Theresa was ever the quiet and frightened mouse in her domineering mother's presence.
After the death of her beloved papa, however, Theresa shed the baggage of purposeless servitude to this harpy, she who allowed Mr. Horace Gettleman to die. The town populace of Harrington, in thrall to Mrs. Renata Gettleman, prominent socialite and benefactress, knew only that the dear old gent had succumbed to a massive heart attack. Certainly none had reason to question the coroner's final word on cause of death. Theresa knew otherwise.
Somewhat recovered from the shock of her father's death but scarcely past the sorrow of losing one so loved, Miss Gettleman discovered, and this quite by chance, that her father's newest and most vital medication was secreted away in a cabinet adjacent the fitted cases in her father's enormous study and library. She would not have been on a deliberate quest for the cached phial of life-saving liquid but for her happening upon it when seeking out a misplaced treasury of favorite poems. These were poems read to her each and every night by her father when Teresa Marie was a little girl.
Much to her delight, Theresa found the missing book. The happy sigh of discovery, however, was quickly replaced by a gasp of disbelief when she recalled that her father's medicines were ever within his reach ...
Zid 