Fighting for Anna

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  I quickly put my groceries away. Coconut water, almond butter, bananas, brown rice, a sweet potato, formerly frozen chicken breasts, prewashed and-now-wilted salad leaves, Paul Newman’s balsamic vinaigrette dressing, and a bag of mangoes. I lifted a mango and inhaled its sweetness. My life for a pint of Blue Bell, I thought, but the company had temporarily shut down production because of listeria. I couldn’t wait for them to reopen, even though I didn’t eat much ice cream. Only when I wasn’t feeling so great, which lately was most of the time.

  When I’d finished with the groceries, my thoughts turned to Gidget, even though I should have gotten to work on Juniper edits. My conversation with Tabitha had fueled my interest. When I visited Gidget’s house in the spring, she’d given me a box of pictures and documents. I’d tucked it away in the storage compartment underneath the couch seat without even opening it. I figured I’d have plenty of time in the summer.

  I burned with a sudden, urgent need to see what was inside. So I pried up the couch seat compartment lid and saw the gray plastic tub. I lifted it out and onto the table. A hot flash ripped through me, so I wetted a paper towel and held it to my forehead and the back of my neck before returning to the mystery box. I pried the snap-on lid off, watching for scorpions and brown recluse spiders. Gertrude hopped off the bed and trotted over. She put her feet up on the seat and sniffed the box. Her body went rigid and she whined.

  “Ah, Gertrude, you smell your mommy? I’m sorry.” I ruffled her fur behind her ears.

  I set the box aside and lifted the first document from inside, holding it up to the light. It appeared to be a legal document in the language I’d just seen at the library: Wendish. The only thing I could read on it was what I thought looked like “Anna Becker” typed in a blank. I set it aside and dug deeper into the box, pulling out all the contents. I realized I was holding my breath, so I released it. Even though Gidget had given the box to me, I felt like I was snooping, like I needed to tiptoe and not make a sound.

  Gertrude hopped up onto the bench seat to the folding table. Her sad eyes followed me as I made stacks on the aged blue upholstery of the couch, sending up puffs of dust that made her sneeze. Then I started sorting the piles, trying to put them in rough chronological order. The oldest documents in the first pile. The newest ones to the far right. And a large group that I couldn’t identify in a stack in the middle. There was a photo album in the middle stack. I leafed through a few pages. A picture of a little blonde girl in a pinafore, standing beside her parents and grandparents, possibly, in front of Gidget’s house a long time ago. It was the same album Gidget had flipped through with me.

  I turned further and found several more portraits in front of the same house. I followed a reverse timeline as the old couple in the first picture regressed in age, surrounded by various family members and vehicles—a vintage sports car, a horse and buggy, a mule and plow—and, finally, was only half the couple and then none of it: the man as a young boy and then pictures without him, with older people in foreign-looking farming clothes and late eighteenth-century hairstyles. The women wore those bonnets like the one at the library, too. The white house was brand new, and the barn was half the size it was now.

  I thought for a moment, counting back generations and estimating the age of the house. I had guessed that Gidget’s house was old. But it was possibly as much as 150 years old. The history in a building that age, the lives it had seen, the tragedies it had endured, and the joys it had celebrated sent a thrill through me. I trailed two fingers over the oldest black-and-white photo. Oh, how I wanted to tell Gidget’s story, if I possibly could.

  She’d been so excited when I agreed to do it. I certainly hadn’t planned to say yes.

  “But don’t things happen for a reason in life, dear?” Gidget had said in her little girl voice.

  How do you say no to something like that? So I didn’t.

  “I can’t afford to pay you, my darling, but I’ll leave you something in my will,” she had added, as she patted my hand.

  But I wasn’t doing it for the money. I was doing it because it was the first thing I’d wanted to write about since Adrian died, which is what I said when I told her not to be silly, to leave her things to her family. She’d smiled with her lips, and her eyes had gone somewhere far away.

  Just then, the air conditioner in the Quacker sputtered and died, bringing my thoughts rudely back to the present.

