Rohn Federbush - Sally Bianco 02 - The Appropriate Way

by Rohn Federbush

  During the wedding reception, Sally tried to attach names to the faces after the thirteenth pair of feet arrived. The presents piled up and she dreaded trying to send personal thank-you notes to the horde. Every new bride faced the same dilemma; but at her age, Sally was a bit guilty for accepting presents they didn’t need or already possessed. Sally and John were not able to move any furnishings into their dream home before the arsonist involved in her latest case in Ann Arbor burnt the barely started home to the ground.

  Another high-school mate of John and Sally’s, Reverend Rosemary Warner’s conversation held sway during the shank of the evening. The tall, mammoth-hipped, single woman traveled around the globe, preaching to native-born pagans she could hog-tie long enough to listen. From her conversation, Sally discovered the remaining holdouts from Christianity were literate and argumentative. Opinions of the indigenous citizens, Rosemary quoted word for word, were logical and hard to dispute, unless you considered faith a blessed gift from God. The religious clerics, known previously to the natives, were themselves cruel, bigoted, and without shame.

  Sally stopped Reverend Warner’s monologue. “Every missionary should be given a copy of ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ before being allowed out of the country.”

  Rev. Warner nodded. “We need to force the Commander in Chief of our armed forces to do the same. Democracy makes half the people in any nation unhappy.”

  “Agreed,” the listeners chorused.

  Gabby had tugged at the emerald lace on Sally’s sleeve. “Don Jenny just told me he dated your older sisters.”

  “Where is the scamp?” Sally looked around for the jolly boy her family knew.

  Instead, a frail, melancholy oldster approached. “Sally.” He took her hand.

  “My sisters, Madelyn and Loretta, both live in Florida.” Sally swallowed hard. She coughed but failed to hide her shock.

  “Been a little under the weather since the Korean prisoner camp.” Don held up his shaky hands.

  Embarrassed at her rudeness, Sally sought to bring out the boy she admired. “Are you still able to mimic Jerry Lewis?”

  The glimmer of a smile creased his face. “At least I’m not a porker like he’s turned into.”

  “Did you marry?” Sally attempted a more positive subject.

  “She’s over there.” Don pointed to a round-faced woman speaking to Betty. “Gossiping about us. Name’s Tina. She loves bread.”

  “Not much to say about my family.” Sally poured a glass of punch for her family’s old friend. “Madelyn’s husband is gone. Loretta divorced her children’s father and married a man as young as our little brother. Do you remember Dick?”

  “Yeah.” Don sipped the cranberry juice. “Priest, right?”

  “No, no.” Sally motioned for John to join them. “Dick left the seminary before his final vows. He has a son, and a daughter-in-law from India no less, as well as a beautiful granddaughter and grandson.”

  “We didn’t have children,” Don said.

  “Me either,” Sally said.

  “I asked her,” John teased and placed his arm possessively around Sally’s shoulder.

  “I told him, no.”

  “Can you imagine a ten-year-old with a seventy-year-old Dad?” Sally snuggled against John’s shoulder.

  Tim, Jeff, and Molly Hanson had turned up at the party, too. As a teenager, Sally cleaned house for their family to help with high school expenses. She also babysat for the brothers before their sister was born. Tim Hanson stayed next to Sally when his brother and sister went off to freshen their drinks. “Remember when you used to yell at me?”

  “I do.” She included John and Gabby in the conversation. “Tim always talked to me when the vacuum was running. I would shout, ‘What?’ over and over and louder and louder, until I finally turned off the machine.”

  “We looked forward to the day you cleaned. You rearranged our toys into stories.”

  “She’s still telling stories.” John patted Sally’s back. “She picks up a few clues and points the police in the right direction.”

  “I read all about the Tedler brothers helping you in Michigan. I’d like to apply for a similar position on your next case.”

  “The Tedlers were both police officers.” Sally accepted a cup of cranberry punch from John.

  “Sheriff Woods encouraged me to come to the party to speak to you.” Tim straightened his shoulders and stretched his neck to reveal his entire height. “I’ve been on the force for two years.”

