Warm Wuinter's Garden

by Neil Hetzner

  “Jessie, honey, Jessie, try to get a brush through that mop. Did you hang your head out the window all the way home?”

  “Dodger, Dodger, Uppy is going to be in bunny heaven soon if you keep forgetting to feed him. He’s so weak a tortoise could race right by him today.

  “Oh Kate, my Kate, I’m raising a raisin who’s going to grow up to be a wrinkled prune. You’re going to look like Mother Theresa before you’re twelve. Honey, didn’t you put on any sun-block at all? Jessie, I’m holding you responsible for Kate’s nose. If hers falls off because it’s so burned, the cost of a new one’s coming out of your allowance. Kate, precious Kate, go grease it with something. Anything. Crisco. Lemon oil. Put a piece of bacon on it. Anything. Oh, baby, if it peels we’re going to have to leave it home when we go to Mop and Pop’s this weekend. How far did you swim today? To China?”

  “Almost, Mummy.”

  Kate rubbed her slightly reddened nose in the soft cotton shirt and softer flesh of her mother’s belly before running toward the back of the house to rid herself of her laundry.

  “Kate?”

  A pause.

  “Kate?”

  From the back of the house came a voice edged with suspicion, “Yes, Mummy?”

  “Can you pick us some very, very pretty flowers for dinner?”

  “Yes, Mummy.”

  The conversation continued for another minute as, yelling back and forth through the walls and rooms that separated them, Dilly defined very, very pretty and Kate reluctantly agreed that the round, reddish, spiky head of a petal-less gaillardia was not pretty.

  As she walked to the kitchen to prepare dinner, Dilly, surrounded by noise and filled with purpose, felt as momentarily joyous as a junkie with a fix.

  Chapter 3

  Nita Koster, Dilly’s thirty-three year old sister, wished that Dan Herlick, the lawyer sitting opposite her at the small scarred conference table, would fix his collar. Herlick was so intent upon showing his clients how masterful he was he hadn’t even noticed that the left tab of his unbuttoned collar tab was jabbing his throat every time he gesticulated. Normally, a residential real estate closing might take forty-five minutes. This one was pushing two hours.

  The house inspection had been fine. There were no termites, over-fused circuits or rotting sills. The title was fine. There were no loan-shark lien-holders or resurrected third-cousins-once-removed or descendants from some east coast Indian chief waiting in the wings to attach the property. The walk-through had been fine. Nita’s clients, the Furgesses, had not removed the plumbing, cut down the hallway chandelier, jacked up and carted away the garage, dug up the lilacs and roses, or peeled the sod from the yard. The settlement sheet should have been fine. The Furgesses had contributed the right amounts of money to pay for their share of the real estate taxes, and the water and sewerage bills. The only thing that wasn’t fine was that it was Dan Herlick doing the closing.

  When Nita had learned that the Cannaldos were using Herlick as their closing attorney, she had insisted that the closing be scheduled for late in the afternoon—the recording be damned. She didn’t want the heart of a day lost to the ego-puffing ramblings of the blue-eyed, square-jawed lawyer sputtering at her across four feet of table. Herlick opined. He insisted. He expostulated and interpleaded and enunciated. In all of the verbiage, the only thing that Nita felt that she need attend to was the violent spray accompanying Herlick’s words. His considered opinions, exploded with the force of a lawn-sprinkler, while not reaching Nita’s brain, were beginning to reach nearly across the table to her paperwork. As the half-moon of mist grew, first Nita and, then, the Furgesses pushed back their chairs from the table. After the file was safe, Nita let her mind wander.

  Herlick was the type of lawyer who always represented himself first and his clients second. On a matter as routine as a real estate transfer, he would expound as if he were arguing a stay of execution in front of the Supreme Court. His untutored clients would leave the closing impressed by his combativeness while being unaware that he had fought a battle where there was no war.

