The Secret Women

by Sheila Williams

  Dee Dee held out her hand too.

  “I’m Deanna, Dee Dee Davis, attorney, wife of Lorenzo, mother of Satan’s spawns, and daughter of . . .” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Daughter of Laura O’Neill, artist, writer, free spirit, who died fifteen years ago.” Dee Dee paused again. “I hardly knew her. She was . . . sick a lot when I was growing up. But it still hurts. And it still feels as if it was yesterday.” Dee Dee took a tissue from the packet she’d passed over to Elise and blew her nose.

  Carmen wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and picked up her Corona bottle. She held it up.

  “I hereby call to order the first meeting of the Daughters of Dead Mothers Club. Our first order of business is to devise a punishment for those well-meaning folks who tell you that God never gives you more than you can handle.”

  “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that . . .” Dee Dee murmured.

  “I like the Red Queen approach myself,” Elise said, taking a sip of her drink. “Off with their heads.”

  “Drawing and quartering,” Dee Dee countered, a wicked grin lighting up her face. “It sounds so clever.”

  “But messy,” Carmen commented. “What about boiling in oil? That’s more hygienic.”

  Elise nodded. The idea had merit.

  “Firing squad,” Dee Dee said in an ominous tone.

  “So moved,” said Carmen.

  “I second.” Dee Dee smiled. Her eyes were gleaming with moisture.

  “But which one?” Elise asked, a smile curling her lips upward.

  “All of them,” Dee Dee said firmly.

  Two glasses and one bottle touched together with a clink.

  Chapter 2

  Elise

  Friends are formed out of shared experiences by people who, sometimes, have similar interests: who attend the same class at school, who enjoy the same music or art, or who have grown up together and enjoy the contentment of memories across the landscape of their pasts. Elise had friends from all of these categories, but she had not thought she could bond so instantly or deeply with two women, outside of a weekly yoga class she hadn’t attended in two months, she barely knew. She hadn’t been sure of their names before tonight. But that didn’t matter. Because Dee Dee and Carmen were more familiar with her inner feelings than anyone, feelings she hadn’t felt safe sharing until now. Their mothers, too, had left them feeling both bereft and empty. Like the orphan Paddington Bear, Carmen had commented as they walked out of Margaret Rita’s that night, they’d been left on a train platform with only a worn-out suitcase and a jar of marmalade for company. Lots of people had mothers who’d died. So why hadn’t Elise “gotten over it,” “gotten on with it,” or “moved forward”? And why hadn’t Dee Dee and Carmen?

  “It’s un-American,” Carmen had said earlier in the evening while rotating a tortilla chip around in her hand. “That Puritan thing about not showing emotion, the work ethic, about moving forward, and, you know, eminent-domain thinking. Bored? Sad? Conquer somebody!”

  “We don’t know how to cope with expressions of grief. It makes people uncomfortable,” Elise said. “I mean, it’s okay to cry—”

  “A little,” Dee Dee interrupted.

  Elise smiled. “Yes. A little. Cry a bit at the wake. Sob if you must at the funeral—”

  “And you know black folks can perform at a funeral!” Carmen said, chuckling. “I’m a preacher’s kid—I should know.”

  “But once that’s all finished. Put your tissues away, get out of the black clothing, and move on. Outward expressions of grief make people squirm.”

  Elise had said this, had uttered the words aloud, although she hadn’t intended to. She thought about the expressions on her sons’ faces when she got teary-eyed. She heard the words of her ex-husband, Bobby, in her head: “Now, Lisee, you need to get over this. You can’t keep this up. It’s not good for you.”

  What you mean is, it’s not good for you, she remembered thinking viciously.

  The grief counselor’s comments had been illuminating. “It’ll be over when it’s over. There’s no stopwatch marking the time you need to grieve for a loved one. Get that concept out of your head. There’s no formula, protocol, or rule. It’ll take as long as it takes.”

  But if Elise was honest with herself, there were times when even she thought it had gone on too long. The problem was: she didn’t know what to do about it.

