by Jodi Thomas
As he reached to turn the kitchen light out, he noticed Autumn cuddled in the bay window where Willamina always watched her soap operas. The old housekeeper must truly be gone for good; she’d taken her twelve-inch TV with her.
“Everything all right?” He half expected Autumn to say she was working too hard at this job and planned to quit. He’d reminded her both Saturday and today that she could take either day off plus any one weekday except Monday. At this rate Autumn would have her forty hours a week completed within four days.
The girl turned when he spoke and stared at him.
“Something the matter, Autumn?” he tried again.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you, Mr. Wright, I was just looking out at the night. It looks so calm, so peaceful. The whole town seems asleep.”
“Yes.” Tyler could think of no better answer.
“I have fun cooking here. I’ve already tried a few new recipes. This place isn’t like what I thought it would be. All the staff are nice, and near as I can tell no ghosts wander the halls. I guess I should say thanks for the job even if it will only last a few weeks till your real housekeeper comes back.”
Tyler felt bad about lying to Autumn. “If she doesn’t return, would you be interested in the position for a longer term?”
“I think I would. I feel like Snow White. I’ve found the cottage hidden in the woods and no evil can find me here. I know it won’t last, but this is a good place to stop running for a while.”
Tyler had never spent much time with fairy tales. His parents weren’t prone to reading them, and he’d never had a niece or nephew to buy them for. “I’m glad you feel safe. Good night, Autumn.”
“Good night, Mr. Wright, I’ll see you at seven.”
As he climbed the stairs with Little Lady as his side, he thought of how simple life would be if all you wanted was to be safe. Safety seems like such a little concern when you have it, but it’s all that matters when you don’t.
Chapter 27
FRIDAY
MARCH 5
POST OFFICE
RONELLE NOTICED THAT EVERY FRIDAY MR. DONAVAN SPENT the morning at the front desk. When he wasn’t talking to customers he did what he called his accounts. She’d watched him do it so many times she could have parroted every step. He always began with counting the change drawer and ended with getting all the stamps in order. No matter how many or how few people came in and interrupted him, he always finished before lunch and never left his post.
Ronelle knew she wouldn’t be disturbed in the back until Jerry came in around noon, so she always set her crossword puzzle aside and began what she called seeding.
A year after she’d started work, she’d been looking for something to do to pass the time. At first reading the magazines and postcards had been enough, and then she began working some of the crosswords in magazines she knew wouldn’t be read . . . those going to the funeral home, for example. As time passed, she noticed things, she remembered things, and finally, she changed things.
For example, Mrs. Perry Lynn Davis at the nursing home always got a card from her sister in California the first week of the month. The sister, Miss Alice, also with a nursing home address, often said she’d never be able to visit, but she needed to know Perry Lynn was well. So postcards passed back and forth each month between the two women in their nineties. When Ronelle read Miss Alice’s card saying she hadn’t heard from Perry Lynn for over a month and feared something might be wrong, Ronelle called the nursing home in Harmony.
“I’m afraid,” the head nurse said kindly, “Mrs. Davis has mentally slipped away. Though she still holds the cards to her chest, she’s no longer in the present enough to respond.”
Ronelle hung up the phone. Without the postcards, she had a feeling Miss Alice wasn’t long for this world. Ronelle saw only one logical answer.
She began writing Miss Alice. Each month Mrs. Davis got a postcard to cherish and Miss Alice got a printed card in what looked like her sister’s handwriting that said she was doing fine. They exchanged weather information and love. That seemed enough for both.
Then, as she kept sorting, there were others Ronelle worried about. Mr. Jetters, who came in complaining he never got mail, for example. Ronelle signed him up for every free magazine she could find. Miss Pat Matheson got all the free seeds every spring that Ronelle could find to offer. She even signed her mother up for the Women Serving Time Behind Bars quarterly. Dallas Logan complained every time it came, but she read it anyway.
Only today, Ronelle hurried through her seedings because she had someplace to go for lunch. Marty Winslow was cooking for her. Imagine that. He’d invited her to lunch.
She’d had his stack of letters at the corner of her table all morning. As soon as Mr. Donavan told her she could go to lunch, she would be off. She’d told herself a hundred times that this was no big deal. One loner asking another to share a meal wasn’t exactly a date. But she had washed her hair and made sure her clothes were first-day clean. Any more would have drawn her mother’s attention.
At twelve forty, the postmaster poked his head in the back and waved her gone. She picked up the mail for the fire station and both duplex apartments and hurried out.
Ronelle hardly noticed the cool air as she hurried to make her deliveries. Halfway to the fire station, she wished she’d taken the time to put on her coat, but she wouldn’t turn back. She hadn’t delivered any mail to Marty Winslow since Wednesday, and then he’d been on the phone and hadn’t spoken to her.
What if he’d forgotten about asking her to lunch? She’d feel like a fool walking in expecting to eat. She decided to just deliver the mail and wait for him to say more. If he didn’t say anything, she could just walk out like she usually did.
Only the moment she stepped into his house, she saw that the little table by the window was set for two.
“That you, Ronny?” he yelled from the kitchen.
