The Secret Women

by Sheila Williams

  “Look, here’s the way I see it,” Carmen said, holding a cup of hot jasmine tea between her palms. It was mild outside, but the restaurant’s AC was blowing, and she was cold. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and we have nothing like that grand a project to tackle . . .”

  “You haven’t seen my mother’s condo,” Elise said in a low voice.

  “Neither were the pyramids or those amazing Gothic cathedrals.”

  Elise nodded, dipping a fresh spring roll into the sauce and taking a small bite. She chewed for a moment and said, “And the signature dome in Florence . . .” She snapped her fingers, trying to grab the name from her memory. “Brunelleschi’s—”

  “Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore,” Dee Dee interrupted.

  “Nice pronunciation,” Carmen said.

  “I spent six months in Italy as an exchange student. Loved Florence, absolutely loved it!”

  “Okay, so Brunelleschi’s dome wasn’t built in a day. Or the pyramids or anything worth our time. So how is it we think that grief should go away in a day? Or that anyone could possibly clear out a house in a short period of time?”

  Elise shook her head slowly. “No, dear. Grief is self-absorption on a grand scale, or so I was told by one of my colleagues. One of those ‘Get over it’ types who drinks himself into a stupor on the weekends.”

  “Uh-huh,” Dee Dee said, nodding her head. “And will have cirrhosis in a few years. I love Carmen’s idea. I’m a pack rat, though you wouldn’t know it. I like to keep . . . things. You know how it is. Maybe I’ll use a thing next month. Maybe the girls would like it.”

  “Maybe it’ll sprout wings and fly away?” Elise added, grinning.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Only thing is, I have so few boxes of Mommy’s,” Dee Dee interjected. “It’d hardly be worth your time.”

  “Except that your mother’s been dead how many years and you still have these boxes?” Elise asked pointedly.

  Dee Dee pulled a face. “Okay, so I’m the poster child for procrastination.”

  Elise finished off her spring roll, then licked a splash of peanut sauce from her finger. “You have too few. I have too many. I’m at the other end of the spectrum.” She paused. “Speaking of that, I have a whole condo to dismantle, ladies. It’s not exactly fair for me to monopolize your time on such a huge project.”

  “Yes, but I’m nosy,” Carmen said, smiling. She gathered up noodles with her chopsticks and held them dangling in the air. “I want to see what you’ve got in that condo. You said your mother collected art, jewelry, whatnots. There isn’t an earring or bracelet that’s safe from me. I’ll buy the pieces I like.”

  Carmen slurped the noodles into her mouth, Dee Dee snorted. “I thought the idea was to decrease the amount of stuff we have!”

  “No. The idea is to decrease the amount of stuff we have from our mothers! So that’s my solution. What do you think?” Carmen asked. She studied the two women closely. Elise was nodding. Dee Dee’s expression was thoughtful. “And since Elise has the most stuff, we’ll attack her project in phases and work on the others in between.”

  Elise inhaled deeply. “Okay. But I still think it’s generous of you all to even consider what I’ve got going on in that condo. Maybe I should do some pre-clear-out pruning so the job won’t be as overwhelming?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Dee Dee said. “Although I don’t mind helping with that. I’m curious too.”

  “Okay,” Carmen concluded. “If that’s what you want to do. And to sweeten the pot, I propose that we start at my place. I have three boxes in my garage and a few more at my dad’s. I’ll get those, and we can have a clearing-out party . . . Check your phones, girls. I’ll even cook!”

  “I’ll bring wine,” Dee Dee said.

  “I’ll bring something sweet,” Elise added.

  “It’s too bad there isn’t such a thing as a three-pronged wishbone,” Carmen said. “That would bring us luck.”

  “We’ll improvise.” Dee Dee laughed, extending her fist to the center of the table. Elise and Carmen did the same.

  “Our own wishbone,” Carmen said.

  “Namaste,” Dee Dee and Elise said in unison.

  Part 2

  Chapter 6

  Carmen

  Of all the obstacles Carmen expected to encounter with her plan to sort through and (finally!) dispose of her mother’s belongings, her father was not on the list. Shortly before the dreaded dinner with Elaine Oakes, Carmen called to tell her father that she was stopping by to pick up the boxes stored in the basement. She was startled by his response.