  After pushing the MUTE icon on the car radio, she drove home from the dinner in silence, let herself into her house, ignored the blinking light on the answering machine, and, contrary to habit, left the TV remote exactly where it was: on the arm of the couch. She put away her clothes, turned on the taps of the tub, and sat on the edge of the bed while it filled, her mind a thousand miles away.

  It was strange, even sad, to think that she’d gotten more out of this evening sharing her pain and loneliness with her new friends than she had in all the months since Mom had died, but that was the way it was. They had laughed, cried, vented, and shared anecdotes about their mothers: Joan, the minister’s wife; Laura, the artist; Marie, the globe-trotter. Elise felt better than she had in weeks.

  She lit candles and set them beside the tub, but she didn’t turn on the music that had filled her head today: Valerie June, Emeli Sandé, Tony Bennett, the energetic thump-thump of her favorite Beyoncé tune, the song that always got her going in Zumba class. No, now was the time for silence; it filled the emptiness just fine. Kashmir, her ageless Siamese, padded into the bathroom on ghost feet and settled himself next to the heater vent. Elise took a deep breath, inhaling the gentle, exotic scent emanating from the candles, and sank into the water until it covered her shoulders. The warmth was delicious and soothing. She closed her eyes.

  Three women, different in background and experience yet united in their pain over the loss of their mothers. Carmen was almost fifty, a vice president and product manager, overseeing a division at Procter & Gamble, single, an extrovert who loved salsa dancing, travel, and gourmet cooking. Northern Italian cuisine was her newest passion. She was taking a crash course in Italian in anticipation of a trip to Italy next year.

  Dee Dee was married—almost twenty years—and had two daughters who were driving her crazy not only with their teenage drama but also with their piano, cello, gymnastics, and ballet lessons. She was a lawyer specializing in products liability and claimed that her hobbies would be “reading, jazz (especially John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk), and interior decorating” she added, “if I only had the time,” singing the words to the tune from The Wizard of Oz. She was in her forties.

  And then there was Elise, in her early sixties, with two grown sons and one granddaughter, who had retired from one career and was now deeply ensconced in another, with one published book and another one in the works. Her hobbies were—

  The phone rang. Elise’s train of thought and the warm serenity of the bath shattered like glass. She closed her eyes, exhaled, and groped along the bathmat until she found her phone, forgetting that her hand was covered in white, fluffy bubbles.

  “Hi, Bobby.”

  “Hey, babe, how you doin’?”

  “Fine. How are you? How’d the meeting go?”

  Her ex-husband’s baritone filled the phone receiver. Elise closed her eyes again. She supposed it was a good thing that she and Bobby got along; it made life easier. She knew the conversation by heart, as if it was a play and she was now “off book.”

  “Uh-huh, and what did he say?”

  She turned the tap on again, adding hot water to the warm. The sensation was delicious. Now the water was up to her neck.

  “Right, right, I get it. So what’s next?”

  Bobby was an IT manager, proficient in all things software, bits, bytes, cookies (the inedible kind), and internet security. He knew spyware, malware, and every other kind of “ware” there was. Elise knew enough to turn on her laptop, move the mouse around, and do her work. The insides of the computer were a mystery that, unlike the bo
oks she read, she was content to ignore. Unless there was a problem, and then she simply turned the machine over to him.

  “I think you only keep me around because you need someone to take care of your laptop for you,” Bobby would tease. Elise didn’t bother to persuade him otherwise.

  “Sure, baby. Uh-huh, I called Dan. He’ll be over tomorrow and take care of that. Right. Sure.” She yawned.

  “. . . won’t be able to help you at your mother’s . . .”

  She’d been listening on automatic, but the key words “your mother’s” woke her.

  “Sorry? I . . . uh . . . didn’t catch that.”

  “There’s an issue with the off-site servers and I’ll have to go in on Sunday, so I won’t be able to help you at your mother’s condo. Can you manage on your own?”

  She said, “Yes,” and eventually, “Good night.” She wiped the bubbles off the phone, made sure it was dry, and set it down. And then she sat up in the tub, oblivious to the rush of cool air across her body.

  “. . . your mother’s . . .”

  She was her mother’s executrix, going about the business of after-death and following the probate attorney’s instructions. Order the death certificates, file this, copy that, email here, sign there, find the deed for the condo, and inventory the contents.

