No Neighborhood for Old Women (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery) by Judy Alter Page A

now a part of my life, but I didn’t know how I’d miss him if he dropped out. I didn’t think about it, didn’t expect it to happen. I guess that answered the question of whether or not I wanted a relationship. My independence didn’t seem so important at this point. I wondered if he was miserable too, and which one of us was stubborn—or was it both?
    While I was in such a blue funk—Keisha hit it right on the head—my mom called to say that if we wanted her in Texas so badly, she’d decided to move right away. She’d like to live in the cottage I’d mentioned.
    “Mom, you have to sell your house, first.”
    “I’ll just list it with an agent and leave.”
    “Mom, empty houses don’t sell well. They need to have furniture in them. And, you need to realize that your house will be a redo for anyone who buys it.”
    “It’s a perfectly good house, Kelly. I’ve lived in it thirty-six years.”
    “I know,” I said, picturing the outdated kitchen with its old, chipped porcelain sink, it’s electric stove with the those wide burners, and the refrigerator that had old-fashioned ice cube trays—no ice maker, no ice or water in the door. The rest of the house was about the same—and I thought of Mrs. Glenn’s house. That was what my childhood home looked like. “Talk to an agent—do you know one?”
    “My friend Louise just sold her house in five days. I’m sure she’d recommend her agent.”
    Five days? Lord, deliver me . “Well, Mom, this house down here won’t be ready until late September.”
    “Why can’t I stay in that apartment you told me about? The one where the young girl lived.”
    I repeated that Claire was there now and would be indefinitely, and Mom suggested I just tell Claire, whoever she was, to move because my mother needed the apartment. I said I couldn’t do that, and she said, “I don’t know, Kelly. I think you take some questionable people into your life. You must watch out for the girls.”
    I gritted my teeth and decided to ignore that comment. She would have a fit if she knew why Claire lived with us. “Mom, you’ll have to sort what you’ve accumulated in thirty-six years. You’ll have to pack and figure out what you’re bringing down here and what you’re not. This house is smaller, much smaller.”
    “Oh, I’ll just pack everything and then sort when I get there.”
    I envisioned an astronomical moving bill, and I could see a trip to Chicago looming in my future, but who would keep the girls? I couldn’t afford to fly all of us up there, and they’d be bored to tears. I talked to Mom a bit more, urging her to begin to sort and explaining how expensive it would be to move everything. Please God, I thought, let it take her months to do. It will keep her busy and give me time to plan.
    Keisha was in my visitor’s chair by the time I hung up. “You got a problem, Kelly,” she pronounced.
    “Yeah. Mom will be scared and want to stay with us all the time. I know she’s my mother, and she took good care of me until I flew the coop, but I didn’t know she would turn so…so helpless.”
    Keisha, today wearing jeans, a loose, flowing top in bright pink, and matching spike heels, leaned back, stretched out her feet, yawned, and said, “Well, I been living with my mama too long. I guess I can go live with yours for a while.”
    “Keisha, are you serious?” I was overwhelmed by the generosity of her offer, even as I wondered about Mom’s reaction to Keisha.
    “Yeah, I can whip her into shape for you. Gently, of course. Didn’t you say there’s a garden? I got a green thumb a foot long and a mile wide.” She laughed, and the sound came from deep in her throat. “You tell Anthony to get on with it.” She got up to go back to her desk and then turned, “And if you have to go up north, I’ll stay with the girls. I know you ain’t quite comfortable ‘bout leaving them with Miss Claire for days.”
    She really is psychic, I thought. “And Claire might not