  An English expletive hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I got hold of myself. Honor thy mother by not being a sullen brat, especially at your age. I switched to español. “Caca del toro.”

  I turned the air conditioner off and then back on again. Nothing happened. I opened the door and looked back at Gertrude, but she snored, pretending to be asleep, even though one of her eyes was open and watching me. Smart dog. I stepped out into the heat and went around to the breaker panel, as my body kick-started its sweat response from zero to full throttle. None of the breakers were marked, so I flipped them all off and on. Back inside, I tried turning on the unit again, but all I got was a deathly quiet.

  “Chingate,” I said to it, and kicked the base of the bench seat. What was I going to do without an air conditioner?

  The unit had only been off for about three minutes, but already the temperature seemed to have risen ten degrees. Gertrude stretched with a disapproving look on her face.

  “How about you do something useful and fix my air conditioner,” I said, and she yawned with a little squeak at the end.

  I had to figure out what to do about my temperature crisis, but it was too hot to think. I took my laptop and phone and set up camp in the back seat of the Jetta, AC on high, with Gertrude by my side. Too close by my side, in fact. I pushed her nine-thousand-degree body six inches away.

  I pulled up a browser and started searching for RV repair and air conditioning repair. A knock on the front driver’s side window made me yelp. Gertrude jumped to her feet and emitted a low, menacing rumble from her throat. The two of us looked out the window together as I hit the lock on my door. Unfortunately, it locked only my door, leaving the other three open.

  An old white guy with bulging eyes to match his bulging belly peered in the window. He wore a straw hat and voluminous denim overalls at least as old as he was. Gertrude’s rumble morphed into enraged barks and lunges at the window. There was a canister of pepper spray on my key ring, plus I had a guard dog, so I opened the door.

  “Hush, girl,” I said, and the man stepped back to let me out. “Hello. May I help you?”

  Gertrude rocketed out of the car and rushed him, growling. He held her at bay with one large dirty boot. Still he didn’t speak, just stared at me with those disturbing eyes. It was awkward, uncomfortable.

  “Stop it, Gertrude.” She didn’t. “Sir?”

  His lips barely moved. “I’m your neighbor. Down the road a ways.”

  “I’m Michele. Nice to meet you.” I stuck out my hand, and he took it, which sent Gertrude into a new bout of hysteria. His palm was dry and callused. We shook.

  He was silent again. Or maybe he didn’t want to talk over Gertrude.

  I raised my voice. “What’s your name?”

  “Jimmy Urban.” He licked his lips one time.

  Gertrude took it up a notch and started snapping, mostly at the air, but I wasn’t going to risk getting sued if she accidentally connected with flesh. I hauled her back to me by her collar. She yowled in protest, sounding like an alley cat in heat.

  Half leaning as I held her, I shook my head. “I’m sorry about the dog. Are you the Jimmy who works for Gidget?”

  He narrowed his eyes to slits, and his mouth pursed into a bitter-lemon frown. “I ain’t her boy.”

  I suddenly wanted far away from him. I covered up my tension the best I could by picking up Gertrude and hugging her to my chest. “I was told that a handyman named Jimmy comes by to help her out.”

  “Don’t mean I work for her.” He stuck his hands in his pockets.

  All I cou
ld manage was a stutter under his withering stare. “Well, I’m sure you’ve heard about . . . well . . . that Gidget is dead.”

  He nodded once.

  I noticed a bulge in his left cheek. Chewing tobacco. I prayed he didn’t spit. I focused on the tops of the trees. “I was the one who found her.”

  “I know.”

  What a rude old booger! “Well, there doesn’t seem to be much I can tell you, does there?” I smiled instead of telling him to piss off.

  Gertrude squirmed away from me and landed on her feet. Her locks were still raised at her neck, but she quit barking. Instead, she sniffed around so vigorously I was afraid she was going to hyperventilate.

