Part five

“Rosewood Hall!” Trixie exclaimed, sitting straight up in bed.

The room was dark and she felt as if no time had passed since her mental wanderings through past adventures. In a moment, however, Trixie came to the conclusion that she had been asleep. What had made perfect sense in her dreams was now little more than nonsense. There was no reason why she should be thinking of Rosewood Hall in connection to this house, other than the fact that both had been the sites of investigations. The rock-solid conviction that she should go to Rosewood Hall was pushed aside in favour of the reality of her situation, which was that she needed to stay where she was.

As she tried to settle once more to sleep, she began to wonder whether her sub-conscious was trying to tell her something. There were certainly similarities in the cases, with diaries and attics and old ladies central to both, but there were major differences. For one thing, this house was nowhere near as old and almost certainly would not include a secret passage. It was an ordinary house, albeit on a slightly grander scale than average, and must have been nearly new when the family moved here in the 1920s.

In the former case, a single valuable item had been hidden to safeguard it. In this case, most of the things hidden had been cast out of sight. Myrtle had hidden information; her mother had hidden bitter memories. There seemed little likelihood that there could be anything else hidden in the house and yet Trixie longed to search for more. She felt, deep down, that she had missed something important and that it was here in the house with her.

Knowing that it was futile to want to search now, in the middle of the night, Trixie tried to settle to sleep, but it eluded her. Her thoughts kept running around and around, getting nowhere but becoming more frustrating as they went.

In was against this backdrop that she heard a strange noise. With the events of the previous evening in mind, she jumped out of bed and hurried out of her room, barely stopping to get her room key and lock the door behind her as she did. She raced up the stairs, barely bothered by her leg, and threw open the door to Olive’s room. Nothing.

Next, she tried the door to the sitting room, which she found to be locked, or wedged shut in some way. With rapid steps, she looked into each of the rooms, finding nothing out of place in any of them. By the time she was ready to try Myrtle’s room, the sitting room door had opened and Dan peered out.

“What’s up?” he asked, in a whisper.

“Heard a noise. I haven’t found anything wrong, yet.”

Not waiting for a response, she slipped into Myrtle’s room and then up into the attic. Here, as everywhere else, all was as it had been a few hours before. She returned to the sitting room doorway, where Dan still waited. Mart was nowhere to be seen.

“Nothing,” she told him, in response to his enquiring look.

“Try downstairs,” he suggested. “I didn’t hear anything, so maybe it was closer to you.”

She nodded and went back down the stairs. Moving more cautiously now, she went over the lower level room by room. All was quiet, still and as it should be. As she passed by the door to Ivy’s suite, she heard voices and a thumping sound. Holding her breath, she listened at the door, but could not make out what was being said. Footsteps approached the door and she stumbled back a few paces. It opened to reveal Elaine, who jumped in surprise.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Trixie retreated another step or two. “I heard a strange sound and wondered what it was. I only just realised it came from in there. I’d been looking all over the house.”

Elaine nodded. “It’s just fine. Ivy sometimes wakes in the night and thinks it’s morning. She gets a bit unhappy when I won’t let her out of bed. I was just going to the kitchen to heat her some milk.”

“Oh, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll leave you to it.”

She was about to go back to her room when she remembered that Dan was probably waiting for an answer to the problem. With that in mind, she waved Elaine past her and started to follow her. As she walked away, she heard Ivy’s voice in that strange whisper she used, loud enough to carry across rooms.

“Myrtle! Where have you put it? You know I need it, Myrtle. It’s all I have left. I know that Mother doesn’t want me to have it, but I’ll be careful, I promise. Please, Myrtle!”

A shiver ran down Trixie’s spine as she listened to the impassioned request. She paused, waiting for any more, but Ivy spoke no more. Glancing back the way she had come, Trixie went up the stairs and told Dan what was going on.

“I feel so sorry for her,” she finished. “It must be terrible to be caught up in the past like that, looking for people who aren’t there any more.”

He nodded. “If that’s what it’s like to be ninety-six, I think I’d rather live fast and die young.”

“Not too young.” She grinned. “But ninety-six is almost forever away from now. It’s a long time until we need to worry about that.”

“True. I have enough worries for today, without adding those to them.”

Trixie smiled. “Me too. Goodnight, Dan.”

“Goodnight,” he answered and closed the door.

