by Bess McBride
“I found three empty bottles under her bed again,” her grandmother, Evie, had said.
Out of the corner of her eye, Annie saw her mother glance at her with a warning finger to her lips for Grandma Evie’s benefit.
“Where does she get them?” Annie’s mother whispered. “She doesn’t go to the liquor store on her own, does she?”
“I think she gets them delivered by somebody. I don’t know who.”
“A stranger?” Annie’s mother asked skeptically. “People don’t deliver liquor, do they?”
“I don’t know! You know I don’t drink.”
“Should we ask her?”
Grandma Evie shook her head. “I’m not going to. She’s ninety-one years old. I guess she can do what she wants.”
“But this can’t be good for her health, Mom!”
“It seems to have worked for her so far. Maybe she’s made it this long just because she indulges in a nip here and there.”
“As long as it’s only nipping, not guzzling,” Annie’s mother said. “Three empty bottles?”
“Well, to be fair, I haven’t vacuumed under her bed in a month, so I have no idea how much or often she’s drinking.”
“She looks okay, on the rare occasion when she’s awake.”
Grandma Evie had nodded and threw a pointed look in Annie’s direction.
“Little pitchers have big ears,” she said.
“Annie!” her mother exclaimed. “I thought you were watching TV. You didn’t hear what we were saying, did you?”
“I didn’t hear anything, Mom,” Annie lied. She hadn’t really been sure what they were talking about. She had no idea what “licker” was, but it sounded like yummy gummy candy. She decided that Great-Grandma Claire must have been drinking too much soda pop, the kind that came in bottles. Annie’s mother generally did not approve of the sugary drinks. Annie’s favorite was orange soda.
As a teenager, Annie realized that what her grandmother and mother had been talking about were bottles of liquor. Years after Great-Grandma Claire had passed, Annie asked her mother one day what had been in the bottles they were talking about.
“So you did hear that,” her mother said, almost as if the conversation had happened a day before, not ten years prior. “You said you didn’t.”
“I lied,” Annie said with what she hoped was a disarming grin.
“Mmmhmmm,” her mom murmured. “Well, you’re old enough to know. Grandma Claire was a drinker, an alcoholic. I don’t know if she started when my grandfather died or whether she always did. They went to live with my mom long after I moved out, and after my grandfather passed, she became a bit helpless. She’d been married to the man since she was sixteen, for goodness’ sake. Had her first baby at seventeen, though she claimed to be nineteen. Grandpa must have raised her, to all intents and purposes. Anyway, maybe she was always helpless. They didn’t let married women do much in her day.
“I’m rambling. The point is...she drank, and my mom didn’t want to try to stop her. She would just gather up the bottles from her room and throw them out.”
Annie’s sixteen-year-old judgmental brain was slightly repulsed at the image of what should have been a sweet old granny drinking away in her bedroom.
“How did she get the bottles?”
“Do you mean the liquor?”
Annie wasn’t particularly familiar with alcohol even then and uncomfortable with the terminology. Her parents didn’t drink.
“Yes, liquor.”
“Well, we figured out that she had arranged to have some taxi driver pick up and deliver the bottles when my parents were out.” Annie’s mother’s lips curled into a smile. “She was a wily one, Grandma Claire was. Probably had to be. Her mother died when she was thirteen.”
“Ohhhhhh!” Annie said sympathetically, not knowing then that her own mother would die when Annie was twenty. “That’s awful!”
Her mother had nodded.
“How?” Annie asked. “Her mother couldn’t have been very old.”
“I don’t know. No one ever talked about it. My grandmother sure didn’t talk about it. I think my mom told me that.”
Annie nodded, but her pulse quickened. She detected a mystery. Anytime someone said “No one ever talked about it,” a mystery was in the offing.
It was years though before Annie could find the time to research that family mystery along with others, years before she delved into genealogy. Her grandmother and parents had passed away, and she lost her best resource—oral histories. She had to rely on whatever records were available for review, but women were notoriously hard to research. She could find no further information about Belinda.
Annie hadn’t been able to find her second great-grandmother’s birth or marriage certificates. Though Belinda’s parents had been listed on her death certificate, Annie longed to know still more about her. No photographs were available, and other than one cousin, she found no one else with information about Belinda.
Had she been tall or short? Blonde, redheaded, brunette? Had she been kind? Funny? Had she and her husband married for love or convenience given that women had few opportunities to care for themselves in those days? Why had Claire married at sixteen?
Annie sighed and stood up from her desk to get a cup of tea before she started work for the day. Normally, she delighted in the fact that her one-story house was small and easy to get around, but she felt suddenly confined, almost claustrophobic. It was drizzling outside, as it often did in western Washington, but she didn’t think the weather was the issue. She flicked on every light in the house, as if to warm up the space, to expand it.
She squeezed lemon into her tea and returned to her office, the second bedroom in her home. Settling down again at her desk, she set her genealogy work aside and tried to focus on editing one of many mystery novels assigned to her by her publisher. As a freelance editor, her daily schedule was her own. She had only to complete the work in a certain time frame, but how she got that done was within her control. She could stay up all night to complete the jobs. She could work split shifts.