  “It’s not a good time,” Howard Bradshaw told his daughter. “It’s kinda late.”

  “Dad, it’s only 8:30. This won’t take long. Just fifteen minutes or—”

  “No. Another time would be better.”

  Carmen tilted her head to the side. What is this about?

  A naughty and disturbing thought popped into her head. Was he entertaining Elaine? Was he entertaining some other lady? Just the notion (and the visual that went with it) made Carmen feel queasy. Unreasonable? Yes, she knew that. Her father was a widower now, a single man. But the thought of him with a woman—not her mother—still annoyed her.

  “Well, I’m just about to make the turn from Galbraith Road. Dad, I’m sorry about this, I would’ve called earlier, but I didn’t know that I’d finish up work so soon. Is it okay or not?”

  She heard him clear his throat loudly.

  “Yes, all right,” he answered in a sharp tone and hung up the phone.

  Humph. He’s getting grouchy in his old age.

  Her father had sounded like a troll guarding a bridge in a Scandinavian folktale. When she pulled into the driveway, he’d opened the garage and was standing just inside, a stern expression on his face, the one her mother referred to as his “plagues and pestilence” grimace. He looked seriously pissed off. What Carmen couldn’t figure out was why.

  She got out of the car, pushed the button to open her trunk, and kissed her father on the cheek.

  “Why do you want to bother with those boxes and things at this late date?” her father growled. “They’ve been in the basement for months, and now you want to pick them up in the middle of the night!”

  “Middle of the night, Dad? It’s a quarter to nine!” Carmen brushed past him and went into the kitchen toward the basement door. “I don’t get it. You’ve been after me for weeks to come and get these things. In fact, not too long ago, when you called me about the dinner with . . .” Ugh. She could barely get the woman’s name out. “Mrs. Oakes . . . you mentioned clearing the boxes out of the basement. So what’s changed? Do they have cooties or something?”

  Carmen’s attempt at levity didn’t work. Howard Bradshaw’s expression looked like a thundercloud about to burst. “No. I think you . . . that your timing is bad, that’s all.”

  She smiled slightly and peeked around the corner into the family room, where the TV was on. “I’m sorry about that. I’ll make it quick. Do you have . . . are you entertaining?” she teased. “Why didn’t you say so? I don’t mean to interrupt.”

  Her father was not amused. “That isn’t funny, Carmen.”

  Geez, no sense of humor tonight. “Okay, well, whatever it is that’s bugging you, I’m sorry. Look, I’ll just grab the boxes downstairs and be out of your hair.”

  “Here, let me help,” her father said, sprinting past her and down the basement steps with a burst of energy she wouldn’t have thought him capable of.

  “Okay . . .” Carmen said, following him down the stairs. Now she was confused. First he didn’t want her to get the boxes, now he was helping her. What the heck?

  There were only four boxes, fewer than Carmen remembered. She thought her mother had had more personal belongings than this, but then she recalled that she, her dad, and her brothers had sorted through Mom’s clothes and personal items shortly after the funeral, donating most to a not-for-profit organization that provided clothing for women job s
eekers. The boxes were stacked on top of an old banquet table the church had had no use for, all neatly sealed, the more dilapidated ones secured with ancient masking tape and fortified with string, labeled in her mother’s handwriting: “Jo Adams,” her maiden name.

  Carmen caressed the top of one of the old boxes and smiled. “Mom must’ve packed these,” she mused aloud. She ran her finger across the name Jo, the once-bold navy ink diminished to the faded blue of old, well-washed denim. “I didn’t know Mom used the name Jo. I don’t think I ever heard anyone call her that.”

  Howard nudged the box away and picked up one of the newer ones.

  “Nobody here ever called her that. I don’t like nicknames. To me—” His voice caught. “Your mother . . . she was always Joan or Mrs. B.” He stacked another box on top. “Here, I’ll take these and put them in your trunk. Leave those for another time.”

