The Last Detail

by Lisa J. Lickel

  After the service, burial, and traditional meal were over, Prudence Dayton approached Amalia. “Thank you again for all you and Mr. Demerest have done, Ms. Kennedy.”

  “You’re welcome. Bruce was a wonderful person, and will be sorely missed.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She sighed. “I sent Tom home with the kids, but I wondered if we could talk about the rest of Uncle Bruce’s estate. I want to hire you—The Last Detail, I mean—to wrap things up. Since I live in Missouri and the kids are still in school, it would be easier if I could have you handle it.”

  Amalia smiled. “Of course I’d be happy to help.”

  “Can we go to the house today? Would that be convenient for you? I’d still like to drive home tonight.”

  “Certainly. Let me see if Hudson needs anything else, then I’ll be right with you. Would it be okay if I had a friend come in too? She sometimes helps me with staging properties for sale.”

  “Sure. I’ll head over there now and open it up.”

  Amalia watched her go through the clear-glass doors of the church to the sunny parking lot. She listened for Hudson, who was carrying the flowers to the van. Pru had asked they be delivered to Piney Rest, since she couldn’t take them with her. Working with Hudson after last night’s disaster hadn’t been as awkward as she feared while she’s watched the hands of the clock measure the hours. They’d been busy and professional in their duties, which helped. Part of Amalia’s tie to Demerest Funeral Services was to act as his hostess.

  She carried the last vase outside and handed it to him. “Can you handle of the flowers yourself? Mrs. Dayton asked me to meet her at Bruce’s house. She’d like me to take care of the rest of his effects and go through the house with her.”

  Hudson pursed his lips in a pout before slamming the doors. “Of course.” He studied her for an hour-long moment, then walked past her to climb into the van. “We’ll settle accounts later. Mr. Auburn’s family is coming tomorrow to make arrangements. Thank you for your help today,” he said before he closed the door. “I, too, hope we can continue our…professional relationship.”

  “I’ll see you later.” Amalia twitched her lip. He hadn’t acted angry or sad in front of her. She locked the church doors and got in her car. In fact, he hadn’t seemed much different than he usually did when he was on duty. Something in his hesitation told her he hadn’t given up. Well, she’d worry about that later. Meanwhile, Amalia made a quick call inviting her friend Jordyn over for a peek. Jordyn had been dying to see inside the Campbell place and would have some great ideas about what to do to help it sell.

  Amalia parked at the curb in front of Bruce Campbell’s Elm Street nightmare of a mansion. Sided in dark green cedar with a warped white cupola in danger of sliding off the second story, the place looked more like a moldy wedding cake. The Campbell progenitor who had built the house in 1910 had gone heavy on the number of bedrooms. Wealthy from the milling industry, he’d planned grand. Unfortunately, those bedrooms had never been filled, and since Bruce, the last Campbell in Fox Falls, hadn’t married, it remained that way. Now it looked like it was destined for apartments. Or a wrecking ball. Amalia opened the beautifully etched front door which creaked as expected.

  “Hi, Prudence. I’m here.”

  Prudence’s muffled voice floated down the staircase. “Be right down.”

  While she waited, Amalia fingered a crack in dirty, pale-green plaster exposing the chalky white underbelly of the wall. She leaned close and turned so her ear touched. What stories would this house tell?

  For one, it shouted that time stopped somewhere in the mid nineteen-fifties. Bruce had lived here until he could no longer climb the stairs or remember to take the right pills at the right times. Having been raised by parents of the old man’s generation, Amalia could smell mint-julep painted walls, benign beige, cut-pile carpet, and pink plastic tile in the bathroom from ten blocks away. Blindfolded.

  Prudence walked down the open staircase, trailing her hand along the banister. “So, what do you think? Lots of memories here, but I’m not about to become an absentee landlord. Can you sell it?”

  “Me? Sell it? I don’t have a real estate license.”

  Pru clasped her elbows and backed up. She worried her bottom lip. “But I thought your business helped people dispose of their estates.”

  “I do.” Amalia closed her eyes, then opened them and tried to be nonjudgmental as she looked around. “I’ve never had to sell a house before. But I know people. Perhaps I can be the go-between for you?”

