Chapter Ten: The Hidden Meaning

"Mom's home!" Allison shouted into the house as she swung the front door open.

"Mrs. DuBois!" she heard Rikki cry, and then feet tapped on the floor towards her. Rikki swung around the corner. "Let me help you with all of that!"

Allison set the purple and green duffel bags on the floor. "There's only a few more things," she said. She held out the white cane. "I figured Abigail would want this right away."

"Abby!" Rikki called. "Mrs. DuBois brought you a seeing stick!"

Allison heard Abigail laugh from somewhere in the house, and then the blind girl appeared as well, using her hands to grope along the walls. Rikki put the cane in her sister's hand, and Allison watched as an entirely new person appeared. It was as though Abigail grew a few inches; she looked more confident by the second.

"I'll get the rest of the bags," Rikki said. "Abby, can you get Megan ready for eating?"

"Oh, the pump is in the back seat," Allison said.

"I'll handle it; don't worry," Rikki said with a cheerful smile. "Back in a minute."

"The girls are drawing," Abigail said as Rikki went down the front walk. "Bridgette said she wanted to write a sequel to Danielle Goes to the Zoo, so I was writing down what she told me, and then she said she wanted to illustrate it."

Rikki came back in, carrying the pink duffel bag and wheeling the IV stand.

"Let me grab Megan," Abigail said, and tapped back down the hallway.

"Rikki," Allison said, "I found something in the house I wanted to ask you about."

She reached into her left blazer pocket and removed the set of two keys and the pill bottle she had found in the upstairs bathroom. "Not this," she started to explain. "These I found at the house."

Rikki nodded, taking the pill bottle. "That's Lamictal, an anti-seizure drug. It's for Megan, but she hasn't taken it for awhile; her seizures have mostly stopped. And those keys are for the bigger dining room hutch. Chris keeps those, and Abby keeps the keys to the other one. Chris keeps his in his desk, but Abby puts hers in her backpack, usually."

"Okay," Allison said, and then removed the two Ziploc bags with the rose and the magnet in them. "I found these in the hutch."

"That's all that was in there?" Rikki asked, taking the two bags from Allison. "There are supposed to be vases, and picture frames, and wedding photos, and our birth certificates in there."

"Do you recognize this magnet?"

"No."

"You don't have a set of them?"

"No," Rikki said. "The only magnets we have are the heart-shaped ones we have on the fridge."

Allison turned the bag in the girl's hand so she could see the back of the magnet. "The magnet says 'Danny,'" she said. "Does anyone call your father 'Danny'?"

Rikki thought for a moment, holding the bag in her hand. "My mother used to," she said at last, "but she's been gone for years."

"Does the lantern mean anything to you?"

"There was a lantern in the dream," Rikki said slowly, "but it was a Coleman lantern, the kind that we take on camping trips." Then she looked up at Allison. "The cabinet was empty?"

"Except for the rose and the magnet."

Abigail came back into the living room, wheeling Megan in front of her. "She's ready to eat," Abby said to Rikki. "Eat being a relative term and all."

Rikki put the two Ziploc bags on the kitchen table. "Good," she said, and leaned down to brush Megan's hair out of her eyes.

"Someone named Detective Scanlon called," Abigail related as Rikki took out some cans of Pediasure. "He said he would stop by later."

"Thank you," Allison said. "I'm going to change my clothes, and then I'll cook some dinner."

She left the sisters talking quietly in the kitchen while Rikki hooked up Megan's feeding pump to the small plastic entrance on the little girl's stomach. In the hall, she stopped to throw the load of wash she'd done in the morning into the dryer. Then she stuck her head around the corner into Marie and Bridgette's room.

Bridgette was sprawled on the carpet with a large pad of newsprint under her. The paper was large enough for her to be completely on it, her striped-sock feet waving in the air as she drew a blond-haired girl and what appeared to be an orange fish. "Mommy!" she exclaimed as Allison appeared. "Mommy, I am writing Danielle and the Secret Language, and now I know an actual secret language!"

"That sounds great, my love," Allison said, leaning down to give the girl a kiss on the forehead. Then she realized exactly what Bridgette had meant – scattered around the room were sheets of clean white paper covered in Braille. She picked up a sheet and ran her fingers over it, trying to decipher the hidden meaning in the obvious.

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