by J B Hawker
“I believe we have a patient,” he said, nodding toward the reception window, causing Gwennie to spin her chair around, and forestalling an argument between the two contentious women.
“Hi Doc,” the elderly man now standing at the window said in a reedy voice. “I hear you were up the mountain today and found a corpus. Anybody we know?”
“Hello, Jim. No, I’m sure it was no one from around here; just ancient bones. I’ll let Gwennie take your insurance information and then she’ll send you on back,” Dr. Haleby said, before going into his office to change into his white coat and wash his hands.
*
At Bannoch High, Astilbe and Paisley Falls stood in the parking lot beside a battered early model VW Bug, its original black paint starred with patches of rust, many of which had been painted by a young Judy Falls to resemble butterflies or flowers. Other departing students waved and called happily to the sisters.
“Do you need a ride to the doctor’s office?” Paisley asked.
“No, I can walk, if you’ll take my book bag home with you,” Astilbe replied. “It’s not that far, but my books weigh a ton.”
“Okay. I’m going to the library, now. I’ve got a Creative Writing assignment to finish by tomorrow, but I should be home before dinner. Bye!” Paisley got into the car and drove away with a beep on the horn.
Astilbe started walking toward Bannoch’s charming downtown for her Work Experience class assignment at Dr. Haleby’s office. The storefront clinic was located next to a used furniture store on Bannoch’s three-block Main Street, about six blocks from the high school.
Walking briskly, waving at friends and smiling to people she passed, Astilbe looked forward to her hours in the doctor’s office. She was lucky to get this assignment. It was mostly shuffling files, but it would still help with her goal of becoming a veterinarian.
Dr. Haleby was old-fashioned, but he knew of her ambition and was kind enough to occasionally let Astilbe watch a procedure, if the patient didn’t mind.
Astilbe didn’t understand how her sister could want to be something so solitary and dull as a writer. Like her mother, Astilbe loved all creatures, including most people. She was happiest in a crowd, or when helping those in need.
Her face was a little flushed from the warm day as she opened the door into the clinic. She dimpled sweetly and greeted the patients in the waiting room. Even those who were feeling ill responded to her happy presence.
The best part of her day was about to begin.
*
Paisley slipped into a chair in a quiet corner of the library and spread out her books on the polished pine table.
She was soon plunging deeply into the dark, twisting lanes of Paris, France, in the late Middle Ages, during the reign of Louis XI.
She was putting the final touches on an essay about the works of Victor Hugo and had surrounded herself with books of his poetry and novels. She was determined to produce something better than could be created by cutting and pasting an article from Wikipedia. Paisley took her writing very seriously and hoped one day to make an impact with her work.
One particular piece of Hugo’s writing struck a chord and she was trying to fit it into the essay. It was a poem he had written after the accidental drowning death of his beloved daughter in the Seine River near the town of Villequier.
The poignant words brought tears to Paisley’s eyes every time she read them. She sniffed softly as she copied the words into her notebook:
Alas! turning an envious eye towards the past,
inconsolable by anything on earth,
I keep looking at that moment of my life
when I saw her open her wings and fly away!
I will see that instant until I die,
that instant…too much for tears!
when I cried out: "The child that I had just now”
what! I don't have her any more!"
“Victor Hugo! No wonder you’re crying, Pais,” her classmate, Warren Myers said, pulling out a chair, twirling it around and straddling it backward beside Paisley. “I’d croak if I had to read that stuff.”
“Hi, Warren. I wasn’t crying. All these dusty books give me allergies,” she said. “What are you doing in the library, anyway? Don’t you have track today?”
“I turned my ankle yesterday and the doctor said to give it a rest for a couple of days. I’ll be fine for the meet next week, though. Don’t worry about that. I’m going to win at least three of my races, for sure.”
“So, why did you come to the library? Is this the only place you could rest your ankle?” Paisley asked.
“Don’t be like that, Pais. You know I came to see you. I knew I would find you here.”
“Okay. You found me. Now you can go and let me finish my essay. Or did you want a gold medal, first?”
