by Pamela Morsi
Ellen went to work early on Monday. It wasn’t that she’d intended to, exactly. Another dream had awakened her at dawn. After she’d had all the coffee she wanted and was all dressed and ready to go, it seemed foolish just to sit around the house. So she had gone to work. The office was not yet open—she knew it wouldn’t be. It was still early and Yolanda was always running a couple of minutes late.
There was nothing for Ellen to do but park and wait or drive around. It certainly made a lot more sense to park. But Ellen drove. She drove down into the King William district, past the house where Mrs. Stanhope lived.
What the woman had said had stuck in Ellen’s mind. In the mornings I can almost see myself. Inexplicably, Ellen had an unwarranted desire to see Mrs. Stanhope herself.
“Okay, God, I don’t know why I feel like I need to do this. But if you think I have some kind of comfort to offer this woman, I’m willing. Or at least I’m willing if she’s out in the garden. If she isn’t in the garden, I’m off to Helgalita’s to get a cup of coffee,” Ellen told anyone in heaven who might be listening.
She had never held any morbid fascination for mental illness. She didn’t watch made for TV movies about multiple personality or schizophrenia. She changed the channel when PBS did a special on abnormal brain function. And she always considered novels that explained the motivations of people by virtue of their psychopathology as being easy cop-outs for lazy writers.
Nor was she fearful of it. She was knowledgeable enough to assume that while sociopaths and serial killers might be the darlings of books and films, the vast majority of people with mental illness were much more afraid of her than she should be of them.
Still, if Mrs. Stanhope wasn’t in the garden, she would just drive by. If she didn’t see her she wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t as if she really needed to get involved. The woman obviously had friends and family around her. And Ellen had plenty of problems of her own.
Ellen slowed the car in front of the charming little house. Sitting on a bench beneath an overhang of mountain laurel, Mrs. Stanhope was gazing into the eastern horizon.
Ellen wanted to roll her eyes at heaven. If she didn’t have enough trouble in her life already, she was being given the formidable task of befriending the local crazy lady.
“Fine!” she said, to the supreme being on her prayer channel. “If you want me to talk to her, I’ll talk to her.”
She parked the car.
As she got out, she checked her watch. She’d only stay a few minutes. And she wouldn’t stay at all if the woman didn’t know her or seemed confused.
Ellen walked along the white picket fence to the little garden gate. It wasn’t even latched. No wonder the woman managed to escape with such regularity. Although, Ellen was sure she wouldn’t want the woman locked in either.
There was a narrow edge of flowering liriope skirting the slate stone path. The garden was profuse with iris and cannas, rosebushes and trumpet vine. Ancient crepe myrtles of pink and white towered over the garden. The mountain laurel had already gone to seed. Lantana, with its multicolored blossoms, was at the height of its glory. Day lilies bent in the morning sunshine.
“Good morning,” Ellen called out to the woman, stirring her from her reverie.
Mrs. Stanhope looked up, curious. Her sweet little face, looked somehow childlike even in advanced age. Ellen didn’t see any indication of recognition, but the women did smile at her, welcoming.
“I’m Ellen,” she said. “From the tax office.”
She appeared puzzled. “Is there something wrong with my taxes? Oh, dear, you had better talk to Irma. She handles all those sorts of things.”
“No, I’m not here about your taxes,” Ellen assured her. “I came to see you. We had coffee together the other day.”
She allowed the statement to simply hang out there for a long moment. Ellen was ready to do an about-face and march back to the car, when the older woman’s face suddenly wreathed in smiles and she beamed at Ellen delightedly.
“Of course,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “I remember you. You work in Max Roper’s office. You’re a widow like myself.”
“Yes, yes I am.”
“Sit down, sit down,” Mrs. Stanhope insisted. “I am so pleased that you came to visit me.”
The low wrought iron garden seat was not particularly comfortable, but it did afford a charming view. As she glanced around she discovered a wide covered porch not visible from the road. At a breakfast strewn table with coffee cups and newspaper sat Irma. She was speaking to someone on the phone. Her words muffled to obscurity over distance, but she was looking right at Ellen.