This time, when Trixie got back into bed, she did not lie thinking about the past. Her thoughts were fixed on her hopes for the future and she soon drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, all three young people rose early. A quick check with Elaine showed that Ivy was sound asleep, so they took the opportunity and vacated the house. They found a place to have some breakfast and were soon chatting over large plates of food.

“The next time you offer us someone else’s sofa to sleep on without their knowledge, I don’t think I’ll take it,” Mart grumbled, between shovelling scrambled eggs into his mouth. “I hardly slept a wink all night.”

“Funny,” Dan teased. “You were sleeping like a baby when Trixie rattled the door at two in the morning. You didn’t stir the whole time I was waiting for her to come back, either. And you were asleep when the mouse woke me up by running across my arm.”

“You made both of those up.” Mart waved his fork at Dan, with a piece of sausage skewered on the end of it, then shoved it in his mouth.

“I don’t know about the second, but he didn’t make up the first one.” Trixie smirked at her brother. “Admit it: you slept just fine.”

Mart frowned. “Compared to the sleep I could have gotten at Crabapple Farm, it was terrible. Compared to the sleep I’ll probably get once I’m in a cabin filled with noisy kids, it was pretty good, I guess.”

At this, it was Trixie’s turn to frown. “If you could have spent the night at Crabapple Farm, why did you ask me about places to stay here?”

Her brother looked at her as if she had gone mad. “We came to spend time with you. Moms told me how upset you were about being stranded at home by yourself, instead of going to Cambodia. We thought you’d appreciate some friendly faces.”

“I do appreciate it,” she answered. “But you were going to pay for somewhere, instead of staying at home for free.”

“We stayed with you for free,” he pointed out. “Anyway, we have four hours of travelling to do and about nine hours until we’re expected. Are you going to spend the next few hours complaining, or are we going to find something fun to do?”

There was no contest, of course. Trixie let go of the argument and the three went out looking for fun. The time flew by until it was time for Mart and Dan to leave. They dropped her back at the house and, after waving them goodbye, she went inside with a heavy sigh. Somehow, seeing her brother and their friend had brought into focus a loneliness that she had been feeling all along, but which she had not noticed.

Since it was Saturday, she was not supposed to be working, but now that she was alone again, her mind turned automatically to the case at hand. She pondered, for a few minutes, whether she should start her renewed search on the attic, or begin cleaning it up, or whether she might wait until lunch time and ask Ivy some more questions. By association of ideas, she began thinking of Edith and Mart’s suggestion that their grandmother had been named after someone who had died. With that in mind, Trixie picked up the phone and put a call through to her mother.

“Trixie! How good to hear from you,” her mother exclaimed, when she heard who was calling. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine, Moms. Everything is going well here. Mart and Dan left a little while ago. I think I have you to thank for their visit.”

“That’s quite okay, sweetheart. I thought you’d like that.”

Trixie smiled. “I did. There’s one thing that Mart said, though, that I’m wondering about. I was telling him about Ivy and how sometimes she thinks that she’s a long time in the past and I can always tell when she’s doing that, because she calls me Edith.”

“You were thinking of Grandma Johnson?” her mother asked.

“Kind of. Grandma Johnson is much too young to be the person that Ivy is talking to, but Mart thought she’d been named for someone who died.”

Helen made a noise of assent. “Her mother, who died just after she was born.”

“Could Grandma’s mother possibly have been from here?” Trixie wondered. “Maybe it’s really her that Ivy’s talking to!”

“I have no idea. I can’t think how you would even begin to find out. There’s no one alive who knew her, that I know of.”

A frown crossed Trixie’s face. “Ivy can’t remember Edith’s married name, but she does talk about someone called Philip, who was really sick, and I think he was a child and probably Edith’s child. Does that make any sense?”

A sigh came down the line. “I’m sorry, Trixie. I don’t know of anyone called Philip. I certainly never had an uncle of that name.”

“Maybe he died, too.” She pushed the thought away. “Maybe next time Ivy will give me some better clues and I might be able to either rule it in or out. It would be a huge coincidence if Ivy knew my great-grandmother. From what I’ve heard so far, Ivy has only been to two places in her whole life and both of them are in Connecticut.”

“That’s not so very far away,” her mother pointed out, in amusement.

“I know that; Ivy thinks New York is practically on another planet.” She sighed. “I wanted to thank you, Moms, for letting me travel when I was younger, and letting me make my own decisions. Ivy has spent her whole life doing what her mother said. She hasn’t seen anything of the world and now it’s too late.”

