Death in the Cards

by Sharon Short

  The telephone ringing stopped. My initial reaction of freezing creepiness melted away and frustration took its place, like an itchy rash. Why had this woman turned to me for help? And how had she gotten into my head, knowing about my aunt’s saying and my occasional dream visits with Mrs. Oglevee? Why couldn’t she have just left me a normal message, say, a recording on my voice mail. Something like “Hey, Josie, it’s Ginny Proffitt and I think so-and-so is going to kill me at the maze tonight?” Better yet, why couldn’t she have just bypassed me completely and gone to the police with that concern?

  Maybe she had, I thought. Maybe she’d felt unsatisfied with Chief Worthy’s reaction to her fears, found him too dismissive.

  The door from my laundromat swung open. Quickly, I stuffed the handkerchief in my pocket and slammed the suitcase shut. Both movements were instinctive reactions. Something told me that I didn’t want just anyone knowing about Ginny Proffitt’s luggage and its contents.

  I hefted the suitcase off of the top of my desk and quickly stashed it under the desk as Chip Beavy walked in. Of course, my effort to hide the bag wasn’t necessary where Chip was concerned. After all, he’d taken it from Ginny to begin with. But I hadn’t known who was coming into my office.

  I wanted to ask him more about what Ginny said when she dropped off the suitcase, but something about Chip’s expression stopped me. He looked worried.

  “I answered the phone for you out front.” He nodded at the phone on my desk. “You’d better pick up. It’s Don Richmond.”

  I inhaled sharply. Don was Stillwater’s director. I visit Guy every Sunday at Stillwater, and if something was going on that couldn’t wait just a day, then it couldn’t be good news.

  My heart clenched. Oh Lord. Guy was in good health, although I worried about the fainting spell he’d had, but there could have been an accident. . .

  The old handkerchief with Ginny’s recent cryptic note in my pocket and the strange old suitcase with its stranger-still contents stashed under my desk slipped completely from my mind, as if I’d never seen, smelled, or touched either one. I reached for the phone on my desk.

  9

  The week Aunt Clara had to go to Florida for her sister Jeanne’s funeral, a killing frost came early to Paradise. Uncle Horace and I felt it coming in the cold snap in the air, sitting on the front porch of our little house on Maple Street. We were sitting on the porch swing, having glasses of iced tea I’d made.

  Uncle Horace was dozing and I was thinking about how someday maybe I’d get away from Paradise. Does anyone at age fourteen want to live forever in the town they grew up in?

  My mind was wandering with visions of me traveling to some of the places I’d read about in books Winnie—even then, I called her Winnie—had given me on the bookmobile. Far away exotic places. Like Greece. Or Nepal. Arizona, even.

  And I knew I’d go to these places someday because a fortune-teller had told me so at the Mason County Fair. The woman, looking uncomfortable in her too-hot gypsy garb—I reckon she knew it was an expected cliché—had also told me that on my travels I’d meet someone handsome and smart and funny, who’d appreciate my finer qualities. My insatiable curiosity, for example. My love of good books.

  But a chill wind swept over the front porch, nudging the porch swing so that Uncle Horace jolted awake, and I was whisked away from my Greece-Nepal-Arizona-cute-boy dreams back to our porch, back to the sound of the last of the summer bugs every now and again giving a lonesome chirp, the fall silence between their chirps drawn out as if the cold had stolen their breath. Suddenly, the iced tea glass was too chilly in my palm.

  “Heard on the radio today there’s a chance of the first killing frost come early tonight,” Uncle Horace said. He kept a radio going in the laundromat for his customers. Years later, the TV at the front of the laundromat would be my innovation.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Want me to make us coffee instead? Maybe slice us some more apple pie?”

  Uncle Horace yawned. “No. I’m still full from that delicious dinner, Josie.” I’d made tuna casserole, and put extra crumbled potato chips on top, since Aunt Clara wasn’t there and couldn’t harp on me for being wasteful. “But I’m also worrying about your Aunt Clara’s tomatoes.”

  We swung back and forth in the chill wind, thinking about her tomatoes out back of the house, a dozen bushes laden with still-green tomatoes.

