“Well, there are reasons for each one of them,” she muttered and pulled out several of the boxes. “This is chamomile to help you sleep. This one is raspberry leaf tea for, you know, that time of the month,” and she waggled her eyebrows at her. “I mean, you aren’t that old yet.”
Doreen sighed. “I wish I was.”
“Too bad for you. I’m still hoping for a great-grandchild.”
At that, Doreen started to laugh. “I don’t think that’s happening anytime soon.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Nan said. “Give it time.”
As she put on the coffee, Doreen looked outside to see Mack sitting in the new chair. She nudged Nan. “I think he approves.”
Nan burst out laughing, as she walked outside. “I didn’t think you’d fit.”
“I sit, so I fit,” Mack said in a weird voice. He had Goliath in his arms and Thaddeus on his shoulder.
Doreen gasped, as she walked out to join them. “I think you’ve completely charmed my furry and feathered family away from me.”
“Nope, but they’re happy to have me visit,” he said, with a smile. “And I have to admit that it’s nice to have this kind of a welcome.”
“But what have you done about finding Isaac?” Nan asked immediately. He looked at her and frowned. She shook her head. “Don’t you give me that look, young man. I know perfectly well what’s going on with Isaac.”
He leaned forward and said, “What do you know about Isaac?”
“Well, not that,” she said. “I asked everybody at the home, and nobody knows anything about him.”
He frowned at her and stared over at Doreen.
She nodded. “Yes, I asked her because, if anybody knows everything or everyone, it’s Nan, and, if she doesn’t know, then usually somebody in that place does.”
“I could talk to Richie about it,” Mack said absently, as he studied the lawn around them.
“I already did,” Nan said immediately. “He doesn’t know the name either. Everybody’s got their thinking caps on now though.” She glanced at Doreen. “Besides, a bet’s riding on this one.”
He sighed. “Nan, you’re not supposed to be betting anymore.”
“Oh, it’s just for fun,” she said.
“Pennies?” he asked.
“Cookies,” she said immediately. Something tongue-in-cheek about her tone of voice made Doreen look at her skeptically, but her grandmother just beamed her a bright, cheerful smile, so she wasn’t sure if Nan meant it or not.
“Well, somebody has to know something about Isaac,” Doreen said. “There has to be a birth certificate somewhere.”
“But does there?” Nan asked. “Way back when I was born, birth certificates were only issued if you needed to get passports and driver’s licenses. Most people didn’t care, and, in my mother and my grandmother’s day, we certainly didn’t. All kinds of folks had babies and didn’t worry about paperwork.”
“And that could be what we’re seeing here,” Mack said, “but that would mean that Isaac wasn’t born in a hospital,” he said.
“Lots of babies aren’t born in hospitals. That’s nothing new. When you look at it over the span of my lifetime, actually being born in a hospital is what’s new,” she muttered. “At least in the last sixty or seventy years.”
“Well, it’s certainly more common now that home births are making a resurgence,” he said.
“I never understood that myself,” Doreen said. “You’d think you’d want the best medical support available.”
“Sure, but there’s also a certain amount of stress and strain from all the noise and irritants involved in a hospital,” he said. “So, if you can have the birth, relaxed at home, with good medical care right there, using a midwife or attending nurses, then perfect.”
She nodded. “I’ve never really thought much about it,” she said. When she heard the buzzer of the coffeemaker, she went inside, then poured two cups and came back out again. She heard Mack and Nan discussing something else as she returned. “Uh-oh.” She frowned because Nan was already glaring at her.
“You didn’t tell me that he attacked you,” Nan cried out in horror.
She handed Mack his coffee. “Well, it doesn’t matter if I did or didn’t,” she said. “He didn’t really attack me, just pushed me and threatened to do worse, and besides, once again, Mugs defended me. Goliath too.”
Nan immediately crouched beside Mugs and cuddled him, though the dog didn’t know what the fuss was all about and didn’t appear to care. He happily rolled onto his back and kicked out his feet, perfectly content to accept the accolades coming his way.
“Do you know who he is though?” Mack asked her.
“He was big,” Doreen said, “like bigger than you.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Not too many men in town are of that size,” he said. “I could name most of them on one hand.”
“Well, in that case, you should know him yourself. He did have a scar alongside the jawbone here.”
He stared at her and said, “Randy?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Big, and he had a brush cut. Looks like he’s just past his prime, like he used to be a fitness buff or in the military or something, but carrying a little bit extra around the middle.”
“That would be Randy too,” he said, staring at her in amazement.
“Is that good or bad?”
“I’d say Randy is a good guy,” he muttered. “I’ll have to think about that.”
“Well, if you know him, you can go talk to him.”
“Or somebody has already reported it, and it’ll filter my way anyhow,” he said.
“You said you’d heard about it already. That’s why you came to check on me.”
He looked at the coffee and said, “I guess you’d be upset if I got up and left right now, wouldn’t you?”
She nodded slowly. “Particularly if you won’t tell me why.”
“Nope. Not telling you anything,” he said.
“And the rock?” she asked suddenly.
He shook his head. “Nothing on it.”
“Right,” she said. “Of course not.”
“Rock?” Nan asked curiously. “What are you talking about?”
Mack looked at her and said, “What? You didn’t tell her that either?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t want to worry her.”
“Tell me what, young lady?” Nan glared down her nose at her.
“Somebody just wants me to leave town,” she said. “So a large rock from the garden was placed against the screen door to the kitchen, so I couldn’t get out.”
Nan gasped. “Wow. People really are targeting you, aren’t they?”
“Well, I was hoping not,” she muttered.
“And after all you’ve done for this town too,” she said.
“But think about it, Nan. A lot of people, like maybe somebody close to Steve, are upset because I put him behind bars.”