Dorothy Garlock (12 page)

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Authors: More Than Memory

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock
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“I usually come here on Saturday night. Are you alone? Do you mind if I sit down?”
“By all means. Happy for your company.”
He shrugged out of a light coat, folded it, and placed it on the seat before he slid into the booth.
“When I first came here to open my practice, my wife and I came here on Saturday night for our special treat. The habit has continued.” His gray eyes appraised her. “You’re looking good. Country life must agree with you.”
“It’s all the peace and quiet. I’ve not heard a horn blast from one impatient taxi since I’ve been here.”
“Hello, Earl.” The waitress set a glass of water on the table.
“How you doing, Mavis?”
“Fine. You want the usual?”
“Is there anything else for me on Saturday night?” He smiled at the woman.
“Guess not. We’ve got pumpkin pie tonight.”
“I’ll have some. How about it, Mrs. Hanson? The pie here is about this thick.” He held his forefinger and thumb about three inches apart.
“You’re fibbin’, Earl. You’ll get me in trouble if she expects pie that thick.”
“You’re safe, because by the time I finish this hamburger, I’ll be full.”
“Nice woman,” Earl said when the waitress left. “I handled her divorce. Now she’s working two jobs to put her daughter through nursing school.”
“I have a friend who would like to go to nursing school, but she doesn’t think her husband will allow it and she doesn’t have enough confidence in herself to confront him.”
“That’s something that would have to be worked out between them. Mavis’s husband was a woman-chaser. Thank goodness he left the state after the divorce; it saved her a lot of embarrassment.”
“If my friend was accepted for nurses’ training, how would I go about contributing to a scholarship for her without her knowing it?”
“Through me. I’m your lawyer.”
“Could the farm account stand a five-hundred-dollar gift?”
“Easily.”
“Would you be opposed to advising my friend Linda Branson, should she ask for advice, that is? I
will pay for your time . . . again without her knowing.”
“I would be glad to advise Linda. And without cost to you. I do a certain amount of pro bono work.”
“That’s good of you. Linda was my one true girlfriend when I was in school here. I’d like to see her achieve her ambition.”
Nelda could see that Lute and his friend were leaving. He turned as he got out of the booth, and their eyes caught for an instant. She looked away and smiled at Earl. When she looked up again, Lute was paying at the cash register, and his date was waiting beside the door. She was attractive and well dressed, and Nelda didn’t care if she was a saint; she hated her.
The waitress brought Earl his meal: a hot beef sandwich, a pile of mashed potatoes, and a lot of hot brown gravy. By the time she left the booth, Lute and his date were long gone.
Nelda decided that she liked Earl Hutchinson. She learned that his wife had died two years before. They had married right out of high school. She had worked while he went first to college, then to law school at night. They had not been lucky enough, Earl said, to have children.
He told her some things about the farm that she had not concerned herself with before.
“The propane-gas company will automatically keep your tank filled. They send the bills to me. If you’d rather see them, along with the electric and telephone, I can have copies sent to you.”
“That’s all right. It’s a luxury not to have to fool with them.”
“We have kept heat in the house even though it wasn’t occupied.”
“That’s why things are in such good shape. I remember hearing that extreme cold would cause good furniture to crack and tile flooring to buckle.”
“The well,” he said, “is about 380 feet deep. I had it looked at when we evaluated the farm. It’ll not cause trouble for years. The septic tank, however, should be cleaned next spring.”
“If I’m still here, you’ll have to remind me.”
“I’m surprised Lute didn’t say something. He knows about it.”
“Did you know that he’s putting stalls in the barn for his horses? If I sell the farm, he’s going to lose a lot of money.”
“He’s taking the chance that if you sell, it will be to him.”
“He wants to buy it?”
“Hasn’t he told you?”
“No. He’s expecting me to run back to Chicago at any time. He’d probably rather deal with you than me.”
Nelda and Earl left the cafe together, she to go one way, he another. On the way to her car, Nelda met Linda and her husband.
“Linda. Imagine seeing you again so soon.”
“Hello.” Linda glanced up at the man beside her. “This is my husband, Kurt. Nelda and I went to school together.”
“Hi.” The man burrowed his bare head into the
collar of his coat, but his eyes never left Nelda’s face. “So this is your big-shot friend?”
Linda looked as if she would like to sink into the sidewalk.
“Big shot? Hey, I always did want to be one,” Nelda said laughingly. “I guess I’ve made the grade.”
“You’re the one that put the bright idea in Linda’s head to go to nurses’ school, ain’t ya?”
“No. It’s my idea,” Linda said quickly.
“Ha! Don’t give me that bull . . . shit. You ain’t never had a bright idea in your life.”
The man was drunk. Nelda was embarrassed for Linda. She looked ready to cry. Anger made Nelda’s voice sharp.
“Linda asked me what I thought of the idea. I think it would be great. She was the smartest girl in our class. She’d make an excellent nurse. Someday she may need to make a living for herself.”
“Bull . . . sshee . . . it.” He drew the word out as if knowing it was embarrassing to his wife. “Ya think I can’t support my wife and kid? Is that it?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s a blessing if the wife has the brains and skills to get a job and support the family if her husband gets sick or has an accident.”
“Big-city gal’s got all the answers. Huh?”
“I’d better be going, Linda. I’ve Kelly and groceries in the car. Give me a call, and we’ll go to lunch sometime. I want to keep in touch.”
Nelda walked on down the street without looking back. What an awful, awful man! He surely couldn’t have been that bad when Linda married him. She deserved better than that.
On the way back to the farm, Nelda mulled over the meeting with Linda and her husband and hoped that Linda would have the courage to stand up to him, to enroll in school, and make a better life for herself and her son.
Nelda was glad when she turned down the lane that she had left the yard light on. Reluctant to go into the garage, she parked beside the porch, let Kelly out, and watched for his reaction. If anyone was around, the dog would know it. Nelda stayed in the car until Kelly smelled around, and headed for the door.