  On the one hand, Aunt Clara wouldn’t want anyone else to do the canning. I helped, of course, but she never let me do any of it on my own, because she was afraid I wouldn’t do it just right and the jars wouldn’t seal or the jellies wouldn’t gel and we’d have a basement full of poisonous green beans and green tomato relish and runny jelly. But truth be told, I’d helped with every step of the canning for several years now, and knew I could do it myself.

  I also knew Aunt Clara would be heartbroken if she came back from her sister’s funeral and found we’d let a killing frost take the green tomatoes. To her, it would be a failure in frugality that might mean Guy wouldn’t get the care he needed at some point in the future. No green tomato relish today could spell financial disaster in the future.

  But Uncle Horace wasn’t going to give me direction about what to do. He ate green tomato relish without complaint, but such matters were not in his department. I could just let the tomatoes go, and no one would criticize me.

  And so I found myself sitting in the front porch swing, somehow faced with a decision that, at fourteen, I could only sense was much greater in its import than whether or not the green tomatoes out back were saved from a killing frost, only to be minced into relish. The burden of the tomatoes’ fate weighed heavily on me.

  Finally, I said, “Guess I’d better go pick the tomatoes. I’ll fix and can the relish tomorrow after school.”

  Uncle Horace hopped up quickly, and I realized he was relieved at my decision. “I’ll help you pick them,” he said. “That’s all I can do,” he added, his voice a little sorrowful.

  Truth be told, he made fried bologna sandwiches for us the next few suppers, so I wouldn’t have to cook dinner as well as work with the tomatoes. Aunt Clara had to stay an extra two days in Florida because her other sister, Doreen, had a fainting spell at their sister Jeanne’s funeral and everyone was afraid maybe it was a heart problem for her, too (although it just turned out to be that she’d passed out from skipping breakfast, even though she was diabetic). I made us fried green tomatoes to go with the bologna sandwiches the rest of the week, until Aunt Clara came home. And I canned twenty-four pints of green tomato relish.

  When Aunt Clara, who I later heard didn’t let anyone see her cry at her sister’s funeral, saw the twenty-four pints lined up on the counter, gleaming like a crop of liquid emeralds, she burst out crying and hugged me without saying a word.

  Was my memory of the green tomatoes I first canned on my own an odd thing for my mind to drift to while I sat out in the hard plastic, butt-numbing chairs in a waiting area at Mason County General Hospital? Maybe.

  But while waiting for Guy’s tests to be completed, I’d already gone through five issues of magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Home Town Cooking, and jotted down on the back of a bank deposit slip, fished from the bottom of my purse, two recipes: one for Light and Creamy Pumpkin Pie (a simple recipe that would be good for some future church carry-in) and another for healthy Applesauce-Bran Muffins (a nod to my never-ending battle to lose fifteen pounds). Deep down, I knew I’d make only the pumpkin pie.

  Then I’d grown weary of scanning recipes and housekeeping tips and can-this-relationship-be-saved? advice, and let my thoughts wander. Maybe it was the cooking theme that brought to mind the first batch of green tomato relish I’d ever canned by myself. In any case, my thoughts drifted to that week when Aunt Clara had been gone to her sister’s funeral, and I’d rescued the green tomatoes instead of letting the frost get them.

  I’d wondered then why Aunt Clara had cried over those green tomatoes I’d saved, but now, sitting in the hospit
al, I understood what Aunt Clara had immediately known when she saw the green jeweled jars on the counter: I would always do what I had to to take care of Guy.

  It’s a choice I’ve never regretted.

  But I also didn’t understand, until I was sitting in that hospital hallway, how Aunt Clara had felt back then, the week of her sister’s funeral. I remember thinking, while canning those green tomatoes, the acrid earthy smell of them filling my nose and finally my every pore, that Aunt Clara was silly for resisting being away from Guy for a few days. What could it hurt?

  But now I understood that, too.

  She didn’t want to be away in case something happened to Guy. She understood just how vulnerable he would be if something went wrong, if his health failed or he was in an accident. And she wanted to be there to advocate for him.

  That’s what I wanted to do now for Guy. Don Richmond, Stillwater’s director, told me that Guy had passed out that morning just before breakfast. In fact, he’d been having spells of being dizzy, not that he’d described it that way, because Guy has trouble communicating much of anything, let alone something subtle like fluctuations in how he’s feeling. But several staff members had noticed him stumbling about a few times that week, clutching the back of a chair or the edge of a table to regain his balance.