  Sally had always been fond of the boy, now a young man. “God forbid, we’re needed in peaceful old St. Charles; but I certainly wouldn’t mind working with you. You’re used to my yelling!”

  “Thank you.” Tim shook both Sally and John’s hands good-bye. “I’ll let Sheriff Woods know.”

  John had watched the attractive young man saunter away. “He acts like he knows something he’s not telling us.”

  Another young couple, the Armstrongs, and a man called Masters were also guests. Mr. Masters couldn’t place who Sally was, until Sheriff Woods nailed her identity down for him. “She’s the house painter’s daughter.”

  “I remember.” Mr. Masters turned to Sheriff Woods. “Tony always …”

  The room turned quiet for a moment. They all dredged up their memories of Sheriff Wood’s best friend, Tony Montgomery -- and his horrible suicide.

  “Too bad the idiot can’t celebrate the New Year.” Sheriff Woods raised his glass for a toast.

  But the pall was cast. Very shortly, guests began to set their drinks down and mosey toward the door. Sally was sorry the party ended on such a sad note, but she was not unhappy to see the crowd disperse.

  Evidently, Betty and James didn’t plan to clean up after the caterers. “They’ll come by tomorrow morning for their serving trays.” Betty instructed when they started to leave.

  John appeared next to Sally. “The cleaning ladies come tomorrow. We’ll leave the mess for them to deal with.”

  Sally drew John’s arm closer to her. A flicker in Betty’s eyes alerted her. This party was a get-even shindig for John’s new wife. As far as Sally was concerned Betty had counted on twin escorts long enough, but Sally produced a gracious good-bye. “Thank you for going to all the trouble of rounding up people who knew me. Anytime you want to bring over a party,” Sally lied, “just let us know.”

  James was quick to understand. “I’m sure this is the last time we’ll make use of Mother’s dishes.”

  “Oh.” John pointed to the mess. “You’re welcome to them right now.”

  Sally wrinkled her nose as she surveyed the stacks of dirty dishes littering the dining room table. She imagined the kitchen counters were filled with glassware and dishes waiting to be cleaned. She agreed with John, they could pack up everything right now. The two couples laughed at each other before parting, but the turf was well marked, John and Sally’s new home wouldn’t be so easily available to Betty in the future.

  Later that night a winter storm glazed everything with an inch of ice.

  Sally awoke to the loud crack of a tree’s demise. Without waking her new husband, she peered out the back bedroom window. The weight of un-pruned branches split the trunk of a fruit tree down the middle. She’d chosen not to accept the event as a bad omen. She planned to hold up her half of the marriage commitment, with the Lord’s help. John’s gentle lovemaking endeared him more to her each time they slept together.

  In bed the very next morning, John urged Sally to accept an invitation from Bret Armstrong to tour his castle in nearby Wayne. “He asked us to come. Bret probably wants us to see the place all decked out for the Holidays.”

  “Shouldn’t we call?” Sally reluctantly climbed out of bed. “They’re so young. What if he was just in his cups?”

  “I don’t want to lose the opportunity.” John pouted. “I’ve never been inside the castle. Bret was quite open about Matilda’s father providing all the renovation funds. Peter Masters, he’s the guy who didn’t recognize yo
u.”

  Sally argued with herself. She needed to find an AA meeting location, before she called her sponsor. “First things first, John. Let me locate the addresses of a couple AA meetings while you start the coffee and then we’ll go.”

  “Dress warm,” John called as he headed for the kitchen. “The weather looks treacherous.”

  The information operator found an Alcoholics Anonymous number. Sally spoke briefly to the woman answering the phone and wrote down two meeting sites, one in Geneva and one in Batavia. Then she called Grace. “There’s no meeting today; but I’ll attend a noon meeting on Thursday in Geneva and a morning meeting on Monday in Batavia.”

  “How was your first day in your new home?”

  “My sister-in-law arranged a wedding reception.” Sally sat back down on the bed, looking at the broken tree outside.

