Widow's Row

by Lala Corriere

  Inside I found a small box marked Cecilia. My finger traced the letters that formed my mother’s name. When she died, my father divided her jewelry between my sis and me. It wasn’t enough. I craved more of my mother. I craved anything that was Cecilia’s. A tear of delight trickled down my left cheek as the glowing memory of my mother’s tender life consumed me. Dad had saved something for me! I grabbed the box to bring it to my chest.

  Beneath it sat an identical box. This one, labeled Erin.

  Next to that, a revolver.

  With my left hand, I pulled Mom’s box closer to my heart, and with my right, I reached for the gun.

  Upon scrutiny, I recognized it for its rarity. It was old. Standard issue sidearm of the Imperial Russian Army. After my mother’s death forensic ballistics authorities had told us, through the sample of black powder-based ammunition and the 7.62 Nagant cartridges found at the scene, the weapon used was an antique Imperial Russian Army sidearm.

  The gun I was holding in my hand was the same type of gun that fired the fatal bullets into my mother’s heart.

  Chapter Two

  Two Boxes & a Gun

  Overcome with emotion, I opened my mother’s box. Dozens of papers and envelopes spilled out.

  Realizing it would take me hours to go through the contents of it, I dropped both the box and the gun back into the safe. I would have to learn their story in the morning. The long flight, long drive, and long pulls on the brandy had all taken a toll on me. I crawled back to the sofa, soon slipping into a restless kind of sleep. My fears and angst played grand host to a myriad of disenchanting dreams.

  I was dancing the night away at a grand gala as my mother tangoed with a bullet. She was always almost just there, but her image disappeared before I could ever find her face.

  And I kept hearing my father’s favorite psalm, but the chanting rang out in eerie sarcasm:

  My table thou has furnished

  In presence of my foes;

  My head thou dost with oil anoint,

  And my cup overflows.

  Sometimes sleep is not at all restful.

  The first business of the morning was to find a place to stay. No bloody way in this place called Trinidad was I going to spend one more night at Dad’s.

  Adam’s call came as I finished putting on a kettle of water and had splayed the Yellow Pages across the kitchen table, thumbing through to find motel listings.

  “Why don’t you come home? You delivered your dad into good hands. Damn, it sounds like he doesn’t even know you’re there,” he said.

  I didn’t tell Adam about my discovery, only that Dad’s house was filthy and I wasn’t comfortable staying there. “I just want to hang around for a few days, make sure he’s stable, and let some of his friends know he’s back in town.” I wanted to know what the hell that Russian revolver was doing hidden in his staircase.

  “Got to go,” Adam clipped. “I’m due over at the courthouse, then I have a power lunch at the L’Enfant. New client. Call you later.”

  I glanced back down at the phone book, increasingly aware of the wretched feeling eating away at the lining of my stomach. Maybe finding a room wasn’t my first order of business.

  Leaping off the kitchen chair, I returned to crouch by the creaky stair. With a flip of my finger, the hidden latch released and I retrieved the two boxes from Dad’s homemade so-called vault. For the time being, I left the Russian revolver where it was. I guess I hoped I could find out all I needed to know about the gun within the contents of the two boxes, without ever touching it again.

  The teakettle whistled. I returned to the kitchen with the cardboard boxes, stopping only to remove the pot from the burner. I deposited it on the counter, not bothering to fill my cup. All I really wanted to do was dive into the box with my mother’s name scrawled on top.

  The envelopes addressed to my mother spilled freely out from the top. I recognized the handwriting as belonging to my dad. I opened one, then another. Love letters. Sweet letters my father had sent to my mother when he was a young lawyer working for the Maryland Office of the State Prosecutor, and often on the road. A vague scent still lingered, a citrus-like aftershave smell.

  There was a typed bill of sale for personal items that must have accompanied the purchase of their first house. One green sofa, one pair pillows, Crosley radio and records, one large what-not shelf, one small what-not shelf.

  What the hell is a what-not shelf? I mused.

  The doorbell rang and I shoved the letters and receipt back in the box, slipping it to the floor on top of the second one. I glanced over to the staircase. Yes, I had replaced the third stair step, with its ugly secret still inside.

  “Mrs. Gaines! How nice to see you again.” I’d met my father’s neighbor, briefly, on my first and only visit to Trinidad. She was a frail woman, a widow of about sixty, and Dad’s neighbor since he first moved in.

  “I just wanted to make sure you got in safely. I’m afraid I go to bed early these days,” she said. “And call me Naomi.” She smiled a broad smile. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been to visit but even still, I remember you liked my cookies.”

  It had only been two years, but I didn’t remember any cookies. She offered the plate up high enough for me to see the old-fashioned sugar cookies, speckled with colorful candies.

  I opened the wrought iron screen. She hesitated, shaking snow off her insulated boots before entering. “You know I keep your dad’s key, just for emergencies, but there really never has been any need. I haven’t been in this house since...”

