away.

I went back to the bathroom and took a couple more aspirin. I brushed my teeth. I put on my pajamas. I crawled under the covers. And I laughed myself to sleep.

Top Home Margaret & Bitsy