 

 

C
hapter
S
even
N
ELDA DIDN
’
T BELIEVE IN THE SUPERNATURAL
until one cold morning when she thought to put a blanket on the tiled floor in the kitchen for Kelly. She went to the porch to get the one she had taken out of the garage, and it wasn’t there. She looked blankly at the spot on the bench where she had put it. It had been there a couple of days earlier, she was sure.
Back in the kitchen she closed the door and stood for a minute looking out the glass pane. There was no lock on the screen door opening onto the back porch. Anyone could have come in. But who had? Lute never came to the house anymore. He avoided it as if there were a smallpox quarantine sign on the door. His hired man came to do chores, sometimes with a young girl. They never even looked toward the house as far as Nelda knew.
Tuesday she had gone to the garage to get a road map out of her car. When she opened the car door and bent over to open the glove compartment, she had caught a whiff of a strange odor.
Someone had been in her car!
No, it couldn’t be. Her car had been in the garage for a couple of days. On the floor on the driver’s side she had noticed a tiny piece of foil. She had picked it up, grabbed the maps, and hurried back to the house.
By the time she got into the safety of the house, she had almost forgotten the reason she wanted the map. Of course, it was to see how far it was to Minneapolis, where she could shop at an arts and crafts store.
She had carefully unfolded the tiny piece of foil and pressed it out. It appeared to be the wrapping from a “candy kiss,” a small cone-shaped chocolate. Now where had that come from? She never ate chocolate. She’d never had much desire for sweets.
Nelda moved away from the window, remembering the picture album which had seemed out of place on the coffee table and the unlocked porch door. None of these little “oddities” was in the least threatening, but as a pattern, they were disturbing to a woman alone.
• • •
After several killing frosts, the rush was on to get the corn out of the field.
One morning Nelda awakened to hear the sounds of farm machinery in the fields surrounding the house. She went to the window and watched the two-row corn picker make a sweep around the edge of the field before beginning on the evenly spaced rows.
A cold wind was blowing from the north when
Nelda went out for her daily walk with Kelly. She put on her grandpa’s old shearling coat and tied a wool scarf about her head. Fastening the leash to Kelly’s collar because she didn’t trust him to stay close along the road, she set out with him on a brisk walk.
They reached the end of the lane and paused beside the fence to watch a machine pulling a wagon across the field. The machine’s large spout was spitting ears of corn into the wagon. When it was filled, a second wagon was hitched to the corn picker and the process began again.
Nelda stood leaning on the fence, fascinated by the mechanical rhythm of the corn coming from the spout. When the machine reached the end of the row near the fence she saw that it was Lute driving the picker. It had been several weeks since she had seen him and a fierce joy suddenly pounded in her blood. The picker swung around to start back down the rows, then stopped. Lute jumped down.
In worn jeans and heavy sheepskin jacket, he was so handsome that Nelda could hardly take her eyes off him. She had seen the blue knit caps like the one he wore many times on the military bases and knew that it was a leftover from his Navy days. When he came toward her, Kelly whined and wiggled a welcome. Lute stooped to poke his fingers through the fence and scratch behind the dog’s ears.
“Cold day.” Nelda thought she had to say something.
“Not too bad. No wind,” he yelled over the sound of the machine. “I should get this field picked by
evening. We’re getting a darn good crop this year. It’s pretty dry, too.”
She scarcely heard his words, but she recognized that he was being friendly. Her heart danced happily in her breast.
Lute leaned toward her and shouted. “Would you like to make a trip across the field and back?”
“I’d love to, but what about Kelly?”
“Tie him to the fence. He’ll be okay.”
Lute grabbed hold of a fence post, stuck his booted toe in one of the wire squares, and jumped over. He took Kelly’s leash from her hand and tied it to the post then jumped back over the fence and waited for Nelda.
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Sure you can.” Lute grinned. “Put your foot on the wire and grab the post.”
Determined to try, Nelda did as she was told, but the fence was too high for her and she ended up helplessly suspended, a leg dangling on either side.
“Heavens! Now what’ll I do? The barb at the top has caught my jeans.”
“You’re in a hell of a mess.” Lute laughed. “Maybe I should leave you there. You’d make a damned good-looking scarecrow.”
“Lute! You buzzard! Help me! Get me off,” she wailed.

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