  She looked around at the mess, probably at about the same time her lungs filled with the rancid air.

  “...It’s in pretty bad shape, I know. No need to be polite,” I grinned, attempting to hide the embarrassment I felt for my dad. I led her toward the kitchen, amazingly clear of all but a few food-encrusted dishes in the sink. “Join me in a cup of tea?”

  I watched as her prying eyes took inventory of the room, the dirty dishes, the phone books. She swept her gaze across the boxes stacked on the floor.

  “I was just getting ready to find a motel. Do you have any recommendations?”

  I knew I might be inviting trouble. Mrs. Gaines, Naomi, knew everyone and their business in the little town. In spite of Trinidad’s population booming at around nine thousand, she surely kept her eyes and ears on the pulse of all the town’s residents.

  “I’m guessing the upstairs bedrooms are as bad?” She grimaced.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” And if I told her, I was certain the news would find its way into the local paper.

  “No motels. Not for you. I have the perfect place for you to stay,” she said, placing hands firmly on top of bony hips. For a moment I worried she was going to insist I stay with her.

  “I have a dear friend, a widow like me, who owns the most darling bed and breakfast in the state. Now she books up early, so you let me call her for you and see what we can arrange.”

  The idea of having some little old proprietress doting over my breakfast and watching my comings and goings didn’t sit well. Especially since I had more to do than just visit Dad. Now I had to find out why the hell dear old Dad was in possession of a Russian revolver like the one that murdered Mommy.

  “Breecie, honey?” Naomi hung up the phone. “Did you hear me?”

  “I’m sorry. Just a little tired,” I said.

  “You’re all set. You have a room at The Lost Cat. You ask anyone in town, it’s a treasure. My friend’s name is Kate Vander Ark, and she’ll have a room ready for you this afternoon.”

  Fine. In spite of a doting old widow proprietress, it has to be better than this place.

  Naomi’s lingering visit consumed the one hour I had free before meeting with Dad’s doctor. Frustrated, I had to leave the boxes for later discovery, but remembering nosey neighbor Naomi had a key, I threw them into a garbage sack and into the back of my rented SUV.

  The doctor had mixed messages for me. Hopeful, b
ecause most stroke victims did improve even though sometimes it could take up to two years. And a caveat. Real progress would require a determined fighting attitude, and he saw no signs of it in my dad.

  “The facts are, Ms. Lemay, the sooner the treatment, the more successful the outcome. For whatever reason, your father didn’t get medical attention for some time. He’s alive, but I don’t know how. Even though we have a fifty percent better survival rate than we had twenty years ago, your dad was found unconscious. Frankly, that makes for a tough road.”

  “You can’t give me a prognosis?” I asked.

  “I can tell you that he suffered an intracerebral stroke. A blood vessel burst inside his brain. It occurred on the left side. That’s the area affecting speech and understanding. He has mild expressive and receptive aphasia, a speech disability.

  “Frankly, the reason they released him from St. Mary’s is there’s nothing more they can do for him if he doesn’t show up for the war,” the doctor said.

  “I don’t understand it. My dad was a helluva fighter, all his life.” I wrung my hands in my lap. I wanted to make Dad healthy and happy again. I needed him around, even if around was almost two thousand miles away. I needed him to tell me he was still proud of me.

  “We’ll keep him here for observation. He also suffers dysphagia, meaning he has difficulty swallowing. We’re going to have to get him on solid foods before I can release him.”

  “Release him?” Now I was the one choking.

  “You didn’t think he would stay here forever, did you?”

  My mind fogged. I bit my lip hard, vaguely aware of the salty taste of blood in my mouth.

  “Ms. Lemay, in any case of stroke it’s far more beneficial to get the patient back with his family and a regular routine. Patients continue with their speech and physical therapies on an outpatient basis. Now if that’s impossible, we can help you find a nursing home for your father.”

  “No. No nursing home.”

  “I’ll probably want to keep him in here a couple more weeks. There’re some promising new treatments out there I’d like to discuss with you, but I’m afraid I’m due in surgery,” he finished.

  And that was that. End of meeting.

  I walked into my dad’s hospital room. His body drooped in the wheelchair, attached to an I.V. He was sound asleep. I pulled a blanket up around his boney legs, suspended motionless from below the blue dotted hospital gown.

  “Your dad’s gonna be just fine,” the nurse said from somewhere behind. “If you like, bring a radio in next time you come. Music seems to be beneficial, but all we got here are these damn TVs. Soap operas and atrocious news. That’s what we provide our patients with for entertainment.”

  “Good idea. I’ll pick one up in town.”

  “Oh,” the nurse added, “would your dad like a chaplain?”

  “A chaplain?”

  “Would he like a visit from our chaplain?”

  I honestly didn’t know.

