by Pamela Morsi
Brent laughed.
Amber did, too.
“I wish Mom could have heard you say that,” she said. “That kind of talk drives Ellen crazy.”
The explanation was directed toward Brent.
“Really?” he seemed surprised. “I always thought she had such a great attitude about life.”
“Well, that was then,” Amber said without clarification.
To Amber’s taste, the coffee was nothing but ordinary. Brent talked as if it were the best he’d ever tasted. He ummmed and ooooed until Wilma was laughing.
“Reminds me of my mother’s cooking,” he told her.
“Your mother is the worst cook in this town,” Amber pointed out.
“I know,” he said. “And, Wilma, you are definitely a close second.”
“I’m glad you came by, Brent,” Wilma said. “I’ve got a legal problem that I may need your help with.”
Brent shook his head and chuckled.
“I’m not a lawyer, Wilma,” he told her. “I’m not even a law student. I just get the right sets of papers together. I don’t begin to understand all that they mean.”
Wilma gave him a little half smile.
“I’m not asking you to play Perry Mason,” she assured him. “In fact, what I really need is Sam Spade. My stepchildren are trying to take my house away from me. You just nose around downtown and see what you can find out.”
5
Ellen visited legal aid, played phone tag with her former friends and scoured the Yellow Pages to find a lawyer to take on her mother’s case. As she predicted, the kids at legal aid were too intimidated by the prospect of Pressman, Yaffe and Escudero. And the more seasoned attorneys weren’t interested in Ellen’s virtual inability to pay.
Miraculously she was contacted by a lawyer whose office was just a few blocks from Roper’s Accounting. He’d heard that she was looking for representation and agreed to accept a very modest fee.
Ellen was surprised but, after seeing his office, figured that he had fallen upon some very hard times.
His name was Marvin Dix. He was short, fast talking and with eyes that seemed to pick up everything. He had the hair-gel pompadour of an evangelist, but the gentle, concerned demeanor of a country parson. He assured Ellen, with utmost sincerity that his only interest was in trying to help her.
“Pressman, Yaffe and Escudero don’t scare me,” he boasted. “I’ve forgot more legal maneuvers than that whole law office ever knew.”
“You have some idea of how you’re going to contest this?” Ellen asked. “Can’t we make some kind of deal with the family?” Ellen asked. “We could come up with some kind of compromise.”
“Absolutely,” Dix said. “I’m definitely going to appeal to their common decency and ask that they not throw your mother out on the street.”
Ellen swallowed. “I don’t know how far you’ll get with that,” she said. “Wilma has made no secret of her lack of regard for them. And she’s made catty comments about their parents as well. I think they honestly believe that she not only married Wilbur Post to get control of his property, but that the marriage probably hastened his death.”
“Is any of that true?” Dix asked.
“The last part is total nonsense,” Ellen assured him. “The guy was on death’s door when Wilma met him. Her care probably kept him alive longer.”
Dix nodded with furrowed brow concern.
“The truth is often the first victim of the court system,” he said. “The fact that Wilma was only married to Mr. Post for twenty-two months makes a very compelling case for validating the will.”
“But marriage is marriage,” Ellen pointed out. “Whether it’s twenty-two months or twenty-two years.”
“Yes,” Dix agreed. “But even if it were twenty-two years, that’s less than half of the forty-seven he shared with his first wife.”
Ellen couldn’t argue that. “They are sure to bring up Wilma’s track record,” she told Dix. “I don’t think even she is sure how many marriages she’s had.”
Dix was thoughtful. “Yes,” he said. “They’ll try to make it look as if she preys upon lonely old men.”
“That’s simply not true,” Ellen stated emphatically. “Wilma is a lot of things, but I’m convinced that she managed to be in love with every man she ever said ‘I do’ with.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “But being right doesn’t change the way they will make things look.”
“So what’s next?” Ellen asked him. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “Not off the top of my head. But there are ways…there are always ways. And I’m the kind of fellow that can always come up with something.”
Ellen didn’t find his confidence particularly reassuring.
“We’ll have to have more than just something,” she told him. “We can’t afford to be fighting this over and over. We need it settled and we need it settled for good.”
He smiled at that. As if she’d finally said something that he could really work with.
From his desk drawer, he brought out an agreement for her to sign. Ellen glanced through it for a couple of moments. It must be some kind of a boilerplate, she thought. Most of it didn’t apply to her particular circumstances, but, still, it made her somewhat uneasy. Purposely she shrugged it off. If you couldn’t trust your own lawyer, who could you trust? She signed and she wrote him a check for fifty dollars up front and agreed to pay the rest of the modest fee upon resolution of the case.
It was almost too good to be true. Ellen left his sad little office with her head high. Martin Dix was the first good news she’d had since they’d received the letter.
As she walked back toward Roper’s, she caught sight of Mrs. Stanhope hurrying down the street. Eyes straight ahead, a determined look on her face. The woman was off on some quest which might, or might not, be based on reality.
There was only an instant of hesitation before Ellen crossed the street to meet up with her.
Why isn’t somebody taking care of this woman? What’s the deal with her niece? She questioned heaven accusingly.
