by Lois Winston
As for Lou, still too upset over his deceit, Mama had relegated him to a shelf in the basement when she couldn’t pawn his remains off on any of his ex-wives. I called the dining room shelf Flora’s Dead Husbands’ Shrine. Mama called the urns her Dear Departeds. “Where’s Daddy now?” I asked.
She pointed to the far corner of the kitchen floor where a green plastic dustpan held the ashy remains of my father. “I wanted to fix the urn before I poured him back into his resting place.”
“I’ll fix the urn. You pick up Daddy before Catherine the Great uses him for a litter box.”
“She wouldn’t dare! She’s too well trained.”
Right. As if on cue, Catherine the Great sauntered into the kitchen, looked around, then headed straight for Daddy. I grabbed the dustpan just as she was about to paw what remained of my father. “Let’s not tempt her. Pour Daddy into a plastic bag until I fix his urn.”
“You’ll do it right away, won’t you, dear? The thought of my darling Harold sealed up in a plastic bag is more than I can bear.”
She preferred Daddy sitting in a dustpan? “After I get rid of this headache.”
I collapsed into a kitchen chair and placed the now tepid glass of water back on my forehead. A second later the doorbell rang. I contemplated ignoring it, except that one of the boys may have forgotten his key. So I took a quick sip of the water and dragged my exhausted butt back to the foyer while Mama carefully spooned Daddy into a Ziploc.
On my way through the living room, I glanced out the window and found a gray minivan parked at the curb in front of my house. Before opening the door, I checked the peephole. A tall, thin man with a head of shaggy brown hair in need of a trim stood on my stoop. He wore a pair of wrinkled khaki trousers and an equally wrinkled blue and white pencil-striped, short-sleeved sports shirt. Something about him struck me as vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
“Is this the home of Lucille Pollack?” he asked when I opened the door.
I checked his hands before answering. No envelope. Hopefully, that meant he wasn’t a process server. Lucille had keyed a Beemer prior to her stroke. The owner threatened to sue her. Not that she had anything besides her monthly social security check and a meager pension from her days as the editor of The Worker’s Herald, the weekly newspaper of the American Communist Party. “Yes, but she’s not here.”
“Are you Anastasia Pollack?”
“I am.” The Beemer owner couldn’t sue me, could he? “And you are?”
He held out his hand. “Ira Pollack. Your half-brother. I’m so very happy to meet you.”
I stared at his extended hand, then his face. Finally, it hit me. Give the man a haircut, add a few years and a dozen pounds or so, and Ira Pollack could be a not-so-dead ringer for Dead Louse of a Spouse. How could I not have noticed immediately? “I believe you’ve made a mistake,” I said.
“Isidore Pollack was your father, wasn’t he?”
“Of course Isidore Pollack wasn’t her father!” Mama strode across the living room to join me. “I should know who fathered my only child.”
Ira stared at Mama, a look of total confusion spreading across his face. “You’re Lucille Pollack?”
“I should say not!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I—”
I grabbed Ira Pollack’s still extended hand, his sweaty palm making me immediately regret my action. “As I was about to say, I’m not Lucille’s daughter. I’m her daughter-in-law, and this,” I nodded toward Mama, “is my mother, not Lucille. My mother-in-law recently had surgery and is currently in a rehab facility.”
“That’s too bad. I would have liked to speak with her.”
I doubted Lucille would feel likewise. “Maybe once she returns home.”
“I have a half-brother, then?” asked Ira. “I guess that makes you my half-sister-in-law.” His sweaty palm still gripping my hand, he vigorously pumped my arm. “I’m so very happy to meet you, and I can’t wait to meet your husband. Is he home?”
“Perhaps you should come in.” I slipped my hand from his and led him into the living room. With my left hand I motioned him toward one of the two overstuffed easy chairs that flanked the bay window while I surreptitiously swiped my right hand dry across my denim skirt. “Would you like a cold drink?”
“I wouldn’t mind a glass of ice water if it’s no trouble. Kind of brutal outside today.”
“No trouble at all.” I turned to Mama. “Would you mind getting Mr. Pollack—”
“Ira,” he interjected. “After all, we’re family.”
Were we? He certainly looked like Karl, although younger. Karl had claimed Isidore Pollack walked out on Lucille shortly after she became pregnant with him. The way my mother-in-law tells it, J. Edgar Hoover abducted Isidore. She also believed the feds disposed of his body under the goalposts at Giants stadium. If I had money to bet, I’d go with Karl’s more plausible explanation. How could I take seriously a woman who confused her husband with Jimmy Hoffa?
I revised my request. “Mama, would you mind getting Ira a glass of water?”
“Of course not, dear, but don’t you dare continue this conversation until I get back. I certainly don’t want to miss anything juicy.”
Mama returned with Ira’s water. While he guzzled down the entire glass, she nestled herself into the opposite corner of the sofa from where I sat. Catherine the Great jumped onto Mama’s lap and hunkered down.