  “Yes. That’s what I want. Come on, though, let’s do the tour.” Prudence took Amalia’s hand and led her through the old dining room and the back bedroom to the kitchen.

  “I’ve been in the living room before, and the dining room, but Bruce never showed me around,” Amalia said as they worked their way through the house and up the narrow back stairway from the kitchen.

  “Servant’s staircase,” Prudence said. “Can you imagine? We used to have so much fun when we were kids.”

  “We?” Amalia asked. She didn’t mean to pry, but Prudence was the only family who’d come to the old man’s funeral.

  “Oh, I should explain, shouldn’t I?”

  “It’s not really any of my business,” Amalia said.

  “Sure it is. You need to know if I’m the sole heir, right? Well, I’m not. I have a brother. Once there were four of us, but our parents and oldest brother died together in an accident six years ago.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s over. Anyway, then my youngest brother…oh, he used to love sliding on this banister,” Prudence said as they walked down the front staircase. “He…well, I can’t explain what happened, really. He just disappeared not long afterward our folks passed on. He was only a kid.” She shook her head. “He’d been living with us right after Tricia was born. I’ve always felt…responsible.”

  Amalia swallowed. “Oh.”

  Prudence blinked away the moment then pulled out her contract from the leather purse she’d parked on the dining room table. “Would you take care of things? I know there are few pieces of furniture left, obviously. In fact, I’d like the dining room set myself. My other brother lives overseas. I never know when I’m going to see him again.”

  They agreed on the additions to the contract and both initialed and signed and dated. Prudence recapped her pen when the sounds of a cuckoo clock clamored from the depths of the huge purse. “My phone,” she said. “’Scuse me a sec, won’t you?”

  Amalia walked into the living room.

  Prudence rushed through a few minutes later. “Gotta take off. Family emergency. Keep in touch? Thanks again!” She waved and disappeared out the door.

  Amalia’s “Hope it’s nothing serious” wishes swirled in Prudence’s dust. Amalia went to pocket the keys left on the dining room table. She sighed, noticing the bubbling paint on the ceiling and the multitude of dead flies decorating the window sills.

  “And I signed up to deal with all this,” she muttered.

  “What’s that, honey? I didn’t hear you.” A whiff of late winter breath fluttered the cobwebs of the chandelier like lacy curtains. Amalia grinned at her friend Jordyn breezing in from the wide covered porch. “This is pretty cool. Thanks for letting me come. Remember how we used to make up great spooky stories? What great bones this house has.”

  “My dear…the better to crush you with,” Amalia continued, in a deep undertone.

  Jordyn laughed. “I can just see how it must have looked with all the furniture and knick-knacks,” she said. “I saw the right bird cage to sit at the parlor window at the antique store.”

  “Did anyone tell you that you should have been an interior designer?”

  “What, instead of a shop owner? You know I love JJ.”

  Amalia sighed. “I know. Jams and Jellies is your life, like The Last Detail is mine.”

  Jordyn rapped on a wall. “Good and solid. Needs some TLC, then it’ll be ready for market.”

 
“Nobody’s going to buy a place like this anymore. I mean, I love everything about Fox Falls, but this…” She twirled. “I mean, what were they thinking?”

  Jordyn shrugged. “Advertise as a fixer-upper. Or divide into apartments. We can talk later.”

  They did the penny tour, then Jordyn looked at her watch. “Gotta scoot. Miss Priss expects dinner on time.”

  Amalia’s friend’s marmalade cat drew in almost as many visitors as her specialty gourmet food items.

  “Thanks for coming.” Amalia cocked her head at the sound of little rodent feet scurrying behind the wall as she accompanied Jordyn out the door. “Maybe I can borrow Miss Priss for a week.”

  “She’d get too fat. Say, what are you up to tonight? Wanna grab supper?”

  “I have to work on the accounts after the funeral today. You know how Hudson gets.” At Jordyn’s raised brow, Amalia folded her arms.

  Jordyn clasped Amalia’s shoulders. “You’re worth more, you know. You don’t owe him. It’s been long enough already.”

