Monster in Miniature by Margaret Grace Page A

rocked back on them and wheeled herself around me.
    Henry was close behind Maddie. “Your garage door is still open,” he said, sounding worried that someone might have walked in and stolen me away.
    “What time is it?” I asked, craning my stiff neck to see the clock. Which must have been off by a couple of hours. “It can’t be five o’clock.”
    It seemed it was. I’d slept more than three hours.
    Maddie had made her way to my lap. Or at least some of Maddie was on my lap. Tall for her age, she no longer fit comfortably. Her legs dangled next to my still, stiff ones; her neck was bent to snuggle in mine.
    “You didn’t call,” she said. “And you weren’t answering your phone.” She picked up my cell phone and frowned. “It’s not even on. But we called your landline, too. You must have been really out.” She held me as if she’d been worried that she’d never see or hear from me again.
    “I’m sorry to make you worry, sweetheart, but I’m fine.” I opened my eyes as wide as I could and smiled as broadly as I could, emphasizing my point.
    I looked at Henry, standing by. “Sorry,” I said.
    “We’re just glad you’re okay,” he said.
    I remembered that my car was still in front of his house, from ten this morning. “I should go back with you and get my car,” I said.
    “Don’t worry. I drove your car here, Grandma,” Maddie said.
    Even before she gave me her teasing grin, I tickled her all around her middle. Nice to know I wasn’t that far gone.
     
     
    Back from Henry’s with my car, I thought it was time I retrieved my messages. Between my home answering machine and my cell phone voice mail, I had eight messages, not counting the many short ones from Maddie. The eight were from two people—four from Beverly and four from Susan. The gist of Beverly’s sequence was “Can we have lunch today?” (the one I’d ignored as I left the house in the morning), followed by two versions of “It might be too late for lunch now,” and finally, “Maybe I’ll stop by for dinner.”
    Maddie curtailed her table-setting activities when she heard the last one and rushed to call her Aunt Beverly. (We had researched the question and found that one’s grandfather’s sister should be called a great-aunt, but Beverly refused any designation preceded by “great.”)
    “Aunt Beverly said she was coming over anyway,” Maddie said, hanging up the phone. “She was worried when you didn’t answer your phones. How could you sleep through all that ringing? I called the line in the kitchen a lot, even more than the times I left a message.”
    I doubted she was exaggerating. “I must have been really tired,” I told her.
    I supposed I should have been grateful and flattered that I was missed after only a long nap.
    Susan’s messages were also sequential. They began with, “Have you been to Oliver’s place yet?” and ended with, “I’m anxious to hear what you found at Oliver’s place.” Susan spoke in a gravelly voice that was different from her usual lilting southern tones. I suspected she was also short on sleep these days.
    I felt like a dud. With the whole day at my disposal, I’d opened only one of Ken’s boxes, done nothing to help Susan, pawned my granddaughter off on other people, and was now barely scraping a dinner together. It was a good thing Beverly was family, or I would have had to rethink the platter of leftovers I was planning to serve.
    My greatest wish was that I’d gone to Oliver’s apartment and picked up the miniature scene for Susan and found a suicide note the police may have overlooked. Cruel as that sounded, it would have brought a speedy close to Susan’s questioning and started her on the road to proper grieving.
    I had another wish. I wished I’d stayed awake, gone through every scrap of paper in every one of Ken’s boxes and found only praiseworthy correspondence, perhaps one reading, Dear Mr. Porter, we accept your high moral position and your exemplary