Not knowing what else to do, Ellen gave a slight nod of acknowledgement. Irma returned the wary greeting.
“It is so nice to have visitors in my garden,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “I would love to offer you some tea or something, but I don’t have live-in help anymore and the maids don’t arrive until eight.”
“I just had breakfast,” Ellen assured her. “And I drink so much coffee at work, that I honestly try to avoid it everywhere else.”
Mrs. Stanhope sighed, a little disheartened. “A proper hostess would serve tea, even if you had no interest in drinking it,” she said. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve been a proper hostess. I could ask Irma to brew up something, but…” Mrs. Stanhope lowered her voice to a whisper in confidence. “She’s already working. When I disturb her at work, she gets very crabby sometimes.”
“I don’t need a thing,” Ellen assured her.
“Irma is a very good person,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “She doesn’t have to stay with me, but she does. And she will listen to me talk about Lyman, sometimes for hours on end. She never even knew the man.”
Ellen nodded. At least this morning the woman didn’t think her husband was working at his store.
“Irma’s been living here with me for years now,” Mrs. Stanhope continued. “She never had any children and she’s divorced.”
The last word was said in a scandalized whisper.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ellen said politely.
Mrs. Stanhope shook her head. “He’s an obnoxious, selfish, mama’s boy. Irma is well rid of him.”
Ellen nodded.
“It was, however, the first divorce in the history of the family,” Mrs. Stanhope pointed out. “If my father had still been alive, he never would have allowed it. But then, he wouldn’t have allowed her to marry the man. He had very definite ideas about what family names his family could connect with. He was opposed to my marriage to Lyman. It was the only time in my life that I ever went against him. He never let me forget it. He said he would disinherit me and cast me out of the family.”
“Parents often say things they don’t mean,” Ellen pointed out.
Mrs. Stanhope chuckled. “Oh, he meant it. And he did it. Wrote me completely out of his will,” she said. “But of course, he couldn’t seem to stay out of my life.”
She was gazing thoughtfully in the direction of the porch.
“I often wonder what he would make of Irma,” she said. “How could he help but be proud of who she is and all she’s achieved? And how could she have accomplished anything if she’d not been allowed to pursue a career. He would never have let her work. He didn’t let me help out at the store, even when I was a married woman and off on my own.”
“It sounds like he was a very domineering father,” Ellen said.
Mrs. Stanhope nodded. “He had very strong opinions about things,” she said. “Even little things. My husband bought me a fox stole for our first anniversary present. Papa made me take it back. He said it was ostentatious—that a cloth coat was good enough for any woman.”
Ellen remembered Yolanda’s story about Mrs. Stanhope wearing furs year-round. Apparently she’d gotten over her father’s opinion.
“I am just grateful that Irma has had a chance to live her own life and make her own mistakes,” Mrs. Stanhope said.
The image of Amber flashed through Ellen’s thoughts.
> “Yes, I suppose it is best to make your own choices,” Ellen said. “Even though, as a parent, it is hard to stand by and do nothing.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “Lyman and I never had children.”
Her voice sounded so sad.
“At least now you have Irma,” Ellen said, with deliberate cheerfulness.
“Yes, Irma is truly good to me,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “Living alone is not the best thing.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” Ellen agreed.
“You and your husband must have been so proud when your child was born,” Mrs. Stanhope said.
Ellen nodded. “Yes, we were thrilled.”
“And was your husband a devoted father?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” Ellen told her. “Though I have to admit he was a bit scared when we started out.”
“Really?”
Ellen related the story of her husband’s reluctance to take on fatherhood. He made it clear early in the pregnancy that he would be the breadwinner and the childrearing would fall to Ellen. When other daddies were fighting to get into the delivery room, he’d been content to wait outside. Once Amber was born he had been reluctant to hold her. He seemed afraid that he might drop her or break her. On the day they came home from the hospital, Ellen was holding Amber, but had to go to the bathroom. Paul was sitting in his chair reading. She had simply plopped the baby in his arms.