A pause ensued, then her mother spoke in a voice thick with emotion. “One of the hardest parts of a mother’s job is knowing when to let go. Maybe, one day, you’ll find that out for yourself. I hope you’ll remember this experience if you ever do.”

“Oh, Moms! I feel like that will never happen for me. I’m going to be left on the shelf my whole life, like Ivy, and end up talking to strangers about things they don’t understand.”

At that, Helen laughed. “Trixie, you are nineteen years old. There’s still plenty of time. And I don’t believe there’s any such thing, in this day and age, as being left on the shelf.”

“No, I don’t suppose there is,” Trixie agreed, shaking her head at her own words. “I’ve been spending too long talking to old ladies and reading the diaries of other old ladies. They’re starting to rub off on me.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of you conforming to the ideals of these old ladies,” her mother remarked, drily. “You’ve always been too much of a free spirit.”

She shuddered at the thought of living a life like Ivy’s. “You’re right, Moms. I couldn’t live like that. I’d be climbing out the windows and escaping at the first available opportunity.”

“I’ll just be thankful that you don’t often feel that way about our house.”

“Not often, no. Sometimes, but not often.”

“On that note, we might talk about something else,” her mother decided, then turned the conversation to news from home.

They chatted for a little while longer, then ended the call. Trixie checked her email and found that Honey and Di had settled a time to chat that evening. She glanced at the time and, seeing that it was almost time for lunch, wrote a short reply, promising to be there, and sent it off.

She approached the eating area with trepidation, but found that Ivy had not yet arrived. After a few minutes, she came in with a sour-faced woman that Trixie did not know. She tried to introduce herself, but was rebuffed.

“I know who you are,” the woman snapped, as she helped Ivy into her seat. “And I don’t see any reason for us to talk.”

Ivy’s face showed her consternation. “Good morning, Trixie. I’m so glad you’re back. It’s been such a long time.”

Her relief at being addressed by her own name was mixed with confusion as to what to say in response, since it had only been lunchtime yesterday that she had seen Ivy last.

“It’s good to see you, too, Ivy. You seem well today.”

“I am, thank you.” The old lady settled to eating her food.

As she, too, ate, Trixie watched the unknown woman. Every so often, she would shoot a glance at Trixie that was filled with venom. For the first time since she came, Trixie felt that she was faced with true hostility. The small problems that she had experienced paled in comparison to what she was feeling now. She had to wonder whether this woman was the cause of the troubles.

“You look preoccupied, dear,” Ivy told her. “Is there a problem?”

Trixie thought quickly. “I was wondering something, if you don’t mind my asking. Could you tell me who was Edith?”

A look of astonishment crossed the elderly face. “How did you hear of her?”

Trixie felt a blush rising in her cheeks, but she could not say why. “You’ve spoken of her a couple of times, when you’re … not feeling so well. I just wondered who she was.”

Ivy glanced away, looking sad. “She was a friend of mine, who moved away a long time ago. I’m not quite sure what happened to her. I think she might have died.”

“She was married?” Trixie asked.

The old lady nodded. “Yes. She met a man from far away and went away with him when they married. There was something very sad … her son … I don’t remember quite how it went.”

“Was his name Philip?”

A light lit Ivy’s face as comprehension dawned. “Yes, that was it. So many babies lost and only the one survived, but there was something wrong with him.”

“That is very sad,” she agreed. “Do you know what happened to him?”

Ivy shook her head. “It’s such a long time ago. I haven’t heard from Edith in … oh, more than fifty years. Such a long time.”

“Finish your food, Ivy,” the strange woman snapped, casting a disapproving look at Trixie. “We’re not here to chat.”

In response, Ivy pushed her plate away and hung her head in shame. A wave of anger filled Trixie and she vowed to do something about this at the first available opportunity. The strange woman looked angrily at Ivy, then at Trixie, then at her half-full plate. She ate the rest of her food, moving her knife and fork in sharp, stabbing motions, then clattering them onto the plate when she was finished. She wasted no time in getting Ivy to her feet and moving off to her suite of rooms.

Trixie was almost too angry to eat any more, but finished it off nonetheless. She returned to her room and, having securely closed the door, put a call through to William.

“Who is that woman who’s with Ivy now?” she asked him, once they had exchanged greetings. “She was really rude to me and cruel to Ivy. She upset poor Ivy so much that she wouldn’t eat any more.”

