Rosemary for Remembrance

by Christine Arness

  Abigail patted Flora’s clenched hands. “We’ll finish this when you’re feeling better.”

  As she stepped back, she caught a glimpse of Quincy below them, now upright and wiping his hands on the seat of his jeans. Although it was impossible for him to have overheard Flora’s words, he was staring up at the woman crumpled in the chair and the corner of his mouth lifted in wry amusement. His gaze shifted, moved on to Abigail, and he lifted the trowel in salute.

  Abigail bent to pick up her briefcase, wondering if her impression that the man had been gloating over poor Flora’s distress was a true one or if it stemmed from instinctive dislike.

  Belle led the way down the stairs, her feet slapping at the treads in a shocking contrast to her noiseless ascent. At the front door, her stare, hard as a diamond drill, locked on Abigail. “Don’t plan on coming back. You’ve done enough damage.”

  Anger underlined each word.

  Abigail’s reply echoed in the expanse of the entranceway. “Flora is a dying woman—her peace of mind is of primary importance.”

  “Let Rosemary stay buried.” In the dim light Belle, with her closely cropped dark hair, slender neck, and heavy-lidded eyes, resembled a proud Egyptian princess painted on the wall of a tomb. “You’ve stirred up a nest of vipers. Don’t come back.”

  Abigail’s voice was curt. “I’ll be back to complete the interview as soon as my client feels up to the stress.” Belle yanked the door open and moved forward, forcing Abigail to retreat onto the front step, but she was determined not to go quietly. “Tell me, how did Rosemary die?”

  “She was run over and killed walking home from a dance.”

  The door slammed and Abigail gazed at the solid oak panels, blind to the rich brown wood and the brass door knocker shaped in an A. A scene flashed before her inner eye, flaring into black-and-white life, of a girl standing motionless in the center of a dusty street.

  A breeze playfully tugged at the girl’s skirt, blew a lock of hair across her eyes, and plastered a crumpled page of newspaper against the curb, but the girl’s attention was fixed on the black sedan speeding toward her. She raised her hands in a futile plea for mercy. A sickening thud. The car roared down the street and left in its murderous wake the twisted, broken body of a man. A man with the sensitive, lean fingers of a musician, lying slack against the pavement…

  Stumbling to her car, Abigail was dimly aware that Quincy had come around the corner of the house and was staring at her. Light winked off metal as he tossed the trowel into the air, catching the sharp implement as casually as a flipped coin. Abigail yanked the door open, almost fell into the front seat, and twisted the key with the shaking hands of a junkie injecting a fix.

  The drive home was a blur of automatic responses to stop signs and stoplights, the laughter of children playing in a park was a shrill obscenity piercing her numbed state, until she parked the sedan in the narrow attached garage.

  Switching off the engine, Abigail remained motionless behind the wheel. Instead of the prosaic garden tools hanging on nails, she saw through the windshield a newspaper with a headline printed in letters of fire.

  February 10. Local Man Killed By Hit-and-Run Driver.

  Abigail put her head down on the unyielding rim of the steering wheel and wept.

  Chapter 2

  Abigail rolled over and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom, the neutral oyster color scheme of her surroundings reminding her, as always, of the comforting interior of a cocoon. But cocoons symbolized new life—and all she could think about was death.

  It had been raining seventeen months ago, that afternoon when the most important things on her mind were the annoying squeak in the springs of her chair and a missing file. She was sorting through a pile of manila folders for the third time in hopes of discovering Mrs. Baker’s divorce papers when Sylvia and a man in a dusty brown suit walked into her office.

  One glimpse at her law partner was enough to still Abigail’s hands. Sylvia’s face was muddy and bruised, ripples of shock disturbing the placid surface, like a puddle after a child has stomped in it. Then the world had compressed around Abigail, squeezing her down to the size of the head of a pin as words seemed to appear below the two intruders, subtitles in a foreign film.

