By William Cass

To my dismay, I found I had high blood pressure shortly after I retired as an elementary school principal at the age of sixty-three. My doctor put me on a hypertension med, a no-sodium diet, and told me to exercise regularly. I immediately made a vigorous daily walk part of my afternoon routine. I started with a half-hour, wandering through neighborhood streets, and gradually increased that over the course of several months to an hour. This eventually brought me along the outskirts of town where the houses were backed by patches of woods. 

A tiny, old woman lived in one of the houses furthest out. I saw her from time to time shuffling to or from her mailbox where it met the sidewalk at the end of her driveway. Regardless of the day’s temperature, she was always dressed in the same flowered housecoat and blue cardigan sweater, which she clutched to her chest with one fist. She had small rimless glasses, white hair like a cotton-candy cap, and was bent a little in the middle. When I tried to greet her with a raised hand or nod, she made absolutely no response. She reminded me of my mother, who would have also been in her mid-eighties if she were still alive. A thin tabby cat always followed her, tittering a few feet behind.

I initially noticed her during the early spring and nothing changed at her place until later that summer when a tray table suddenly appeared next to her mailbox. A basket of green apples sat in its center with an index card taped to its front that read: Help yourself. The first time I came upon it, a mailman had just finished with her mailbox and was selecting an apple from the basket.

I stopped next to him and asked, “What’s this all about?”

He looked at me evenly. “A neighbor told me this old lady’s cat was struck by lightning.”  He gestured with his chin. “In her backyard. She lives alone and was watching through her kitchen window when it happened.”  He pointed to the basket. “She started putting these out right afterwards.”

I glanced up at the small, trim house with its maple tree to the side, then back to him. “No kidding.”

“So I’m told.”

It was a hot day, and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. He shrugged, pocketed the apple he was holding, and said, “Well, better get back at it.”

I watched him pass me and start up the sidewalk the way I’d come. I studied the front of the old woman’s house and her maple tree for another few moments before continuing my walk in the other direction.

***

I’d retired as soon as I’d acquired the needed elements for maximum benefits in the State Teachers’ Retirement System, which essentially involved at least thirty years of service and reaching age sixty-two and a half. I’d spent most of those years teaching fourth and fifth grade, but got my admin credential shortly before my wife left, then lucked into the assistant principal’s opening a few months later at the large school where I taught. I was transferred to my principal’s position at a much smaller school in the district when my divorce became final a year later and finished my career there a decade after that. There was really no pressing reason to retire; I still found most of the work meaningful and satisfying, but just felt the time was right. I wanted to concentrate more on my woodworking – a store downtown had begun selling some of the toys I made – and I was relieved to put behind me the stressful elements of the job. I also had a vague desire to get out while my health was still good, but then, of course, got the ironic news about my blood pressure right afterwards. I had no real desire to travel, no new woman to spend time with, no family to visit or help. But I enjoyed the long, uninterrupted mornings in my garage workshop, the stack of weekly books and British mystery DVD’s I checked out of the library, and my afternoon walks. So, I was content with my decision. More time on my hands meant more time to realize how alone I was, but the lack of responsibilities and expectations superseded that.

***

A couple of weeks after first seeing the old woman’s tray table offering, something else appeared on the grass next to it: a large metal bowl of water and a Tupperware container of dog biscuits. I stopped on my walk to regard both, as well as the front of her house again. Her curtains were open at all the windows, and various pieces of furniture were visible through most, but I saw no movement inside. I wondered what she’d done with her dead cat. I wondered how long she’d had it and what life was like for her without its companionship. She hadn’t appeared particularly interested in the cat when it was trailing behind her, but she must have craved its physical affection; why else would she have had it?  I thought of her sitting by herself now, perhaps on a couch watching television, with her hands folded empty in her lap instead of stroking the cat’s warm body where it lay curled against her thigh. Another beating heart that had been beside her there, gone. Replaced by these new odd gestures. Why? I squinted in concentration before continuing on my way.

***

My wife wrote me a note when she left; I found it on the kitchen counter. It said simply that she didn’t love me anymore, had found someone new, had a right to be happy, and was leaving. I hadn’t seen a thing coming. It was true that we’d grown more distant since our severely-disabled/medically-fragile son, Ben, had died the previous year, but I’d explained that away to myself as simply due to each of us dealing separately with our own grief. After I found the note, she refused to reply in any way to my attempts to contact her. I wasn’t even sure where she’d moved to until I was served with divorce papers while on bus duty in front of my school one afternoon a month or so later.

Aside from whatever she’d packed in her small suitcase I found missing, she hadn’t taken any belongings. I’d left every item of hers exactly where it had been, down to her hairbrush on our bureau and our wedding photograph on her nightstand. I’m embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I stopped going into our bedroom closet, closing the door, and inhaling her scent that managed to linger on her clothes.

***

Several more weeks of my daily walks passed before a plaid blanket was added to the assortment at the edge of the old woman’s front lawn. There was a large cardboard box of books on it, as well as some knick-knacks: porcelain figurines, tarnished silverware, a snow globe, a small clay vase that looked like it could have been fashioned by a child, a birdhouse with fresh seed on its perch. I bent down and looked through the books, which were a combination of classic literary novels and poetry, all hardback and well-worn. I flipped through one of the volumes of poetry and found a number of verses underlined in pencil with words scribbled in the margins like “This!” and “Yes!”. I straightened back up and looked over at the basket of apples on the tray table, the metal bowl, the Tupperware container, and saw that they had all been recently refilled. I wished I’d been there to see the old woman do that, to note the expression she wore as she did, to observe any change in the cadence of her steps when she went back inside.

Her house stood as silent as always. I’d taken to gazing at it as soon as it appeared on my walks and looking after it until it disappeared completely from my view. A robin, orange-breasted, swooped down onto the blanket, surprising me. I watched it dip its head and peck at the birdseed, scattering some onto the blanket and lawn. Its head twitched in my direction, our eyes met briefly, then it flew away over the old woman’s house and beyond where the trees had just begun to turn color with fall’s early advance.

***

My wife and I had met during graduate school where I’d returned to get my teaching credential after a few years of trying my hand as a custom cabinetmaker; she was finishing an MFA with an emphasis on technical illustration. We got married soon after I’d found my first teaching job nearby in the same district where I eventually retired; she worked from home doing illustrations for a large textbook company. After my third year of teaching, we scraped together the down payment on the little house I still lived in and spent a lot of our free time together fixing it up. We had no plans to start a family at the time. In fact, it wasn’t until we were both in our mid-thirties that I began bringing up the subject of having a child. She remained reluctant, but I pressed her on it, reminding her of the ticking clock of age, until she finally agreed to try.

Ben was born just before we both turned forty. He spent six weeks in the NICU and another dozen in the children’s convalescent wing before we could bring him home. The dysmorphologist who treated him after birth told us Ben had an undiagnosed genetic syndrome that included symptoms associated with cerebral palsy and a weakened immune system. He had no sucking or swallowing impulse, so the insertion of a feeding tube was his first surgery. He also had trouble clearing his secretions and frequent bouts of what was termed “failure to thrive,” so a tracheostomy was his second.

When my wife first asked the dysmorphologist about developmental and life expectations for Ben, he pursed his lips and paused. “Well,” he finally said, “developmentally, probably not more than that of a six-month-old. And kids like Ben rarely live longer than a handful of years…their weakened immune systems and declining resistance to available antibiotics make new pneumonias more frequent and problematic. That’s what usually does them in.”  He showed his palms. “I’m afraid it’s often a cruel and unfortunate geometry. But there’s no way to say for certain that will be the case for your son.”