  “There have been some developments in that area.”

  Jordyn’s dark eyebrows arched. “Tell me.”

  “Last night, before we even ordered dinner, he got on his knees and…said some things.” Amalia frowned and stopped.

  Jordyn’s mouth pursed. “I just bet he did. Go on. What things?”

  “He didn’t actually use the words at the time, but he sorted it out later.”

  “What things?” Jordyn demanded. “What words? So did he or didn’t he?”

  “He sort of did. I guess. I said no.”

  “I figured.” Jordyn grabbed Amalia’s left hand. “No ring.”

  “I didn’t even see it,” Amalia said, half to herself.

  “You deserve better, you know. Someone who really loves you for all you’re worth.”

  Amalia smiled at her friend. “We all do.”

  Jordyn touched Amalia’s shoulder on her way to her car and waved as she drove off.

  Amalia hugged herself. “Or I might end up old and alone instead, like Bruce.” She raised her face to stare at the dusty chandelier. “Now what do I do?”

  * * *

  Merit felt heavy, clumsy. He took a deep breath and coughed, then groaned at the ache.

  “Easy there,” a woman’s voice crooned. “Are you thirsty?”

  Forcing his eyelids to part hurt.

  “That’s right. Good morning, bro. How are you?”

  Bro? Sounded like his sister Prudence. But…how? Merit tested his rusty voice. “Alive?” He tried to swallow. “And yes, thirsty.”

  “Good. Hey, stay awake. Ice chips for now. Here.”

  “Yeah.” Merit slipped some ice from the cup into his mouth. “What are you doing here? I don’t remember much after the helicopter came.”

  “It’s been a funky couple of days, but you’re going to be fine. I came when the mission board called. We’re in Germany, at the Kaiserslautern hospital. I’d be impressed under other circumstances.”

  A white wall of fear washed over him at her words. “My foot?” He couldn’t bring himself to look down.

  Pru patted his arm. “The doc said she put six pins in your ankle, and a plate. You’ll want to carry the X-ray when you travel.” She grinned. “Said you’ll always be able to predict the weather, too. Good party trick.”

  Merit exhaled shamed relief. “Pru? I’m glad you’re here.”

  She turned away. He watched her take a quick swipe at her eyes, then turn back, suspiciously bright. “Yeah, I’m glad you’re here, too, kid. By the way, Uncle Bruce passed away last week. You’ll probably get my letter sometime next year, telling you about it.”

  Merit decided to ignore his sister’s tears. “Aw. I liked the old guy. Remember when we used to stay with him?”

  Pru straightened the beige blanket over his legs. “When the folks needed a break from all four of us. In fact, I was at his house when I got the call about you.”

  He watched her swallow. “Pru, I’m sorry.”

  “Um, well, it’s a little hard, you know.” She looked at him, her eyes glistening. “We’re the only ones left.” She sighed. “Anyway, I hired this firm to take care of things.”

  “Things?”

  “The house, and the rest of his stuff.” She plopped in the green plastic visitor’s chair and grabbed the remote.

  “What firm? Someone actually does that?”

  “Yeah. It’s a new side business, I guess. She helped Uncle Bruce with his first funeral, and then to move to Piney Rest Haven.”

  Merit shook his head and winced when he tried to shrug. “I must have heard you wrong. First funeral?”

  Pru grinned. “Yeah, we missed a great party, I hear. Don’t know why he didn’t invite us. Anyway, you’ll have to get Amalia to tell you the story.”

  “You’re going too fast for me. Who’s Am-am—what?”

  “Amalia Kennedy, the woman who owns the business.”

  He pictured a short, gray bob and glasses on a chain, ample hips, and a silver wrist watch, like Mrs. Berry, his fourth grade teacher. “What?”

  Pru wrinkled her nose and repeated herself. “You can visit when you’re walking again, if the place hasn’t sold by then. So, they said I could take you home tomorrow.”

  “Home?” Merit blinked. He’d been reduced to single syllables by his sister. What would it be like to be back in the states now? His visa hadn’t been up yet. And the clinic… “Where?”