  Sylvia: “Abby, I’m so sorry…”

  The police officer: “An apparent hit-and-run…crossing in the middle of the street…no suspect in custody at this time…”

  Those three words swished back and forth through her mind, like windshield wipers stuck on high speed: hit-and-run, hit-and-run, hit-and-run.

  Abigail opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling again. Her body felt strangely detached from her mind, as though someone had siphoned out all muscle, bone, and blood, leaving only a limp shell of skin lying on the bed. With an effort, she rose, stripped off her dress, and went into the bathroom.

  Michael James had been no saint. He left dirty socks balled up in the corners of their bedroom like giant fuzzy dust bunnies, had a fondness for an occasional night out with the boys, and the annoying habit of becoming distracted while in midsentence if a pretty girl appeared on the horizon.

  But despite his forgetting to mail important letters and leaving her waiting for him in a restaurant more than once because he was absorbed in an architectural project, three years of marriage hadn’t revealed any major cracks in their relationship—nothing that couldn’t be patched up with a candlelight dinner and an evening spent before the fire as their bodies moved in the familiar rhythms of love.

  Abigail came back to reality as shampoo overflowed her cupped hand and dribbled down to the bottom of the tub. The shampoo bottle was almost empty and the drain was obscured by a sea of foam.

  Toweling off, she reflected that the next phase of her life, Abigail the coward, had begun almost immediately. Selling her house on the first offer, letting Sylvia buy her out of the partnership, and then, with the desperation of a cavalryman whose horse has been shot out from under him, she applied for a position with Paul Faber’s firm far away in Lincoln City, Illinois.

  Tonight, however, she missed their house and the grand piano, where Michael had composed romantic ballads, and the carved statue that he’d given her on their first anniversary, a teak woman with impossibly long legs, pert breasts, and flowing hair cloaking her nakedness. Abigail had left the statue on the piano and told the woman that both items were included in the purchase price of the house.

  Two separate counselors had insisted she’d get over Michael, as if he’d been merely a persistent head cold. Yet grief seemed to be an endless sea: some days she could swim a few strokes, on other days only tread water. Days like today, however, the waves kept crashing over her head, forcing her under, the solid ground of the shoreline only a faint memory. Turning Flora back over to Paul would be abandoning a fellow struggler in fathomless black water.

  In the bedroom, Abigail eased open a bureau drawer with exaggerated care and studied its contents: their wedding photo album, a jeweler’s box containing her engagement and wedding rings, and the object Michael had been gripping in his right hand when he died.

  A valentine. Her husband had been crossing the street to mail her Valentine’s Day card when a black sedan ended their marriage with a screeching of tires.

  Abigail studied the illustration of intertwining hearts strewn instead of shells across a moonlit beach. She opened it to read the love poem inside that Michael had composed for the occasion, pledging undying love.

  Undying? With shaking fingers, she shredded the card into pastel flakes, wishing memories could be destroyed as easily.

  Chapter 3

  An envelope containing the pieces of Michael’s valentine was tucked in Abigail’s purse to give her courage as she raised the brass door knocker. Flora’s luncheon invitation had taken the decision out of Abigail’s hands; she found herself unable to refuse the unspoken plea for help.

  Waiting for Belle to answer the door, Abigail inhaled the sweet, wistful scent of the lavender growing in th
e nearby redwood tubs. She glanced back to where the swans were stretching their necks to touch orange and black bills like lovers, the water sparkling in the bright sun.

  Quincy was not in sight and she felt nothing but relief at his absence. The man’s appraising stare conjured up the memory of a sixteen-year-old Abigail, proud of her new bikini, emerging from the pool to a chorus of whistles, catcalls, and the horrific discovery that the sleek material became transparent when wet.

  Her cheeks burned with remembered humiliation as Belle opened the door; the housekeeper’s lips compressed into a line of displeasure at the sight of the visitor. Abigail followed her silent guide down the hall and wondered if the mention of Rosemary had angered the housekeeper or if she was merely being protective of the sick woman in her charge. Her attitude indicated an ignorance of Flora’s testamentary intentions—with $100,000 at stake, Belle should be anxious to get the will drafted and signed.