Ben relied on adult care for all of his basic living needs, and we were able to arrange home nursing during our work hours and for most overnights to help with those. We learned otherwise to manage his various pulmonary and anti-seizure medications, treatment procedures, and medical equipment – the sat monitor, oxygenator, feeding pump, suction machine, mister, nebulizer, vibrating vest, hospital bed, wheelchair, and the rest. Our devotion to him was constant and shared, and that, I believe, contributed to him making it to age ten before passing away, doubling the estimate the dysmorphologist had given us after his birth.

***

Not long after coming upon the old woman’s blanket, I caught a lingering flu that curtailed my daily walks for nearly a month.  By the time I next entered her street and saw the familiar items in the distance at the edge of her sidewalk, the neighborhood’s deciduous trees were in full fall splendor. It wasn’t until I was almost upon her lawn that I realized the metal bowl, Tupperware container, and apple basket were empty. Most of the things on the blanket were gone, too; only a few books lay scattered on the bottom of the cardboard box. I looked up at her house. None of the furniture I’d seen through the windows was there. A “for sale” sign perched at a slant under the blazing maple tree. I felt something fall inside me, and a slow chill crawled up my back.

I became aware of a young woman approaching on the sidewalk with a large dog on a leash. She stopped next to me, looked up at the house, too, and said, “Sad, isn’t it?”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“Heard she moved herself into a nursing home in Cloverdale and was put almost immediately into hospice care. Stomach cancer, and she’s declining treatment.”

My eyes widened as I looked at her. She kept hers on the house and shook her head. At my feet, her dog nosed at the empty bowl and Tupperware container and gave a small whine.

I asked, “Did you know her well?”

“No. Just to say hi to. She kept pretty much to herself.”

I looked past her at the mailbox and noticed for the first time the name stenciled on it in small black letters: Gertrude Hayes.

“Come on, big guy.”  The young woman gave a tug on the dog’s leash. “Let’s go finish your business.”

I watched the dog pull her away, sniffing at the grass along the sidewalk as he did. I returned my gaze to the empty house and took a turn shaking my own head. A few minutes later, I went around the side of the house into the backyard, which bordered woods. I glanced at what I assumed to be Gertrude’s kitchen window. The patch of grass wasn’t very big, so the cat must have been near where I stood when the lightning had struck. Her apple tree, crooked with age, stood in one of the corners, rotting windfall around its base. An empty bird birth sat still in the opposite corner. Along the far side, a rectangular mound of weed-riddled earth was surrounded by a chicken wire fence; it wasn’t unlike the raised garden my wife used to tend in our backyard. I found myself blinking rapidly. It was so quiet I could hear my own breathing.

I didn’t continue that walk. I went home instead, took a bottle of wine out onto the back patio, sat in one of the pair of Adirondack chairs there, and sipped from it. As the gloaming descended, sprinklers hissed on in a neighbor’s yard, then ended abruptly a little while later. A small breeze gently clacked the windchimes my wife had hung from the eaves outside the kitchen window: sand dollars suspended on fishing line. As I listened to them, I wondered, as I often did, what she was doing at that moment. I wondered again what had gone wrong and if it could have been made right if she’d only spoken to me about her discontent. A train passed in the distance across town. 

It had become fully dark before I went back inside and down the hall into Ben’s old bedroom. I opened the door, flicked on the light, and looked around. I hadn’t been in his room since just after he’d died. We’d returned his rented hospital bed and medical equipment and donated his wheelchair, but the rocking chair where we used to snuggle him was still there in its spot. So was the music box with its spinning hippo ballerina on the shelf above where his pillow used to be. Suddenly, I remembered my wife lowering him into his crib the night we were first able to bring him home from the convalescent wing, tucking the blankets around him, kissing his forehead, then folding herself into my embrace and weeping silently. I took a long pull from the wine bottle and thought about those things we can control and those we can’t. I thought about irretrievable opportunities and the fleeting time I had left myself. 

***

It didn’t take me long to find Gertrude’s nursing home. There were only two in Cloverdale, and she was in the second I stopped at that next afternoon. The receptionist gave me a visitor’s sticker and directed me to her room. 

As I was applying the sticker, she smiled at me and said, “It will be nice for Gertrude to have a visitor.”

I felt my eyebrows raise, then turned and headed down the long hallway. Several residents sitting in wheelchairs or leaning on walkers outside open doorways stared at me grimly as I passed. Gertrude’s room was the last on the right. The bed on the far side of the room was empty, stripped bare. Gertrude lay sleeping on her back in the closer one, propped up on pillows, hooked up to wires and probes leading to a pole next to her. She looked even tinier and frailer than I’d remembered her. I recognized the sat monitor attached to the pole with its quiet beeps and shifting numbers; Ben’s had been a smaller version. An IV bag was also suspended from the pole that made a slow drip into the tube leading to Gertrude’s wrist. She was snoring softly, her mouth agape, her glasses askew. The only thing on the bedside table was a lidded plastic cup with a bent straw – no cards or flowers. I pulled a straight-backed chair over next to her and sat down. A smell like camphor wafted on the air. An elderly voice down the hall gave a long wail. 

I watched Gertrude sleep for twenty minutes or so before a heavy-set woman in maroon scrubs and clogs came into the room. Her eyes were weary but attentive. She regarded Gertrude for a long moment before pushing some buttons on the sat monitor and checking the IV bag. She straightened Gertrude’s glasses and smoothed the hair on her forehead. 

I said, “Are you the hospice nurse?”

She seemed to study me for a moment before she said, “Yes.”

“How is she?”

Her shoulders made a small shrug. “Oh, about as well as can be expected. She hasn’t eaten now for eight days. We took her off oxygen this morning in accordance to her Advanced Care Directive.”  She paused. “It won’t be too much longer now.”

I blew out a breath. She cocked her head, then said, “I’m glad she has a loved one with her.”

I didn’t correct her. I just watched her give Gertrude’s ankle a pat and walk back out into the hallway. I waited a few moments before reaching over and taking Gertrude’s hand. It was dry, brittle, almost weightless.  Aside from the few items and bits of information I’d come across at her house, I knew nothing about her. But she’d lived a long life, and I imagined it was a full one, as well. I believed, like all of us, she’d done her best, had tried in earnest to make sense of things. In fact, I was sure she had. Very gently, I squeezed her hand.

Perhaps another twenty minutes passed, the light in the room dimming, before Gertrude’s eyes suddenly opened. I gave her hand another slight squeeze. She frowned for a moment, glanced down at her hand in mine, then looked at me. I wasn’t sure if it involved me, her circumstances, or both, but slowly, recognition filled her eyes. 

“Hi,” I said quietly. “How you doing?”

Her eyes changed but stayed on me. She seemed to be searching for something. Her lips began trembling, her chin quivered. Finally, she whispered, “I’m frightened.”

A shadow that had become a more recent and regular companion passed inside me. I nodded and said, “I know.”  

I tried my best to make my eyes offer a small smile, and she seemed to make a similar attempt. In that moment, though, there was the hint of something else in hers, something that I hadn’t noticed before and found startling. Something like tenderness or kindness, or maybe the remainder of both. When I next squeezed her hand, she squeezed back. Then, as quickly as she’d awakened, she was asleep again, her mouth in that small “O,” and her hand went limp once more in mine. 