“You don’t have to be so snarky, Pais. I won’t keep you from your dusty old books for long. I just wanted to make sure you are going to the prom with me,” Warren said.
“Is that your gracious way of asking me to go with you? Sometimes you are such a jock!”
“What’s the matter, now? You’re my girl, aren’t you? I didn’t think I needed to send you an engraved invitation. Anyway, I am asking you, now, so are we going together, or not?”
“I suppose. Now, go and let me finish my essay, so I can get home in time for dinner,” Paisley said.
“Can I come over later?”
“Better call first. Dad isn’t too keen on having guys over on a school night.”
“Okay. Bye!” Warren said, planting a quick kiss on the top of Paisley’s head before leaving.
Paisley absentmindedly wiped off the kiss and soon joined Esmeralda on the cobblestones of Paris.
*
Astilbe had been filing patient records and was almost ready to leave for home when Nurse Owens maneuvered her bulk out of an exam room and hurried into the business office, her purple plastic clogs squeaking on the tiles in protest. She paused to breathe before speaking, the bright orange cartoon of a tiger on her plus-sized scrubs uniform seeming to throb with each heaving breath.
“Astilbe, can you stay long enough to clean and setup this exam room before you leave? I’m giving a CPR class tonight at the community center and I want to have time for my dinner,” Bitsy said, flipping her long, stringy dark hair behind one ear.
“Sure, Mrs. Owens,” Astilbe replied.
She tucked the last of the folders into a drawer and walked into the other room, where she pulled a clean paper cover down over the exam table.
“She’s a good kid,” Bitsy said to Gwennie, nodding toward the exam room.
“Both of Judy’s girls are growing into lovely young ladies,” Gwennie replied.
“I wonder what they’d think if they knew their mother was digging up mummified bodies in her spare time,” Bitsy said, seeming to forget her hurry at this opportunity to gossip.
“I can’t imagine,” Gwennie replied, giving Bitsy a withering look and a nod toward the nearby exam room where Astilbe was working.
Saying no more, Gwennie shut down her computer and prepared to leave.
“Oh, good night!” Bitsy said.
She waddled down the hall to the back exit, calling out, “Thanks, Astilbe!” and slammed the door behind her.
In the examination room, Astilbe, who’d overheard the women’s comments, paused in replacing the wastebasket liner. What had her mother gotten herself into, this time?
“You about done in there?” Gwennie called. “I can give you a ride home as soon as I lock up.”
*
When Gwennie’s car pulled up beside the two-story Victorian manse, Astilbe decided to ask Gwennie about what she’d overheard back in the office.
“Um, Mrs. Barthlett, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, hon, what is it?”
“While I was straightening the exam room, I heard you talking with Nurse Owens about my mom finding a body or something. What was that all about?”
“That
Bitsy! She never thinks before she speaks, that one,” Gwennie said.
“But what did she mean?” Astilbe asked.
Gwennie shifted around in her seat to face Astilbe before speaking.
“Doc was called out this morning to check on some human remains found up in the nature preserve. They’d been there for ages; years and years even, Doc said. So, it’s nothing for you to worry about, but it was your mom who found them,” she explained.
“What was Mom doing in the nature preserve? Oh, never mind, I’ll bet she was foraging for tonight’s dinner,” Astilbe said, rolling her eyes. “Thanks for telling me. And thanks for the ride. I’d better go in. Maybe the shock of finding a body kept Mom from bringing home a load of twigs and berries and we can have some normal food tonight. Bye!”
Astilbe hopped out of the car with a wave and trotted up the porch steps, eager to discover what sort of dinner awaited her.
“Mom!” she called from the foyer.
“In the kitchen, dear,” Judy responded. “Just look at this lovely sorrel and mushroom soup we’re having tonight,” she said when her daughter came into the kitchen. “Here, taste it.”
Astilbe reluctantly accepted the spoon from her mother, blew on it, and sipped.
“Not bad,” she said with a shrug and dropped the spoon into the sink. “Just how close to that dead body was this stuff growing, anyway?” she asked.
