The Testament of Harold's Wife

by Lynne Hugo

  “Mom!” Gary’s shape and voice rose and loomed, sudden, into the peace of the back door I’d left open to the yard for the girls. I had the drapes drawn, the car in the barn, and hadn’t answered the front door. I thought he’d left, but instead, he’d come around to the back and snuck up on me. Marvelle jumped off the kitchen table and flattened into an escape. Her back paw caught some of the papers I’d been reading, which fluttered up and then toward the floor. The girls flapped and scattered noisily, especially Beth, who is easily startled. Amy flew toward Gary but then reversed and ended on the back of the couch. “Get away,” he yelled, with a dramatic show of unnecessary ducking and swatting. Now he stood—my big, raw-boned, blue-eyed, and earnest son, so well intentioned—come again, he said, to check on me. By which he meant another attempt to fix me. He was carrying a cardboard box in one hand.

  “Get away, chicken!” Again. And more waving, although she was already perched.

  “She’s ten feet away from you. And unarmed.”

  “Chickens don’t belong in the house! Why didn’t you answer the front door?”

  “Why didn’t you call before you came? I never answer the door for strangers. Goodness, why did you have your hair cut like that? You got fleeced.” I was pleasing myself with an underhanded reference to his giving all that money to the cult. Yes, I know that’s not helpful in a relationship, and CarolSue would be sure to point that out to me later, but Gary didn’t pick up on it anyway.

  “I went to the same barber I always . . . oh no. You always do that to me. I did call. You didn’t answer the phone!”

  True enough. I’d seen it was him, but the girls and I were busy, discussing hunting. (Marvelle approves of it. The chickens are opposed.) I’d been telling them what I was learning; the sheets of paper covering the kitchen table were photocopies of Indiana and county hunting laws I’d looked up at the library. The discussion had gotten so animated that all of us were having some sherry at the time Gary called, and a touch more by the time he showed up.

  “Then why are you here?” I’m sure my tone carried that I didn’t want him to be. CarolSue says this is how I contribute to the problem. She’s right, but I didn’t catch myself in time.

  It wounded him. “Mom, I don’t think you get it. When you don’t answer the phone I get scared. What if you’ve fallen and can’t get up? There used to be this commercial on TV and I really understand it now.” His eyes watered. “I can’t let something happen to you. Anyway, look, I brought you a present.” He opened the box and set a large wax bird with an impressive wingspan and a wick protruding from its back on the kitchen table. Then he pulled a book of matches from his shirt pocket.

  “Oh my! It’s quite intricately carved, isn’t it? Is it a hawk or . . . a vulture? I’m not too good with birds of prey.” Actually, I can identify them quite well in the sky where they belong. I knew I wasn’t being nice to my son, but I don’t like it when he treats me like a feeble old lady.

  “A dove, Mom, a dove! It’s a Light Of The World candle. I got it off the Internet. Look, I’ll light it for you. As it burns, see, the dove’s wings go down slowly as the dove brings you Peace.”

  “Until the light flickers and then poof, it goes right out?” Why don’t I remember to shut up? I have to remind myself that I believe in tolerance.

  His face reddened. “Mom, I’m worried about your mind. It’s not good for you to be alone all the time. Sometimes you completely miss the point. See, it’s about—”

  “No, dear, I get it. It’s lovely. I’m sorry. Really, I am. It’s just that right now isn’t a good time.”

  I wanted him to leave. For one, he ticked me off with the comment about my mind. But I also had to keep him out of the living room. And the bedroom and the rest of the house, because I’d stashed Glitter Jesus in the linen closet for the time being. There was still some sparkle in JoJo’s feathers from when she’d tried to land on Jesus’ crown when he was lying behind the blue chair in the living room. There may be some personal animosity involved since the girls have discovered that glitter is not edible.

  But more urgently, in a minute he was going to notice that I was wearing Harold’s clothes.

  Too late. “What are you wearing?” Gary demanded. He had on a red shirt I didn’t recognize. There was a time I knew all his clothes. There was a time he sat on my lap and I’d read him stories until my legs went numb. There was a time I thought I could never stand to be apart from him.

  “I was chilly,” I lied, cleaning up my tone to mollify him. “And you know, I’ve been out doing volunteer work, honey, so I hadn’t gotten my laundry done.” The truth is that when I got home from the library, I’d put on Harold’s last unwashed shirt, the blue plaid. I can close my eyes and see his broad expectant face, planes of light resting easy on his wide cheekbones, his hair, needing a cut, touching the top of the open collar. The way his rimless glasses left a mark on the top of his cheeks: he’d put on weight and it showed in his face and his meat-and-potatoes belly. There was a faint sweat smell to him, and his breath would go a hint sour after meals. But I never had to make up a reason to love him, which is not the same as saying I understood everything he did or that we never fought. “Go ahead and light that nice candle, maybe it will warm me up. That was thoughtful of you. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just tired. How have you been?”