Over the next few minutes, Gertrude’s soft snores seemed to grow shallower. The shadow passed inside me again; I’d been at Ben’s side when he passed and I didn’t think I could do that again, so I started to raise myself off the chair. But as I did, her hand clutched mine weakly once more. Another wail came from the hallway; I turned my head towards it, then sat back down. Even though she appeared to still be sleeping, I gave her hand another soft squeeze. There was no response, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all. I knew then I wasn’t going anywhere. I’d hold her hand for as long as she had left so she’d know she wasn’t alone until she went to that place we’d all be going in the end.

William Cass has publised over 250 short stories in a variety of literary magazines such as december, Briar Cliff Review, Blood & Thunder, and Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. He was a finalist in short fiction and novella competitions at Glimmer Train and Black Hill Press and won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. He has also received one Best Small Fictions nomination, three Pushcart nominations, and his short story collection, Something Like Hope & Other Stories, was recently released by Wising Up Press.

By Louis Fink

I often wonder about what happened to old friends or acquaintances. What was their story? What kind of hand were they dealt? Was life good and fair for them?

The year 1953 was a memorable one: Queen Elizabeth was crowned; The Korean War ended, with an armistice signed at Panmunjom; the Brooklyn Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees in the sixth game, with a score of 4-3; and we began school at Montauk Junior High (P.S. 223) in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, New York.

Summer was fast fading but the leaves on the trees were still green as we lined up in the schoolyard behind the three-story red brick building at 16^th and 42^nd St. The concrete yard was bounded by a steel chain-link fence on the sides and a rear wall of cement that was used for the handball courts. Behind a cardboard sign that read “7SP1” and hung atop a wooden pole, a double line of adolescent boys and girls ranging from 4’5″ to 6’0″ was formed. Our class was one of almost 70. After the alarm bell, we marched up the stairs to room 327 on the third floor. The homeroom teacher, Mr. Hecht, was a short man appearing fortyish with thinning reddish hair, a wide smile, and a moderately protuberant abdomen. He always wore a short sleeved white Dacron shirt and a solid blue tie. When he wore his worsted jacket, he had a Purple Heart medal pinned over the left breast pocket. He told us that he earned this at the Battle of the Bulge during WWII. But I heard him tell Madame Mass our French teacher that he wore it for lasting six years with tough teenage kids.

Mr. Hecht assigned us alphabetically into rows of wooden seats with desks. Our class of 27 didn’t quite fill the six columns of six seats. This was 7SP1, the Special Progress class. We were from the surrounding area elementary schools, chosen by standardized test scores to complete the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades in two rather than three years. For the next two years, I was to sit behind Linda Finestein and stare at her dark brown hair done up either in braids or a ponytail.

For two years, Linda was like my shadow. I was paired to dance with her in gym. I occasionally got to go in the closet with her after a spin-the-bottle game at an after-school party. The kiss was like the peck your mother gave you when she left for work. Since Linda’s mother and my father taught the sixth grade in the same P.S. 201, every time I misbehaved, Linda would tell her mother who would inform my father.

Once on the way home from school, the gorilla-like Arnold Horowitz attempted to pummel my head on the sidewalk because I did not give him my seat on the McDonald Avenue trolley. Linda who was enjoying watching me get the shit kicked out of me wound up her leather pocketbook like a one-handed knight’s ball and chain. She hit Arnold with a blow that would have been worthy of Sir Lancelot’s admiration. I felt like she saved my life. Somewhere within this petite teen, there was brawn as well as brains. She was one tough cookie. Everyone in 7-9 SP1 knew that there was something different and special about Linda. 

She could play the piano like a virtuoso, recite the poetry of Virgil, hit a tennis ball onto the roof of a six-story apartment building, speak French like a Parisian and even once gave Bobby Fisher a battle at chess. It was said that standardized tests were not capable of measuring her intelligence. A few years later at Midwood H.S., she would win a Merit Scholarship and a Westinghouse Science Scholarship for studies on the ecological impact of cyanobacteria. She was accepted to Radcliffe in Cambridge with advanced standing.

I saw Linda around 1963, walking down Avenue 1 in Brooklyn near where we grew up, arm in arm with some guy. I hardly recognized her. She had her nose done to give it a little ski slope jump instead of the narrow hook she was born with. She was heavily rouged with long eyelashes and had apparently chucked the eyeglass spectacles for contact lenses. Her form fitting red cardigan, which matched her lipstick, showed a now full breasted young woman. Her pleated kilt-like miniskirt and fishnet stockings showed her curvaceous calves and thighs that were accentuated by her spiked red suede high heel pumps. She had certainly graduated from high school. 

As I passed by, I blew a low toned wolf whistle of admiration, but she was too preoccupied to see or recognize me.

Other than making a few of her professors, including some Nobelists, drool, Linda found undergraduate school unstimulating. She ran off with the Assistant Director of the Boston Symphony to Dallas and enjoyed music until the Dean and her mother begged and pleaded for her to return and finish her undergraduate degree.

For lack of anything better to do, Linda went to medical school at V….University. The memorization was trivial for her photographic recall. She concomitantly enrolled in a Ph.D. program and worked with an advisor who was later to win the Nobel prize in medicine for his laboratory study on how growth factors caused cells to divide. Linda completed her M.D. with honors but needed to complete several experiments before the Doctorate in Philosophy would be granted when she left with her fiancée to start a residency in Pathology at U of M….

Burt Malley was a statuesque male who supported his way through dental school as a male model and by receiving generous gifts from women. Something was different about his attraction to Linda. She used her intellect to hone her feminine guile and was able to captivate Burt physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Within six months he proposed to her, and she accepted.

We met again at the U of M…. where I was an Assistant Professor of Pathology. The Chairman called me in and told me to help a new first-year resident Linda Malley complete her experiments for her Ph.D., a favor that had been requested by the Chairman at her previous institution. When Linda Finestein appeared in my laboratory, I was surprised. However, I was glad to see her again. For two years, I helped her label growth hormones and track their locations in cells. She completed her thesis and received her doctorate. 

During the remaining time, Linda completed her five years of training in Pathology. She went on to study transfusion medicine and became an expert in plasmapheresis. She became the expert on treating a variety of blood and bleeding disorders. She established a mobile unit that could be moved around to the different hospitals and was on call 24/7. She became pregnant and lost the baby at six months gestation. It was at this time that she decided to incorporate her practice and take on a partner. She interviewed several candidates but chose Mitchell Naught because he had shown that he could handle the legal and financial aspects of running a practice as a business.

Mitchell had been a co-resident with Linda at the U of M…. There was no missing him in a crowd. He had a round, plethoric, and ruddy complexion with wavy, reddish-blond hair, and blue eyes. He had a coarse, raspy, and deep voice.  His most distinctive feature was that he was 5’10” and weighed almost 350 pounds. When he walked, he almost looked like a bowling pin and waddled his way around. Mitchell agreed to the partnership and agreed to kick in $500,000 as his share of the startup funds for the joint venture. 

After the failed pregnancy, Linda became depressed. She bought Burt a new white T- Bird convertible.  One day she noticed that there were cigarette butts in the ashtray that had a pink shade of lipstick different from any Linda owned. He was also working much later and on weekends. Linda became suspicious and she followed Burt one evening. He went to a large mansion in the Hilltop area of the city. When he left after several hours, he was tucking his shirt into his pants. Linda made note of the address and looked up the listing for the owner. She decided to do nothing for a while and then hired a private detective to follow Burt. She found that the house belonged to one of the prominent transplant surgeons, Dr. Stal, who was away on sabbatical in Australia. His wife and children had stayed at home. It became obvious that Burt and she had established a relationship.