  I took a deep breath for patience and regretted it. Jimmy smelled like a bad mix of old spittoon, manure, and BO. Not that there was necessarily a good mix. “I’m trying to figure out who I should talk to about Gidget. Like family or whoever might be in charge of her estate.”

  “Why for?” he said, and he spat. A brown, foamy pool of tobacco juice, right at my feet.

  I took one large step to the side and willed myself not to gag. “Because I want to see if I can be of any help to them.”

  He stared at me. So long that I thought he wasn’t going to say anything—until he muttered, “Ain’t nobody but Anna.”

  His use of her childhood name struck me. “So, you don’t know who I should talk to.”

  “Don’t see why there’s a need to.”

  I gestured at the dog. “Gertrude, for one.”

  “I’ll take her,” he said.

  My arm hair bristled, and I looked back at the dog. She was still giving Jimmy the stink eye. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Nice to meet you. Have a nice day.” I nodded at him, opened the door to my car, and started to get in.

  “Why you in your car?” he asked.

  I stopped, pulling my hair back and fanning my face with the tail. “The air conditioner inside my trailer just quit.”

  Without another word, he walked over to the Quacker and let himself in. I’d decided I wasn’t scared of the old guy, but that didn’t mean I was going in there alone with him. I moved two feet away from the Jetta, dropped my hair, and crossed my arms over my chest.

  Five minutes later, if that, I heard the unit kick on and roar into service.

  “Well, what do you know?” I muttered. “Old bastardo.”

  He came out, wiping his hands on his overalls.

  “How’d you do that?”

  He grunted. “Closed the vent and reset the breaker.”

  “But I reset the breaker outside.”

  “Not that one. The one inside.”

  It was like pulling a hen’s teeth. “Inside?”

  “Under the seat.”

  Good enough. I’d find it from that last bit. “Thank you. So there’s not really a problem with it? Other than operator error?”

  “Didn’t say that.”

  All righty, then.

  He got in his maroon Silverado without another word and drove off.

  Chapter Four

  Gertrude and I went back into the Quacker. I couldn’t believe I’d left the vent open. That wouldn’t be happening again. Once the Quacker got a snoot of heat inside it, it sure didn’t cool off fast. It was still warm and steamy, even though the cold air was pumping out at Mach 5.

  It was too hot to work, but not to talk. I hit speed dial on my phone for Katie—time to grill her about Rashidi—but I got her voice mail. I didn’t feel like leaving a message. On a whim, I dialed Emily, whom I’d become friends with through Katie. I wasn’t much of a girlfriend type of woman, and it wasn’t lost on me that my few friends were referrals from someone assigned as my roommate a decade ago.

  Emily answered on the first ring. “Michele!” Her voice had that “AmaRILLuh” twang to it.

  “How are things with the newlyweds?”

  She tittered. “I’m not getting enough sleep!”

  “That’s not something to complain about.”

  “Who says I’m complaining?”

  Now I laughed.

  “But how about you? Did you get moved out to the boonies?”

  “Into my trailer out in the middle of Nowheresville, which is even less glamorous than it sounds. The air conditioner quit today.”

  “Noooooo,” she gasped. “What are you going to do?”

  “It’s fixed, for the moment. But if it keeps cutting out, I’d just as soon hotfoot it back to Houston. Literally.” With my new pet. I scratched behind Gertrude’s ears, and she sighed. I leaned closer to check on her eye. It was looking good. Still, it had been hours since it had attention. I got up and made a cold rag for it. I wanted to keep it clean and counteract the effect of the heat.

  “Don’t give up so soon. Get a repairman in.”

  I laid the rag across Gertrude’s eye. She sneezed and tried to shake it, but I was firm. “Maybe this whole summer in the country wasn’t meant to be without Adrian.”

  “You’ll never know if you only half try.”

  Sweat trickled down my neck. “Even if I get it fixed and stay, how long can I stand being in this little trailer?”

  At first, going through my things and bringing just enough to tide me over for three months had felt liberating. I learned I had lots of stuff I didn’t need. But sitting here in the hot Quacker, all of a sudden I felt a lot more attached to those things than I had a week ago.