“Mrs. Stanhope,” Ellen called out. “Mrs. Stanhope, wait.”
The woman stopped and turned.
“Miriam?” Her tone was tentative.
“Violet,” Ellen answered.
The woman’s expression was incredulous. “The only Violet I know is Violet Mercer and she’s been dead for twenty years at least.”
“Actually, I’m Ellen,” she corrected.
“Then why on earth did you say you were Violet?”
“Last time we met, you thought I was Violet,” Ellen told her.
Mrs. Stanhope raised an eyebrow. “We’ve met?”
“Yes…ah…we had lunch together…at Helgalita’s.”
She looked vague, but then nodded tentatively. “Oh, yes, I think I remember,” she said. “You walked me home.”
“Yes, I did, that’s right.”
“It wasn’t one of my better days,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “I have good days and not so good days. I remember it, but it wasn’t one of my better days.”
“No,” Ellen agreed. “It wasn’t one of your better days.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence between them.
“So where are you headed?”
The question seemed to surprise the woman. “Now?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Stanhope turned to look down the street. “I was…I was…” Her hesitation was accompanied by a look of dismay and a light self-conscious laugh. “Well, I was certainly headed somewhere,” she said. “But where or why has completely gone out of my head.”
The woman was obviously embarrassed and Ellen was embarrassed for her.
“Would you like me to walk you home?” Ellen asked.
“Oh, no,” she answered. “I can get home.” As if to prove it she pointed in the right direction. “Is there someplace around here where we can get a cup of coffee?”
/> The only place that was really close was Helgalita’s. Ellen wasn’t sure if she should take Mrs. Stanhope there—perhaps the place would set her off. Ellen knew nothing about old age, Alzheimer’s, dementia. Perhaps the sight of her husband’s former business drove her off the deep end. Ellen didn’t know, but she didn’t want to risk it.
“Come into my office,” she said. “I was just about to get a cup of coffee myself.”
Together they walked the rest of the way to Roper’s.
“Oh…oh,” the woman hesitated uncertainly. “Is this your office?”
“Well, I work here,” Ellen told her. “Please come in. The coffee’s not the greatest, but the price is right.”
Ellen held the door as Mrs. Stanhope stepped inside, her curiosity overcoming her reticence.
Yolanda was standing at the counter, her eyes wide as a deer in the headlights.
“This is Yolanda, our office manager,” Ellen said by way of introduction. “Do you know Mrs. Stanhope?”
“Uh…yeah, I mean, uh…hi.”
Behind the woman’s back Yolanda gave Ellen a sort of frantic, incredulous expression.
“Mrs. Stanhope came downtown for a cup of coffee,” Ellen said. “I thought she could have one here with us.”
“Yeah, sure,” Yolanda said, still looking ill at ease. “Let me brew up a fresh pot.”
“Don’t go to any trouble,” Mrs. Stanhope protested.
“It’s no trouble, really. I was going to do it anyway.”
Yolanda shot a glance into Max’s office. Ellen was surprised that he was still in there. Rarely did anyone drop by the place that he didn’t venture out to meet or greet, shake hands and pass the time of day.
“Come on in here,” Ellen said. “This is my office. Have a seat.”
Yolanda didn’t voice the words, but Ellen could hear the question, what are you doing?
In all honesty, Ellen was asking herself the same thing. The last thing in the world she needed was another person to take care of. But the women obviously needed more attention than she was getting from her niece. And she had simply fallen into Ellen’s lap. She hadn’t volunteered, but she couldn’t just ignore her.
Mrs. Stanhope sat in the client chair and Ellen seated herself behind her desk. It looked like an ordinary consultation. But it felt entirely different.
The phone was ringing, but Yolanda ignored it, bringing them coffee instead.
“Cream and sugar?” she asked Mrs. Stanhope.
“Black,” she answered. “Perfectly black.”
Yolanda set the coffee down in front of her and handed Ellen her own.
“I’ll just shut this door,” she said. “Give you two ladies some privacy.”
She mouthed the words “good luck” to Ellen as she shut them in the tiny, windowless space. Yolanda’s attitude annoyed her. Mrs. Stanhope obviously suffered from Alzheimer’s or senility or something equally distressing. It was unfair that she be treated as if she were contagious.
“I remember the man who used to work here,” the woman said. “He did some work for my husband. Max Roper was his name.”
Ellen was surprised. Mrs. Stanhope had seemed so out of it the other day, now she was just a regular, reasonable person.
“It still is his business,” Ellen told her. “Max is right in the next office. Would you like to speak to him?”
“Speak to him?” the woman appeared clearly horrified. “Oh, no. I couldn’t speak to him. I didn’t know the man socially. He was a business associate of my husband.”
“Of course.”
“I never blamed him,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “Some may have, but I never blamed him at all.”
Ellen had no idea what to say about that.
The woman took a sip from her cup. “This is very good coffee,” she said. “Very good.”
“Yes, it’s fine,” Ellen agreed.
“And now you work here,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “An accountant. I always thought that would be a man’s job.”
“Well, I’m not really an accountant,” Ellen admitted. “I’m an accounting clerk. My husband was an accountant. I used to work for him.”