Linda was seething. She confronted Burt the next week with photos of his trysts. Insults and vulgar profanities were exchanged along with derisions of each other’s sexuality. When Burt pulled down a suitcase and began to pack his belongings, Linda became violent. She threw everything that she could pick up at Burt. She put a three inch gash in Burt’s forehead with a plaque she had received for her research accomplishments. She hurled it at him as if she was Discobolos, the Greek discus thrower. Finally, the sounds of broken glass splintering and the uproar of the commotion caused the neighbors across the street to call the police. They came and escorted Burt away from the premises. 

The last Linda saw of Burt was in the divorce courtroom where he was demanding that Linda pay him alimony because she made more money. 

The scar on Linda’s psyche seemed to be much deeper than the one on Burt’s head. For weeks, she stalked Mrs. Stal but a restraining order put an end to that.

Linda tried to focus on her medical practice and business but her internal fury made that difficult. In an attempt to find some peace and distraction, Linda found a tavern called the Blue Spot several miles from her house. For several nights she sat in a booth and watched the NHL games on TV or the regular patrons shooting pool. One evening one of the regulars introduced himself to her.

His name was William (Bill) Doit. He was about six feet tall with long black hair tied into a ponytail. His narrow face was bordered by sideburns extending to the tip of his earlobes. The irises of his eyes were deep brown. His aquiline nose was bent slightly to the left. Both earlobes were pierced with a single gold stud. He wore denim jeans over black leather boots and a white tee shirt decorated with a large eagle head. His arms and face had a leather tan. His overall physique was that of an early middle-age muscular male. 

An old jukebox was in the corner and Bill fed it some quarters. The first was Paul Anka singing “Put Your Head on My Shoulder.” He extended his hand to Linda and asked her to dance. They slow danced for hours only stopping to pick out more oldies. Linda held on tightly. At closing time Bill took Linda outside to his Harley cycle. He gave her a helmet and they flew off to the mountains on dark roads with only a half moon and galaxies of stars to light the sky.

Bill told Linda of his futile attempt to study philosophy at Berkeley. He was now the leader of a motorcycle club called Sons of Restitution and eked out a living selling secondhand auto parts. In a short while, Bill and Linda were lovers living together. He doted on her supreme intellect, and she loved his caresses and suave sex.

Linda was spending a lot of time on her relationship with Bill. She neglected to appear at the Bank of America for the signing of an application for a loan to buy equipment for the new company that she had formed with Mitchell. ln addition, she had been forced to move from her townhouse because as a single wage earner she could no longer afford the rent. Also, the HOA (homeowners association) had assessed several fines relating to the excessive noise and air pollution, particularly those coming from Bill’s motorcycle whose loud staccato muffler and coal black exhaust perturbed the peaceful community. There were extensive costs for the apartment wreckage she had created during the break with her ex-husband, Burt, and the exorbitant legal costs of the divorce. 

By now her partner Mitchell was fed up with her inability to initiate the new company, and he withdrew his half million dollars investment. He also decided to relocate to Upstate New York.

Because of Mitchell’s reneging on his investment, Linda faced huge losses and plunged into extreme debt. 

When Linda told Bill of the impending cataclysm, he told her that he had a plan that would rectify the situation. He would use his contacts through the Sons of Restitution to hire a debt collector in Connecticut who would fly to Canada and go to Buffalo. He was supplied with a stolen pistol which was disassembled and hidden in his luggage. The collector would cross into the U.S. at Niagara and rent a van.  He and two associates from the Sons of Restitution would locate and capture Mitchell. They would have papers that they would force Mitchell to sign. These would transfer funds to a Cayman Islands bank account and would force him to pay his share of the bankruptcy costs. They even had a sample of Mitchell’s handwriting to check that all the signatures were appropriately endorsed.

When the enforcing contractors kidnapped Mitchell, it was joked that they enticed him into the van with a trail of glazed donuts. They put him in the van, and, while pointing a pistol at his head, they forced him to sign the documents. Unfortunately for the kidnappers Mitchell escaped. It was later joked that they let him go because they could not afford to feed him.

Mitchell flagged down a ride and went to the FBI in Buffalo. Before the kidnappers could return from their activity in Buffalo they were captured and arrested. They tried to void the charges by saying that the FBI obtained an illegal search warrant to obtain evidence.

The group was tried in the Chicago Federal Court. Bill and Linda were convicted for initiating, aiding, and abetting in the armed kidnapping of Mitchell and for extortion.

During this time, I was asked by my chairman to provide gainful employment for Linda so that she could remain out on bail until the sentencing. She came to work each day and was sentenced to the federal penitentiary at Rockville for five years.

It has been 29 years since Linda was released from prison and it is through the Internet that I have found out what has become of her.

She has irrevocably been stripped of her medical license to practice medicine. I tracked her to a small tavern in Bisalt, Colorado called Linda’s Lounge where she is the owner and barmaid. She bought the bar with a small inheritance from the sale of her mother’s condo in Brooklyn where she died of a broken heart. 

Bill sits on a stool at the corner of the bar as she serves draft beers to the over-the-hill members of the Sons of Retribution. Sometimes she lets her arthritic fingers play some Chopin’s Piano Sonatas, on the upright next to the old jukebox. 

Linda still has silky brown-grey hair and a pretty face. Her body has several jailhouse tattoos and scars.  She is somewhat emaciated.

Linda is one of many friends, with so many talents and on so many roads.

Louis M Fink, M.D., is a retired Professor of Pathology. He spent his professional career at several institutions including 17 years at UAMS. He has published a novel entitled Lost and Found and a collection of poems called Dreaming. Lovely Linda is from a book of short stories he is writing.

By Lucy E.M. Black

Grace noticed the girl’s fingers first, stubby with chewed nails that looked sore. When it was Grace’s turn in line, she pushed her groceries along the rubber belt. Grace looked down at her own nails and saw that the polish was wearing off the top edges. The girl double-bagged Grace’s bananas and milk. “In case they’re too heavy for the bag,” she said. Her thoughtfulness pleased Grace. She fidgeted with her debit card and passed it to the cashier. The stubby fingers reached across the conveyor belt and Grace recoiled to see a thick line of dirt crusting the cuticles.   The manager should ensure his employees have clean hands, she thought. 

Grace had chosen to walk, intending to get some exercise, even though this now meant climbing back up the steep hill to her new street. The shopping was done, and it was time to go home, store the items away, and move on to her next job. That was how Grace liked to do things – one thing after another, everything in its turn.  

When she first met George, he had a good job in an accounting firm, nice manners, and a newish car.  Having identified his key attributes, Grace managed the progression of their relationship: Saturday night dances at the local church, a Sunday picnic by the river, a couple of dates at the movie theatre, and then finally one tiny peck on the cheek when he walked her to the door. Hand-holding followed and, finally, a long luxurious series of kisses when they parked his Rambler at the end of a stub road, out past the edge of town. Grace began to practice writing her new name: Mrs. Grace Grant, and Mr. and Mrs. G. Grant. She loved the symmetry of it.  

But George was gone now and so was the sweet little house. She had sold it and bought herself a tiny bungalow in the town of Sentinel. Sentinel was not far from Ivy Bridge where she had grown up and lived as a married woman. Grace had moved to Sentinel exactly one year after George died. By turn, she had sorted, boxed, and discarded the artifacts and detritus of her marriage. She had already disposed of George’s belongings, not feeling particularly emotional about discarding those things which would no longer serve any practical purpose. George’s walking stick she had kept, thinking it might perhaps become useful at some future point, as well as his extensive classical musical record collection. Beyond these, and his plaid Viyella house-coat, which she now wore, she kept no tokens of the man with whom she had lived for thirty-nine­­­ years. 