“Body? Oh, you mean the mummy in that old chest. I do wish I could get another look at the tapestry it was wrapped in. I’ll bet there were still enough undamaged sections to make some really cool throw pillows.”
“Mom! The body?” Astilbe urged.
“What about a body?” Paisley said, coming in the back door.
“Mom was out gathering bark and toadstools for our dinner and dug up a mummy. I heard about it at the doctor’s office,” Astilbe explained.
“That’s ridiculous,” Paisley insisted, dropping two backpacks on the table. “There are no mummies around here. You’ll be looking for zombies under the bed, next.”
“Zombies aren’t real, dear,” Judy said, moving the bags to hooks on a nearby re-purposed parson’s bench. “But I really did find a mummified corpse up in the hills today. It wasn’t very nice, but I also found a lovely clump of sorrel, along with the mushrooms and other herbs for tonight’s soup. Daddy even agreed to try it...if I serve him some meat, too. No matter how I try, I simply cannot convince him to give up his flesh-eating ways.”
“What’s the meat? I might want some, too,” Paisley said. “We’ve got some chicken breasts in the freezer. I’ll broil them, if you want, then you won’t have to touch them.”
“Cook one for me, too, Patsy,” Astilbe said. “Mom’s soup isn’t bad, but I want more than broth and mullet bread tonight. I’ve got my karate class later and I need to keep up my strength.”
“I do wish your father hadn’t corrupted you girls with his ideas about food. The smell of cooking flesh gets more sickening to me every day. You were perfectly content to eat vegan with me when you were small,” Judy complained.
“That’s because they didn’t know any better, right girls?” Ken said as he came into the room and gave his daughters each a quick hug before greeting Judy with a kiss.
“Oh, you’re no help!” Judy said. “Go relax while the girls help me finish getting dinner ready.”
The family quickly settled into their nightly routine; the mummified human remains forgotten.
Chapter 4
Later that week, Judy hurried up the walk to Eskaletha Evans’ house for the regular monthly meeting of the Bannoch First Ladies’ Club. She looked forward to these meetings with the town’s other ministry wives. The women shared many common issues and what was originally a support group had grown to include many deep friendships.
Judy was running late, again. Mr. Jones, the family’s mixed-breed terrier, had turned up his nose at the vegan meal she’d prepared, forcing her to dig around in the pantry for canned dogfood.
Judy couldn’t understand why Mr. Jones preferred such an inferior dish, but since he’d come to live with her family, she’d treated him as an honored guest. She tried her best to make him comfortable for as long as he chose to stay with them.
She didn’t approve of keeping one’s fellow creatures as pets, but when her girls found a litter of abandoned puppies, she couldn’t ignore their pleas to let him stay. She’d reconciled her actions with her beliefs by choosing to consider the dog a house guest, rather than a pet.
Rushing up the steps, she heard footsteps behind her and half-turned to see who else was late. Her foot failed to hit the step and she pitched into the engulfing arms of Peggy Burt, wife of the Missionary Baptist pastor, knocking Peggy’s wide-brimmed hat askew.
“Thanks!” Judy breathed while picking up her hand-knitted shawl from the sidewalk.
Peggy stuffed scattered sheet music back into the large tapestry handbag she’d dropped and pushed her hat back into place.
“Are you all right? I’m glad I was here to catch you, Judy. You could have taken a nasty tumble,” Peggy said.
“I wouldn’t have stumbled if you hadn’t surprised me, you know. Thanks for catching me, anyway. We’d better go in. Eskaletha doesn’t like us to be late,” Judy said, pressing the ornate doorbell.
With a sigh of resignation, Peggy joined her eccentric friend on the doorstep.
“Come on in. The meeting’s about to get started,” Elizabeth Gilbert said when she opened the door. She led the two women into Eskaletha’s large family room to join the others.
Eskaletha and her husband, Tyrone, pastor of the large African Methodist Episcopal Church, did not live in church-owned housing, but were given a generous housing allowance. This had allowed them to buy their own home in one of Bannoch’s more upscale neighborhoods.