  “Aha.” Emily’s voice sounded smug and amused.

  “Aha what?”

  “You called me for a pep talk.”

  “Commiseration. Sympathy. A pity party.”

  “Nope. You want cheering up. And to be talked out of going back, because you don’t want to go.”

  “I don’t know that.” But didn’t I? What was left for me in Houston, anyway? Sam had only one more year of high school, and Adrian was gone. Annabelle was at UT, and my job could be done anywhere. I wasn’t social. The few friends that really mattered to me lived hours away to the north and to the south. “But let’s say you’re right, for argument’s sake.”

  “I’m totally right.”

  “If you are, maybe I need a little more space to live in. A house. Maybe I’m not a trailer kind of person.”

  “You could rent something bigger.”

  “But then I’m not here, the place Adrian got for us.” At least here there were memories of him, or rather, I could imagine him here. We’d never actually been to this place together. He’d picked it out and bought it for me as an anniversary surprise. My sight unseen. But when I did see it, it took my breath away. The rolling hills, the trees and flowers, the clearing in the middle of our own enchanted forest. It was beautiful. And harsh for a woman alone, at times. Then I thought of Gidget’s place. “The next door neighbor’s house might be available. That would almost be here. The closest I could get.”

  “See? You did call me to cheer you up. Your positive side just came up with a plan.”

  We ended the call, and I slumped back in my seat, my brain buzzing over Gidget’s place.

  ***

  At four thirty, I pulled into the parking lot of Maria’s, a stucco-fronted restaurant with inset squares of colorful Spanish tile in the façade. I’d thought I’d find it empty, but it was packed. I entered, looking for Ralph—who had emailed me to meet him there—and inhaled the comforting scent of meat frying in lard. When my eyes adjusted to the change in the light, I found the darkish interior filled to the gills with the fifty-five-and-up crowd. Actually, I didn’t see anyone younger than seventy except me.

  A hostess glanced across a few tables at me, looking harried, and mouthed, “Be right with you.”

  I waved her off and searched from face to face until I found Ralph. He stood to greet me. His hair was white and thick, his blue eyes solemn but alert in a tan face with a lighter forehead. He towered over me, strong and tall with broad shoulders. I stuck one of my small hands out to shake, grasping thick fingers that provided him no end of grief in trying to publish a newsletter
digitally.

  “Good evening,” he said.

  “Good evening.” I sat, and after a moment, he did as well.

  “Thank you for meeting me,” I said to him. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “And you as well, although I wish it was under different circumstances.”

  I reached for the menu tucked into the ring in front of the napkin dispenser.

  “Oh, you won’t need that.” He pointed across the room. “Everybody comes for the buffet. Sorry to tell you, but they don’t extend my discount to guests under the age of fifty-five.”

  I dropped the menu. “That’s okay.”

  “So,” he said. “How are you settling in?”

  I shook my head. “Going broke on data.”

  “Ah, the joys of country living.”

  “I’ve been here in my trailer for a week. So far what I’ve learned is it’s too hot for my air conditioner, and not having well water or a septic system means I’m toting equal amounts of liquid in both directions.”

  He laughed. “When my wife was still alive, we toured the country for a few years in an RV. She didn’t like getting her hands dirty, so I did all of that kind of stuff.” He spread a napkin in his lap and took long seconds smoothing it out before he reestablished eye contact with me. “I heard you were the one who found Gidget.”

  “Yes, my children and me. Well, not really children—my young adults.”

  He looked toward the center of the busy restaurant and cleared his throat. “You know, the sheriff’s department isn’t so sure she died of natural causes.”

  I felt a familiar, unwelcome tightening in my stomach. “Why is that?”

  “Said she may have been poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?” I said. “Why would they think that?”

  “They assumed she died from a seizure, at least at first. She was sure prone to ’em. Then they noticed some things that didn’t fit, so they’re sending her off to Austin for a full autopsy.”