There had been a child. She was born in the spring of their third year of marriage. A mint green and white nursery had been lovingly prepared. Before the birth, Grace sat in the newly purchased rocking chair and imagined the feel of a child in her arms. She and George had lain beside each other in bed, patting Grace’s distended belly and whispering soft words of welcome. 

When the baby was finally born, after twenty-three hours of excruciating, drug-free labor, the doctor went to George in the waiting room to say that it had been a girl. George, who was watching the spring birds picking through a thatch of grass, gradually looked up with tears streaming down his face and said, “her name is Robin. My daughter’s name is Robin.” And every Spring thereafter when the first of the birds returned for the season, George would eye them silently but not give voice to their name.   

They had tried again, of course, but it was not to be. Somehow the forces of nature would not give way to Grace’s planning, and the longed-for child never materialized. And so, Grace was now completely alone. She did not walk through her empty house in Ivy Bridge before leaving it for the last time; she was not mawkish in that way. Instead, she picked up her purse and marched with determination to the small blue sedan parked on the street. She did not drive by her childhood home or church, or school.  She sat for a moment to acknowledge the solemnity of the event, and then simply began to drive.

The route was familiar, of course, and took only twenty minutes but the distance was far enough to reinforce the reality of her circumstances; no longer a young woman, a bride, or a wife. A widow. The word itself was disturbing and made her think of spiders and bugs and a rectangular gash in the earth, five-feet deep with the sides loosely covered in sheets of green outdoor carpet. 

Feeling slightly daunted by what she had undertaken, Grace had determined to walk to the grocery store while the movers unpacked her boxes and few pieces of furniture. It was a conscious act to force herself into movement. Making her way up the street with her purchases, Grace eyed the long line of shops with an appraising and somewhat propriety nod. She planned to decorate her new home in soft neutral colors, intending to make this a priority undertaking. She had kept the maple bedroom set, as well as her mother’s tea trolley and a couple of favorite armchairs in sky-blue velvet. Beyond that, all of the rest of the furniture had been given away. It was time for a new beginning. A shoebox filled with funeral cards commemorating her parents, cousins, and some dear friends were among the items she had placed on the tea trolley in her near-empty living room. These paltry reminders of lives once lived were Grace’s one concession to sentimentality.    

Alone in the quiet, Grace heard the faint ticking of her kitchen clock coming from one of the boxes. She had always hated the clock, a black cast-iron frying pan fitted out with clock works, but it kept excellent time and had been a wedding gift from George’s brother, Fred. Retired from the army, Fred also made clocks using heavily urethaned cow-pies (he thought them quite arty) and she and George were relieved not to have received one of those instead of the frying pan. 

Fred’s funeral card lay preserved in her shoebox with the others. He had died of pancreatic cancer at fifty-two. Far too young to pass. His wife, Dorothy, also known as Dot, was a peroxide blonde with an affinity for wearing shockingly bright blouses. She had chosen a wildly inappropriate poem for the back of Fred’s card. Grace had intended to remonstrate with her, but George had persuaded her to allow the grieving widow to select anything at all that comforted her. George’s card was carefully laid on the top of the collection in the shoebox filled with the others. She would need to get it out shortly and find a place to display it.  

Grace spent the next day in a flurry of final unpacking. Her bedroom closet was quickly organized with summer clothes on one side and fall/winter clothes on the other. This simple act of classification pleased her and she felt only a small twinge of guilt when she remembered that none of George’s things would require closet space. The time passed quickly, and Grace’s efforts resulted in a neat pile of collapsed cardboard boxes tied with twine at the end of her driveway.  

She was fatigued by the time she had finished this last chore and instead of cooking for herself, she drove to the local food store where she had noticed a take-out counter. Parisian potatoes and a cooked chicken breast having been selected, she lined up in the express to pay. The girl was once again at the till, and Grace greeted her pleasantly. She realized, with a mild shock, that the cashier was the first person she had spoken to all day. Her voice croaked a little when she spoke. This won’t do, she thought, I am going to have to speak aloud more often. My vocal cords might calcify with misuse and leave me without speech. Grace didn’t know if vocal cords actually calcified but it seemed plausible.   

On Sunday, Grace walked to the little Anglican Church she had seen only a few blocks away. The sign out front announced service at 9:30 a.m. Grace sat at the back and hoped that she hadn’t inadvertently taken someone’s seat. People became so accustomed to their spots, she knew, and it would be hard to avoid upsetting someone. When the service was over, Grace tentatively followed the others into the parish hall for coffee hour. A rather gracious woman of about Grace’s age strode confidently towards her and introduced herself as Millie Plover.  

When she returned home that morning, she had a great sense of accomplishment. Millie had invited her for luncheon at a small café in town and had intimated that she would be glad (if Grace stood up to closer scrutiny had somehow been delicately implied) to help her establish herself in Sentinel.  

On Tuesday morning, Grace woke with a sense of excitement. Her outfit had been laid out the evening before: a dun-colored linen dress with matching jacket, taupe shoes and a taupe handbag. Elegant, thought Grace, without being ostentatious. She set off in good time, allowing herself ample opportunity to find the café and browse in the shops before her appointment. At twelve-fifty-five, she saw Millie already seated at a table in the window. She moved forward, greeting Millie confidently and with a certain degree of calculated warmth.

Cupping her hands on the table demurely, Grace was aware that her rings were prominently on display.  There was her engagement ring, a solitaire of not inconsiderable size. Then there was her wedding band, a circle of tiny well-cut diamonds with striking clarity and sparkle. On her right hand was her grandmother’s engagement ring, a rather large, cushion-shaped sapphire of the most delicate violet-blue.   

“Lovely rings,” said Millie. 

Grace looked down at the table modestly, aware that she had passed an important test. “Thank you. George was very good to me.” The luncheon went well, and Grace discovered that she and Millie had a few acquaintances in common from Hodge’s Hill. The ladies parted on the friendliest of terms. Grace walked again to the grocery store to pick up chops for her dinner. The same cashier was working as Grace lined up to pay.  She looked wretched.  

The gentlemen in front of Grace spoke to the girl. “What’s up, buttercup?”  

“I’m being evicted,” said the cashier.  “I’ve got to find a place to live.”  

“Well,” he said, “don’t worry.  Something will turn up.”   

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” added Grace. “These things always work out.”

Grace had spoken out of character. It’s not that she had actually offered anything concrete; she simply wanted to reinforce the previous shopper’s message of hope. However, as the girl looked at her, Grace felt studied and appraised. Walking home, Grace reviewed her situation. Her vocal cords were calcifying. Maybe she should offer to help the girl out for a short time. What would George think? she wondered. Gracie, he would say, you just do whatever makes you happy. But be careful. You don’t want to get in over your head.  

When Grace arrived home, she could hear the telephone ringing. She rushed eagerly for the phone, but the line was already dead by the time she picked it up. Disappointed, she decided to simply have some toast for dinner. Grace carried her plate into the living room and established herself in one of the velvet chairs. Pulling the cart alongside her chair, she moved the shoebox to the lower shelf and centered her dinner plate on top of the cart. She was picking delicately at the toast crust when the shrill ringing of the phone sounded again, reverberating eerily in the empty room.