Ira placed the empty glass on the floor by his feet, then leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, and said, “I suppose I should start from the beginning.”
“Always a good place, young man,” said Mama. “Take your time, and don’t leave anything out.”
“Isidore Pollack was my father,” he began.
“Was?” I asked.
“He passed away recently.”
Mama and I both murmured the requisite so sorry to hear that.
“After he died,” continued Ira, “I discovered a secret from his past while sorting through his possessions.”
“That he’d had a child before you?” I prompted.
Ira nodded. “I don’t even think my mother ever knew. If she did, she never let on. At least not to me. She passed away three years ago.”
Once again Mama and I murmured an I’m sorry.
“What did you find?” I asked.
He pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to me. “Dad owned a huge collection of 45s from the fifties and sixties. This was squirreled away in the dust sleeve of Little Richard’s Lucille.”
The envelope was addressed to a Mrs. Edith Pollack at an
address in Queens. Underneath the address, an additional note stated, “Please forward to Isidore Pollack.”
“Read it,” said Ira.
I pulled the one sheet of thick pale lavender stationery from the envelope and unfolded it. A small deckle-edged black and white photo of a young man and a woman dropped onto my lap. I recognized the hard set of the woman’s mouth. The man looked very much like Karl at that age. I handed Mama the yellowed snapshot.
She turned the photo over and read the inscription written on the back. “Louise Trachtenburg and Isidore Pollack, Ban the Bomb rally. Greenwich Village 1957.”
“Several years before Karl was born,” I said. “Maybe the photo was taken shortly after they met.”
“Read the letter,” said Mama.
I scanned the text. “Oh, dear.”
Mama scooted closer to me. “What does it say? Read it out loud, for heaven’s sake, Anastasia.”
_____
Dear Isidore,
I hope this letter eventually reaches you. The return name and address are obviously fictitious, and I took a bus to New Jersey to mail it. I even spent good money on some decadent perfumed stationery to complete the ruse, hoping your mother would believe the letter came from an
old high school or college flame. I know she’d trash any letter from me, the “evil pinko” she believes nearly corrupted you.
I won’t apologize for who I am or what I believe in. You once said that was what first attracted you to me, that you loved my passion for a cause I believed in more than anything or anyone. And you once shared that passion, or so you claimed.
The suburban home with the white picket fence is Madison Avenue propaganda. That life will suck everything that’s good and unique and special out of you and turn you into a mindless machine. You’ve been brainwashed by your parents and others like them. I cannot in good conscience subject any child of mine to that numbing way of life.
I have complete faith that you will eventually realize your mistake. I await your return. Lucille
_____
The letter only raised more questions about Lucille’s past. For one thing, I never knew her maiden name, and I’m not sure Karl did, either.
“She doesn’t mention the photo,” said Mama, “and the handwriting on the photo doesn’t match the handwriting on the letter.”
“The photo may have belonged to my father,” said Ira. “I have no way of knowing whether it was sent with the letter or not.”
“Probably his,” I said. “Lucille’s not the sentimental type. To my knowledge, she’s never kept any family photos.”
I glanced at the envelope. “This letter isn’t dated, and the postmark is too smudged to read. Lucille doesn’t say she’s pregnant with Isidore’s child. She could be referring to any future children they might have together. How did you make the huge leap from this letter and photo to my doorstep?”
“Through a bit of unbelievable coincidence,” said Ira. “Three weeks ago I saw a news story about a group of elderly women protesters blocking an intersection in Westfield. The reporter interviewed the ring leader, one Lucille Pollack. The news clip also showed footage of you arriving home and refusing to speak to the press. I’d discovered the letter and photo about a week earlier.”
“I would imagine there’s more than one Lucille Pollack in the world. What made you think you’d discovered the right Lucille? The photo gives her maiden name.”
“From the background information mentioned by the reporter. I knew Dad briefly flirted with communism in his youth and that for a short time he worked as a stringer for The Worker’s Herald, the same paper where your mother-in-law worked. And the age fit. When I compared the snapshot to the news footage, I was convinced I had the right woman. That’s why I was so confused by your mother a few minutes ago.”
“Why did you wait so long to contact us?” I asked.
Ira ran his fingers through his hair, then took a deep breath and slowly released it. “I needed time to work up the courage. At first I wasn’t sure I should intrude and possibly dig up a past that your mother-in-law might want to keep buried. However, the pull of connecting with a sibling won out. I never had any brothers or sisters.”
I understood Ira’s dilemma. As an only child, I had often wished for a brother or sister. At times I still do. “If your father knew about the baby, he walked out on Lucille while she was pregnant.”
“The letter doesn’t say Ira left Lucille,” said Mama. “She may have kicked him out.”
I quickly perused the letter again. Lucille had little tolerance for anyone who disagreed with her. Mama could be right.
“Dad loved kids,” said Ira. “He always regretted that he and mom couldn’t have more than one. Even if he and Lucille broke up, I think he’d want to have a relationship with his son. If he knew that a son existed.”
