The Coach House

by Florence Osmund

  “Oh, Richard. That is wonderful. When can we tell her?”

  “I can have it delivered on Saturday. Do you think she would be up for having dinner with us one day this week? I’ll be in Milwaukee Thursday night, but we could have them over either tomorrow or Wednesday.”

  “Sure, I’ll call her tomorrow morning.” She walked over to him and kissed him. “Thank you, hon.”

  * * *

  A few days later, the two couples sat down at the Marchetti dining room table with generous portions of lasagna on their plates and full glasses of Chianti. “I would like to propose a toast,” Richard raised his glass. “To Catherine. I wish I had a boss half as good as you!”

  “Oh, c’mon,” Catherine said, a pink glow rising through her cheeks. “You’re such a flatterer.”

  “Well, I mean it. Marie is constantly telling me how much she likes her job and working with you. She’s going to miss you, aren’t you, hon?”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Catherine, I understand you’ve been spending a lot of your time in a hospital ward.”

  “Yes, Richard, I have. It’s no picnic, but it does allow me to breathe. And Gus here is such a trooper. He stays with me the whole time.” She placed her hand over her husband’s.

  “What if you had an iron lung in your house? Would that make it a little more tolerable?”

  “Why, of course. But we could never afford that.”

  “What if I could get you one that wouldn’t cost you anything?”

  A soft look came over her face. “I’d say you were a saint.”

  “Trust me, I’ll never make sainthood, but when I heard that you were going to have to live in a ward, I did some calling around, and I found one for you. It can be delivered on Saturday. It would just need to be cleared by your doctor, something the state requires.”

  Catherine looked at her husband. Both had tears in their eyes. “I don’t know what to say,” Gus said. “You can’t possibly know what this means to us.”

  “I think I do. I’ll make all the arrangements. You’ll have to devote an entire room to it. Can you do that?”

  The couple nodded simultaneously. At the end of the evening, Catherine and Gus fumbled over saying thank you and good-bye. Marie and Richard stood in their front door arm in arm as they waved to them, Marie feeling exceptionally proud of her husband.

  She gave Richard a quick peck on the cheek. “I think you made them very happy.”

  * * *

  Richard left for Milwaukee, and Marie decided to make herself useful and pay some bills. When she ran out of checks, she rifled through his desk drawers looking for more, opening drawer after drawer with no luck. She looked in all the cubbyholes, but the only thing of interest she found was a receipt for shoes he had recently purchased. “What! Forty-eight dollars!” Still reeling over the cost, she opened the shallow center pencil drawer. Something clunked in the back of it. She opened it all the way. Tucked way in the back was a handgun.

  What on earth? She gently tugged the piece of paper beneath the gun and slid it closer to her, careful not to touch it. Why does he have a gun? She stared at it for several seconds as though an explanation might levitate from it if she looked at it hard enough. Then she looked closer at the paper beneath it. It was a subpoena for him to appear in court the following week as a defense witness for an illegal gambling operation.

  Marie carefully shoved the gun and paper to the back of the drawer.

  Her stomach in knots, she left his office, got undressed, and poured herself a healthy glass of wine. The radio played “Nevertheless.”

  Maybe I’m right. Maybe I’m wrong.

  Maybe I’m weak. Maybe I’m strong.

  But nevertheless, I’m in love with you.

  She curled herself up on the sofa. A gun. Why would he need a gun? She wondered if it was loaded and if he had ever used it. She wondered what else he had that she didn’t know about.

  Maybe I’ll live a life of regrets.

  Maybe I’ll give more than I get.

  But nevertheless, I’m in love with you.

  Second thoughts drove her back upstairs. She opened the closet door in his office and inspected it. Shoes neatly arranged on shoe racks on the floor. Suits hanging up. Many hats on the shelf. She pulled down a metal box next to the hats. It was locked.

  She continued her expedition and picked up a scrap of wadded up paper from inside the wastebasket. It read,

  GOLF BAG

  BIG ED

  TOOTSIE

  ST. HUBERTS

  Under it was a full sheet of paper, also wadded up. It was his résumé, something she had never seen before. One thing jumped off the page at her—a bachelor of science degree from the University of Illinois. He had told her he went only as far as high school. Did he lie to her? Or was the résumé the lie? Either way, she was disappointed.

  Marie crumpled up the papers the same way she found them and put them back in the wastebasket. Then she retreated to the first floor and walked through each room looking for anything else suspicious. The basement! She went to the shelving Richard had installed when they had moved in and pushed the familiar items aside to see if anything was behind them. A plain brown box, similar to the ones they used to move, caught her eye. She thought they had unpacked everything and discarded all the boxes.

  Feeling sneaky, but not enough to stop what she was about to do, she turned a wash bucket upside down, sat on it, and looked in the box. Inside were hundreds of what appeared to be receipts with only a person’s name, a dollar amount, and a date written on each one. She flipped through one of the bundles but didn’t recognize any of the names. A rubber band held together each bundle topped with a slip of paper with one word written on it. Crackers. Red. Dutch. Camel. Tootsie. “I’d love to know who this Tootsie is,” she said aloud. Several lists with names and phone numbers, most of which had been crossed off, were tucked in beside the receipts. She put the contents back into the box exactly as she found it.