William sighed. “It doesn’t take much to upset Ivy enough to stop her from eating. As for the rudeness, I will speak to her. Her name is Reba Barnes and I’m afraid I should have warned you about her. She has the unfortunate flaw of suspecting that everyone I send into the house on any business whatsoever is there for the sole purpose of spying on her. Please don’t take it personally. She does it to everyone.”

“But why do you keep her here, if she acts like that?” Trixie wondered, utterly perplexed.

He laughed. “My dear girl, do you think there are a lot of people in a town this size who would like to spend their weekend caring for a woman like Ivy? It’s a tough job and the pay is not all that great. When Ivy is particularly bad – and you haven’t yet seen her when she is – it can be quite a terrible job. I have the unenviable task of trying to respect Ivy’s wish to stay in her own home, but without running out of money in her lifetime. If she dies in the next two years, there will be a substantial amount left, but in four years, there will be very little; if she lives another six or more years, I am afraid that there will be nothing left at all and I run the risk of ending with an unpayable debt, which I would feel responsible to discharge – these have been my decisions, after all. I can’t afford to pay more and I can’t attract better staff without doing so. Reba is usually good with Ivy, but I do promise to see her about this incident.”

Trixie frowned, deep in thought. “If money is so tight, then why am I here?”

William sighed. “It’s a gamble, I know, but everything I do with regard to Ivy is a gamble. Right now, I’m working on the principle that she probably won’t last more than another two or three years. Her health is deteriorating and her retreats into the past are becoming more frequent. If that is the case, then I need to be working on the problem of her will, which is where you come in. But, perhaps I’m wrong and she’s going to live to be one hundred and five. In that case, I can’t afford to waste money looking for non-existent heirs when the money could be better spent on keeping Ivy happy while she’s alive. So, I hedge my bets and spend a small amount on someone – that’s you, of course – to listen to Ivy talk and to look around the house for clues.”

“I think I understand,” she answered. “Is there anything else I can do to help?”

“You’ve already done a lot more than I expected you to do and so quickly.” There was a smile in his voice. “I had a hard time believing some of the things I read in your character references, but they all seem to be true.”

Trixie was once again filled with curiosity over what they contained. “I like helping people,” she answered, not knowing what else to say.

“Well, you’ve already helped me considerably. Don’t worry too much about Reba, but thank you for letting me know.”

“You’re welcome.” Another thought occurred to her. “I don’t know if Elaine talked to you yet about what happened last night …”

“She did. First thing this morning.” He sighed. “I don’t understand why someone would do that. It seems incomprehensible.”

“I have some ideas. After I’ve cleaned up the attic, I want to do some more searching. I’ll probably do that on Monday, while Ivy is having her rest.”

“Clean up the attic?” He sounded incredulous. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Well, it’s my fault that it got messed up,” she reasoned. “If I hadn’t found it, there wouldn’t be any mess.”

“I don’t see that as a reason to clean it. How about if you stick to what you’re supposed to be doing and leave any cleaning up for later. I don’t see that it’s all that important.”

“Okay, I will,” she answered, though inwardly felt that she would have to do at least some of it. Another thought occurred to her. “By the way, do you happen to have known a friend of Ivy’s called Edith? Sometimes, she thinks that I’m Edith and I can’t help but wonder who she was.”

“Hmm …” There was a pause as he thought. “No, I can’t say that I can recall anyone of that name. I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter. I just wondered.”

Not having anything else of importance to discuss, she thanked him for his time and they said their goodbyes.

The rest of the day was not productive, from the point of view of her case, but she enjoyed it and managed not to feel guilty about leaving the house for a nice, long walk. Reba continued to be hostile to Trixie and she felt it to be in Ivy’s best interests if she kept out of the way. During the evening meal, she tried to keep to herself as much as possible. This was easy enough as Ivy was quiet and uncommunicative and Reba would not look at her at all. Trixie took this to mean that William had kept his word and had spoken to her.

A short time later, it was time for her chat with Honey and Di. She had been looking forward to this enormously, as it had been a long few weeks since the three of them had shared a conversation. Their varying time zones and schedules had worked against them and, while each two of the three had kept in touch, getting all three together was much harder.

As she logged into the room, she found that both of her friends had beaten her there.

Diana: If you think it’s a good idea, then it’s fine with me.
Diana: Oh, hi Trixie!
Honey: Hi Trixie!
Trixie: Am I late, or did you give me the wrong time? *raises eyebrow*
Honey: *giggle* No, we just both happened to be early. There’s no conspiracy here.
Diana: Nuh uh. No conspiracy.
Trixie: I’m not sure I believe you. You’re up to something.
Diana: Who us?
Honey: Who us?
Diana: Jinx!