  At the top of the stairs, Belle paused without turning around. “Don’t upset her. She’s just calmed down from yesterday.”

  Abigail spoke to the woman’s rigid back. “Show me an order appointing you Flora’s guardian and I’ll start listening.”

  A muscle in Belle’s jaw worked. “If you keep yanking on the tiger’s tail, Ms. James, don’t be at all surprised when you get bit.”

  Abigail’s client was seated in the same chair, her eyes fixed on the lush colors of the herb garden where chalk-winged yellow and white butterflies played languid hopscotch over scented geraniums. Clad in a lilac bed jacket draped with a rope of pearls, Flora raised her hand in greeting and a marquise-cut diamond on her finger shot sun sparks.

  “Thank you for coming. I believe luncheon is ready.”

  Obedient to the nod of her hostess, the attorney took her place in the other chair drawn up to the piecrust table set for two. Belle reappeared carrying a heavy tray. The housekeeper enumerated the menu as she placed each dish on the table: lamb chops cooked with marjoram and dill, tomatoes stuffed with basil, glazed baby carrots with chervil and lemon balm tea. Dessert was rose-hip custard served in Spode bowls.

  Flora surveyed the meal and, with a look of resignation, spoke to her guest. “Lemon balm tea soothes the nerves. Belle’s been slipping natural tranquilizers into my food since yesterday’s little upset.”

  Despite Belle’s efforts to make the meal visually appealing, the invalid only sampled the food, and Abigail, too, had little appetite. Still silent, the housekeeper came forward to pour more tea and remove the plates. Each movement was graceful and controlled, her eyes black and watchful.

  The door closed behind her with a click. Flora dabbed at her lips with a napkin, and the Georgian mirror stand across the room reflected the slight frown on her face.

  “Please bring me the picture on the table beside the bed.”

  The photograph, set in a deceptively simple platinum frame, was a black-and-white snapshot. When Abigail attempted to hand it to Flora, the older woman shook her head. “I want you to hold Rosemary while I talk.”

  Abigail lowered her gaze to see a girl leaning against a man with pale hair and a sneering mouth. Clad in slacks cut off below the knee and a plaid shirt rolled up to the elbows, the young woman smiled, even though her companion cupped her left breast through the material of her shirt and clasped her waist with his other hand in a gesture of dominating possession. The couple stood beside a hulking automobile of the thirties. But despite the brazenness of the pose, a hint of brave wistfulness in the girl’s smile pierced Abigail with a pang of sadness. Rosemary was no longer just a name—she was a pretty girl soon to die a tragic death.

  Flora’s gaze was fixed on the photo. “That’s ‘Spider’ Webb with Rosemary.”

  “A boyfriend?”

  “Spider was the town hoodlum and spent at least one night a week in jail. I found this picture under the lining of my sister’s dresser drawer after she died—it’s the only one I have of her.”

  Flora’s hands were locked together in her lap, perhaps symbolic of the padlocking of emotions long stored away. “To justify my actions, if that’s possible, I’ll have to begin six years before Rosemary died when my father”—her voice wobbled—“left us. One morning I woke up and his work shirts were still in the hamper to be washed, his handkerchiefs crumpled in the pile of ironing, and his newspaper folded in his chair. But he was gone.”

  A grimace of distaste. “I suppose one couldn’t blame him. Mother hadn’t been a true wife for years—she shrank when he laughed too loudly in public, complained about his pipe smoke, and I don’t think she’d allowed him to touch her since she became pregnant with Rosemary. She kept complaining that having the second baby had ruined her health.

  “I was fifteen at the time and Rosemary was three years younger. She loved Dad—cried herself into a fever that day. A note on the medicine cabinet said he was going to look for a better job, but Mother tore it up and said if he did come back, she wouldn’t let him in the house.”

  Flora’s mouth twisted into an ugly line, perhaps in echo of her mother’s bitter words. “I was upset, of course, but Rosemary really took it to heart. She insisted on setting a place for him at the table every night for two weeks in the hopes that he would walk in the door, but when she finally realized he wasn’t coming back, she hurled his plate against the wall. Mother wailed that her nerves were all to pieces while Rosemary sat there and ate her bread pudding like nothing had happened. I cleaned up the broken china and my sister never mentioned his name again.”