  Oh Lord. Just the thought of the property inventory was enough to turn Elise’s hair white—whiter than it already would be if she didn’t color it every five weeks. Because Elise’s mother did not just have a house full of the usual household goods: dishes, clothing, TVs, furniture, whatnots. Marie Wade had several collections of household goods—their very order and nature was all that had kept her from being classified as a hoarder and earning a place on a reality TV show. Marie had loved beautiful things, she had loved to travel, and she had brought home mementoes from every destination. She had adored jewelry and had learned enough about each style and era to become an expert. She had adored music and had collected not just one but two or three different recordings of her favorite works. And on and on. And so there were, by Elise’s initial count, ten sets of china (including the Christmas and the zebra patterns), five distinct collections of jewelry (including southwest Indian, Victorian, and art deco styles; white, pink, pale amber, and black pearls; and silver and 18- or 24-carat gold pieces), and art from Marie’s southwest phase and her Asian phase, plus her collection of African masks from various nations, her modern African American pieces, and the landscapes she’d purchased in her later years when she joined the Sierra Club and became passionate about natural environments that were in danger of pollution or erosion. Her favorite piece had been a mountain view of eastern Kentucky, an area that had piqued her interest when she learned that mining companies were blowing the tops off the rugged hardwood-forested hills. Marie Wade’s two-bedroom condominium was not just a home; it was a museum of arts and cultural artifacts.

  And it was up to Elise to sort through every piece, itemize it, and record it on the estate household-contents inventory form. And then do something with it.

  The thought of the task made her want to submerge herself in the tub like a submarine.

  She’d started the process several times, but it was a daunting mission. Each time she’d given up in frustration and anguish. These were her mother’s things—Marie’s treasures—each item lovingly chosen and used or displayed with pride. It broke Elise’s heart because she knew there was no way she could keep everything. In fact, there was no way to keep hardly anything. She didn’t have the space. And while their tastes were often similar, Elise’s style was more minimalist and modern than her mother’s. For Marie, every era had appeal.

  An image of the ground-floor coat closet—full of . . . stuff from ceiling to floor—flitted across her mind. The closet wouldn’t clear out by itself. Elise sighed.

  Chapter 3

  Carmen

  Carmen stopped at Starbucks for a coffee, then headed home to her house in Mason, fielding three business calls (from the offices in Shanghai, London, and Dubai) and a personal one from her father. Bluetooth was her savior—considering the time differences with her clients and the length of Carmen’s commute, it had made sense to convert her car into a moving satellite office. Technology was a wonder. She took care of Spring Chu’s issue, Eric Needham’s question, and the brief meeting to check in with Jehan Muhammad and Rory Jones within the thirty-minute drive so that by the time she reached her neighborhood, the only call remaining was the one to her father.

  “Dad, how are you? Am I calling too late?”

  No, her father explained, but he couldn’t talk long, the ten o’clock news was about to come on, and among the things that Reverend Howard Bradshaw—now retired—was religious about was the evening news.

  “Okay, well, I would’ve called earlier but I was out. What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  “I’m just fine, baby girl. Don’t you worry about me,” her father replied. “I didn’t want anything particular other than to remind you about the dinner coming up next Wednesday night. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

  I tried to.

  “No, of course not,” she said. “Seven o’clock. The Prime. I might be a few minutes late, but I’ll be there. Just order me a glass of wine.”

  At first she heard nothing, but she could feel her father’s disapproval.

  “You know that I don’t drink, Carmen,” he said sternly. “And neither does Elaine.”

  Of course, she said snidely to herself. “Right, I remember,” she said aloud to her father.

  Mrs. Reverend Doctor Elaine Oakes. How was it that a minister’s widow (and said minister’s Ph.D. in divinity was questionable), got away with calling herself Mrs. Reverend Doctor? Or was it Mrs. Doctor Reverend? What is that about? Carmen wondered. She also marveled at the speed with which her father had returned to a normal life after her mom died. “Getting on with it” was what he told her as he juggled the persistent and tenacious attentions of single church ladies across the Cincinnati metro region. Every widow and divorcée over or near the age of seventy—and a couple who were much younger or older than that—had set their sights on the newly widowed Reverend Bradshaw.