I had absolutely no doubt that the Lucille of the letter and photo was Karl’s mother. I also had no doubt that Ira was Karl’s half-brother. The proof sat across the room from me, written in his DNA. “Did you know about your father’s previous marriage?”
Ira shook his head. “That’s another mystery. I found no evidence of a previous marriage. Believe me, after finding this letter, I searched high and low. No marriage license, no divorce papers. Nothing referring to alimony or child support. He and Lucille may never have married.”
“Or he was a bigamist,” said Mama.
“Dad was an attorney. He’d never jeopardize his practice by breaking the law.”
Not that the two are mutually exclusive. Especially in New Jersey where our prisons have been home to many a lawbreaking lawyer. I kept that thought to myself, though. “So either he and Lucille married, then divorced, and he didn’t keep any proof of it,” I said, “which would be very odd for an attorney, or—”
“They never married,” added Mama.
“But she took his name,” I reminded her. “For both herself and Karl. Why would she do that if she and Isidore never married?”
“For the sake of propriety,” suggested Mama. “Consider the stigma of a child born out-of-wedlock back then. It’s not like today where young people start families, then eventually get around to marrying. Or not.”
“We’re talking about Lucille here, Mama. When did she ever do anything for the sake of propriety?”
“Maybe your husband can shed some light on all this,” said Ira. “When do you expect him home?”
I took a deep breath before answering. “Actually, Karl won’t be coming home, Ira.”
“He’s away on business?”
“He died this past winter.”
Ira’s mouth dropped open, but no sounds came out. Poor man. He’d spent weeks working up the courage to contact a sibling that he’d never meet. I didn’t know how to comfort him. An awkward silence settled over the room with Ira fighting to hold back his emotions and Mama and I at a loss for words.
When the phone rang a moment later, I was glad for the excuse to leave the room, if only for a minute. Maybe I’d think of something to say by the time I returned.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Pollack?”
“Yes.”
“This is Officer Harley from the Westfield Police Department.”
Officer Harley and I had history. Thankfully, neither he nor his partner, Officer Fogarty, have leaked my trials and tribulations stemming from Dead Louse of a Spouse to the town newspaper. “How are you?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t calling for a donation to the Police Benevolent Association.
“Can you get over to Sunnyside right away, ma’am?”
“Of course. Has something happened to my mother-in-law?”
“We may have to book her.”
“Book her?” What sort of trouble could Lucille have gotten herself into already? “On what charges?”
“Murder.”
six
I grabbed my keys, dashed out the back door, and slammed smack into Zack’s chest.
“Whoa! Where’s the fire?”
“I’ve got to get to Sunnyside. Harley wants to charge Lucille with murder.”
“Who’d she kill?”
“He didn’t say. Crap!”
“What?”
“I ran out without saying anything to Mama and Ira.”
“Who’s Ira?”
“Karl’s half-brother.”
“Huh?” Zack grabbed my arm as I started for my car. “You’re not making any sense. I’ll drive.”
I didn’t argue with him. As much as I never again wanted to rely on any man, I wasn’t above accepting Zack’s knight-in-shining-
armor offer at the moment. Besides, the air conditioning worked far better in his Porsche Boxster than it did in my Hyundai. With the mercury still hovering close to triple digits, I’d compromise my scruples for a cooling blast of AC.
As Zack sped out of the driveway, I pulled my cell phone from my purse and called home.
Mama answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Mama, I—”
“Anastasia! Where in the world are you?”
“On my way to Sun
nyside. Something’s happened—”
“What? Did that Bolshevik cow finally get what’s coming to her?”
“Mama!”
“Whatever happened, I’m sure she deserved it.”
“Just make my apologies to Ira, please? I’ll be home as soon as possible.”
“Don’t worry about Ira, dear. I’ll take very good care of him.”
That’s what I was afraid of. By the time I returned, Ira, no doubt, would be armpits deep in family dirt and wishing he’d never rung my doorbell, but maybe that was a good thing. It would save me the trouble of having to explain that he hadn’t missed much by being five months too late to meet his half-brother. Not to mention that he’d most likely saved his bank accounts from Karl’s raiding fingers.
“None of this makes sense,” I said as we zipped through downtown Westfield. “Lucille is many things—annoying, mean, strident, and a pain in everyone’s tush. But a killer? I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“I don’t know,” said Zack. “She can wield a mighty nasty cane.”
“But only as a threat. She’s never used it as a weapon on anyone.”
“Didn’t she smack Flora with her cane once?”
“The jury’s still out on that one. You know how Mama’s prone to hyperbole, and she’s certainly not above an occasional fib if it suits her purpose.”
“Maybe whatever happened at Sunnyside was an accident,” suggested Zack.
“Harley mentioned murder, not manslaughter.” I shifted in my seat to confront him. “What if something went horribly wrong with her brain during the surgery and caused her to become homicidal?”
“Wouldn’t the doctors have seen some signs of that earlier?”
“Who knows? Maybe not. Maybe whatever happened needed some sort of trigger to manifest itself.”