It was her sister-in-law, Dot. She called infrequently, every month or so, claiming a distant kinship as both women had been married to brothers. Grace had never felt particularly close to her, but she maintained the pretense of a genuine familial connection out of loyalty to George. “How was the move? Are you settling in?”

“Yes.  Fine. Thank you, Dot. Everything is fine. And how are you and Debbie?”  

Dorothy, during the course of conversation, mentioned that she and Debbie had been fighting. Unable to find suitable employment, Debbie had taken to lazing about the house without offering to help with anything. Dot was tired of being nursemaid and banker to the girl.

Quite impulsively, Grace found herself blurting out a solution. “You should send her here for a while.  I have a suite downstairs in my basement that she could use. A change might be good for both of you.”  

And so, without planning it, Grace had offered to share her home with her twenty-something not-really-niece. Realizing the enormity of her suggestion, Grace now needed to make preparations. Her hasty offer had not considered the lack of furnishings. At least, reasoned Grace, there might be someone to talk to.  

The past year without George had been challenging in so many ways. The bureaucracy of death had much occupied her. Multiple copies of the death certificate were required by so many individuals and for such obscure reasons. She had to return again and again to the funeral home for additional copies. The house of mourning was cushioned in silence and the staff were professionally solemn. Their faces fixed firmly in stoic and sympathetic grimaces. Their frozen features were meant to be compassionate, and she understood this.  Still, she wondered if they ever broke form. 

After the banking and insurance aspects of her loss were dealt with, there was the sudden decision to sell her house. The house which had previously been a comfortable extension of their compatible lives now felt injurious. The sink in the upstairs bathroom sprung a leak, the dishwasher had begun to growl when she ran it, and the hot water tank refused to produce hot water. A dozen or so such tiny offences accumulated until Grace finally accepted that the house missed George and would not cease its assault on her. And Grace, for her part, desperately missed his good-natured, affectionate manner. Her longing manifested itself in imagined glimpses of him, seated at the dining room table, watering the lawn, sitting in his chair after dinner. And she had often closed her eyes for a few seconds when these glimpses occurred, in an attempt to help the imaginings linger.  

A few days after her conversation with Dot, Grace arrived home to find Debbie sitting on the verandah with two large garbage bags.  

“Is that all you’ve brought?”

“Yeah, my shit’s all here.”

Grace pursed her lips at the language but did not respond. Instead, she unlocked the front door and welcomed Debbie into her new home. “Your room is downstairs. I’ll show you the way.” The walk-out basement had been finished by the previous owners as a small in-law suite. Newly purchased bedroom furniture was placed at one end of the room. Grace had made up the bed and left a small pile of fluffy towels on the dresser.  

“I thought we should buy a microwave,” offered Grace, “and then you could be independent.” 

Debbie dumped her garbage bags on the bed and looked around slowly.  “It’s nice.”   

“How is your mother?”

“Always on my case, bitching about something.” 

Again, Grace tried not to show her shock at the language. 

“Well, let me give you time to get settled. I’m having dinner at 6:30 and you are welcome to come upstairs when you’re ready.”

“Do you have internet?”

“Not yet, dear.”  

Grace went upstairs and sat down heavily in one of her blue velvet chairs. Oh dear, she sighed to herself. The girl’s attitude made her feel that she really had been rash.  

The next day, the sun was shining when Grace awoke. It was nearly 8:00 a.m., and Grace was astonished by this. She rarely slept past 6:00 a.m. and wondered what had happened. She sat on the edge of her bed, put on her glasses, and went to slip her feet into her slippers, but they weren’t where her feet expected them to be. Somehow, one of them was under the bed and not neatly at the side where she liked to leave them. I must have kicked it there without noticing, thought Grace as she knelt painfully on the floor to retrieve it. Her head felt a bit thick, as though she had drunk too much sherry. Grace steadied herself and saw that her bedroom door was tightly closed. She always left the door ajar so she could see the hall light on if she got up in the night.

Ahh, Debbie must have closed it, said Grace remembering. She must have been up early and was afraid of disturbing me. Smiling at the idea of Debbie’s consideration, Grace continued with her morning routines. When she went to the kitchen, she saw a freshly washed plate in the dish rack, and the toaster slightly askew. Oh good, she made herself some breakfast. Grace had prepared her to do list the night before, on a little flowered pad she carried in her purse. It was a pleasant list and made Grace smile. The box store at the end of town was her first stop of the morning where she purchased a tiny microwave.    

Over dinner that night, Grace asked Debbie where she had gone to school.  

“Here and there. You know my old man was Forces. We moved a lot.”

“Yes. That’s a hard life for children, I think.”

“Not so bad. The shit kickings my mum got were harder.” Debbie grinned at this as if she had made a small joke. Responding quickly to the look on Grace’s face, Debbie’s own countenance changed to a more somber one. “He was a mean bastard.”   

Increasingly, Grace felt thick-headed in the mornings. Waking much later than her usual 6:00 a.m. was now a common occurrence. She wondered about this but the mystery of it was soon lost in the busyness of her day. Debbie was an obliging boarder, cleaning up after herself and always ensuring she completed her chores. Grace continued to gently probe Debbie’s “growing up years” and Debbie, for her part, continued to assault Grace with more direct interrogations. “Do you have kids? Why not? Didn’t you like your Old Man? Did he beat you?”  

Grace was often shocked by the questions but occasionally while doing the dishes together, she would find herself wondering if life with Debbie was like having a daughter. She tried to imagine what Robin would look like now. She’d be thirty-seven and probably married, with children of her own. Would she have gone to university? Would she have George’s snub nose or his cleverness? It didn’t hurt to think about such things anymore.  

When Debbie returned home at the end of the day, Grace heard the front door shutting. “I’m just starting dinner. Why not come up at 6:30 and I’ll have everything ready.”

“Can you make potato-leek soup?” 

“I thought I would do a stir fry with some of these vegetables.”

“I feel like soup.  Is it a lot of trouble?”

“No dear, of course not.  Let me just see if I have everything I need.”

“Cool.” 

When Debbie went downstairs, Grace realized that she didn’t feel like making soup. However, she began to peel the potatoes and carrots and mentally inventoried the other ingredients she would need. Leeks. Chicken stock.  Pepper.  Parsley. She did have everything in the house, and it wasn’t really a lot of trouble.  

Debbie was ebullient at dinner. She complimented Grace on the soup and amused her with a funny story about one of her job interviews. Grace was pleased that their equanimity had been restored. She wished Debbie “sweet dreams” and went down the hall to get ready for bed.  

 “Tomorrow for dinner, I want salmon.” Grace was surprised to hear Debbie speaking to her and looked up from cleansing her face to realize that Debbie was standing in the middle of her bedroom.  

“What are you doing in here?”

“Telling you what I want for dinner.”   

“I want you to leave my room.”

Debbie took her time leaving the room. First, she stopped to stroke the quilt folded neatly at the end of the bed. Before leaving, she turned to Grace and said, “just do it!”  

Grace was trembling by the time Debbie left her room.  Lying awake for a long time, she found herself speaking to George.   

Be careful, Gracie. This girl’s getting too comfortable. Don’t let her take advantage.

Exactly, thought Grace.  

When Grace woke the next morning, she sat up in bed and reached for her glasses, but they were not there. Squinting, she looked down at the floor to see if they had fallen. She could not see them. Putting on her slippers, she went to the bathroom and saw that her glasses were on the counter. How did you get here? Grace reached to slip on her rings automatically. She looked at her right hand sharply.  It felt funny. Spreading her fingers, she saw that the sapphire ring was missing. She was wearing only two of her three rings. Grace looked at the ring holder on the bathroom counter and saw that it was empty. She looked in the sink, and then on the floor. Her ring was gone. Someone had moved her glasses.      