  Chapter Three

  Bitches & Brandy

  The Lost Cat stood proud, a delightful Victorian two-story artfully painted in vintage maroons and light grays, with a fanciful brass cat cupola gracing the gabled roof. A true Painted Lady, Naomi told me it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

  Through the frozen air, I hurried in the front door with my one piece of luggage and a large plastic trash bag containing the two boxes. The gun was still behind in the staircase, but not forgotten.

  “You must be Breecie.” The woman standing behind the messy registration desk couldn’t have been Naomi’s widow friend. She might have been in her early-thirties, but with her tiny size, perky short hair, and crazy clothes, she looked even younger.

  “Yes. Breecie Lemay.”

  “We fill up with a lot of regular guests, but Naomi told me to expect you. Actually she said with your gorgeous black hair and blue eyes you were a dead ringer for Connie Sellecca. She warned me not to embarrass our town’s good name by hitting you up for an autograph.”

  “Naomi Gaines is my father’s neighbor, and far too kind.”

  “Good old Naomi,” she laughed. “She’s the dearest friend.”

  “You’re the widow?” I blurted out.

  She flashed me a flat stare with vacuous brown eyes. “I’m Kate Vander Ark.” She extended her hand. “I’m the owner of this fine establishment, and yes, I happen to be a widow.” Her eyes softened as I felt a blush rising.

  “Okay. I’m humiliated. Should I apologize now or wait until I say something else stupid? You can blame my rudeness on my being from back east, or that I’m under a little stress, or that I’m just a friggin’ idiot,” I said.

  “I believe the word is fucking. And with that out on the table, forget about it,” she chuckled, swiping my credit card and handing me a brass key complete with a fob shaped in the silhouette of the same cat I’d seen on the rooftop. “Top of the stairs, room number six. We serve breakfast in the dining hall down here, anytime between seven and nine. Earlier if you beg and tip. Leftover fruits and juices remain out if you’re a late riser.”

  Room number six was a shiny brass bed floating between marble-topped antique chests. It was Laura Ashley prints nestled against Ralph Lauren glen plaids. It was porcelain roosters and cats, completely at ease, residing only feet from one another. I fell into the comfort of the down-filled bed linens, and only awoke three hours later when Adam called on my cell.

  “It’s not going to be as easy as I thought, Adam. I have to figure out what’s best for him, next.” I wasn’t thinking about Dad as much as I was thinking about the boxes stuffed inside the closet. Listening to warning bells going off in my head, I realized I might not have the strength to deal with either of them. Maybe I didn’t want to know what Dad might be hiding.

  “Your dad was a lawyer. I bet he’s made provisions along with his will. You know, long-term care. I can check it out.”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you’re a lawyer in a Podunk practice, when you should be up here with the major players. Your mind is getting dull.”

  Dad was a senior partner with the largest law firm in Washington, D.C. Adam started working as a criminal prosecutor for the same firm when he graduated William and Mary School of Law. Dad and some of his old cronies were grooming Adam for a political career, and somehow along the way, they decided I would make him a perfect wife.

  I didn’t complain. Adam was handsome and smart. Although his parents had passed away in a car accident, he had stable family roots and strong moral values. He was ethical, sharp-witted and with a brilliant career ahead of him, plus all the financial backing he needed to make it all come true.

  He teased me about my small-potato law firm, but it was in good jest. I practiced estate law and the estates were huge, paying my partners and me sizable fees. Besides, both of us knew we should never pair up in the courtroom. Now, the bedroom was a different matter. I loved to pair up with Adam Chancellor in the bedroom.

  After saying good-bye to Adam, I praised my good fortune that all the rooms at The Lost Cat had private baths. I freshened up and threw on a pair of soft jeans and my favorite Polo sweater, then ventured downstairs to see if I could find a piece of leftover fruit.

  Kate Vander Ark stretched out on a red crushed-velvet Victorian fainting couch, enjoying the parlor room of The Lost Cat. No one else was around. “Join me for a brandy?” she asked.

  “Absolutely my best offer all day,” I answered, seizing the last brown banana off the hall bureau.

  She bounced off the couch and poured me a full glass, mindful to replenish her own.

  “I have a day helper who takes care of both your bed and your breakfasts,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not a morning person. I have a gal come in and fix the breakfasts, and she stays long enough to clean the guest rooms.

  I took a bite of the mushy banana, chasing it with brandy. “Seems an unlikely business for a night
owl.”

  “Yeah, well, when I bought the joint I thought B&B stood for bitches and brandy,” she laughed a contagious laugh that caused me to giggle along with her.

  “So where are your other guests?”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll meet them soon enough. We’re at full capacity.” I heard a tease in her voice I didn’t understand. “So, Breecie, where’d you get that name? Were your parents hippies?”

  Now I really had to laugh. “Hardly. What makes you ask that?”