She enjoyed the work and made enough money for her needs. Her modest house was paid off in large part two years ago due to her father’s life insurance policy.
Annie was grateful that she had left the corporate world the year before. Sitting at a desk writing grants when she could be reading novels for pay every day hadn’t made sense, and she had finally found the courage to go out on her own. Again, thanks in large part to her father’s help...even from the grave.
She swallowed hard at his memory and focused on pushing through a somewhat tedious novel. Her publisher had accepted it, and though Annie didn’t really enjoy the story, she suspected others might. Her job was to edit, not enjoy it.
The day passed slowly as she anticipated dinner with Danny that evening at seven. Occasionally, she caught sight of Belinda’s and Ted’s death certificates, and she pulled them out to study them again. No new information presented itself in a fourth and fifth examination of the documents.
Annie had just returned from the kitchen after fixing a sandwich for lunch when her phone rang, and she saw it was Danny. Her heart bounced around in her chest, and she drew a deep breath.
“Hello,” he said in his warm, gravelly voice. His voice had always sent shivers up and down her spine, and it did so now.
“Hi,” she said. “How are you?”
“Much better now that I’ve heard your voice.”
“Gosh, you certainly know how to flatter a girl,” she said lightly, trying to tamp down the gushing reaction she truly felt at his words.
“No flattery. I mean it. It’s been busy here, and I’ve got a whole slew of patients waiting, but I just wanted to call and hear your voice.”
“I’m so glad you called,” Annie said.
“See you in a little while,” Danny said.
“See you.”
Annie set her phone down and stared out the window into her garden while waiting for her swollen he
art to return to its normal day-to-day size. Two hummingbirds, one colorful, the other plain, stopped by the feeder outside her window, and she watched with a smile, wondering if they were a couple. Love was everywhere!
She returned her attention to work, snacked on her sandwich, and forced herself to complete the edits of at least one book for the rest of the day.
That evening, Danny collected her in his pickup truck. Annie had decided on a little knee-length black dinner dress with a pink flower pattern, along with simple black flats.
“You look beautiful,” Danny said caressingly as he opened the truck door for her. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Danny...” Annie protested with flaming cheeks. “I’m a whole lot older now.”
“I don’t see it. You’ll never change for me.” Danny leaned into the truck and kissed her lips before shutting the door, leaving Annie weak kneed and short of breath.
Danny had picked a small Chinese restaurant that they used to frequent when they were in high school. It was their third visit to the place since they had reconnected. Throughout the years of their separation, Annie had avoided the restaurant and all its memories.
They settled into a booth, and Annie asked him about his day. She listened to him talk about his patients, adoring the expressions sliding across his face as he chuckled or sighed. His love of animals was part of his charm.
“How about you?” He pushed his caramel-brown hair back off his forehead. His hair had a mind of its own. It always had. She had never forgotten how soft it was. “How was your day?” Danny’s steady gaze hypnotized her.
“F-fine,” Annie stuttered. What had he asked? She couldn’t remember, not under the spell of those eyes of his.
“How was editing?” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. The warmth of his skin matched hers perfectly. She had always marveled at how in tune they were physically, a visceral connection that had flamed again when they had reconnected.
“Good,” she said, curling her fingers around his hand. “Sometimes it’s harder than other days, especially if I’m not particularly interested in the story line. That’s subjective though. I’m not the enjoyment expert, just the editor.”
He grinned widely, his beaming smile so like his mother’s. That widowed lady had moved to Florida, and Annie wasn’t sure if Mrs. Douglas knew that she and Danny had rekindled their romance. She had always liked Danny’s mother and didn’t think she would mind. It hardly mattered. Mrs. Douglas was far away mixing it up with other seniors in her condo development, and Annie doubted that she worried overly much about her grown son’s social life.
“I did want to tell you about something much more interesting that I discovered today,” Annie said. “I found my second great-grandmother’s death certificate online today, along with that of her young six-year-old son. They died of complications from typhoid fever. My great-great-grandmother, Belinda, was only thirty-four when she died.”
Annie paused to relax the knot in her throat.
“I met an online fourth cousin, Susan, who seemed to know a bit of oral history about it from her family’s side. She said that Belinda and Ted contracted the typhoid fever soon after moving to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, after eating what she called ‘tainted ice cream.’ Her other children—including my great-grandmother, Claire, didn’t die though. She didn’t know if they ate the ice cream and survived or not. I guess I’m lucky to be here.”
Danny’s smile had vanished, and he squeezed my hand.
“I’m glad you are. Life is so fragile, isn’t it?”
“That’s just what I was thinking.”
“I remember that name...Claire. You met your great-grandmother, didn’t you? When you were little? Did anyone say anything about it? That’s quite a family tragedy. You would think someone would have said something.”
Annie shook her head. “No, no one said anything about Belinda or Ted.”
“How did this cousin of yours hear about the tainted ice cream?”
“Her family passed the history down. I think her grandmother was Great-Grandma Claire’s sister. Susan is a generation older than me.”
“Hmmm,” he said.
