“Oh, nice,” I said, nodding. I just wanted our conversation to be over. “That’ll be fun for all of you.”

“It was actually her idea to come talk to you,” he said. “Babette’s.”

“Her name is Babette?”

His mouth turned upward in a lazy smile. “Babette Sherzer.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, that was nice of her to think of letting me know before the kids showed up. I can tell them so they won’t be so surprised.”

The smile withered. “No. I meant it was her idea about maybe having them spend some time with me since you were having…uh, some trouble. She said it sounded like maybe things were a little out of control.”

My goodwill quickly evaporated. “Thornton, I’m genuinely happy for you. I hope it works out. But telling me your new girlfriend is questioning whether or not the kids should be with me is about a million times worse than your questioning it. Do you see that?”

He thought hard for a moment, like he was genuinely struggling with the question.

“Oh,” he said. “I guess so.”

I shook my head, my patience gone and my nose cold. “I need to get inside.”

He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “I need to get to practice, too. I’m in a new band.”

“Oh, yeah?” I tried to sound interested.

He nodded. “Yeah. We’re pretty good. I think this could be it.” He smiled. “Babette’s insane.”

I stared at him, confused by the sudden change in topic. “That doesn’t exactly make me want to let you have the kids around her,” I said tightly.

He looked confused for a moment, then shook his head. “No, no. That’s the name of our band. Babette’s Insane. She’s the lead singer.”

Of course.

THIRTY TWO

I went into the church and the 4-H meeting was just wrapping up. They’d gotten together for a community service project and the tables were littered with two hundred bird feeders made of various recycled materials. I knew they were planning to deliver them to the senior center in town during their next regular meeting.

The kids were milling around and didn’t look quite ready to go yet, so I took a seat and pulled out my phone. I was deleting all of the junk emails when Carol Vinford approached me.

“Hi Daisy,” she said. Her voice was high and thin, like she’d just swallowed a mouthful of helium. “How are you?”

I hadn’t spoken to her since the co-op sign-up day when everyone had avoided my class.

“I’m alright,” I said, tucking my phone away into my purse. “You?”

“Okay,” she said, still smiling. “I think the meeting is just about over.”

I glanced at the kids. “Yeah, looks that way.”

She looked around the room. I could tell she wanted to say something to me but I wasn’t going to make it any easier on her by asking.

She took a deep breath. “So,” she finally said. “Co-op.”

“Mmhmm.”

“We have sort of…an issue.”

I sighed. “Carol, I know no one wants to sign up for my class. It’s fine. I told you we can just cancel it. I’m not going to force anyone to spend time with me if they don’t want to.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, no. That’s not the issue.”

I wondered if they were worried that we’d start bringing dead bodies to class. “What’s the issue then?”

She sat down in the chair next to me, scooting it away just a bit. “Stella Bogard had to cancel her class about nutrition. Her husband was laid off and she had to go find a job.”

I frowned. “Oh, wow. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“And Violet Tumbledrag had to cancel her math class because she broke her ankle,” Carol said, wringing her hands slowly in her lap. “Shoveling her driveway, don’t ya know.”

“Oh, that’s rotten.” At least she hadn’t ended up like poor Sally in the mortuary.

“For sure, yeah,” Carol said. “So we’re down two classes, unfortunately. We’re supposed to offer a minimum of ten. Losing those two, plus yours? Well, that puts us at nine. If we’re under ten we can’t run the co-op because we won’t have enough registration money to cover the building rental.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly pull mine, Carol,” I said. “It seemed pretty clear that no one wanted to take it. You yourself indicated that your kids weren’t interested. After you said they were,” I added.

Carol winced and clasped her hands together. “Right. Right. Well, here’s the thing. I have another mother who is willing to teach a class. On Minnesota history. That would give us ten if she’s able to.”

I nodded, unsure where she was going. “Okay. Well, then it sounds like the problem is solved.”

She started wringing her hands again. “Not exactly. The woman who has offered to teach?” She hesitated and then, in a small voice, said, “She’ll only do it if your kids aren’t in her class.”

I waited a moment. “Excuse me?”

“She’s worried about, I don’t know, I guess the drama that might be involved,” Carol said quickly. “With the investigation and all. She thinks it might be a distraction if your kids are in her class. So she wanted an assurance that they wouldn’t sign up.”

I looked away from her for a moment to compose myself. The anger I’d felt toward Thornton was nothing compared to what I was feeling now. Carol was sitting next to me, calmly telling me that my kids were being blackballed from a class they hadn’t signed up for because of a crime they had nothing to do with. It was the most cowardly thing I’d ever heard.

I stood and spotted Will on the other side of the room. I called out to him. “Will. Grab the girls. We’re leaving.”

“I know this is hard,” Carol said, standing. “I know it doesn’t seem fair.”

“That’s because it’s not,” I said. I turned to her and the expression on my face made her shrink away. “You all are acting like morons.”

She cast her eyes downward but not before I saw a look of guilt blossom there. “Well, I don’t know if—”

“I do, Carol. I absolutely know that you all are behaving like morons. And you’re being unbelievably unfair to my kids.” I stared at her. “And I’m not gonna take that.”

Her neck flushed red, the color quickly traveling to her cheeks. “Daisy, you’re taking this all the wrong way.”

I swallowed hard. “How exactly should I take it then? Tell me.”

Her lips pursed and she didn’t offer anything.

“You tell whoever your replacement teacher is that she has nothing to worry about,” I said. “My kids won’t set foot near her class.”

Carol’s hand rested over her heart. “Oh, well. Thank you for being so understanding. You know how much we all value your—”

I cut her off. “My kids won’t be setting foot in any of the classes.”

She blinked at me. “What?”

“We quit,” I said. “All of us.”

Her eyes widened. “But Daisy. You can’t. We need you. You know that. You handle our finances. And our master calendar. No one else knows how to do those things because you’ve done them for so long.”

“We quit,” I repeated, enunciating each word. “You don’t want us around, we won’t come around.” I shrugged. “Easy as that.”

She started to say something else, but I held up my hand to stop her.

“Not another word, Carol,” I said, shaking my head. “You can just shove all your issues. Right up your big, fat butt.”

THIRTY THREE

“Jake!” Grace yelled when he walked through the door. “Carol has a big fat butt!”

Jake set his keys on the table. “Well, that’s excellent to know. Thank you for sharing.”

Grace bounded off the couch and headed for the stairs. “Mommy told her she had one!”

I was checking on the casserole in the oven and turned back around to find him staring at me.

“So,” he said. “How was your day?”

I closed the oven door. I didn’t believe in obscene gestures but at that moment my middle finger twitched in his direction. “Fine.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And why exactly were you informing Carol about the size of her ass?”

“Because she is an ass,” I snapped.

He kicked off his boots. “Should I go ask Will for his interpretation of what happened or are you going to tell me?”