“Aunt Rose! What are you doing here?”
I stood in the open doorway and stared in surprise at Rose Donovan—formerly known as Sister Anne Marie, of the Convent of Divine Mercy. It was late March and the first day of spring break. My husband, Sam, and our sons, Davey and Kevin, were all out of the house for the morning, so I’d been enjoying a rare moment of peace.
I hadn’t been expecting any visitors—least of all this one.
Rose regarded me calmly across the front step. As always, her gaze was direct and composed, a vestige of the religious vocation that had occupied the majority of her life. Even a decade after she’d left the order, Rose still retained the upright posture and unruffled demeanor that had become second nature during her time in the convent.
“Where else would I be?” she inquired crisply.
“I don’t know.” I still felt as though I’d been caught off guard. “Nairobi? Guatemala? Appalachia? Last I heard, you and your husband, Peter, were off doing missionary work . . . um . . . somewhere.”
“Then I can see we have some catching up to do.”
Rose’s lips pursed, a small sign of displeasure. For a woman in her sixties, her face was remarkably unlined. Short gray hair was anchored behind her ears. Tiny silver hoops hung from her lobes. They appeared to be her only nod to vanity. She didn’t even have on a dab of lipstick.
“Aren’t you going to invite me inside?” Rose asked.
“Yes, of course.”
I would have already stepped back out of her way. Except that the six dogs crowded around the hallway behind me would have taken that as an invitation. They’d have gone scrambling through the open doorway to greet our guest—whether she wanted to meet them or not.
And in this case, I was pretty sure the answer to that was no.
“You’ll have to deal with the dogs,” I told her.
Rose peered around me to survey the eager pack. “There appears to be a lot of them,” she mentioned unnecessarily. “I will endeavor to manage.”
Five of the dogs were Standard Poodles. Each one was big, black, and beautiful. The sixth dog was a small spotted mutt named Bud, who caused more commotion than all the Poodles put together. Stepping past me into the house, Rose lowered her hands and flapped them at the canine crew to chase them out of her way.
The Poodles recognized a dismissal when they saw one. They quickly fell back. Not Bud. He stood his ground and gazed up at Rose with adoring eyes. His stubby tail was wagging hard enough to make his whole hindquarter dance.
“What’s the matter with that one?” Rose asked as she slipped off her light jacket and handed it to me. Bud’s adorable greeting was clearly lost on her. “He doesn’t seem to get it.”
“Bud’s a law unto himself.” I took the coat and I stashed it in the closet. “Some idiots dumped him by the side of the road a couple of years ago and Davey and I brought him home. We’re still working on civilizing him.”
I smiled fondly at the little dog. Bud gave me a doggie grin in return. We both knew that civilizing idea was a joke. But, hey, at least he was housebroken.
Rose continued to gaze around the hallway with a critical eye. The Poodles might have retreated, but they hadn’t gone far. Rose lifted a finger and pointed delicately. “That one could use some grooming. It looks like a bear.”
“She,” I corrected automatically.
The Poodle in question was a seven-month-old puppy who was growing out her coat for the show ring. We had been grooming her. But at this stage, she was supposed to resemble a big ball of fluff.
“She,” Rose snapped. She was not amused.
“That’s Plum—”
Her head turned my way. “Like the fruit?”
“Precisely.”
“Why?”
I shrugged.
There was an answer to that question, but I knew Aunt Rose wouldn’t like it. In a moment of whimsy, Sam had said that his new Poodle puppy was plum pretty. Then Davey had responded by calling her plum perfect. After we’d all had a good laugh, the name had stuck.
“Sam named her,” I said instead. “She’s his new puppy.”
“Because for some reason you felt you needed another dog?”
We’d lost our elderly Poodle, Raven, in January. Sam had bred her, raised her, and shown her to her championship. The bitch’s death from the infirmities of old age had come as a wrench. Plum wasn’t here to replace Raven—we all loved the puppy for her own merits. But under the circumstances, it was nice for Sam to have a new Standard Poodle to weave his next set of dog show dreams around.
“Apparently so.” I was determined that Rose wasn’t going to succeed in putting me on the defensive before she’d even told me what she was doing here. I gestured toward the living room. With two boys and six dogs in the house, the big, bright space was filled with furniture that had been chosen for both comfort and durability. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Yes, I would.” Rose strode into the middle of the room, then stopped. “If I take a seat on the couch, will a dog jump up on top of me?”
“Maybe.” No.
But she didn’t have to know that. There was something about my saintly Aunt Rose that always seemed to bring out my devilish side. It was probably a good thing that we didn’t see each other often.