  Marie didn’t know what to make of the papers in the box. Gambling maybe? Payments of some kind for sure.

  * * *

  Richard arrived home at 7:00 p.m. the following day with a single rose in his hand and a smile on his face. She opened the door to greet him.

  His smile quickly faded. “What’s wrong?”

  “Flora Jefferson died.” Flora was the neighbor across the hall from where Marie and her mother lived who had taken her in after Marie’s mother had died.

  “Honey, I’m so sorry.” He put his arm around her. “When did you hear this?” They walked into the kitchen.

  “About an hour ago,” she explained, looking for a bud vase for the flower. “Fred’s sister called me. The funeral is tomorrow.” Richard held her close. “I wish I had kept in better touch with her,” she said, sobbing.

  Richard rubbed her back as he held her. “I’m sorry, hon. Do you want me to go to the funeral with you?”

  She nodded into his chest and tried to choke back the tears.

  “How’s Fred?”

  “Not good. They were married forty-eight years and had never been apart. His sister told me she’s going to try to convince him to move in with her and her family in North Carolina.”

  “You okay?”

  Marie wiped her eyes and nodded. “It’s just such a shock. She was in such good health.”

  “What did she die of?”

  “Heart attack, as far as they can tell. Died in her sleep. Right there next to Fred. Can you imagine waking up next to a dead husband?”

  “No, I can’t say that I can.”

  “Anyway…” Her mind drifted off.

  “Let’s not go out tonight. I’ll run out for something.”

  Richard came back with Chinese food, which they ate out of the cartons, the red rose proudly standing in the middle of everything.

  The next morning they drove to the Jefferson’s home in silence. When Marie saw Fred, she lost her composure, something she had promised herself she wou
ldn’t do. His expression was vacant, his eyes red and swollen. He pointed to the antique Singer treadle sewing machine across the room. “My daughter and I talked. Flora would have wanted you to have that.” More tears.

  Marie spent time talking with Fred, his daughter, neighbors, and friends of the family. Streams of people came through the apartment to give Fred their condolences. Richard stayed in the background.

  “Aren’t you Sophia’s daughter?” a woman asked Marie. She was older, slightly bent over, thin and frail.

  “Yes, I am. Do I know you?”

  “Oh, you probably don’t remember me, dear. My name is Lois Caldwell.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Caldwell. How are you?” She didn’t look anything like she remembered her from when she was in high school.

  She smiled sweetly. “I’m doing okay, I suppose.” She smiled sweetly. “I watched you grow up, Marie, from the time you were born to when you went off to college. I don’t know if you know this or not, but when you were just a baby, I would sit for you when your mother went out. Not very often.” She paused to reflect. “I don’t leave my apartment much anymore.”

  “Did you know my mother well, Mrs. Caldwell?”

  “In the beginning, before you were in school, I did. We would go to each other’s apartment for tea or something during the day, and sometimes I would join her when she took you for a walk to the park. And if she were going to the grocery store or the post office, she would always ask if I needed anything. But then when you were school age, she went back to work, so I didn’t see her that much.”

  “Mrs. Caldwell, did my mother ever mention anything to you about my father?”

  Lois thought for a moment and then put her hands on Marie’s. “I remember asking her about him one day.” Her eyes were glassy but clear. “She said something I didn’t understand at the time. Maybe it will make sense to you.”

  “What was that?”

  “Your mother said he was unable to be with you.” Lois held Marie’s hands a little tighter. “I thought she was going to cry, so I didn’t ask her any more about him. World War One ended before you were born, so I knew that couldn’t be it.” She paused. “Your mother was such a lovely woman. You must miss her very much.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You look just like her.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Well, I should be going. It’s been such a pleasure seeing you again, Marie.”

  “Bye.”

  Marie and Richard gave Fred their final condolences and told him they would pick up the sewing machine the following week. “Wait here, Marie,” Fred said to her and disappeared into their bedroom. He came out with a purple and white Bonwit Teller hatbox. “My daughter ran across this when she was sorting through some of Flora’s things. Everything in here belonged to your mother. I’m sure Flora meant to give it to you when you came back from college, but somehow it got shoved into the back of our closet.”

  “Oh my God. Thank you so much, Fred.” Marie had forgotten all about it. After her mother died, Flora helped her sort through all of her things, and they had put anything sentimental in the hatbox. She was too distraught over her mother’s death at the time to examine the things, and so Flora told her she would hang on to them until she was ready.

  They left Fred’s apartment. “Which one did you live in?” Richard asked.

  She looked at the door across the hall. “That one.” She held on to Richard’s hand a little tighter as they walked to his car.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Box

  The next day, Marie and Richard went through her mother’s hatbox of prize possessions, examining each item one by one.