Tying her bathrobe tightly about her waist, Grace went to the top of the stairs and called for Debbie. Hearing no response, she went downstairs into Debbie’s room and was surprised to see her bedroom quilt carefully spread across Debbie’s bed. She was in my room again.  

Going upstairs, Grace set the kettle to boil. This would not do. The girl was clearly taking liberties. George was right. Grace stayed indoors for the day, catching up on laundry, and doing some light housework. She made no preparations for dinner and sat stiffly in the kitchen waiting for Debbie to return home. Debbie came in just after 4:00 p.m. and walked straight to the fridge.

“Debbie, I want to know what you were doing in my room last night.”

Debbie looked surprised. “I was cold.  I came upstairs, and you gave me your quilt.”

“I did not give you my quilt.”

“Ya’ you did. It’s downstairs on my bed. Go check.”

“I did not give you my quilt because you did not ask for it. You are lying.”

Debbie walked up close to Grace and clenched both fists, looking down at her. “No one calls me a liar, bitch.”  

Grace felt the heat of Debbie’s breath and pent-up anger. “I want my ring back and I want you to leave my house. You are not welcome here any longer.”  

“Who’s gonna’ make me? You gonna’ call the Po-Po?”

“I will call the police if I need to. Now I’m telling you again – give me back my ring and leave.” 

“Fuck you, bitch. Just fuck you!” Debbie stepped sideways away from Grace and stomped down the stairs. A half hour later, she came back dragging two stuffed garbage bags. “You are a fucken old hag, whining about your dead daughter and talking to your dead husband and pretending life is all rosy and crap but you’re a scared old bitch and you’re gonna’ fucken die alone.”   

“Give me back my ring and my key.”

“Fuck you.” Debbie left and slammed the front door. 

Shaking, Grace collapsed into a kitchen chair and burst into tears. She cried for several minutes, and then called Millie. Millie arrived quickly. With some effort, Grace told her about her fight with Debbie. Grace locked the house carefully when Millie was gone. Methodically, she secured all the window locks and took the trouble to wedge a broom handle in the patio doors. In the morning, she awoke feeling oppressed. She opened the kitchen window and turned on the kettle for her morning tea. Reaching for her handbag, Grace saw that her purse was on the floor by the telephone and not on the kitchen table where she usually left it. Opening her purse, she pulled out her flowered pad and began to contemplate the things she would do for the day.  She was still dressing when the phone rang.

“This is Larry Todd from Burwell’s store.  Mrs. Grant?”

“Yes?”

“I’m calling about your order of furniture, Mrs. Grant. Your cheque didn’t clear at the bank. So we’re calling to ask if you would like to make payment another way.”  

“I don’t understand.”

“Your cheque bounced, Mrs. Grant. Insufficient funds.”  

“Well, there must be a mistake. I will go to the bank and clear this up at once.”  

Grace felt her cheeks with both hands when she hung up the phone. They were flushed red hot.  It didn’t make sense. How could the bank have made such a mistake? And on top of all the upset she was already dealing with. Grace sat for a moment to compose herself, and then finished dressing. She drove to the bank and parked. Once inside, she walked to the customer service window and asked to speak to the Manager, “in private.”   

Mr. McLean was a tall, austere looking man. He ushered her into his small cubicle and waved vaguely at the guest chairs. Grace sat down and adjusted herself comfortably. “I placed a furniture order and this morning, the store called and told me that there was a problem with my cheque. I was quite surprised. Your bank has made a terrible mistake.”  

Mr. McLean looked at her without expression, and then leaned forward and clasped his hands together in a child-like prayer position, the fingertips touching.  

“I see,” he said. “Well, I’m sorry for any trouble we may have caused you. Perhaps I could just ask you for your bank card and we could pull up your accounts.” His hands stopped praying and one of them reached across the desk expectantly.  

“Yes, of course.” Grace reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet. She slipped out the bank card and placed it in the waiting hand.

Mr. McLean swiped the card through a reader and looked at his computer screen. “There were some very large cheques that cleared in the last week, Mrs. Grant. Perhaps we could review those? I’m going to print off your account and we will go through it together. Perhaps you could show me your cheque book?”  

Shock was quickly replaced by panic. Grace reached into her bag for her cheque book. 

“It’s not here,” she whispered. She systematically emptied her purse onto his desk and pulled out the lining of her bag. 

“It’s not here.  I always keep it in here,” she said.  

“This is where my cheque book lives. In this zipped pocket.” She showed him the empty compartment.  

Mr. McLean looked concerned. “It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll sort this out.”  

“Last week Monday, a cheque cleared for $20,000.” He clicked something on his screen and turned the monitor around for Grace to see a digital image of the cheque. There, in her handwriting, was a cheque written to Debbie Grant for $20,000. The signature was Grace’s own signature. On the description line it read for your education.  

Grace inhaled sharply. 

Mr. McLean looked at her. “Did you write this cheque, Mrs. Grant?”

No. Grace shook her head. “No, I did not. I don’t think so. But it looks like my writing. But I didn’t. I know I didn’t.”  

Mr. McLean nodded and circled the item on the bank statement. He clicked something and the sound of the printer started.    

“There is also a cheque for $3,313.28.”  

“For kitchen shutters. I ordered them last week.”

Good, nodded Mr. McLean, checking the item. “And the third cheque cleared yesterday, also payable to Debbie Grant, for $85,000.” He turned the screen around. The notation on the bottom read, for your birthday.   

 “Did you write this cheque?” 

“No! I didn’t. How dare she?” Grace burst into tears.  

“Do you know a Debbie Grant?” 

“Yes, she is my niece, by marriage. I asked her to leave. I think she stole my ring.”   

“We should call the police.” He left the cubicle and returned a few minutes later. “An officer will be here shortly. Is there someone I can phone for you? A friend, perhaps?” 

“Millie Plover. But I don’t have her number with me. Do you know her?”

“Mrs. Plover? Yes. Give us a minute.” He left again.  

The entire interview took two hours. Grace had to fill out forms for the bank and swear affidavits that she had not written the cheques to Debbie. She also had to sign a number of releases for the police. The officer and Mr. McLean were very kind but also matter-of-fact. Grace embarrassed herself by weeping intermittently. Millie drove Grace home afterwards. She suggested that Grace have a rest and guided her down the hall to her bedroom. Grace laid down upon the bed in a bit of a stupor. The room looked unfamiliar to her. Where was George’s suit stand? Who had painted the room a different color? Why were pictures missing from the bureau? Grace struggled to sit up but then remembered what had just transpired. She needed to speak to George. He would know what to do.

Lucy E.M. Black is the author of The Marzipan Fruit Basket, a collection of short stories (Inanna Publications) and Eleanor Courtown, a work of historical fiction (Seraphim Editions).  Stella’s Carpet (Now or Never Publishing) was released October 2021. Her award-winning short stories have been published in Britain, Ireland, USA and Canada in literary journals and magazines including Cyphers Magazine, the Hawai’i Review, The Antigonish review and others.  The Brickworks (Now or Never Publishing) will be released Fall 2023. She is a dynamic workshop presenter, experienced interviewer and freelance writer.  She lives with her partner in a small lakeside town north-east of Toronto. 