  As she leaned her chair further back to avoid all chance of being spattered by some particularly explosive p or b, Nita wondered how good a lawyer Herlick might have become if he had redirected all the time, energy, and brain power that he expended on theater into fighting real legal battles. Rather than spending the extra hour engaged in his present histrionics, rather than drinking, probably, every night, and schmoozing with other drinkers while looking for a DUI client, rather than cozying up to Readford’s cops for an accident report, if he had used that time for reading digests and developing arguments on cases that mattered, Nita guessed he might have become a decent attorney, instead of a blowhard getting by on looks and blather.

  Nita rubbed her thumb and index finger together to relieve the desire that was building up inside her to reach across the table to button down the blue oxford collar point that was impaling Herlick’s fleshy neck. She forced her eyes away before fixing it became an idea too attractive to resist and tried to think about the work that she had to finish before she could leave for Clarke’s Cove on Friday night. She had three more closings and two appearances in Family Court in the next four days.

  Whether measured by income or caseload, Nita Koster was a successful attorney. That she was successful as a real estate lawyer was no surprise to her. She had been a top student at Boston College’s law school. A bright, hard-working, well-educated lawyer should make a success of real estate law; however the same qualities when brought to family law gave no guarantees. In matters of divorce, distribution of property and the rights of children, hate, resentment, anger, threats and revenge were the standard accompaniments to the principles and practice of the law. Never married and childless, Nita counseled and cared for those who were leaving spouses or trying to hang onto children. There had been many times when that irony had left her fighting for breath and fighting off the feelings of being an imposter in the charged air of a courtroom.

  To keep her hands from Herlick’s shirt, Nita once again parsed those feelings. She had gone on her first date at fourteen. In the nineteen years since then, she had yet to have what she would call a successful relationship. She had not dated much in high school, college, or law school. Then, when Nita was in her mid-twenties, men came and went in her life as fast as fashions. The weather changed and so did the man. As she passed into her thirties, the parade had slowed. Recently, she had rarely been asked to go out and when she had, most times, had said no. No marriage, no children, an abortion, and more than a dozen hello-I love you-good-by romances were either very good or very bad preparation for being a good divorce lawyer. Nita was never quite sure which it was.

  Dan Herlick continued his obfuscations. When Nita looked up, she was sure that his face had grown even redder. His collar looked to be tighter around his neck. She dallied with the thought that Herlick’s head might be swelling up, like a balloon, from the heat of whatever fire caused his words to hiss and steam.

  A high-crested comber of nausea erupted from the base of Nita’s her spine and rolled up through her organs. Being as discreet as the following crippling cramp would allow, Nita slid down in her chair before drawing her knees up as much as she could under the protection of the tabletop. She felt a second wave rise up from her belly, swell, then break just at the back of her throat.

  If it had been a few years before, the pain would have driven her from the closing. Until the doctors in Boston had discovered, after much trial and error, that taking Naprosyn left Nita with periods that were only excruciating rather than unbearable, she had spent the onslaught of many menstrual cycles flat in the back seats of friends’ cars or cabs, crying and whispering “Hurry” on her way to the emergency room of a hospital, university health services, or, if the pain came during the day, one of many gynecologists she had seen over the years.

  From her first period until her second year in law school the pain had been so bad that Nita had discovered that, from month
to month, she never anticipated it. When the first blade cut deep into the nerve endings of her spine and ran white hot down her legs, its intensity always took her by surprise. She had heard how the pain of natural birth hurt so badly that it wasn’t memorable. Her periods had been the same way. She took each day as it came, happy and forgetful when the day was without pain.

  The monthly agony was part of Nita’s heritage. She was a DES baby. Bett had miscarried three times before having her. After the third loss, her mother had asked for help. Her doctor had put her on diethylstilbestrol.

  The professional part of Nita’s mind brought her gaze back from far beyond the room to look at Herlick and realize that it was time for her to tell him that her clients were willing to pay the overnight interest on the mortgage. He had spent most of an hour saving his clients less than forty dollars on the pro-rations. If her clients squabbled about the money, she would pay it. She just wanted the closing to be over so that she could go out to her car, turn the air conditioning on full blast, recline the seat back as far as it would go and have the luxury of cramping by herself in peace.