  Ten envelopes held together with a rubber band all addressed to “Occupant” at P.O. Box 13, Chicago, Illinois. It was her mother’s handwriting. Marie opened the one on top. Inside was her eleventh-grade school picture. Each of the other envelopes contained a school picture going back to the first grade. Marie looked at Richard and shook her head.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “Do you?”

  Richard shrugged.

  Her mother’s passport. It contained two stamps, one for Mexico dated January 1924 and the other one for France dated October of the same year. She didn’t know her mother had had a passport, and her mother certainly never mentioned going out of the country the year before Marie was born.

  Her mother’s birth certificate. It showed that her mother was born February 11, 1903, in Florence, Italy. Marie was aware her mother immigrated to the United States when she was very young. Sophia’s mother was listed as Mona Costa and father as Vito Costa.

  Marie’s birth certificate. Born June 28, 1925, in Chicago. Mother’s named listed as Sophia Costa. Father’s name left blank. She held it to her chest.

  “Do you ever think about trying to find your father?”

  “I would if I knew where to start. I have absolutely no clues. Costa was my mother’s maiden name, and that’s the name on my birth certificate. Any suggestions?”

  He shook his head.

  Marie’s report cards. She had been an A student all through school.

  An envelope containing a wisp of hair. Written on the outside of the envelope was “Marie’s first haircut, June 28, 1927. Cried the whole time.”

  A matchbook from the Central Union Club. Richard picked it up. “Why would she have this?”

  “I don’t know. What’s the Central Union Club? I never heard of it.”

  “That’s because it’s a private men’s only club.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t know if it still exists or not. During prohibition, these so-called businessmen’s clubs popped up all over, mostly for the booze, but I suppose some business went on there as well.”

  Marie sighed. “Another mystery.”

  An envelope containing a dried pressed yellow rose. On the envelope Marie’s mother had written May 14, 1924.

  “The year before you were born.”

  Marie nodded.

  A Bible. Marie didn’t remember ever seeing it in their home.

  Three Ellis Island processing tickets dated March 11, 1907. That meant her mother was four when she immigrated to the United States.

  Photo album. Marie flipped through it and not recognizing many of the people in the pictures, decided to examine it more closely at a later time.

  Death certificates for Victor and Mae Costa. She knew her grandparents had died in a house fire but didn’t know it was in 1919. “My mom was sixteen when they died, hon, the same age I was when she died.”

  A small jewelry box. It contained a string of pearls, a gold watch, diamond earrings, several hatpins, and a tortoise shell comb. “Nice watch,” she said. She handed it to Richard.

  “I’ll say. It’s a Rolex. Best Swiss-made watch you can buy. That had to set someone back a pretty penny. You should wear it.”

  Marie tried it on. “I don’t know how she could have afforded this.”

  Richard picked up one of the diamond earrings. “These are at least a carat, maybe more. Looks like your mama may have had a sugar daddy.”

  “Richard!”

  “Well, do you have a better explanation?”

  Marie ignored the question.

  A flapper dress. Marie held it up. She didn’t remember her mother being that petite.

  A typewritten manuscript, its pages bound with three brass rivets. The title on the first page was My Shameful Past. She turned the page.

  This book is dedicated to my mother, a slave.

  By: Winston G. Paterson

  September 3, 1903

  Marie thumbed through it. “Winston G. Patterson. I wonder why she had this.”

  “Hard to tell. Is that it?” Richard asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “So do you know more about your mother now?”

  “I think these things raise more questions than they answer. Like the envelopes sent to the P.O. box. I don’t get that at all. And the passport. Surely, she didn’t go out of the
country by herself.”

  “And the expensive jewelry.”

  “Yeah. That surprises me.”

  “What about the photos? Anything interesting?”

  “I don’t think so, but I want to look at them more closely later.”

  “Too bad you hadn’t seen these things before she died. You could have asked her about them.”

  “Mm-hm. Maybe she didn’t want me to see them.”

  * * *

  The weekend following Flora’s funeral, the promise of warm weather around the corner, Marie and Richard sat on their back porch sipping wine. She read the Tribune while he went through the mail.

  “I’d like to go to this.” He handed her an invitation for a political fundraiser.

  “Who’s Rocco Palermo?”

  “He’s a good friend of Judge Lucas.” Judge Lucas was the judge who had married them. “We’ve had lunch a few times. He’s running for governor in November, and I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

  “You must at a hundred dollars a plate.”

  “The only way he’ll have a chance is if he runs a proper campaign, and he can’t do that without money.”

  “Republican or Democrat?”

  “He’s an Independent.”

  “And he has a chance?”

  “If he can get enough exposure.”

  “Well, I’m open to hearing him talk,” she said, surprised at her husband’s sudden interest in politics.

  A couple of weeks later, as Marie was getting dressed for the fundraiser, Richard walked into their bedroom.

  “Wow!” was all he said when he saw her.

  She wore a midnight blue figure-hugging dress with thin shoulder straps. Its cinched waistline and low-cut design, in both the back and front, flattered her curves. She pulled her hair up in a chignon and completed the outfit with her mother’s diamond earrings and the gold bracelet Richard had given her for her twenty-first birthday.