As Jackie turned away to find her daughter, Ron heaved a sigh of relief. It hadn’t been very difficult to cozen his mother-in-law; he had had a lot of experience leading opposition attorneys down the garden path during litigation. Misdirection was as much a part of an attorney’s skills as it was for a stage magician. It was all a matter of appearing to do one thing while actually engaging in something else altogether. His courtroom productions of “rabbits” had been rare but exceedingly satisfying for himself and his client. They left the opposition with a ego gratifying looks of bewilderment on their faces and brought wintry smiles of appreciation from the judges.
Ron leaned over and looked at Deedee’s wet diaper and saw that her mother was right, she was in need of a diaper change. The soggy diaper had bunched together heavily between her legs and drooped down in front. He whispered in her ear, “Come on, Dee. Let’s hurry and get out of here before your mother gets back. I’m sure your diaper will hold until we get home, it’s not that far.” Ron hasty wheeled the cart to the checkout stand before Jackie gave up and started looking for him again. He wanted to be long gone before she thought of waiting for Deedee at their car.
When Ron got home, he left Deedee in the auto seat in the car while he got the playpen he had bought at WalMart in the house. He set it up quickly and returned to the car to get Deedee and get her into the house and settled into her new playpen. Then he went back to the car and began the process of getting the furnishings unloaded and into the house. When he was finished, he began setting up Deedee’s nursery. He knew she would be pleased by what he had bought. They had discussed what Deedee’s dream nursery would look like many times and the furnishings he had purchased matched Deedee’s descriptions fairly closely. He’d have to go out and get some more pieces to complete the suite, he knew, but the furniture he had gotten for her was a good start. Once he got her settled, he could sit down and consider the problem of what had happened to her. He had a suspicion that the lamp was somehow implicated in Deedee’s transformation. There was something decidedly odd about the feeling the lamp gave him and there wasn’t anything else in the house that would account for her sudden rejuvenation.