by Lynne Hinton
She straightened the folds in her dress, smoothing the wrinkles down with the palms of her hands. “I just think you need to check up on these men before you spend too much time together.”
“And why would I need to do that when I have such attentive women in my life who know so much about policemen and dating and divorces and can find out so much more information than I ever could?” Charlotte smiled at her friend.
“You make fun if you want to, but you just look around and remember where you are.” Maria clasped her hands in her lap. “I bet these girls would tell you that they wished they had asked more questions before they got involved with the men that put them here.”
The older woman seemed so concerned, so worried, Charlotte knew better than to make fun anymore of Maria and her worries. Maria had become a volunteer at the women’s shelter after her daughter was murdered by Maria’s son-in-law. It had been a terrible time for Maria and her family, and they still grieved her death. Maria’s concern for Charlotte and her other friends was real. She never wanted anyone to have to go through what her daughter and her grandchildren had been through. Domestic abuse was personal for Maria, and Charlotte understood this.
“I will talk to him about his former marriage the next time we go out,” Charlotte promised, wondering if Officer Sanchez would call for another date, wondering if she would ever hear from him again.
Maria raised her eyebrows at her friend. “You want me to call Carla and ask for her side of the story?”
“No!” Charlotte answered quickly. “I don’t want you to ask anybody about anything.” She looked closely at her friend. “Maria?” She waited. “You hear me? No meddling.”
Maria lifted her chin as if the mandate was offensive to her. “Okay, I promise. As long as you talk to him, I’ll not meddle.”
Charlotte stared, making sure her friend was telling her the truth. “Have you got your fingers crossed?”
Maria sighed and held out her hands in front of her, spreading her fingers. They had been crossed in her lap, and she rolled her eyes. Charlotte knew how Maria tried never to lie, but she often crossed her fingers as if that somehow made lying okay.
“I promise I will not call Carla Fairhope to ask her about her ex-husband.” And she smiled. She knew that with that promise she could ask her friend Isabella anything she wanted.
Charlotte smiled in return. She wasn’t duped. She knew all too well that Maria would find a way to learn everything there was to know about Donovan and his first marriage. She wouldn’t have to ask him a thing. Maria would let her know the full story by her next date, if there was one.
“Would you please now go and get the latest census information from the file in the other office? If we want to get paid, I need to make sure the state gets this form back by the end of the week.”
“I will be happy to do just that.” Maria got up from her chair and headed out of the office. She turned back to Charlotte. “I just worry about you, Charlotte Stewart. You don’t know the ways of men. I just want you to be safe.”
“I know, Maria. And I love you for that. I will be careful. I promise.” She winked. “My friends in North Carolina would be very glad to know I have such a devoted angel watching over me.”
“Oh, they already know that,” Maria said.
Charlotte seemed confused. “How would they know?” she asked.
Maria shrugged, looking innocent.
“Maria, how would they know that you watch over me?”
Maria smiled. “Why do you think Beatrice really phoned you this morning?” Maria asked.
Charlotte considered the question. “To ask about that funeral director she set me up with.” She thought again. “Wait a minute. How did you know Beatrice phoned me this morning?”
“Querida, your friends in North Carolina have to have somebody out here that they can call and find out what’s really going on with you.” And with that Maria blew her friend a kiss and headed back to the other office.
“Maria,” Charlotte called out.
There was no answer.
“Maria, how long have you been talking to Beatrice?” she asked, but it was too late. “Maria, don’t you say anything about Donovan to anybody!” She yelled out her plea, but Maria was already well down the hall and out of range of hearing any more questions or instructions from Charlotte.
The young woman slumped in her chair, wondering about her recent phone call with Beatrice and what her friend in North Carolina already knew.
Bacon-wrapped Fried Oysters
2 eggs, beaten
¼ cup milk
2 dozen select oysters, drained
1 cup cracker meal
12 slices bacon, cut in half
olive oil
Combine eggs and milk. Dip oysters in egg mixture, then in cracker meal. Repeat process. Wrap each oyster with bacon and secure with a toothpick. Fry in shallow oil until golden. Drain on paper towel.
—Louise Fisher
Chapter Four
Louise was watching from the kitchen table when she saw the car turn into the driveway. She had been waiting and watching for more than two hours. She knew what time George had arrived at the Virginia/North Carolina border because he had called her from the rest stop at the state line. She knew from there it was at least another two hours before he would make it to Hope Springs.
Louise thought about what was happening. She’d had three phone conversations with George and she still had not figured out why he was coming to see her. The last time they had been together was at the funeral of Roxie, his wife, her best friend, and that had been almost ten years earlier. And it hadn’t been such a sweet reunion even then.