  “With alcohol?” Grace sounded concerned.

  “Yep. I’m okay.”

  “Good. It wasn’t easy, was it?”

  “No.” Sally ran her hand through her hair, hoping she could coax it into some suitable style for a castle visit. “But John hung onto me, or me him, most of the evening.”

  “Ask John to pack up all the alcohol.”

  “He could take it to the hotel.” Sally stood to begin getting ready.

  “Good idea. Relocations aren’t easy for alcoholics.”

  “All those new faces.” Sally stared at her reflection in the dresser’s mirror. “Actually, old faces. I mean familiar faces, aged.”

  “You better call me daily, until you nail down a new sponsor.”

  “Thanks.” Sally felt ashamed of a catch in her throat. “Hanging on to you, means a lot to me.”

  “It’s the program you’re holding onto.” Grace sighed. “Don’t forget you’re helping me stay sober, too. God loves us, doesn’t he?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  St. Mark’s AA Meeting

  Sally awoke from her reverie of John as she reached down to acknowledge Ginger’s cheerful tongue anointing of her fingertips. Her watch claimed the hour was eleven. Time to make a noon AA meeting at St. Mark’s in Geneva. She would be welcomed without knowing anyone at the meeting. When she walked into the large room, a greeter stuck out his hand. “Welcome.”

  “Is this a step meeting?” she asked, after shaking his hand.

  “We just share at the tables. Is this your first meeting?”

  “No, I’m new in town.” Sally realized the awful truth. She wouldn’t be staying in her home town for long. “Just visiting really.”

  “We’re glad you could make a meeting,” the white haired guy said.

  A round table with six chairs filled with comfortable looking women, sported one empty seat. Sally claimed it. Most of the women seemed to know each other. After the Serenity Prayer, the man who opened the meeting asked several people in the room to read sections out of the Big Book. Sally read a list of the twelve steps out loud with the rest of the group, when one of the members read “How It Works.” She tuned back into the goings-on when the “Promises” were repeated.

  She raised her hand when newcomers were asked to. “Sally,” she said, “a gratefully recovering alcoholic.” She was the only new person in the room where five tables were filled with Fox River Valley alcoholics.

  After the room dividers were pulled around the tables, a white-haired stunning woman began their tables’ meeting. “Any special topics?”

  “Widowhood,” was out of Sally’s mouth before she could think.

  “Loss,” another woman nodded.

  The leader asked, “Who would like to start?”

  Sally kept her mouth shut wondering what in the world she was going to say to these strangers.

  “My boyfriend of ten years moved out,” a woman with a destroyed hair style offered. “And my dog died.”

  After immediate murmurings of consolation for the loss of her dog, they listened to her tell them how badly she felt, how tempted she was to drink, and how grateful she was for a place to come for solace.

  The woman who first nodded said her mother died two months earlier and she couldn’t seem to move on. She was praying for strength to let the grief dispel; but her mother was her best friend and her loneliness was eating her up. She prayed for God’s will every day. She enrolled in an evening class in watercolors, because she didn’t want to throw out her mother’s wealth of painting supplies.

  Another older woman said her name, but wouldn’t admit to being an alcoholic. “The judge and my husband insist I come here.”

  The leader asked if she could sign her check-list. After signing, which meant the woman attended the meeting, she asked, “Would you like to leave now or would you like to talk?”

  “Could I just listen?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” the leader said. “If you change your mind, let me know.”

  “My name is Sally, and I’m still a recovering alcoholic. Last week my husband was shot to death. The killer might have wanted me dead, but my husband saved me. I’m still sober.”

  “Thank God,” the leader said. “Are you going to counseling?”

  “No,” Sally said, feeling too weepy. “John was my second husband, and I lost my best friend, a bookman, earlier last year.”

  “My Lord,” the new person said. “How do you do it?”

  “No cross talk,” the leader said in a kindly tone. “We just listen to each other.”

  “Well you told her to see a psychiatrist. I want to know how she survives…without drinking.”