  “With me, little brother, to Missouri. Be ready. Lawrence is going to want to take you to school for show and tell. He already asked if he could have the bullet they dug out of your shoulder for his collection.”

  Merit choked on the sip of water he’d taken. “Collection? And I thought I had only been grazed.” He tried to raise his arm and gasped, then frowned at her smirk.

  “You’ll need help getting dressed—”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Eating—”

  “I’m right-handed.” He held up his right arm. “I’m fine. See?”

  “And lots of therapy—”

  “No way!”

  “If you plan on walking again.”

  Merit studied the enormous boot that swathed his leg up to his knee. “Pretty bad, huh?”

  “Aw, you’ll be fine, you big baby. You just want me to take care of you.”

  Merit grinned back at her through his mixed trepidation and relief. “You let my six-year-old nephew collect bullets?”

  “Relax. It’ll be a collection of one. Promise.”

  THREE

  Amalia closed and locked the front door of the Campbell house. Her phone vibrated with a text message. Hudson had a call and postponed their business meeting. Amalia was just fine with that. Should she call Jordyn and make a supper date? No. She could drop in on Jordyn later when it was time to close shop.

  Cherie. Goodness, how could Amalia have forgotten to tell her news to Cherie Thompson? Amalia drove over to the house that Pastor Thompson, Pete, and his wife had purchased when they accepted the call to New Life five years earlier. Since they’d come, they’d had Joey, who was now three, and a new baby, Gregory, who’d been born last November. The Thompsons had supported Amalia during the illness and death, one after the other, of her elderly parents. If she could have chosen a sister, Cherie would have been the one.

  “Girlfriend.” Cherie greeted her at the front door. “C’mon in.”

  Amalia plucked Gregory from his mother’s shoulder and cuddled him.

  She stayed for supper at Cherie’s invitation and while lounging afterward in their kitchen, Amalia blurted out the news of the breakup with Hudson. “It was so empowering, I can’t believe it. Like pulling off the bandage.”

  “So you really did it,” Cherie said. “Poor Hudson. All those years.”

  “Whose side are you on? Poor, nothing.”

  Cherie shifted her sleeping baby boy to her shoulder and patted his back. “So, how are you two going to work together? Pete didn’t say an
ything to me after the funeral today. Was it hard?”

  Amalia raised an eyebrow. “The funeral was okay. Working with Hudson was creepily the same as always. We were going to do books tonight, but he got a call.”

  “So you’re fine?”

  “I don’t know. I think so.” Amalia played with her glass, watching a bead of condensation roll along the smooth surface. The ice cubes jingled against the sides. “I don’t want him, but I am fond of him. And I respect him. My parents, and his parents, too, always planned for us to be together. I guess they were all old-fashioned.” She got up and paced, while listening to the sounds of Joey and his six-year-old sister Jennifer, building a castle of ginormous blocks in the living room. “It’s not like I begrudge him happiness with anyone else. I think when I realized we had no…passion together, that I must have always thought of him more like an older cousin, or something.”

  Cherie wrinkled her nose. “Hm. Then what do you want?”

  Amalia’s churning thoughts tumbled like wavelets on the Fox River rushing through the rapids. “I’m not afraid of being without Hudson, but I think I’m afraid of trying something new and failing. What if I try to help people, but end up making a big mess, or being offensive?”

  “I can help you with the fear part,” Cherie said. “But the rest you’ll have to deal with.”

  “Oh?”

  Cherie reached under the chair where Pete usually left his Bible. Amalia smiled at the habit. “Right here, in the first book of Peter, chapter four. It says, ‘Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms…’, and then, down here, see?”

  Cherie held out the book with her finger on the page. Amalia picked it up and read, “‘If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.’ Ah, I see. So God will give me the strength I need.”

  Cherie nodded. “That’s right. Paul’s the one who compared the Christian faith to a race.”

  Amalia handed the Bible back to her friend and leaned back. “You have such a deep belief, such a love and joy in serving others. There must be something more I should do, besides…” She waved her hand, helplessly. “Sitting around Fox Falls waiting for people to die. And I don’t know how to do anything else.”