Not that George and Louise were ever close. He knew Louise loved Roxie more than just as a friend and he had tried to tell his wife that Louise was dangerous with her loyalty and her love. In fact, in the beginning of his courtship with Roxie, he tried to break up the friendship, immediately casting a suspicious eye on Louise Fisher, but it never worked. Roxie and Louise had been best friends long before George entered the scene. Roxie loved the man who would become her husband, but she told him flat-out to stay away from her friendship with Louise and that he had better learn to like her.
“Louise Fisher,” she had told George on their third or fourth date, “is my family. And if you marry me, she will be your family too. So get used to it or say good-bye now.”
And he had figured out a way to get used to it. He finally and ultimately accepted their friendship. He got used to it just as Louise had to get used to him and accept the fact that Roxie and George got married, moved away, and had a family, while she stayed at the cotton mill in North Carolina, alone and abandoned.
When Roxie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Louise had been there for her and for her family. And when George called to say that he could not care for her any longer and that he was having an affair, Louise swooped in and brought Roxie back to her home in Hope Springs. She had cared for Roxie until she died. And it was still the best thing she had ever done in her life, the best days of her life, even though they were hard and messy, and even though Roxie had only brief moments of clarity, short spans when she knew Louise and understood what was going on. Still, it had not been a burden for Louise. Taking care of Roxie, having her in her home, loving her, being with her, was still the brightest spot in life she had ever had.
She went to Maryland for the funeral, stayed with George in his home. She had helped the children go through some of Roxie’s things, ate meals with them, was civil to them, loving to them, but she had not visited with or talked to George again, and her communications with Ruby and Laura, Roxie’s daughters, included only cards at Christmas and an occasional birthday greeting. Once Roxie died, there had been no reason to stay in touch with her “adopted family.”
She hadn’t wanted the relationships to end like that but she had not been able to figure out how to do things differently. George was having his affair with some woman with whom he worked. The girls, though gr
own and on their own, were angry with him for leaving their mother and angry at their mother for leaving them. Louise had never known how to talk to them after Roxie died since she was still so bereaved herself, and she grieved not only the loss of her best friend, but also the loss of those girls. But it was as it was, and like everything else hard about her relationship with Roxie, she had accepted it.
And now, here was George, wanting to see her, driving all the way down to North Carolina to talk to her about something. Louise couldn’t imagine what he wanted. She glanced out the window again and got up from the table and poured herself a glass of water. She considered calling Jessie or Beatrice for moral support, even considered asking them to be there with her when George arrived, but she thought better of it. She was a grown woman, she told herself, and she could manage a conversation without assistance. Besides, she knew that Jessie wouldn’t say much, would stay in the background, understanding that this was Louise’s situation to handle, and Beatrice wouldn’t let her or George get a word in edgewise.
She stood at the window, watching the empty street, thinking about her friends and feeling grateful for them. And then she turned back and walked to the table again. Louise found herself once again missing Margaret.
If Roxie had introduced Louise to the sea that was love, Margaret had been her anchor. Friends for years, they had become like sisters, Margaret keeping Louise calm, centered. Margaret was a presence of peace and wholeness and guidance in Louise’s life, and since she died, there was a large, gaping hole in Louise’s heart. She thought she would never bear the loss of Roxie, but she had, and it was mostly because of Margaret. Beatrice and Jessie had helped a lot. Charlotte had been there for her too. But Margaret, Louise remembered, Margaret had held her together. Margaret had soothed her, calmed her, loved her. And since she died, Louise felt pieces of herself falling away that no one else seemed to be able to catch and hold for her the way Margaret had always seemed to be able to hold things.
She reached up and wiped away the tears. “Damn those women,” she said only to herself and the spaces in her heart. “It’s always the good ones who go first.” She shook away the grief and saw the car pulling in the driveway. She took in a breath and walked to the front door.
George Cannon stepped out of his car and stretched. He tucked his shirt in his pants and smoothed down the sides of his curly gray hair. He looked behind him, at the street, and then up to the front porch and saw Louise standing at the top of the steps. They just stood looking at each other for a few seconds until he finally shut the car door and headed in her direction.
“Nice day for a drive,” he said, taking hold of the railing and pulling himself up the steps.
“No weather up north?” Louise asked, trying to sound friendly, noticing how much Roxie’s husband had aged over the years. She could see the trouble he was having getting up the steps and she wondered if something was wrong with him and that was why he had come, maybe to make some final peace with his dead wife and his dead wife’s best friend.
George shook his head. When he reached the top of the landing he held out his hand. “Hello, Louise,” he said, trying to catch his breath.
“George.” Louise nodded and took his hand. It was an awkward moment for them both. “Come in,” she said, pulling her hand away and opening the door.
George walked in behind her.
“You need to freshen up?” she asked.
He nodded, and she pointed him to the bathroom down the hall. She went into the kitchen and got out the pitcher of tea, filled two glasses with ice, poured the tea, and set the glasses on the table. She kept rearranging the pitcher and the glasses while she waited for him. Finally, George came into the kitchen and smiled.