  As Flora paused, Abigail said, “Desertion is the ultimate rejection.”

  The woman nodded. “Rosemary was ‘Daddy’s girl’ and I think she viewed his leaving as a personal betrayal. Always spirited, without a father around to check her wild starts, she became as headstrong and wild as a colt. Mother’s response to any crisis was to take to her bed and I had to assume the role of breadwinner, leaving no time to deal with Rosemary and her tendency toward self-dramatization.”

  Flora twisted her napkin with restless fingers. “For years survival was a hand-to-mouth existence until I secured a job at the bank. I was on top of the world—had a battered 1929 Ford Victoria and a job. No more charity baskets of food from church or begging furnace coal from the neighbors.”

  On the parish. Such dependency must have bruised Flora’s spirit, Abigail thought as the frosted nails raked the linen fabric in agitated movements. Behind the trappings of wealth and culture huddled a little girl who’d had to assume too much responsibility too soon.

  “That first day I rattled up in a cloud of exhaust fumes with a cold tongue sandwich and an apple for my lunch, only to discover that the bank president had seen the reserves collapse and taken what was left. No job, the money Dad had left depleted—we were forced to give up the house in town and move to a ramshackle farmhouse that rented for nine dollars a month.

  “Mother had been a talented seamstress and she consented to teach me. Despite the stranglehold of the Depression, a market still existed for fancy dresses and I made an arrangement with the local couturier whereby once a week I collected material, patterns, and measurements and did the sewing at home.

  “Now survival meant copying designer gowns from tabloid photos or newsreel stills, placing tiny stitches in stiff taffeta into the early morning hours. Mrs. Haven could be quite sharp about a missed deadline. She often said there were plenty of other women who were clever with a needle.”

  Abigail heard the echo of panic in Flora’s soft voice and studied her client, trying to visualize the woman in the silk bed jacket and pearls as a struggling young seamstress.

  “Please understand, Abigail, I did love my sister. When Rosemary was born, I was thrilled. Mother claimed the baby’s crying got on her nerves and I soon took over Rosemary’s care, rocking her in the rocking chair by the hour, singing foolish little songs—proud that she was so beautiful.

  “But after I became responsible for keeping bread on the table, I couldn’t give Rosemary the emotional suppor
t she craved. I think my sister must have felt twice abandoned, first by our father and then by me.”

  Flora’s mouth quivered again, but whether from physical discomfort or the hurts of the past, it was impossible to tell. “Rosemary’s favorite game as a little girl was to pretend she was a princess who’d been left on the doorstep of a peasant family. She never really grew out of it—refused to take a job at the theater when it was offered. The hours of sewing gave me blinding headaches and I resented Rosemary’s expecting to be treated like royalty—and I was her lady-in-waiting. Rosemary did what she pleased and I ignored her. Mother, however, was quite concerned.”

  Raising the crumpled napkin, Flora regarded it as though someone had thrust a linen flag of surrender into her hands. Lowering it, she continued. “The economy was beginning to recover in 1937 and the town fathers scheduled a dance. But to me, it wasn’t just a dance—it was the opportunity to catch the eye of a man who could deliver me from the seven-day work week and the tyranny of Mother’s ill health. I decided to dazzle the town with a dress spun with moonbeams and sprinkled with stardust.”

  The napkin was now folded around her index finger, coaxed and prodded into the shape of a dress. The dress. “I copied a gown worn by the heiress and trendsetter Brenda Frazier from a tabloid photograph. Strapless, such a dress was considered very daring with its display of cleavage and a slim, frothy skirt.

  “A customer changed her mind about a bolt of silk in a glorious shade of peach. Since the material had already been cut, Mrs. Haven discounted the price. The boycott of Japanese products was a few months away and silk stockings were still available. I splurged my last four dollars on a pair and white slippers and dyed the slippers to match the dress.”