  Then that morning, he’d passed out in the dining hall. The staff hadn’t been able to revive him. They’d called 911, and by the time the paramedics came, Guy had come to, and he was trying to talk, to say something, but no one was sure what.

  He’d been taken to the hospital up in Masonville, and I needed to be there to sign paperwork for tests and to be with him. I’d seen him only briefly. He was sedated because he’d panicked when a nurse had tried to take blood samples from him, thrashing about and swinging his arms wildly. My eyes had pricked with tears when I heard that. Guy hated needles. Lots of people do. But Guy hadn’t learned how to calm himself when it was necessary to get shots or have blood taken for testing.

  I mentally cursed myself that I hadn’t driven faster around the curving roads that lead from Paradise to Masonville. Maybe I could have kept him calm.

  I was able to wait with him in one of the small rooms in the emergency wing, holding his hand, murmuring about nothing in particular to him, about the yellows and oranges of the trees as I’d driven there (which I hadn’t, in truth, really noticed), about how I knew his pumpkins were going to be a big hit this year (Guy’s in charge of growing the pumpkins for the annual fall harvest sale at Stillwater, a task he takes very seriously), even humming “I’m a Little Tea Pot.” Aunt Clara had told me that was his favorite song as a toddler. She’d sung it to him over and over to keep him calm, until her throat hurt. That was before she and Uncle Horace learned Guy had severe autism.

  In the emergency room, Guy just stared at me, his eyes wide and a bit watery. He moaned every now and then. I wasn’t sure if he comprehended any of what I was saying, but a nurse told me my presence seemed to calm him.

  Then, Guy had to go for an MRI. My heart sank at that news. Dr. Herlihy, the physician who attends the residents at Stillwater, wanted to ensure that Guy didn’t have an underlying neurological problem that had caused the fainting spell. I could understand that, but I worried about how poor Guy would react. As much as he hated needles, he hated tightly enclosed spaces even more. He hated most the color red. At least that wasn’t a factor in a hospital, where everything was an antiseptic white or gray.

  A sedative helped him stay calm, though, as two attendants wheeled his gurney out of the emergency area and down toward the MRI lab. I’d trotted alongside his gurney, still holding his hand, hoping that maybe I could just trot on into the MRI testing area.

  No such luck. The female attendant told me that I’d have to wait outside. Guy had grunted as I pulled my hand from his, but then his face fell back into expressionlessness.

  My heart clutched as the attendants wheeled him through a double door labeled STAFF AND PATIENTS ONLY.

  Then as the doors swung shut, I looked around. No one in the hallway but me. The waiting area was a trio of hard plastic chairs and a wooden end table, covered with magazines and a reading lamp. I sat down and stared at the wall in front of me for what felt like at least ten minutes of the hour and a half I knew I’d have to wait, resisting the stack of magazines. Leafing through them would somehow seem like giving in to the situation, admitting that I wasn’t in control.

  I glanced down the hall. Maybe someone I knew would come down it soon. Someone like—Owen. On the drive from Paradise, I’d dialed his number on my cell phone several times and was surprised that he didn’t answer. Owen loves to sleep in late on a Saturday morning and then putz around his house.

  Then I’d called my laundromat to apologize to Chip Beavy for my earlier abrupt manner, when I’d quickly told him about Guy and more or less ordered him to mind my laundromat for me. Chip had told me no apologies were necessary and that he’d stay until closing if necessary.

  As I pulled into the hospital parking lot, Pastor Micah called me on my cell phone. Chip had called him to tell him about Guy. Pastor Micah offered to come up to sit with me. I assured him I was fine for the time being, but I let him say a little prayer with me over the phone.

  Now, sitting in the hallway waiting area, still unable to reach Owen, I kind of wished I had agreed for Pastor to come up although I knew he was enjoying the gorgeous day with his wife and three young kids. After last night, he deserved it.

  Besides, I told myself, the time would pass quickly.

  I checked my watch.

  A whole minute had passed since the attendants had wheeled Guy into the MRI area.

  That’s when I broke, and started perusing the magazines. I skipped the travel ones and focused on the cooking ones, then gave up, closed my eyes, and traveled in my memory to the night Aunt Clara came home from her sister’s funeral and wept at the sight of my first batch of home-canned green tomato relish . . .