“Yes,” she said as she placed his mail on his desk.
“Take off your coat and come back here. I’ve almost got it ready.”
She took a deep breath. Something smelled wonderful. Her mother had given up cooking years ago in favor of cans, frozen dinners, and takeout. Their kitchen at home only smelled good when Dallas lit a candle to mask the cat box odors.
Ronny stood in the kitchen door and watched him moving about in his wheelchair. “What are we having?” She forced herself to unknot her fingers.
He looked up at her and almost smiled. “My mom used to make this on cold nights. An easy mixture that took me a dozen tries to reproduce after she died. Onions, green and red peppers cooked in with ground beef, then add macaroni and a few cans of tomato sauce and you’ve got Winslow Goulash.” He stirred the boiling skillet. “Except, of course, for the secret ingredient.” He grabbed a bottle of ketchup and poured.
Ronelle laughed. “I’ll never tell.”
While she sliced bread, he dipped them each a bowl full of goulash. They carried everything to the table as if they’d done this simple task together many times.
After she took her first bite, he reached over and stuffed a cloth napkin in the V of her shirt. “Wouldn’t want you returning to work with sauce all over you.”
His touch had been light, almost impersonal, but she froze.
It took him a moment to notice, and then he asked, “What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you hate it.”
Ronelle shook her head. “It’s great. It’s just that . . .”
He frowned at her. “What, Ronny? I don’t have enough time left on this planet to have people not speak their minds around me.”
She swallowed and forced herself to take another bite.
He waited, and she knew he wouldn’t let it pass.
After she swallowed her second bite, she blurted out the truth. “It’s just that no one touches me.”
Marty raised an eyebrow. “No one?”
“No one.”
He leaned back in his chair and drank his coffee. “Because you want it
that way, or because it just is that way?”
She relaxed, glad to have told him the truth. “Because it just is that way, I guess.”
He buttered a slice of French bread and handed it to her, then made one for himself. “I meant nothing personal.”
“I know,” she answered, unable to look at him. “Would you mind if I had some more of this stuff? It’s wonderful.”
“Help yourself.”
While she was in the kitchen, Ronelle tried to relax. She was way out of her comfort zone here. For years she’d watched people talk at the diner, sometimes even eavesdropped on their conversations. Now, she was almost having one.
When she walked back to the table, he was finished. She sat, her head down, her hair curtaining most of her face as she ate. He sat, his hands steepled in front of his chin as he studied her.
As she watched, he stretched his hand slowly toward her until his fingers trailed along her temple and moved a few strands of her hair behind her ear. She didn’t even breathe.
“Are you all right with me touching you?”
“I’m all right.” She smiled, liking the honesty between them. “I’ll tell you when I’m not all right about something.”
“Good. I’ve been hollow for so long I think I’ve stopped seeing people.” He sat for a minute, then added, “It’s good to see someone again, but I don’t know if I’ve enough left to be much of a friend.”
Ronelle felt a tear slip free and drift down her cheek. How could she tell him that not much of a friend was more than she’d ever had? Her father had touched her, talked to her, seen her, but her mother never had.
He lifted the corner of his napkin and brushed the tear off her cheek. “I fell away from life two years ago, but you’ve been asleep all your life.” He moved his knuckle gently along the side of her face. “I wonder if waking you might be too painful?”
She couldn’t move, much less speak.
When he moved his hand away, his words turned conversational once more. “I guess you liked the meal. Want to try another sample of my cooking next week?”
She nodded without meeting his gaze. “I’d better be getting back.”
As he had before, he followed her to the door.
When she turned, she said, “I left your mail on the desk.”
His hands were on the wheels of his chair. “Thanks,” he said.
From his tone they were back to being strangers again.
Without a word, she leaned and kissed him on the cheek as she had before. Only this time, when she pulled away she saw something in his eyes she hadn’t seen before, and she knew Marty Winslow was like her in another way. He was a person never touched.
“Lean down, Ronny,” he whispered.
When she did, he touched his fingers to her chin and turned her head slightly, then lightly brushed his lips against her cheek. “Thanks for coming.”
She smiled as she straightened. “Thanks for lunch.” When she knew he had given her so much more.
Ronelle didn’t feel the cold as she walked back to the post office. Again and again she touched her cold fingers to the spot on her cheek where he’d kissed her, as though she could still feel the warmth.
That night her mother served frozen dinners for supper on TV trays in front of her favorite crime show. Ronelle ate it, remembering the goulash Marty had cooked. Just for fun, she pushed the corner of her paper napkin into the V of her shirt.
At the commercial, Dallas looked over at her. “Get that napkin down in your lap where it belongs,” she snapped. “I swear, Ronelle, if you don’t get any brighter they’ll fire you for sure. Then what will I do without your hundred a week? We’ll starve, that’s what.”
Ronelle pulled her napkin to her lap. When she’d started at the post office, her father had told her to tell Dallas she was paid a hundred a week and bank the rest. At first it had been more than half her take-home pay, but as the years went by Ronelle took correspondence classes and slowly advanced. Her savings had been building and building. She’d opened her account at a credit union in Oklahoma City and made her deposits by money order. When the statements came, they were marked General Delivery, Harmony, Texas. Dallas would never see them.
