Muddy Bottom (eBook)

From her kitchen window, Birdie watches the sun rise over the inlet. Pink sky atop golden marsh and murky water. A new day. A new year. A fresh start. Aside from a gust of wind rippling the water, the inlet is quiet, the world sleeping off last night’s celebration.

What does this year hold for her? Will she expand her pie business? Or will this be the year she returns to nursing? Baking satisfies a creative side she’s only recently discovered and keeps her connected to friends and acquaintances she wouldn’t otherwise see. Watching her business flourish has become one of the few joys in an otherwise mundane life. Humdrum, her mama used to call it. Isn’t that the norm for middle age?

Casting frequent glances at the window, Birdie rolls out her first batch of pie crusts. Rum is the pie flavor of month. Her grandmother’s recipe is the best she’s ever tasted, but the directions are complicated, and by the time she places three pies in the oven, it’s going on nine o’clock. She’s surprised and slightly concerned her husband hasn’t returned home from kayaking. Cary rarely misses an opportunity to sleep in, especially on holidays. But they’d gone to bed early, choosing not to usher in the New Year, and he was gone when she woke a few minutes before dawn.

Retrieving her fleece from the coat closet, she slips out the back door, crosses the screen porch, and makes her way down the path to the creek. On the other side of the wooden storage shed that houses life preservers and fishing equipment, she discovers Cary’s kayak in the bottom slot of the log rack. Turning away from the rack, she sees their center console boat tied to the dock and, up at the house, Cary’s car in the driveway alongside Birdie’s and their daughter’s.

Where could her husband possibly be at such an early hour on New Year’s Day?

Wrapping her fleece tighter, she hurries up to the attached garage where she finds Cary’s bicycle hanging from a rack alongside his hunting waders. Birdie enters the house through the kitchen and darts up the stairs to their bedroom. His wallet is on top of their chest of drawers, his iPad and iPhone charging on his bedside table. In their shared walk-in closet, his suits and starched dress shirts hang according to color in a neat row. His carry-on suitcase, the only one he owns, is parked beneath the built-in shelves that house his shoes.

Heart pounding in ears, Birdie scours the house from attic to utility basement, checking in closets and under beds. Cary is nowhere in sight. Wait! There’s one room left to search. Why didn’t she think of it sooner? Cary must be with Hannah. When their daughter was a child, Cary read to her nearly every night. During Hannah’s teenage years, Birdie often found him sitting in the rocker beside her bed late at night, watching Hannah sleep. He must have gone into her room to kiss her goodnight and nodded off in the rocker.

She takes the stairs two at a time on the way back to the second floor. Cracking Hannah’s door open, she peeks inside. Her daughter is sleeping in a ball on her side, palms pressed together and wedged between cheek and pillow. The rocker beside her bed is empty.