  “That’s okay. I can handle ’em. They aren’t heavy,” Carmen said, gathering the two worn boxes into her arms. “You go ahead.” When she looked up, she was surprised that her father had barely moved and was still standing in the middle of the room, staring at her.

  “Dad? Are you all right?”

  Howard Bradshaw licked his lips. “Yes. Ah . . . you sure that you don’t want to leave those? I could drop them off later in the week. You don’t want to do too much at one time. Going through your mother’s things could be . . . a bit overwhelming.”

  Why this tug-of-war?

  “It’s fine. Besides, I’ll have help.” Carmen briefly explained about the plan she, Elise, and Dee Dee had concocted. She thought her father would be relieved that she wouldn’t be alone, that she was finally doing something with these boxes. Instead, he looked upset.

  “What?” he exclaimed. “Who are these women? How well do you know them?” He was frowning when he turned around to go up the stairs. “I don’t think it’s right to have . . . strangers picking through your mother’s things.”

  Jesus Christ.

  “Dad, it’ll be fine. Elise is a consultant and an author. Deanna is a lawyer with P&G. I assure you that they are trustworthy, reputable women. Stop worrying.”

  None of this made any sense. It was all Carmen could do to keep from showing how astonished she was. Her father had been bugging her for weeks, months, about her mother’s things. And now that she was actually here, picking them up, he acted as if there was no rush. As if . . .

  Carmen glanced down at the old box she was carrying: “Jo Adams.”

  As if you don’t want me to take these. She shook the box gently. There was no sound or rattling, and nothing shifted. The box felt solid but wasn’t overly heavy. Paper? Photo albums? No, they would knock together and make noise. She would feel the contents shifting. Clothing, linens?

  Howard helped her load the boxes into her trunk and closed it. Then he kissed his daughter good night and stood in the open garage watching until she pulled out and drove away, sounding her horn once. In the rearview mirror, she saw the garage door come down, and her father disappeared from her sight.

  On the drive home, Carmen finally analyzed her father’s initial hostility, his abrupt change in attitude, and his choice of words. The sea change had occurred when she’d picked up the old boxes, the ones labeled “Jo Adams” in her mother’s handwriting. She knew her mother’s maiden name had been Adams, but she didn’t remember ever hearing anyone call her mother Jo, not even Joan’s close friends. And what was it Dad had said?

  “Nobody here ever called her that.”

  That’s a strange thing to say, Carmen thought. So where had Mom been when people had called her Jo? As far as Carmen knew, her mother had never traveled anywhere without her dad: church conventions, church- or college-sponsored tours, and the cruises they had started taking once her dad became pastor emeritus and didn’t have the responsibility of two Sunday sermons plus Wednesday prayer meetings and other obligations during the week. And something else was spinning around in her mind like the icon on her cell phone searching for a Wi-Fi connection. When she had looked up, holding the two older boxes in her arms, her father had been staring at her with a strange expression on his face. Carmen had never seen her dad look like that. He’d looked as if he was about to cry. No, that wasn’t it. Something else. A facial expression totally out of character for her father. Was he ill? She couldn’t understand it. And then the expression was gone, in the blink of an eye. She replayed that moment in her mind the entire drive home. But it was still an enigma.

  Later that evening, it came to her. Carmen sat up in bed, her bare arms covered with goose bumps in the cool darkness. Fear. Her father was afraid of something, something that was in one of the old boxes.

  Chapter 7

  Carmen

  Carmen had no time to obsess over her mother’s boxes, because the first order of business was a “china sorting party” at the condo that had belonged to Elise’s late mother. After that, the trio would move on to Carmen’s to assess the situation there, then call it a day.

  Marie Wade’s two-bedroom condo was in Evendale, and despite Elise’s warnings to the contrary, it wasn’t cluttered, just full. Of everything. The bedrooms had been cleared out, and the smell of fresh paint and carpet cleaner filled the air. Elise opened the windows to air out the place so it was a bit chilly, but there was laughter, hot tea and coffee, sandwiches and cookies, so no one minded much. They set up their work area in the dining room and gave themselves a time limit: no more than three hours. The goal was to organize the dishes in Marie’s 1920s-era china cabinet into sets, then wrap and box them for storage or sale. Elise had found a dealer interested in handling the consignment.