  “Well, you’ve really made a mess of things now, haven’t you?”

  There she was, Mrs. Oglevee, wearing paint-splattered overalls and a straw hat, and juggling green tomatoes.

  “Long time, no see,” I said. Mrs. Oglevee hadn’t invaded my dreams for almost a month. It seemed more than a little unfair that she would interrupt my nap at the hospital.

  “I’ve been busy,” Mrs. Oglevee said. Her four green tomatoes somehow doubled to eight, but her hands just moved faster to keep up with them. She juggled effortlessly, even tossing a few behind her back.

  “Such a fascinating skill you’ve learned,” I said. “This would help you how in, uh, the afterlife?”

  I’d never quite been able to figure out if Mrs. Oglevee had ended up in heaven or in hell.

  “Juggling is a much underrated skill in our earthly life,” Mrs. Oglevee said. Her green tomatoes had doubled again, but she still kept up easily. “You could use help juggling.”

  “I’m not planning to run off to the circus any time soon.”

  “There’s juggling,” Mrs. Oglevee said, her hands now such a blur that I couldn’t tell if she still had sixteen tomatoes or had moved on to thirty-two. “Then there’s juggling. Knowing the things that matter in life and making them all work together somehow.”

  “I’m not doing so badly,” I said, cringing at my own voice. I sounded as defensive as I had back in junior high when I forgot my homework.

  “Really?” Mrs. Oglevee put her hands on her hips. Suddenly, all the tomatoes—thirty-two? sixty-four?—hit the ground, turning from green to rotten red tomatoes. Mrs. Oglevee didn’t even wince at the splatter.

  “Really,” I said, wincing at the acrid smell of the rotten tomatoes. “I have my work, Guy, Owen . . .”

  Mrs. Oglevee shook her head in dismay, just as she had whenever I muffed up a multiple choice quiz yet again. “You don’t have focus! You don’t know what you want for your future! You just go day-to-day, never envisioning what you want!”

  Suddenly, a big, red
, oozing tomato appeared in Mrs. Oglevee’s hand and she wound up like a baseball pitcher, about to throw it at me . . .

  “Josie?”

  I jolted awake and saw Dru Purcell standing before me. That I was relieved to see him and not Mrs. Oglevee is a powerful testament to the horror of my Oglevee-beset dreams.

  Pastor Purcell was wearing a black suit and tie and a somber expression. I wanted to remind him that this was a hospital, not a funeral parlor, but I bit my tongue. Aunt Clara always told me if you can’t say something nice, you shouldn’t say anything. I hadn’t always heeded Aunt Clara’s admonition, but in this case, I did.

  The silence made Dru uneasy. He shifted back and forth on his feet, ran his finger around his too-tight collar. His face glistened with sweat. I felt a momentary twinge of guilt, then hoped that Missy knew to pretreat his collars and cuffs with cheap shampoo to prevent ring-around-the-collar stains.

  I was about to say it was nice of you to come, but really you shouldn’t have—really—when Dru spoke again. “I see your own pastor isn’t here, Josie, in this time of trouble.”

  There was a bit of glee in his voice. I sighed. I didn’t need to explain that I’d already talked with my own pastor.

  “What do you want? You didn’t really come all this way to hound me at a weak moment that I didn’t really see you with Ginny Proffitt. I did. You know it.” I paused. Should I use the line I’d used on Missy? Sure. Why not. I was worried, thirsty enough to drink a two-liter of Big Fizz Diet Cola in one gulp, and butt-numb. Aunt Clara, God rest her soul, would understand. So I smiled and added in my sweetest voice, “And God knows it.”

  Dru swayed a little and blinked. Then he sat down in the seat next to me, hard. “I—I don’t know why you persist in spreading that vicious rumor. I came here because I heard that Guy was ill. Someone told Missy that it might even be terminal.”

  I shook my head. Such is the way of towns so small that the weekly cable TV listings are thicker than the town’s phone book. Word travels faster than a naughty virus on the Internet. Of course, I’d known that when I let it drop that I’d seen Dru and Ginny together at Serpent Mound, hoping the rumor would force Dru to admit the truth to Chief Worthy.