First Impressions

Chapter One Mom? Mom? Are you all right?" Melissa looked at her mother with concern. She'd brought in the mail and put it on the hall table, then went to get herself something to eat. She was five months pregnant, and she could eat the legs off a table. Her mother had come in from work and picked up the mail, opening a letter from what looked to be a law firm. Melissa hoped it was nothing bad. "Mom?" Her words were muffled by the peanut butter sandwich in her mouth. She'd been tempted to add grape jelly but was afraid her husband would smell the jelly on her breath. Stuart was adamant that she didn't gain too much weight during pregnancy, so at dinner Melissa ate steamed vegetables and broiled meat. It was just during the day, while he was at work at the prestigious accounting firm, that she indulged in chocolate and shrimp -- together. "Mom!" Melissa said loudly. "What in the world is wrong with you?" Eden sat down on the little sofa by the hall table. The sofa had been a rickety piece of junk when she'd seen it in a small, out-of-the-way shop in a district that Melissa's husband didn't want them to visit. Eden had known right away it was Hepplewhite. She and Melissa had tied the sofa onto the roof of the station wagon and taken it home. It had taken Eden six weekends to repair, refinish, and upholster it. "Aren't you clever?" Stuart had said in his haughty way, as though Eden were of a lower class than he was. She'd had to grit her teeth, as she always did when she dealt with her son-in-law. Melissa loved him, but Eden had never been able to figure out why. "Mrs. Farrington left me her house." "Mrs. Farrington?" Melissa asked, looking at the clock. She had seventeen and a half minutes before Stuart came home. Was that enough time to make herself another sandwich? "Go on," Eden said, knowing her daughter's mind. "I'll cover for you." "I shouldn't. Really, I shouldn't. Dinner will be soon and -- " "It's grilled chicken breasts, steamed broccoli, roast potatoes, and sugarless Jell-O for dessert. Very good for you. Not a calorie in any of it." Melissa opened her mouth, then scurried off to the kitchen, her mother behind her. She was slathering peanut butter on bread when Eden walked into the room, the letter open before her. "Who's Mrs. Farrington?" "You remember her, don't you, dear? We lived with her until you were five." "Oh, yeah. I do remember her. Sort of. Very old. And a long time ago you mentioned a man. Was he her son?" Eden didn't bother to suppress the shiver that ran over her body. "Yes, her son. Dreadful man. It seems that he died some time ago. Before Mrs. Farrington did." "You didn't keep in touch with her?" Melissa was pouring chocolate syrup into her milk. It was a good thing that Stuart never opened the refrigerator or he'd see the forbidden things that Eden bought for her daughter. No, Stuart was the type who believed food should be eaten at a table and served to him by someone else, preferably his wife. He didn't go rummaging in the refrigerator looking for something to eat. "No," Eden said tightly. "After we left I had nothing to do with her. Not that she..." She broke off. What happened was not something she wanted to have to explain to her daughter. I didn't want that pedophile of a son of hers to know where I was, she could have said, but didn't. "No, we didn't keep in touch." Many times over the years she'd wondered what had happened to dear Mrs. Farrington, and Eden often felt a wave of guilt run through her when she thought about that sweet woman being left alone with her evil son. But then Eden would look at her daughter and know that she'd done the right thing in running away and never looking back. She glanced at the clock. "You now have approximately two and three-quarter minutes before the master returns, so you'd better driDeveraux, Jude is the author of 'First Impressions', published 2006 under ISBN 9780743437158 and ISBN 0743437152.