In spite of the niggling worry she felt regarding Di’s mysterious statement, not intended for Trixie’s eyes, she laughed.

Trixie: There will be no jinxing here! I’ve waited too long for this to have to keep unjinxing people.
Diana: Sorry. I’ve just spent half an hour chatting with my sisters. You wouldn’t believe how often they type exactly the same thing as each other. They even make the same typos.
Honey: So, Trixie, how’s your job going? Are you still having trouble with the old lady calling you the wrong name?
Trixie: Sometimes. I still don’t know who Edith was, but Mart came up with a theory that maybe she was our great-grandmother! I can’t prove it, though.
Diana: When did you talk to Mart? I thought he and Dan were going to summer camp.
Honey: Sometimes I think Mart and Dan would do well as summer campers. They have the right mentality.
Trixie: That’s why they do so well as camp counsellors. They’re on a level with their campers. Oh, and they stayed here last night. Moms told them I was lonely and they took pity on me.
Honey: That was nice of them.
Trixie: Except they kept fighting all the time. Boys!
Diana: At least you got to see them. I don’t think I’ll see any Bob-Whites until maybe Thanksgiving.
Honey: You’ll see me. I’m going to visit every single Bob-White, no matter how far I have to go, before classes start.

A big smile settled on Trixie’s face as she read what Honey had just written. She had been afraid that she would not see her best friend for quite some time to come. While budget considerations had caused Trixie had choose a college in New York State, Honey had chosen one further afield. These decisions meant that they were apart for the greater proportion of the time, only meeting up on occasion. Trixie missed all of her friends, but she missed Honey the most.

Diana: I hope so, Hon. I miss you!
Trixie: What Di said. :(
Honey: I miss both of you, too. I’m so sorry for going away like this.
Trixie: You needed to.

It hurt to admit it, even to herself, but Trixie knew that what she had just written was true. While she herself had been having dating disasters, Honey had experienced some disasters of her own. Unlike Jim and Trixie, Honey and Brian had actually talked about their relationship before Brian went away to college and agreed that they should see other people. Honey had dated a little during high school, but it was in college that she met someone who seemed right and she quickly got close to him. To Honey’s distress, the relationship had come to an abrupt end about six weeks ago. While Honey had been heartbroken, her boyfriend had been much less serious about her than she was about him and appeared unaffected by the break-up.

Diana: Trixie’s right. You need this. You shouldn’t feel bad about it.
Honey: Thank you both. Maybe I do need this. I know I already feel better.
Trixie: Then it’s worth it. Even if it makes me sad.
Honey: *crying* I don’t want you to be sad.
Diana: I’m sorry for leaving you Trixie. Maybe I should have gone home.
Trixie: Oh, don’t be silly. I’m fine.
Trixie: Let’s talk about something else. How are things with you, Di?
Honey: On a different topic …
Honey: Oops! You first.
Diana: I’m just fine. There’s nothing much happening really.
Honey: Boys?
Diana: No. No boys.
Honey: Really???
Diana: Yes, really.
Trixie: You may not be interested in the boys, but I bet they’re interested in you.
Diana: Probably. There’s always the kind of boys I’d never go out with, but you must get that too, Trix.
Trixie: Not really. Boys aren’t that interested in me.
Honey: At least, not that you notice. ;)
Diana: LOL! That’s it, Honey. Can’t you just see it? There’s boys falling over themselves to get to Trixie and she doesn’t notice a thing.
Honey: True, but if they do anything mysterious, she’ll be onto them like a shot.

A small pang of hurt pulled at Trixie’s insides. She knew that her friends meant no harm and that they were not making fun of her, but it still rankled to think that they thought that way of her. As they were among those who knew her the best, it stood to reason that if they thought this about her, it could quite possibly be right. Did she really notice mysteries to the exclusion of all else? She had not thought so, but perhaps her self image was not accurate.

Diana: Of course, if they knew her at all, they’d know to be mysterious on purpose, to attract her attention. And if they couldn’t think of that for themselves, then they’re probably not worthy of her in the first place.
Honey: True. I can’t think of too many boys who really are worthy of Trixie. She’s one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met.
Trixie: I am still here, you know.
Honey: Good. I want you to know that.
Diana: Since we’ve probably embarrassed Trixie enough …
Trixie: More than enough!
Diana: Ahem. I was saying …

For a couple of minutes, nothing happened. Trixie fiddled around with various things, trying to see if she had lost her connection, but all seemed well on her end. At last, she began to wonder if Di had dropped out for some reason. Her patience ran out and she had to take some action.