By Kelly Terrazas

A sharp pitch pulled me from my sleep. I sat erect and turned to the small crib nestled beneath the window beside me. Inside was a small bundle of blankets. He fit snuggly into the slope of my chest. I began humming and we swayed to the sound. Slowly, his tone soothed until it harmonized with mine. I stared down at his little face. My love felt overwhelming. The heat burned though me, setting my insides ablaze. First in my fingertips and elbows, then through my shoulders, along my chest, until the feeling settled in my lower stomach. The pain was crippling. It blurred my vision and caused my head to feel as though it was floating above me. Still, I rocked him.

I heard a creak in the wood behind me. I turned to find Brandon resting against the doorway. He had always been handsome in the classic sense – dark hair, light eyes, sharp jawline. The dark blue coveralls that the factory had assigned him seemed to swallow him whole. I smiled up at him. He did not smile back.

“It’s four in the morning, Amy. What are you doing?”

“He was crying. I think he just missed me. Here,” I said, patting the bed beside me, “come sit with us.”

Brandon left the room. I closed my eyes and continued rocking. Moments later, I heard the front door shut. Brandon still had to work. Since my job at the diner didn’t exactly come with any maternity leave, we had decided that I would quit my job once the baby came. I could be with him all day and do the whole stay-at-home mom thing for a while. Then, when I was ready, the ladies at the church daycare said that I could get a job there and bring him with me. That way we could always be together. 

I had always wanted to be a mom. Growing up, when people would ask me what I wanted to be, that’s what I would tell them – a mom. My dream was always to have a big family with at least five kids. Their names were all picked out by the time I was in the third grade. I was lucky to have found a man so supportive of that. Brandon had to pick up a few extra shifts every week to make ends meet, but he always said that it was worth it for me and the baby to be happy. And we were.

***

After some time had passed, my arms began to tire. I placed him back in his crib and made my way downstairs to get ready for his feeding. The plan was to breastfeed. I had checked out everything the library had on the subject from parenting books to medical journals. I had read them with a fury, as he swelled inside me. I wanted to know everything. Had memorized ideas from those journals like a new catechism: I learned about how my lobes were filled with colostrum, which contained antibodies that could help him fight off infections or even help prevent him from developing things like asthma or allergies. The enzymes being passed through my alveoli cells were supposed to ease his digestion. What was being produced by my milk ducts could increase his cognitive development. The bond created by skin-to-skin contact was to be profoundly immeasurable. 

But he never latched onto me. I checked out even more books, yet no matter how many I read the problem would not resolve. Instead of bonding with my child when my breasts would swell, I attached them to a machine that made a loud whirring sound and watched them deflate. Every time I sat down to do this, it hurt my feelings even more and in a way that I didn’t quite understand. Those round plastic cups took the place of my child and sucked the motherhood right out of me.

I pulled a small bag of milk that I had frozen from the freezer and placed it in a larger cup. I then retrieved the kettle from its cupboard, filled it with water, and placed it on the stove to warm. The front door opened, and a cold gust of wind flew in with it. A chill made its way up my legs until small bumps pressed up from my skin. The door shut and I could feel someone walk in behind me.

“That was fast. Did you forget something?” I asked.

“You’re still in your nightgown,” said Brandon

“Yeah, I just put him back in his crib. I’m making him a bottle now.”

He slammed his lunchbox on the counter and leaned against it with a huff. The kettle whistled. A loud cry echoed from our room. I poured the boiling water into the cup and waited for the milk to thaw. It looked different than regular milk. As it heated, a swirl of pale yellow began to form on the top. 

I could never muster the courage to taste it. Brandon did once though, back when I was still pregnant. We were lying in bed one morning, with his ear pressed against the mound that had overtaken my abdomen. He was taking turns listening then kissing the circumference of my stomach. As he moved to reposition himself, the tips of his fingers tickled just slightly over the height of my chest. A rush swept through me, and I could feel the moisture gathering. Finally, a single droplet reached the surface. I remember feeling so embarrassed that I closed my eyes, as the heat filled my face. The trickle slid down the side of my left breast until the tip of a tongue caught it and traced it back to its origin. I opened my eyes to find Brandon grinning, with his chin at the center of my ribs. He told me it was sweet.

The milk returned to liquid form. I removed it from the heat and poured it into a bottle. 

As I turned to go upstairs, Brandon grabbed my arm.

“Stop!”

“Is everything okay?” I asked. I pulled my arm back.

“Amy, do you even know what time it is?”

“No. I’ve been a bit busy to watch the clock,” I said.

“It’s 6:30, Ames. It is 6:30 at night.”

“Oh! Well, no wonder he’s hungry. I haven’t fed him all day.”

The screams grew louder. I pushed past Brandon and raced up the stairs. My bundle was still tucked away in his crib. I pulled him into me, with his head resting soundly in the crook of my elbow. We sat on the edge of the bed. He batted at his bottle. I rocked as he ate and stared out the window above the crib. Brandon appeared in the reflection. His hands were in his pockets – head hung. He came and sat beside me. I smiled at him. He only looked down at his shoes. I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.

***

I must have fallen asleep on Brandon. I woke sometime later tucked into bed. The hall was dark, and the room was only being lit by the moon through the window behind me. I rolled over to face my baby. The crib was gone. Suddenly, my lungs had been drained completely. I parted my lips to gasp at the air, but a scream came out instead. Every inch of me began to tremble. I threw the covers off me and stumbled out of bed. I only made it down the stairs by sheer muscle memory; my brain was too concerned with other things. I found Brandon leaning against the kitchen counter in the dark.

“He’s gone!” I cried.

Brandon said nothing.

A loud screech echoed through the kitchen. It was my baby. I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him. I began opening cupboard doors and pulled out every pot, pan, and dish. I emptied the contents of the refrigerator onto the floor. I looked in the stove. I rummaged through every shelf of the pantry. He was nowhere to be found. 

The sound moved behind me. I ran to the living room. I pulled the cushions off the couch. I opened the back of the recliner, then pushed it over to look underneath. I shoveled through the TV cabinet. I relieved the broom closet of its inhabitants. Still, no baby.

The weight of my body collapsed in on itself and dragged me to the floor. There I lay curled in ball amongst the wreckage of my search. I pressed my palms to my ears, but the sound only grew louder. It filled the house until I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I felt Brandon behind me. He brushed my hair back from my face. Then the sound narrowed once again. It was coming from the stairs. I pushed Brandon off and ran to them. 

One by one, I pressed my ear to each step as I made my way up. The third step from the top was the loudest. I pulled at the wood. It wouldn’t budge. I ran back down the stairs and into the garage – where the tools were kept. Hanging on a pegged wall was a large hammer. I retrieved it and ran back inside.

Brandon was leaning against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. He opened his arms to embrace me, but I yanked free of his grasp. I climbed to the third step and placed the prongs of the hammer beneath the lip. With all of my strength, I attempted to pry the step open. It would not break free. His cries began bouncing around inside of the step and grew louder. Each one tore through me. I began pounding at the edge of the step with the hammer. It made a hole. I peered inside. The screaming stopped. There was nothing there.

The hammer fell from my hand and crashed into the floor below. My body melted into the stairs. Brandon was looking up at me from the bottom. He was crying. I had never seen him cry before. I wanted to comfort him, but I couldn’t move. Brandon came up the steps and gathered me in his arms. He carried me back to bed. We lay with my head on his chest. He stroked my hair and hummed to me, as I drifted back to sleep.

Kelly Terrazas is a recent graduate from the University of Arkansas Little Rock (UALR), with a degree in Creative Writing. During her time at UALR, her bilingual piece titled La Senda was published in the school’s literary magazine, Equinox.