She’d worried that Dallas might figure out that she was making more money, but her father had been right. Dallas had no head for figures. He’d set up a trust fund that paid the bills. The house was paid for and Dallas drew her husband’s social security. Ronelle had the feeling that her mother thought if she asked too many questions about her income, Ronelle might ask what Dallas did with her father’s retirement checks.
“Would you mind getting me some ice cream since you apparently aren’t watching the show anyway?” Dallas broke into her thoughts.
Ronelle got up without answering. It hadn’t been a request but an order.
While she got the ice cream, she thought about Marty. Maybe she could ask him what to do with her money? That would give them something to talk about.
When she returned with the ice cream, her mother complained that it was too much, but she ate it all anyway. Ronelle sat back down and picked up her crossword puzzle book and wished it were Monday.
Chapter 28
WRIGHT FUNERAL HOME
TYLER SAT ON THE TINY SECOND-FLOOR BALCONY OFF THE back of the funeral home. The legend in his family was that his grandmother had the balcony built because she hated the smell of the cigars her husband smoked. She wanted the space big enough for the three brothers to sit out on, smoke, and talk business, but not big enough that people would expect to have a party on the balcony. When Tyler was a boy, he remembered meeting old folks who had known his great-grandparents. They said everyone in town called the balcony “the compromise.”
Now Tyler might not smoke, but he went out almost every day to think and watch evening move across his town. He was a man of order and routine. It brought peace to his life, and balance.
More than two weeks had rushed by since he’d picked up Kate for her weekend visit. Two weeks since he’d curled around her and held her on his bed. She’d never mentioned it and he’d only referred to it once. He wished he could e-mail her a long note and tell her what that one hour had meant to him, or better yet, he wished he could forget all about it if it was never to be repeated. Holding her, if only for an hour, left a memory across his heart dear and painful.
“You want your supper out here?” Autumn asked from the doorway of the balcony. Tonight she wore a big knit top that hung off one shoulder and jeans with more holes than material, but as always, Tyler pretended not to notice.
“No, thanks, I’ll have it in my study downstairs as usual.”
She nodded and walked away.
Autumn was still too thin to look healthy. No one would guess she was pregnant. Most of the time she seemed more like a ghost around the place than a housekeeper. He’d expected her to interrupt his world, but surprisingly she’d melted into the woodwork like lemon oil. She moved easily with the pattern of his days. Learning when to interrupt him with questions, when to leave the food on warm, and, most important, during his longest days she knew just when to bring milk and cookies. He’d also noticed she was making the kitchen hers. Little changes were everywhere. A new spice rack over the sink, pots moved from one cabinet to another, and a huge wooden bowl of fruits and vegetables on the counter. She’d even started a small spice garden in the bay window with tiny little pots lined up in an order only she understood.
Autumn Smith didn’t know much about the protocol for being a housekeeper. She ate breakfast with him in the mornings, sometimes in her wool pajamas. She appeared now and then in his quarters without knocking, and she wore clothes that looked more like they belonged at Buffalo’s Bar than here, but the woman could cook, really cook, and Tyler decided to overlook the rest.
In the days she’d been here, Tyler had noticed other small changes. His employees, even the two who worked at the cemetery, had all started gathering for coffee at ten in the break room. They tended to stay until
whatever she baked was eaten. And, to his surprise, the afternoons around the place were silent. He wasn’t sure what she did but, as soon as lunch was over and she’d put away the dishes, Autumn vanished into her room and didn’t come out until it was time to start dinner.
Also, the constant sound of the TV had vanished. Whatever Autumn did on her afternoons off didn’t include watching soaps. Maybe she read. Maybe she slept. He didn’t really care. He just enjoyed the silence.
Tyler walked downstairs and noticed she’d put his tray beside his desk. Grilled chicken atop a salad and chocolate pie she’d made with a sugar substitute. He’d told her he liked to eat light at night and, unfortunately, she’d believed him.
He flipped on his computer and started his meal with his dessert. When he noticed there was no e-mail from Kate, he ate the rest of the pie and tried to think of something to say to his Kate that would encourage her to answer back.
Finally, he simply wrote,
I miss you, Kate. Wish you were here for me to talk to. Ty.
As he finished his dinner, he gave up waiting for her to reply and turned on the news. If Kate didn’t e-mail him, they obviously wouldn’t be chatting either. He wondered if she missed it as dearly as he did. He told himself she was probably working or maybe in flight somewhere she couldn’t talk about. He told himself anything to keep from admitting that she might just have forgotten to check in with him.
A rapid pounding on the front door startled him out of his chair. They had no funerals pending, so he’d locked the door earlier than usual. Now, someone seemed very impatient to get in, and no one was ever in a hurry to get into a funeral home.
Tyler rushed to the door. As he twisted the lock, he was almost knocked down by a man pushing his way in. The bull of a man tumbled to his knees, suddenly disoriented. He was rough looking, as if he belonged more in a bar than a formal foyer. His clothes were dirty and his hair hadn’t been washed in days, maybe weeks.
