Snipped in the Bud by Kate Collins

she said in her big voice. She listened a moment, then covered the handset with her palm and whispered, “Guess who.”
    “Hmm. Let’s see…Mommy dearest?”
    Grace and Lottie knew I loved my mother. They also knew there were times when she drove me crazy, and I had a feeling this would be one of those times, best suffered from a distance, the most desirable location being Nome, Alaska. The only thing that I had going for me now was that until three thirty that afternoon, she was confined to her classroom.
    My mother was a lively, bright, well-loved kindergarten teacher who had raised my two brothers and me with a firm but gentle hand and had seen my father through the adversities of surgery and a crippling stroke. A year ago she’d decided to take a sculpting class, so, as a Christmas gift, my father bought her a potter’s wheel. That was the beginning of a series of clay pieces that could only be described as bizarre. Even worse, she had decided that Bloomers was the perfect place to display her creations, so every Monday for the last two months she had lugged in her latest sculpture for me to sell.
    Two weeks ago she had turned her talents, such as they were, to making mosaics, which had sounded like a great idea—at first. After all, how many bizarre creations could be made from little clay tiles? Except that she wasn’t using clay tiles. She was using mirrored tiles. She hadn’t brought any of her creations in yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time.
    When I’d joined my parents for dinner on Sunday, Mom had already tiled the brass umbrella stand by the front door, the living-room lamps, the old wooden trunk they used as a coffee table, all the vases and candlesticks in the house, a giant wooden salad bowl, a soup tureen, the place mats on the dining-room table, and both sides of the swinging kitchen door. She’d even mirrored the hall mirror. There had been so much reflection in the house that I’d had to wear sunglasses during the meal. I wouldn’t even enter the bathroom for fear of seeing body parts distorted in a way that would cause nightmares for years. I couldn’t begin to explain how much I was dreading next Monday.
    I carried my cup through the curtain to my desk in the workroom and sat down, but before I picked up the phone I swiveled the chair for a quick look around the room. My gaze swept the long countertops, the shelves on the wall that overflowed with containers of silk flowers, the big, stainless steel, walk-in cooler stuffed with fresh blossoms, the long, slate worktable in the middle of the room, then back to my desk, with its familiar cat pencil cup, framed photos, small computer monitor, and a pile of paperwork waiting to be filed.
    I called that glance around the room my sanity second because it always brought me a feeling of well-being that allowed me to face just about anything. It wasn’t merely a workroom to me. It was a tropical paradise—fragrant, peaceful, inspiring, colorful…I couldn’t even begin to describe all the feelings it evoked. All I knew was that at Bloomers I had finally found a place where I fit, a place where my light could shine, where neither my height nor my measurements nor my ability to cite case law mattered.
    I had only one major fear—failure. It had happened to me once too often not to leave scars. Since I had taken over the shop, business had picked up, but it still wasn’t great, especially because my main competition was a floral and hobby megastore out on the highway. I made enough to pay my assistants and buy my supplies, but beyond that I took out only what I needed for bills, and I was always looking for more ways to boost sales. However, selling mirrored mosaics wasn’t one of them.
    “Hi, Mom. I’m fine. No need to worry.”
    “Abigail, tell me it’s not true. You didn’t really find another dead body, did you?”
    “Do you want me to answer truthfully or do you want to sleep tonight?”
    “Hold on. We’re going to do a