Mrs. Stanhope’s face took on almost a radiant look and she sighed. “Oh, how nice for you,” she said. “When I was first married, Lyman allowed me to help out in the store. It was the nicest time I ever had. Just being with him all day.”
Ellen smiled. She remembered that sense of camaraderie as well.
“Yes, I enjoyed it a lot myself,” she said. “I quit when my daughter was born. If it hadn’t been for her, I might have stayed on.”
“Lyman and I never had children,” she said, sadly.
“But you quit working anyway.”
“Oh, I had to, dear,” she said. “My parents didn’t approve at all.”
“They didn’t want you working?”
“No indeed,” she said. “My father was a professional man. No wife of his could even keep her own house, there were ‘servants for that sort of thing,’ he said.” She chuckled lightly, looking somewhat mischievous. “When Papa heard that I was actually waiting upon people in the store, he was appalled. Lyman tried to reason with him. He worked the till himself, never soiling me with the handling of money. But it made no difference. Papa thought it was beneath his daughter. And faulted Lyman as a husband for that cause.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I am, too,” she said. “I enjoyed it so much. And maybe if I’d stayed…maybe if I’d have been able to help…”
Her voice trailed off into nothingness, as if she had gone very, very far away.
Ellen waited, uncomfortable. She didn’t know if it was better to let the woman ruminate or to call her back into the here and now. Finally she decided upon the latter course.
“I’m a widow, too,” Ellen told her.
Mrs. Stanhope looked surprised and then concerned.
“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. How long has it been?”
“Five years,” Ellen answered.
“Five years,” Mrs. Stanhope repeated. “I’m sure it seems like yesterday.”
Ellen nodded. In some ways it certainly did. But in others, it was as if it had been a lifetime.
“How did you meet him?” Mrs. Stanhope asked.
“We met in college,” she told the woman. “We had a class together. After about the third day he moved to the desk beside mine. He said that it was the best seat in the house. He could copy off my answer sheets and admire my legs at the same time!”
It had been so long since Ellen had thought about that time. She laughed, unexpectedly, just recalling the memory.
Mrs. Stanhope laughed with her.
They spent the next few moments sharing courting stories. Mrs. Stanhope’s included a debutante ball and an unworthy suitor. Ellen’s was more nondescript with study dates and pizza parlors. It was wonderful reliving those times, when they were young and so much in love.
As the conversation lingered, the differences between those days and these drifted into her thoughts. The contrasts stung as sharply as if the pain were new.
Ellen changed the subject.
“The weather has been so mild the last few days,” she said. “Have you been sitting out in your garden any?”
“My garden?”
“Yes,” Ellen said. “You have a beautiful garden.”
“Yes, I sit out there sometimes in the mornings,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “Mornings are my best times.”
“Mine, too,” Ellen told her. “I’m really a morning person.”
“The mornings are mostly like today,” the older woman said. “In the mornings I can almost see myself. But then…you know…it fades and I’m…I’m lost.”
She turned to look directly at Ellen. Her gaze was so intense and there was such a depth of sorrow that Ellen was momentarily taken aback.
“Mrs. Stanhope, are you all right?”
“I think I want to go home now,” she said. “I’ve had my coffee and I think I want to go home. Can y
ou call my niece, Irma?”
“I’ll walk you,” Ellen said.
“I hate to impose.”
“It’s no imposition,” Ellen said. “And you know how Irma hates to be bothered while she’s working.”
“Yes…yes, that’s right,” she agreed.
Just as they stood up, there was a light tap on the door. Yolanda peeked inside.
“Mrs. Stanhope, your niece is here,” she said.
Ellen’s jaw dropped open in surprise. How on earth had the woman found her?
Mrs. Stanhope’s reaction was decidedly more positive.
“Oh, how convenient!” she said, turning to smile at Ellen. She seemed immediately more lively and gave a lighthearted, almost girlish, giggle.
As they stepped out into the main office area, Irma gave Ellen a very disapproving, almost resentful look. As if somehow, it were her fault that Mrs. Stanhope had managed to get downtown on her own.
Ellen was equally cool in response, wanting to convey the notion that if Irma had been paying appropriate attention, Mrs. Stanhope wouldn’t currently be standing in the office of the Cowboy of Taxes.
The older woman missed all these unpleasant, un-spoken undercurrents completely. She was delightfully animated.
“Irma, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I have so much to do today and I fear I’ve frittered away half the morning here gossiping. I’m prone to it, you know. Papa always said I was the most loquacious of all his girls. Do you know my friend?” she asked, indicating Ellen. “This is—” She stopped in mid-sentence. “Good Lord, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Ellen.”
“Ellen? No, that’s not it. I don’t know anyone named Ellen.”
“We need to get you home now,” Irma interrupted. “It’s time for your nap.”
“All right,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “But first we must stop by the store. Lyman had already left for work when I got down to breakfast and I have to tell him about the dinner party at the Gleichmans. If I don’t remind him, he’ll work late and we’ll not get seated until the middle of the entrée.”
Mrs. Stanhope laughed at that statement as if it were a great joke. And amazingly, Irma joined her.