Although careful not to covet, the other first ladies, who all lived in a parsonage or manse provided by the church they served, were sometimes a bit wistful when visiting Eskaletha’s modern, comfortable ranch style home.
Standing at the front of the room, Eskaletha waited for the latecomers to find seats, then pointedly called the meeting to order.
Judy accidentally thrust her foot through the strap of Peggy’s purse as she sat down. After untangling it, she looked up and noticed an unfamiliar face across the room. The women had been expecting a new member, so Judy supposed this young woman must be the wife of the new pastor at First Baptist Church.
The FBC’s previous pastor, Merrill Bishop, was a widow when she came to Bannoch and the first ladies had offered her their friendship and support. Recently, Merrill had remarried and moved to Washington State, where she was on staff at a large Seattle church.
The new pastor for First Baptist had only recently arrived in the community and all the first ladies were eager to meet his wife.
After Eskaletha opened the meeting with prayer, she satisfied Judy’s curiosity by introducing the newcomer.
“Ladies, I want to welcome our newest member, Melissa Choy Gutermann. Her husband has been called to the pulpit of First Baptist Church.”
The women turned toward Melissa and began enthusiastically welcoming her.
“Ladies!” Eskaletha said, clapping her hands. “When we break for refreshments you will have an opportunity to get to know Melissa. Now, we will have the reading of the minutes from last month. Olivette?”
A birdlike older woman, whose husband had pastored the local Reformed Church for many years, Olivette flew obediently to the front of the room, perched beside Eskaletha and began to chirp the minutes. Wearing a beige knit dress and with her faded, almost colorless hair, she resembled a tiny house wren when compared to Eskaletha’s exotic bird-of-paradise looks.
After all the club business was completed to her satisfaction, Eskaletha adjourned the meeting by asking Elizabeth, the only ordained woman in the group, to offer a blessing on the refreshments.
The ladies surged around the dining room table where the food was laid out, jo
ckeying for position near Eskaletha’s famously delicious double-chocolate fudge cake.
“Welcome,” Elizabeth said to Melissa as they waited for a turn to fill their plates. “I’m Elizabeth Gilbert. My husband and I co-pastor the Methodist Church. How are you settling into First Baptist’s parsonage apartment? Do you need any help?”
“Oh, we aren’t living in that awful apartment attached to the church! That was one of Jorge’s conditions before accepting the call,” Melissa replied.
“Really?” Gwennie asked from across the table. “Where are you living, then? Oh, I’m Gwennie, my husband is senior pastor of the Nazarene Church.”
He was the only pastor, a fact Gwennie often failed to mention.
“Hi, Gwennie. Nice to meet you. We’re staying in the guest house on the Bostwich property. Ariadne, Mrs. Bostwich…she’s old, of course, but really nice! She said she likes having our company, now that her grandson has moved to Portland. The views from the guest house are amazing,” Melissa said.
“What is the church going to do with the apartment, then?” tall, red-haired Naidenne Davidson asked, before introducing herself as the wife of the Bannoch Community Fellowship’s pastor.
“Oh, I don’t know...” Melissa said. “Maybe they will rent it out or use it for visiting missionaries. I just know I wouldn’t live there for anything. It’s horrid.”
“That’s what I always said,” Gwennie agreed, brushing cake crumbs off the kitten design on her magenta fleece pullover.
“I didn’t think it was so bad,” Olivette said. “Merrill and her nephew seemed to be perfectly comfortable there.”
“It is pretty small, though,” Elizabeth offered. “And the stairs are awfully narrow and steep.”
“It wasn’t so much that,” Melissa said. “But living right inside the church, we wouldn’t have had any privacy, at all.”
“Merrill did mention everyone in the church seemed to have a key to the apartment, so I guess it could become a problem,” Naidenne said.
Judy had filled her plate with carrots, nuts and raisins, avoiding the eggs and milk in the cake and other desserts, and was sitting on the leather sofa, nibbling, while listening and observing the new member of their group.