  She stood in the middle of the living room floor looking like a goddess rising out of a sea of crumpled newspaper as she surveyed the waves of cups, saucers, dessert plates, and meat platters.

  “Okay, girls, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll empty out the cabinet and use the table as a staging area, placing each item with its set. Any odd pieces you unearth, leave them inside the china cabinet.” Elise walked over and opened one of the cabinet doors, then sighed. It was packed with cups and saucers. “There should be eight sets of china, water goblets, wine and champagne glasses, pink Depression glass, white Depression glass, and a chocolate set.”

  “Roger that,” Dee Dee said with a salute.

  Carmen held up a teacup with a handle so thin and delicate that she was almost afraid to breathe on it. Agility and coordination as they related to fine china or babies were not her strong suits. Oh Lord, please don’t let me break anything. Gingerly, she turned the cup upside down and read its country of origin along with the manufacturer’s name. Elise had already started a grouping of French Havilland, so Carmen extracted the tiny matching saucer from the cabinet and placed the two pieces on the table.

  Two hours later, the women stood around the dining room table, which now looked like the successful beginnings of a fine china boutique.

  “One, two, three, four, five . . .” Dee Dee was counting the different groupings. She made a face. “I thought you said your mother had eight sets of china.”

  “Nine, ten, eleven . . . twelve!” Carmen giggled. “Twelve sets of china!” she crowed, imitating the voice of the Count from Sesame Street.

  Elise looked both embarrassed and dismayed. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what else to say. I remember Mom going through her ‘china phase.’ I just didn’t know it had gotten so out of hand. If y’all want to forget about this . . .”

  Carmen hugged her but couldn’t stop giggling. “No, we’re in this together. You can’t get rid of us. It’s just that none of us has ever seen twelve sets of china owned by one person! I don’t think I knew there were so many different types of china.”

  Elise inhaled loudly. “Well, if anyone could find them, it would be my mother.”

  There was a set of Blue Ridge china made in Erwin, Tennessee, in a factory no longer in business, and it was considered “collectible,” or so Elise told them. Ther
e was also the French Havilland china in a feminine floral pattern and made in the late 1890s, plus Christmas china, zebra- and leopard-pattern china, a bright white china with square dinner plates, a Fiestaware set from the 1960s . . .

  Elise sat down with a deep sigh. “I give up,” she said, sinking into the cushions of the single couch in her mother’s living room.

  “Don’t give up,” Dee Dee told her. “But only you can decide which sets you want to keep.”

  “Keep?” Elise exclaimed. “None of them! I have my own china, including a set that Mom gave me.” Elise narrowed her eyes as she glanced over at the crowded dining room table. “Which means that Mom had thirteen sets of china, not twelve.”

  “Mercy!” Carmen said, grinning. “I am in awe. My mother had two sets of dishes, one for special occasions and Sundays, and one for every day. As for me, I have microwaveable dishes from Target!” She glanced over at the clock. “Okay, ladies, it’s three thirty. We have half an hour left in our schedule.” She picked up a dessert plate with a zebra pattern. “I move that we spend the time boxing up this set of china and head over to my place for the second shift. Any seconds?”

  * * *

  Carmen opened the blinds in her great room to let in the afternoon sun. She’d brought in the three boxes from the garage and the four she’d taken from her dad’s a few nights ago, setting them all on a table or on newspaper she’d spread out on the carpeted floor. It was nearing five o’clock, so she set out cheese, cold meats, fruit, bread rounds, and some snack mix, and opened a chilled bottle of Riesling.

  Elise sat down on the floor—lotus position, damn her—and stretched her arms toward the ceiling.

  “Carmen, this is lovely. Just what I needed. The thought of those twelve—”

  “Thirteen,” said Dee Dee, already comfortably seated on the couch.

  Elise stuck her tongue out. “Thirteen sets of china was giving me the willies. I can’t imagine how my mother managed to squirrel away so much . . . stuff!”