  Sally answered, “I pray like a crazy person. Every time I see a white van with ladders on the top, I say the Our Father. Daddy was a house painter, but I figure the universe is reminding me prayers are needed regularly...”

  “Would you both explain the first step to our newcomer,” the leader asked.

  “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable,” one of the remaining women said. “I always drank differently than other people. They mixed soda with the alcohol, or would leave a glass half-finished. Not me. I could never get enough of the stuff. Then when I decided I wouldn’t drink, I kept on going to bars, partying, speculating on why I couldn’t stop. The program taught me to find a Higher Power, something or someone I could count on, outside of myself. First, I just kept coming to meetings trying to figure out how you all kept sober. This is my second time in the program, but I have a sponsor and three sponsees now.”

  “When I first came to the tables. I thought I figured out the deal. It was a God thing. I knew all about that. So I didn’t attend and didn’t get a sponsor. I just stopped drinking. I was a dry drunk for ten years. Then I joined Overeater’s Anonymous and even did a fourth step. But after about five years, I started drinking, not much. But it just increased and increased, until one day before a party, I was ‘testing’ the wine at three o’clock in the afternoon. So I started coming back. I have a sponsor and I’ve been sober for nearly five years.”

  It was Sally’s turn to say something. “I’m glad you’re here for me. I’m going to go home to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where my sponsor lives.”

  “Good idea,” the leader said.

  They closed the meeting with the Lord’s Prayer.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  Kane County Sheriff Office

  Back at the police station in Geneva, Officer Caldwell helped Tim and Sheriff Woods separate the contents of Matilda’s box. Tim warned her, “Don’t be surprised to find my name on all the letters. Matilda and I were lovers before she married.” He coughed out the truth, “and after.”

  Officer Caldwell’s eyes widened, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

  Sheriff Woods detected what was going on between them. “Why don’t you two take this evidence down to the lab boys in Chicago. Tim, take along Reeves’ water glass, too.”

  Officer Caldwell stood and almost snapped to attention. “I won’t need Officer Hanson’s help. I’ll run this batch down by myself. I’m sure you two have other work to
do on the case.”

  After her abrupt departure, Tim shook his head. “She likes me, but she won’t be able to get over this. How would she explain to her friends or her family? She’s in love with a rounder? Besides, it would be wrong to encourage her. Is it fair to marry someone because they love you? After this case is closed, I plan to leave the force. Leave town.”

  Sheriff Woods wanted to say, yes. You can marry someone who loves you. He hoped Gabby was happy with him. He was content. He liked his life and his wife. But he didn’t know how to console his young officer or surmount his problems. “Ask Sally if she needs a partner in Ann Arbor. You could keep me informed, if she gets into anything she can’t handle.”

  Tim seemed to see Sheriff Woods in a new light. “You loved her, once.”

  “If this old heart ever gave a beat for anyone but myself,” Sheriff Woods said, “Sally was the cause.”

  “Why did you two break up?”

  “I’ve been racking my brains,” Sheriff Woods said. “Can’t remember, or don’t want to. Don’t think I don’t care for Gabby, by the way.”

  “She’s a good wife.”

  “She’s mine,” Sheriff Woods said, keeping some of his personal business to himself.

  Chapter Eight

  Hotel Baker

  Sally’s bedside phone rang. She struggled to stay in her nap’ daydream. Ginger and she were in the beautiful kitchen in John’s house. She was explaining to the dog why she wasn’t convinced she could make John happy. “I didn’t buy him any presents, yet.” Ginger cocked her head and raised her ears. “I wish we talked more about God. I wanted to tell him Mathew’s Biblical comment about whoever provides a drink of water to a believer, is also saved.”

  In the dream Ginger barked and waged her tail. So Sally turned around to face the doorway. John was just leaving. She called his name, but he didn’t turn. She thought she heard him say, “I’m okay, don’t worry.”

  Her dreamscape shifted to the bookshop in Ann Arbor. Her first husband, Danny Bianco, with his shock of white hair and John with his bald head were arguing with Robert Koelz about which sweater to wear.