They were interrupted by the arrival of their food.
“That’s a shame,” Danny said, resuming the subject after the server left.
“I keep wishing that I could have warned them, knowing what I do. How does someone get typhoid fever from tainted ice cream?”
“From unsanitary conditions, probably at the ice cream or milk factory.”
“Unsanitary conditions? Do you mean like rodents or cockroaches?” Annie scrunched her nose.
“Probably not pests. I mean from unwashed hands after using the bathroom. It’s spread through contact with urine or stool from infected people.”
“Oh!” Annie exclaimed. “Oh dear.”
Danny shook his head in sympathy. “Honestly, that kind of thing still goes on. It’s a Salmonella bacteria. That’s how many bacteria are passed. Most people in the United States are vaccinated against typhoid though, but it’s still rampant in some other countries. Folks just have to be careful when traveling overseas that they are cautious about what they eat or drink. I think the Centers for Disease Control put out a little slogan on their website regarding travel overseas to high-risk areas: ‘Boil it, cook it, peel it or forget it.’ Catchy, huh?”
“Ugh.” Annie stopped eating her salad and stared at it. “Do animals get it?”
“No, not the form that causes typhoid fever, but they can get the other form of non-typhoidal Salmonella. Humans and animals can pass that one between them. That’s the one you hear about most often here in the States. The CDC is always putting out warnings and recalls.” He smiled. “I don’t think there are any alerts out about lettuce right now though.”
Annie swallowed hard, looked down at her hands and wondered when she had last washed them. She breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, she had gone to the restroom right after they arrived.
“That’s okay,” she said, taking a piece of bread. “I ate enough.”
“Not really,” Danny said, his eyes twinkling. “But the subject has been kind of rough on the appetite, hasn’t it?” His food was thoroughly cooked.
She nodded. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“Don’t be,” Danny said. “Death is rarely pretty, and nothing changes the tragedy of your second great-grandmother and great-uncle dying so young.”
“Great-uncle,” Annie repeated. “A little six-year-old boy. How about that?”
“Hard to imagine.”
Annie changed the subject, and they reminisced about the past as they often did, carefully avoiding the subject of how they’d parted. Neither of them seemed inclined to discuss how they let their first attempt at love die. She knew she wasn’t ready for that talk, but she thought they would probably hash it out one day.
They took their time dining, and it was almost nine o’clock by the time Danny drove up to her house.
“Do you want to come in?” Annie asked, hoping he did.
Danny’s phone beeped at that moment, and he nodded, then checked his phone. He read the message and raised his head, the expression on his face telling her that she would be entering the house alone.
“Oh, honey, I want to come in, but I’ve got a German shepherd who needs emergency surgery. The owner doesn’t trust anyone but me, so I can’t send them to an emergency veterinarian.”
“Okay,” Annie said. “I understand. You go do vet things. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay, hon. Kiss me,” he said, leaning toward her. His lips were familiar but different, perhaps more mature. She gave herself up to the kiss, old memories flooding back in.
Danny released her. “I’d better get going. Good night, Annie. See you tomorrow?”
Annie nodded. “Yes. Go, go!”
She climbed out of the car, and Danny drove away.
Upon entering the house, she headed for her office. The tragedy of Belinda�
��s and Ted’s tragic deaths still saddened her, and she wanted to study their death certificates again. She sat down and picked up the documents, studying the address, the name of the cemetery, the attending physician, the time of death for each—anything that could give her additional information, anything that could bring them to life.
“Oh, my dear ones. For all my relations, I wish I could talk to you, to warn you. I wish with all my heart that I could warn you not to eat that ice cream.”
The overhead pot lights dimmed, as if someone had hit the dimmer switch. Annie looked over her shoulder. She was quite alone. Sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip. The air conditioning was on though. She felt dizzy, and she dropped the certificates and rose to go get a glass of water from the kitchen.
Her knees buckled, and she felt herself falling to the floor. She cried out and stiffened her arms to break the fall. The world grew dark.
Chapter Two
Annie’s right cheek pressed hard against a cold surface, and she opened her heavy-lidded eyes with effort. Images of red brick, gray concrete and black wrought iron confused her. Frigid air clutched at her bare arms and legs.
Annie heard voices nearby, then the loud clanging of a bell. Her head lay on a concrete surface, and she pushed herself to a sitting position. She found herself not in her office but sitting on a concrete pad of some sort, her back against a red brick wall. To her left, beyond a black-painted door, steep steps led up to the source of the voices. People passed by above her head on what appeared to be a sidewalk. She guessed that she was in some sort of basement stairwell. Black wrought iron railings overhead protected pedestrians from falling into the stairwell.
Annie rose to a standing position on shaking legs, and she braced her back against the cold brick wall for support. The bell clanged again, and a rhythmic mechanical sound began, almost as if a train went by.
She staggered over to the bottom of the stairs, her stomach clenched in knots, her head spinning. She wished she could believe that she was dreaming, but everything seemed all too real. She grabbed hold of the iron bannister and pulled herself up, every step a herculean effort as she dreaded what she was about to see.