  Maybe you can tell I was torn between trying to be nicer, trying to reassure him, and trying to get rid of him. I not only had on Harold’s blue plaid shirt, which Gary might or might not have recognized. I’d also put on his khaki shorts, which were pretty much calf-length on me, and held the whole getup together with his dress belt, which rested on my hips, its prong stuffed through a new hole I’d made with the point of my kitchen scissors. I’m not saying it was a fashion statement; I’m saying I wanted his arms around me while I worked on The Plan For Revenge now that I knew what Larry Ellis cared about. But I suppose the getup might have given Gary some ammunition for his “Mom has lost her mind” theory.

  He didn’t answer about how he’d been or even get sidetracked into telling me the latest about his church; he was eyeballing my outfit. I glanced at my wrist where I hoped he wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t wearing my watch. Pulling Harold’s sleeve to my fingertips, I said, “Never mind lighting the candle, dear. It’s later than I thought. Look, son, I need to change and get ready to go out. I have plans tonight. A . . . date. The chickens just came in the back door a minute ago because I left it open when I came in to get their . . . vitamins.” Sometimes you just have to make stuff up as you go along, something I used to get all over Harold for doing. As you can probably tell, this was not my most shining ten minutes with Gary. I do much better with a little prep time.

  “A date? You don’t mean with a man?” Gary went right over the moon. I thought his contacts were going to pop off his eyes.

  Of course I hadn’t meant a date with a man. But Gary sounded so outraged at the very notion that I got my back up again, as I explained later to CarolSue.

  “I guess I can date a man if I want to, son. It’s not like I’ve invited him to move in with me. Yet,” I added, that last word an afterthought while I narrowed my eyes to a dare.

  As CarolSue pointed out when I told her about it, the God Squad was sure to go right into overdrive now. I could have been smarter. But the accidental advantage of getting him all worked up was that he didn’t go on a Glitter Jesus hunt, and forgot all about what I was wearing. Fortunately, the girls and I take our sherry out of my fine china cups, because I took a couple of sips of what I’m sure he thought was tea while he ranted on. How strange it is to be a parent and the child of one: how strands of expectation and disappointment always braid over and over with love to form the uncuttable cord.

  Anyway, I told CarolSue that I thought I’d kept Gary distracted enough that he hadn’t paid attention to the photocopies and handwritten notes spread over my kitchen table. Along with a small dot of chicken poop from when Beth was alarmed by Gary’s sud
den entrance. I wasn’t entirely sure, though, because he’d set the dove—which truly did resemble a turkey vulture—next to the poop, which I hadn’t been able to wipe up right away, not without calling his attention to it. Don’t get the wrong idea from Gary, who lives to criticize. Marvelle’s litter box gets cleaned out every day and I keep a decent house. I was raised right. Of course, my mother never had a job outside our home, so I never quite met her standards, but I do keep up.

  I’ve explained why I might not have told CarolSue everything, as The Plan evolved. Once in a while I also omitted something because our mother used to remind us that you can’t shove words back into your mouth once they’re out. I’m regularly reminded of this by my failures with Gary. After I hung up with CarolSue, I asked Marvelle if she agreed that Gary hadn’t noticed Harold’s old hunting rifle, brought down from the attic where it had been since his promise to Cody, propped in the hallway. And he hadn’t gone into my bedroom, where Harold’s camouflage pants and jacket, also rescued from the attic, were on the foot of the bed with his old orange hunting hat. She nodded her tail affirmatively, which is actually a more difficult maneuver than the negative switch, so I was sure she’d understood. Because Gary would have started an interrogation on the spot about the rifle rather than take a chance that Gus could get here in time to stop Bonnie from going on a rampage, even though Clyde was already dead. You know that Bonnie, Marvelle smirked. She’s wild.

  It was a good thing there was no interrogation, too, because it’s hard to make up good lies fast when you’re playing defense, although I’m a lot better at it than my fifth graders ever were. But I’m not telling CarolSue that since I saw those deer heads in Larry Ellis’s house, it’s brought it to my mind that possibly Larry Ellis himself needs to be hunted down.

  Marvelle and I drank a toast to that idea. And she suggested that we switch from sherry to something stronger. Something Harold would like. “Good idea,” I said. “But no driving. We never . . . ever.” The very mention of that insulted her. She knows what can happen. She lives in the ruins.