  “That is what you should be doing,” he’d advised her sternly with the same tone he used when reading or preaching from the book of the great softie, the prophet Jeremiah, “getting on with your life. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to continue with this unseemly grieving.”

  “Yes, Dad,” she’d answered through her teeth.

  Yeah, whatever. Somehow Carmen didn’t think her mother would have been pleased to see her husband of fifty-plus years stepping out with every available widow, divorcée, and otherwise single female within a twenty-mile radius of town either. But Carmen hadn’t said that aloud. She felt bitterness and jealousy. Her own mother would have said that it was very unbecoming. And her dad was right: Joan Bradshaw would not have wanted Howard to sit at home, alone, eating dinner for one in front of the TV and having only Wednesday prayer meetings and Sunday services as his social outlets.

  But still . . . Elaine Oakes? Identical St. John suits in every color of the rainbow, including a baby-poop yellow that did not flatter; acrylic nails sharpened to talon-length (appropriate, Carmen thought); suspiciously colored hair (reddish gold with blond highlights); and a penchant for Opium, a cologne of exotic fragrance and nuclear-level strength. Contrasting Elaine with Carmen’s mother was like comparing the Arctic with the Amazon Basin. Of all the women he could have chosen to spend time with, why on earth did it have to be Mrs. Reverend Doctor Oakes?

  “Sorry, Dad, I didn’t catch that,” Carmen said quickly, realizing she’d zoned out on their conversation. “A semi just went by,” she lied as she pulled into her driveway and pressed the button to open the garage.

  “Don’t forget that you should pick up the rest of these boxes and things that belonged to your mother. They’re in the basement.”

  Carmen’s chest tightened with sadness and fury. She wanted to
scream at her father. You’ve put her things in the basement out of sight . . . in her own home? Already?

  “Sure, Dad, I’ll take care of it. I gotta go, okay?”

  It took all of the strength Carmen had to keep from punching her finger through the steering wheel when she tapped the button to disconnect the call. Her eyes flooded with tears.

  Oh, Momma, he’s forgotten you already. And for Mrs. Reverend Doctor Elaine Oakes, for Christ’s sake! Jesus . . .

  Carmen, darling, her mother would’ve said. Now, what’d I tell you about that cursing? Cut that out now.

  Carmen gripped the wheel, wiped the tears away, and focused on maneuvering the car into the garage. Three of the boxes containing her mother’s things that her father had packed up were stacked on the workbench, her mother’s initials written boldly in large-print letters with a bright blue Sharpie: “JAB,” for Joan Adams Bradshaw. They’d been there for weeks—months, even. At least once a week or so Carmen would come out to the garage, usually on a Saturday or Sunday, pick up a box, take it inside, and plan to open it and unpack and sort its contents. The weekend would go by. Carmen would pick up the box again—unopened—and take it back to the garage. She didn’t have the heart to do it. She could not think of her mother as a box or two of . . . things. Nor was she ready to handle her mother’s personal belongings, which Carmen knew would carry the scent of L’Interdit, a classic French perfume her mother had always worn.

  The garage door closed with a soft thump, and Carmen unlocked the door that led to the kitchen. She looked at the three boxes again, thinking of the remaining ones stacked neatly in the basement at her family home. Then she turned out the light and went into the house.

  Chapter 4

  Dee Dee

  Every room in the house was glowing with light when Dee Dee pulled into the driveway. She groaned. It had not been her goal in life to be Duke Energy’s favorite customer. Obviously Lorenzo and the girls were home. She opened the door and smiled, then took a deep, cleansing breath. The thump-thump of Frances’s music (why didn’t she use the $150 headphones they’d given her for Christmas? Had she misplaced them already?); Pauly the cat cowering under the table, hissing at the Labrador puppy, Dallas, who was too young and inexperienced to know that he was about to be scratched; Phoebe hunched over her laptop, her glittery blue polished fingertips skating along the keys, earbuds buried in her ears, eyes glued to the computer screen; and in the middle of it all . . .