  X-ed spots were signed. Notary stamps were impressed into documents. Checks were cut. Funds disbursed. The buyers stood. Nita eased herself from the chair. Hands were shaken. Smiles exchanged. Thanks given. She felt the lower part of her body try to twist itself away from its pain and toward the door; however it was held in check by her competitiveness. She stepped closer to Herlick.

  “As usual, Dan, it’s been interesting working with you.”

  As Nita’s hands reached for his collar, she said, “Here, let me get that for you before it does you more harm. For the want of a collar tab, the horse was lost.’

  Herlick stared at Nita trying to understand whether she had done him a kindness or not. He pulled back a half step before giving her a tight smile that indicated he was becoming clear about her intentions. He brushed through the door in front of her. Nita thought he might be eager to cool a throat grown hot from the friction of an endless stream of words, or, maybe, his anger from her few words. Despite her pain, Nita smiled.

  As he passed in front of her she thought that, from the back, Herlick did look like a horse’s ass. A large expanse of quivering flesh, a bar seat butt, sat atop long skinny legs. A spasm wrenched her. Involuntarily, she moaned. Herlick turned around.

  “You okay?”

  Nita waved him off.

  Herlick walked back and put out his hand.

  “Here, let me take that.”

  Nita hesitated before giving him her briefcase.

  “You don’t look too good. Food? Flu? Let me drop you off somewhere.”

  Nita whispered, “No. I’m okay.”

  “That’s perjury, counselor.”

  “Really?”

  “Where’s your car?”

  She pointed.

  Herlick wedged his arm under her elbow and walked her to her car.

  “You want something cold? Why don’t you sit here and I’ll go find some water or something.”

  “No, no, thanks. I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. It’s your call.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No sweat.”

  “And sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Back there. Being catty.”

  “Cats aren’t bad. I like cats. Especially, when they purr. See you around, Koster.”

  Nita sat back as still as possible against the warm leather seat as her car went through a digitized synthesized equivalent of Herlick’s nattering. She wondered about the culmination of American technological civilization being a narcissistic car eagerly relaying mostly useless information about itsﾁ seat belts, its fuel reserves, its temperature, and the status of its doors. Nita was more concerned with how she, rather, than the car, felt. She thought that if the automobile manufacturers were smarter they would install sensors that would measure the blood pressure, stress and pain levels of the car’s occupants and make some accommodations for those factors. How nice it would be to get into her car after a long horrible day and have it say, “Your fuel reserves are low. Eat a snack.” Or, “Your battery is low. Go right home and take a nap.” Or, “Your generator is malfunctioning. Go shopping. Treat yourself.” The voice chip could be etched with the digitized version of the owner’s mother’s voice. Whatever were the owner’s family bromides for anxiety, fatigue, or depression, they could be programmed onto the chip. Nita mused how, once in awhile, it would be nice to be told what to do. It would be welcome if, right now, her car were to tell her to go home to bed rather than to go back to the office to finish the rest of the day’s work that she had scheduled for herself.

  As Nita lay back surrounded by the comforting hum the car made as it lowered its temperature, Nita thought of how nice it would be to have someone put cold compresses on her head and rub her stomach.

  When Nita’s periods first began, the pain kept her in bed for, at least, one and, usually, two days each month. Bett would minister to her. It had become a ritual that every few months, as she rubbed away the spasms in Nita’s body, Bett would tell Nita how sorry she was. She had wanted another baby. She had done what the doctor had suggested. No one had known the problems that DES would cause. Nita would reassure Bett that one or two days of pain a month was a very small price to pay for such a wonderful mother. Bett would expiate; Nita would absolve. In all of the hours of intimacy, as the mother tended to the daughter’s pain and the daughter reciprocated, there had never been a moment so intimate that they discussed the fact, that eight years after Nita was born, Bett accidentally had become pregnant with Lise and had carried her to within two weeks of term without the help of DES.