“I was sitting on the toilet and from the living room I heard this really high silly voice saying, ‘Hello there, I’m your daddy.’”
Mrs. Stanhope laughed.
“Amber had him wrapped around her finger from that day forward,” Ellen stated unequivocally.
“Oh, it must have been such a joy to be a mother,” Mrs. Stanhope said.
“It certainly has its moments,” Ellen said, smiling.
“And Amber still lives with you?”
Ellen nodded. “When I lost the house, my daughter and her little girl and I all moved in with my mother. And we’ve been there ever since.”
“It sounds like a cozy arrangement,” Mrs. Stanhope said with a rather wistful sigh.
Ellen chuckled lightly. “To tell you the truth, I don’t often think of it as cozy. More like crowded and uncomfortable. I’ve never really gotten along with my mother all that well. And my daughter doesn’t get along that well with me. Now we’re all hemmed up together in a house with a three-year-old.”
“Oh my goodness!”
“But you know how God is,” Ellen said ruefully. “Just when you start complaining, he makes you see how lucky you are, or maybe he lets you imagine how much worse off you can be.”
Mrs. Stanhope’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“My mother doesn’t have clear ownership of the house we’re in. She married the man who owned it a few months before he died. He never changed his will and his children want us out of there.”
“Oh, dear, that is worrisome.”
Ellen nodded.
“What are you planning to do?” Mrs. Stanhope asked.
“Fight them,” Ellen answered. “What else is there?”
“Yes,” the woman said with a sigh. “I suppose you must. They are family. But sometimes you must fight. Trying to appease them, trying to get along, that can make things so much worse.”
Ellen’s troubles seemed to worry Mrs. Stanhope almost as much as they worried Ellen. Her cheery face was sad now. She seemed to be troubled now and lost in thought.
Mrs. Stanhope gave a shudder of revulsion that was completely genuine. “I hate money,” she said. “Sometimes I think it just exists to make people miserable.”
Ellen was a little surprised at the vehemence of the statement. Especially considering Yolanda’s assertion that Mrs. Stanhope was as rich as Croesus.
Why am I talking about my problems! Ellen scolded herself.
Ellen didn’t want her to lose hold of the morning’s lucidity. If Mrs. Stanhope could only see herself in the morning, then she should at least get the opportunity of seeing herself, not the worries and complaints of a woman she hardly knew. Ellen decided it was best to change the direction of the conversation, to talk about something more pleasant, something that Mrs. Stanhope enjoyed talking about.
“Tell me about your husband,” Ellen asked, smiling brightly at her.
Mrs. Stanhope looked up at her, puzzled for a moment before she replied.
“He committed suicide,” she answered calmly. “He hanged himself in the back room of the store. He had…” She hesitated on the words. “He had some business problems.”
Ellen could hardly swallow the choking sound that shuddered in her throat. She was shocked almost beyond belief.
“I…I am so sorry,” Ellen managed to stutter out. “I had no idea. I…”
“No apologies necessary, dear,” the woman said. She was smiling brightly again, charming, animated. “I do wish we had some tea. If the maids don’t arrive soon, Irma will just have to make us some.”
Ellen glanced down at her watch.
“Oh, they will be here any minute,” she said. “And I have to be at work.”
“Oh, I’m sure your boss is a dreadful grouchy scowl,” she said, almost giggling.
“No,” Ellen said. “He’s not like that, but I do like to be on time.”
“Of course you do, dear,” she said. “And he appreciates it so much.”
“I thought you didn’t talk to him?”
“Oh, now who is being silly,” she said. “We have our little spats now and again. But I’ve never stopped talking to him. Who would that punish more? Him or me?”
She giggled delightedly at her own little joke.
“You go on to the store then,” Mrs. Stanhope said. “But you must bring Sis and Willy over to play one afternoon. I miss those little scamps tremendously.”