Trixie: Di? Are you there?
Diana: Yes. I’m here.
Honey: You were going to say something.
Diana: Was I?
Trixie: Yes!
Diana: Sorry. I got distracted.
Honey: By?
Diana: Oh, I wish you could see the view from this window. A whole bunch of guys with no shirts just jogged past.
Honey: Why is it that I don’t ever get windows where half-clothed men jog by? It’s not fair.

Taken by surprise, Trixie laughed aloud.

Trixie: We’ll put it on the criteria when we share that apartment with the no boys allowed rule.
Diana: Do I want to know what that’s about?
Honey: It’s a plan that Trix and I came up with the last time we talked. In case we stay boyfriend-free forever.
Diana: That’s not going to happen!
Honey: It might. I might swear off boys. They hurt you.
Diana: *hugs* They don’t all do that, I’m sure. Just look at our parents.
Trixie: It’s hard to believe that any of our fathers were like the boys that I know. Not the Bob-Whites, I mean, but ones I know from college.
Diana: Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? If you want a boyfriend you can trust, you need one who’s good enough to be a Bob-White.

With a jolt, Trixie sat back. For a few moments, she considered the boys she had dated and whether any of them fit the simple criteria Di had just given. She was not surprised to find that they did not. Her perspective on her situation shifted and she began to see her life in a new way. She was so busy thinking about this that she did not notice that the conversation had continued without her and that she needed to catch up.

Honey: There’s so few boys who are that good. I kind of thought I might have found one, but I think he was only pretending to be good enough.
Diana: I don’t think I have anything nice to say about him, so maybe I shouldn’t say anything.
Honey: My grandmother always tells me that. My mother, too.
Diana: You wouldn’t have pointed out that you were having evil thoughts, like I did.
Honey: No, but that’s because I was brought up to be very polite. I like it better when people are honest, but sometimes I forget to be honest and I’m polite by accident.
Diana: It’s better than being honest by accident.
Trixie: That’s my speciality.
Honey: And we love you for it. <3
Trixie: I’m glad someone does. It’s embarrassing!
Diana: But you’re among friends here and I don’t think you do it anywhere near as much now as you used to.
Trixie: Luckily!
Honey: *yawning* I think I’m going to have to leave it there. It’s getting pretty late here and I was up early.
Diana: You were? That’s not like you.
Honey: Early for me. :p
Honey: Good night! Love you both. Talk to you soon!
Diana: Good night, Honey! Love you!
Trixie: Love you, too. Good night, Honey!

After Honey left the chat room, Trixie let out a sigh.

Diana: You are okay, aren’t you Trixie? I mean, about being there by yourself.
Trixie: Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?
Diana: I just wondered. It’s lonely being by yourself when everyone else is doing something more fun than you are.
Trixie: Yes, but I’m enjoying this job … mostly.
Diana: I’m glad.
Trixie: Di, are you okay?
Diana: I guess so. I chose this, so it’s not really like your situation, where you kind of fell into it.
Trixie: But something is wrong there? Is someone bothering you?
Diana: No. Nothing like that. Sometimes I just wish things were like they used to be.
Trixie: Me too.

A pause ensued, during which Trixie wondered just what was going through her friend’s mind.

Diana: I need to go too. It’s been so good catching up that I didn’t want it to end, but I really should have left ten minutes ago.
Trixie: Are you going out? Have fun! I expect a full report next time. ;)
Diana: Yes, I’m going out, but no it’s not like that. Just as friends.
Trixie: Well, have fun anyway. Good night!
Diana: Good night Trixie!

She waited for her friend to exit the room, then did the same. Flopping back on her bed, she considered the way things were going and the chances of the three of them living near each other ever again. That thought was depressing and for an instant Trixie related to Ivy, when she had asked her friend not to go away. Almost at once, she pushed that feeling away. Ivy had stood by, helpless, while her mother forced her to remain at home. Trixie had all the freedom she could want and the determination to grasp it. Their circumstances were so different and yet there were some feelings that were the same.

In that instant, Trixie knew that she would have to work at keeping her close friendships and that she had not made enough effort in some instances. She had let the hurt she felt at being left behind cloud her judgement. Tomorrow, she decided, she would make a start on making amends.

Next

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