  The guilt each carried for the other’s hurt grew smaller after Nita found that Naprosyn relieved her worst pains. It grew smaller still the following year when Nita reached twenty-five, the magic cut-off point, without developing uterine cancer. For both, it had felt so good to have the guilt gone that they tiptoed around each other to prevent a recurrence. As Nita, free from fear, added entry after entry to her collection of men, as she passed thirty unmarried, as research grew stronger on the difficulty DES babies had in carrying their own babies to term, and, then, when she stopped going out with anyone, she and her mother talked of other things.

  Despite the throbbing of her body, Nita was glad to be having the pain alone in her car rather than with her family at Clarke’s Cove. Being sick at home gave her a strange feeling. It was the same sense of aloof intimacy, of removed proximity, that she had when she was being crushed in a crowd of strangers in a subway car.

  Nita considered how as she grew older more of life felt like a subway ride. As she drove to her office, she wondered at the price she paid to stay aloof, to stay safe. Inviolability was expensive. It protected her, but in the shadow of protection grew isolation. As her past grew longer and its tentacles rooted her, as they insinuated themselves into all that was to come, as the weight of her habits grew more immovable, would she end up cold, safe and alone? No one even to hold her arm. She was startled to hear a small anguished sound fill the car for just a moment before being absorbed into the plush upholstery. She pushed a button to let the late afternoon August heat rush inside.

  Chapter 4

  Lise Koster squinched her face into a tight knot of tanned and freckled flesh. Ever since she was a little girl, the youngest of four, always listening to more grown-up conversation, she had found squinching helped her to understand.

  “So what’d you do?” she asked.

  “I snarled back.”

  Brad Denoit hunched his back. His mane of long black hair fell forward from his shoulders. The hair combined with the expanse of white teeth he had exposed by pulling back his lips gave him a feral look.

  Lise tipped her blond curl-topped head sideways to offer up her jugular vein.

  “What’d he do?”

  “Turned tail. But, not for long. A few minutes later he was back again. I pretended not to notice. He got even closer this ti
me. He must have been within a yard of my ankle.”

  “That gives me the shivers.”

  “He took another half-step. I whipped around and barked so loud my throat cracked.”

  “Did he leave?”

  “Not really. He went back out on the sidewalk. Shepherds can be so stupid. But, tenacious. He sat out there snarling. I’m trying to get my tent repacked, but every time bend over to make a fold, I can feel him getting ready to go for me. He kept snarling and inching closer. I gave up. Slammed into the house, got my forty-five, stuck it in my pants and came slamming back out.”

  “You didn’t shoot him, did you? My God, Brad.”

  Lise grabbed Brad’s tie-dyed tee-shirt sleeve to implore him that the story not end in the dog’s death.

  “I came off the porch staring at him. He stared right back. A contest of wills. So be it. I pulled out the gun, kicked off the safety, chambered a shell and pointed it right at him. That gave him pause. He stopped snarling. He could tell something was different. I started walking toward him with the barrel lined up on his nose. When I was about five feet away he started up again.”

  Brad growled.

  “I took another step. The barrel was this close to his head.”

  Lise dropped Brad’s sleeve and backed up two steps to get some distance from the tragedy that she knew was about to happen. Her voice broke as she asked, “And?”

  “He started quivering. I don’t think he himself knew whether he was going to charge or run. I moved. Just inches. He barked. Kind of strangled. He moved. BOOM!”

  “You killed him.”

  “No. He’d chickened and ran. I shot past him. Blew a big chunk out of the street. His owner was down the street. He heard the sound. Looked up. And saw that pissant killer of his motivating hard toward home.”

  “I can’t believe you shot a gun off in town. Yes, I can. You’re lucky he didn’t call the cops.”

  Lise’s voice teetered between disgust and admiration.