“Iced tea,” he noted. “I know I’ve landed south,” he added.
Louise nodded and they both sat down.
“How’s the girls?” Louise asked.
“Everybody’s fine.” He paused. “As far as I know,” he added, taking a swallow of tea. “Good,” he said, referring to the tea.
There was an awkward silence. Louise was at a loss in knowing how to make small talk with her best friend’s widower.
“You run into much traffic?” Louise asked.
“Just around Richmond,” George replied.
Another pause.
“You been doing okay?” he asked, settling into his chair.
“A few old people’s ailments, cataracts, arthritis, you know, the usual, but I’m doing fine,” she responded.
George smiled nervously. “I was sorry to hear about your friend,” he commented.
“How did you hear about Margaret?” she asked, not knowing how he had received news of her life and the lives of those she loved.
“I get your local paper,” he replied.
Louise was surprised. “Why would you do that?” she asked. “It’s a good paper, but it can’t give you any better news than what you get up in Baltimore.”
“I started taking it when Roxie moved here,” he said. “You know, just to feel connected, I guess. I never canceled the subscription.”
Louise nodded. She had never known that he had any interest in what had been going on in the town where his wife had died.
There was a pause.
“What are you doing here, George?” she finally asked, curiosity getting the best of her.
George shook his head. “That’s what I always liked about you, Louise. Straight and to the point.”
Louise grinned. “Well, to the point, at least.”
George looked confused at first and then figured out her bit of “gay humor.” He nodded.
“I’m in trouble,” he confessed.
“Oh?” she asked. “And what brand of trouble do you seem to be in? Your girlfriend take you to the cleaner’s?”
George looked away. “I deserve that,” he said.
Louise nodded.
“We broke up a long time ago,” he said. “We broke up not long after Roxie died,” he added.
Louise was surprised to hear that bit of news since George had never mentioned it before. She always assumed he was glad to get rid of his first wife so that he could carry on with his lover. She just assumed that he had gotten married to the woman she had never met, the woman he had taken up with when Roxie got sick. “How come you never told me?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Didn’t really think you were interested in my love life,” he replied.
“Well, that’s true,” she noted. She took a sip of her tea. “I’m still mad at you for the affair.”
George looked down. “I know you are,” he responded. “I was wrong to do that to Roxie, but I was stupid and”—he shrugged—“I have to live with that. I just think I couldn’t bear losing Roxie, watching her leave me a little every day.”
“So you left her first?” Louise asked.
George nodded. “You took much better care of her than I would have,” he confessed. “And I really think she wanted to be with you in her last days, not me.”
Louise looked closely at George. In spite of how it happened, she was glad that she had been the one to care for Roxie. She suddenly realized that in some small way, she had been glad for George’s affair since it did give her those final months with his wife. The realization surprised her. She decided to change the subject.
“So, if that’s not your trouble, then what is?” she asked, recalling his reason for his visit. She took another swallow of her tea.
“I’m sick,” he responded. “And when I die, my money, Roxie’s money, will go to the girls.”
Louise nodded. “I think that’s the appropriate line of things,” she said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Lung cancer,” he answered. “I have about a year maybe,” he added. “I’ve been through the surgery and chemo. I even had a bout of radiation. But it’s come back and it’s terminal this time.” He stopped for a second. This certainly explained his shortness of breath that Louise had noticed when he arrived.
Louise
waited. “I’m sorry about your diagnosis,” she responded, and she actually meant it.
“Thanks,” he replied. “There’s more. I don’t want to leave all my money to the girls. The two of them getting everything would be the appropriate line of things except Ruby married a complete loser.”
Louise listened. She had known Ruby’s husband and was not particularly thrilled with him, but she certainly wouldn’t have called him a loser exactly. She had always thought Ruby and her husband made a nice couple.
“He’s got real problems. He gambles and he refuses to get help. Ruby is in a major state of denial about it. I don’t want him to get any of our money. Ted has already been nosing around about how much he would inherit, and Ruby doesn’t seem to care that he’ll take it all and blow it on booze and horses. Frankly, I think she may be drinking herself. And Laura’s got so much money she doesn’t need any of it. And I just don’t want to see it go to waste.” He took a breath and looked intently at Louise. “I don’t want them to squander what Roxie and I worked so hard to save.”
Louise shrugged. “So change your will, give the money to a charity. Tell your daughters it’s for their children. There are lots of options of how to fix this to be the way you want it.”
George nodded. “I’ve thought of all of that. But there always seems to be some way that Ted can figure out how to get the money or at least get into the house and steal everything. And if I’m sick, who’s to say he won’t squander it all before I die? I mean, even if I took them out of the will, one of the girls will have to have my health care power of attorney, and they could wipe me out while I’m still alive.”
“Okay, George, so you’ve got all of this trouble with your money and your girls. I still don’t understand why you’re here to see me.” Louise wanted answers.
“I came to see if you would marry me,” he said.