Rose glanced around the room, then picked the least comfortable chair there. It was sturdy, straight-backed, and had only a thin needlepoint cushion covering its hard wooden seat. Sam had inherited that chair from an aging relative. Nobody ever sat in it. It was shoved in a corner against the wall.
Rose lifted the chair, carried it over, and set it down opposite the couch. In spite of myself, I was impressed. Rose was slender, but she had strength in those skinny arms.
“You,” she said, gesturing toward the couch. “Sit.”
If it came as a surprise that I wasn’t the only one who obeyed her command, Rose didn’t show it. I sank down on the middle cushion. Faith, dog of my heart, hopped up and snuggled close on one side of me. Faith’s daughter, Eve, took the other side. The two male Poodles, Tar and Augie, sat down on the floor at either end of the couch like a Standard Poodle honor guard.
We all waited to see what Rose would do next.
“You and I have never gotten along, Melanie,” she said. “Why is that?”
I swallowed heavily. That was a barbed question. And also one with too many answers to count.
Partly it was because our contact had been limited for the first three decades of my life. Rose had been a sister of Divine Mercy then. I’d attended the order’s convent school, but once I’d graduated, there’d been little opportunity for us to interact with each other as adults. Or as equals.
I knew, however, that wasn’t the only explanation for our prickly relationship. Through the years, I’d always felt as though Rose was comparing me—academically, spiritually, morally—to an unattainable standard, only to find me lacking. In her role as Sister Anne Marie, Rose had cast her earthly aspirations toward a Higher Authority. By contrast, my goals had always remained firmly grounded in the world around me that I could see and touch.
I had no intention of explaining all that to Rose, however. At best, she would be skeptical. At worst, laughingly dismissive. Neither response would bode well for the future of this conversation.
Now I’d let the silence linger for a few beats too long. Abruptly Rose frowned.
“Frankly, I blame Peg for our disunity,” she announced.
Good answer, I thought. Better Aunt Peg than me. Because if my two aunts were inclined to brawl, I’d put my money on Peg every time.
Which was yet another reason why Rose and I were sitting here facing each other like adversaries. My relatives have always been a contentious bunch. Family harmony was a fine idea, but it simply wasn’t for us. In my family, someone was always being asked to choose sides.
And when it came to the ongoing hostilities between Aunt Rose and Aunt Peg, I had chosen Peg. Deliberately. And repeatedly.
“Well,” I said, “you know Aunt Peg. She marches to her own beat.”
Rose snorted under her breath. “Peg is more likely to grab the drum and hit someone over the head with it.”
“That too,” I agreed mildly. When Rose didn’t say anything else, I added, “Sam and Davey went to the hardware store to get supplies to fix the tree house. Kevin is at a playdate with a friend who lives up the street. We’ve probably got about an hour until mayhem descends. Maybe you’d like to use that time to tell me why you’re here?”
“You’ve become very direct since the last time we saw each other. I like that.” Rose peered at me across the low coffee table between us. “I’m here because I want you to help me with something.”
“Sure,” I replied without thinking. It was a bad habit of mine. “What do you need?”
“I’m hosting an Easter egg hunt, and I need someone to organize it for me. It occurred to me that you would be the perfect person for the job.”
Me? I gulped. Maybe she was joking.
“Why me?” I asked.
“For one thing, it’s spring break so you’re free. Ten whole days, isn’t it?” Rose smiled. “That seems like a generous amount of time.”
Well, yes, it was. I worked half days as a special needs tutor at a private school in Greenwich, Connecticut. For the most part, the school catered to the needs of a very wealthy community. Students were held to a rigorous academic standard, and vacations were scheduled to allow ample time for their families to go skiing in Verbier or fly-fishing in Patagonia.
While my students were off jetting around the world, however, I would be mostly sitting at home. Which still didn’t mean that I wanted to devote my school holiday to hiding someone else’s Easter eggs.
I curled my arm around Faith’s neck and tangled my fingers in her tight curls. The big Poodle sighed happily and leaned her body into mine. I wanted to sigh too. I wished it wasn’t too late to go back to the point in the conversation when Rose had merely been making fun of my dogs’ names.
“You’ve always been good at solving mysteries,” she plowed on. “So this should be right up your alley. Think of it as a mystery in reverse. Rather than searching for clues—or in this case, Easter eggs—you’ll be the person hiding them. Imagine how satisfying that will be.”
Honestly, it was hard for me to imagine anything about eggs that I would find satisfying—unless maybe they’d been scrambled in butter, topped with chives, and were served on a piece of French toast.
“Plus,” Rose said, “everyone else was busy. . .
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