Ellen rose to her feet. Mrs. Stanhope was smiling at her. She looked younger, happier. She was back in her dream world and she obviously liked it better.
“See you,” Ellen said.
“Goodbye, dear.”
As she walked down the stone path to the garden gate, she glanced up at Irma on the porch. She wasn’t on the phone anymore, she simply had her eye on Ellen. Ellen offered a wave. Irma returned it in kind.
Poor Mrs. Stanhope. Her husband had killed himself and she’d gone crazy. Did that happen? Could one tragic event make a person crazy for life?
“What was that about?” she asked God as she climbed into her car. As usual, she received no direct answer.
Amber wasn’t even fully awake yet. She had been sitting on the back step with Wilma. She was hoping to share a cigarette, but Wilma wasn’t smoking yet today. Her morning hack, to clear her lungs, was unusually difficult. She’d put on her oxygen and kept it running. As she choked and coughed and spat into tissues, Amber tried not to take notice of the unmistakable sounds of her illness. It was difficult to ignore.
Finally, she’d gotten up to go for coffee. The pot was already half-empty. Though she was up much earlier than usual, her mother had already gone to work.
She was still in the kitchen when the phone rang.
“How much did Matt give you?” Gwen questioned eagerly. “Did you get your half of the deposit money?”
“Ten dollars for cab fare,” Amber answered.
“You’re kidding?” Gwen was taken aback. “Didn’t you screw him?” she asked.
“Yeah, I screwed him,” Amber answered, trying to wrap a shell of toughness around her vulnerability.
“That cheap bastard,” Gwen complained. “The good-looking ones always turn out to be cheap. They think they’re God’s gift and that they’re doing you some honor. I hope it falls off.”
Amber didn’t argue or concur. She thought the less said about what she was now thinking of euphemistically as the Friday night incident, the better. She had managed to avoid Gwen over the weekend, spending the day with Jet and Brent, working until closing Saturday night. She hadn’t felt like clubbing and
had simply caught the bus for home. But when she got to her stop, she worried that it might look suspicious, so she rode on up into Alamo Heights and sat in a quiet coffeehouse there. She was home by eleven and then slept the clock around and went straight into work on Sunday.
“I guess, we may have to just wait a little longer to get that apartment,” Amber said.
Gwen gave a knowing chuckle. “Not nearly as long as you’d think,” she said. “The old creep really came through for me on Friday and then I went out to Dick’s with a couple of suits that I picked up at the hotel bar on Saturday. I’ve got this wad of bills. Enough to choke you.”
“That’s great.”
“I’m calling the apartment manager this morning to tell her we’re going to take it.” Gwen was giggling with excitement. “It’s really happening! I’m not sure I really believed that it ever would.”
Amber tried to share her delight, but she couldn’t quite manage it. She supposed that she hadn’t really believed that it would happen either. Now that it was staring her in the face, she wasn’t sure anymore that it was exactly what she wanted.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” she admitted to her friend. “I mean, have we really looked at this logically. Shouldn’t we have wheels first and…and better jobs or something.”
“We are going to have wheels,” Gwen told her. “And only one of us needs a better job.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is so easy,” Gwen told her. “There are guys here from out of town every day of the week. I’m thinking I can pick up an extra $500 a month without even trying. And you haven’t heard the good news yet.”
“What’s the good news?”
“You know Kirsten, the mousy weasel that I work with. I’ve told you about her.”
Amber had heard the name, but she couldn’t associate it with any particular remark or story.
“Kirsten is leaving at the end of the month,” Gwen continued. “And I told the boss I knew just the right girl to fill her position.”
“Who?”
“You.”
“Why would I want to change jobs?” Amber asked.
“Because you hate that damned underwear store,” Gwen answered. “Carly’s always spying on you. She’s never going to let you get ahead. And if you can’t get ahead there, there’s not much chance elsewhere. You’ve been hanging around the mall since you were a kid. You’re never going to be manager, and so you’re never going to make any money.”