  20

  I didn’t tell CarolSue before I did it, but it wasn’t because I was afraid she’d call Gary. She’d never do that, although she might have considered zipping past Go to have me committed. Most likely, though, she’d think I’d gone out and bought a fifth of bourbon before I made the decision. Well, she’d be right about the bourbon, but so what? Marvelle and the girls had some, too, while we discussed a reasonable course of action. Beth mentioned that perhaps I was in danger of becoming a bit obsessive about tracking Larry Ellis, and what more information did I really need? But then Marvelle, who’d maybe lapped up more of Kentucky’s best than I thought, told Beth to shut up, that some good old-fashioned stalking was entirely in order, and that Louisa was entitled to learn all she could in order to develop an effective Plan. How did Beth think Marvelle had been the most renowned mouser in the Great Fucking State of Indiana, anyway? Amy positively cackled at that. She loves to see Beth get her comeuppance.

  “Language, Marvelle! Just because Harold flew F-bombers once in a while after he came back from the war, there’s no need for you to be coarse,” I told her. “You do have a point about gathering all information possible. I know what that shithead cares about now, but it’s not like CarolSue came up with an instant Plan about how to use the information.”

  “Language!” Beth cooed. I swear she channels my mother. “Point taken. I bet you’d like a little more Wild Turkey. So anyway, we do need more information, I think, to develop The Plan. If we’re not just going to shoot him in the street, I mean. The problem with that is practical, much as I’m drawn to it. I might not make bail and who would take care of you all? Gary?”

  Marvelle and the girls looked alarmed. “Yes, my point exactly,” I said. “I’m sure I’d get off on justifiable homicide in the end. But we know how long it takes for trials. CarolSue is totally opposed, too. She said as much and that was when it was only a hypothetical. Not that she’s come up with anything useful. But what does this leave us with for a Plan? I mean, yes we know what he cares about, but it’s not like I can take all the deer in the woods away from Larry Ellis. I’m just not sure how to use the information. Yet.”

  So, as you see, it’s not like I didn’t seek advice before I went back to spy on Larry Ellis a second time.

  And I was so much better prepared. For example, I had the brains to bring an empty coffee can with its red plastic lid in case I had another pee emergency. I went at sundown, well slathered with mosquito repellent, even though I’m sure those chemicals kill your brain cells as effectively as they repel mosquitos. I dressed in grey, to blend in with the twilight. CarolSue would have said I looked like a bag lady, but the only grey clothes in the house were Harold’s work shirt and my old dress slacks from teaching, but the point was the color, and it reassured me about my mind that I’d thought of such fine-point details.

  There was no choice but to park on the road. It wasn’t like I could pull into their driveway, for heaven’s sake. I’d passed the house slowly twice, staking it out, and seen the pickup truck and a car both parked in front of the two-car garage, which was open and just as junky as the inside of the house from what I could see. Neither vehicle could possibly have fit in there with the random boxes spilling contents, strewn tools, bike, and an overturned sawhorse. Those people certainly make me look like Housekeeper Of The Year, which I truly wish I could point out to my mother. Anyway, I drove on past after turning around in a different spot each time and stashed my car maybe a quarter mile down the road, using the berm as best I could.

  I snuck down the road. The houses are very wide-spaced out here; the nearest was well beyond where I parked and across the road. It’s mainly cornfields with some land in soy and a few cow pastures here and there, mainly Black Angus. Big stands of uncut woods, too, of course. I felt like Nancy Drew, my heart beating too fast, skulking along the brushy roadside toward the Ellis house, but the truth is there wasn’t anyone to see me. King Kong wearing a pink tutu and rhinestone tiara could have avoided detection as easily as I did. I thought ahead to how I’d omit that detail when it all worked out and I finally told CarolSue about this reconnaissance.

  By the time I reached the corner of the Ellis property, I was sweaty in the dusk. I might have even been panting a bit as I stood in the brushy shadows of the tree line where I’d made my break from on my last mission. Elaborately trying to look casual in case a car came along, which none did, thank goodness. You might be thinking, “For a woman who’s so big on making a Plan, what on earth is The Plan now? Is this nutcase just going to amble up to the Ellis house, sneak around, and try to listen in?” That’s exactly what CarolSue said later, which is what she claimed any rational person would think. Well, I hate to say yes when the word nutcase is attached to it like that, and I have to say that while it might not sound well conceived as described, it turned out to be a stroke of genius. Pure genius.

  Be patient, as I always tell CarolSue. I have to tell a story in my own way. So I crept from shadow to shadow toward the house until I was back underneath that master bedroom window, just like the first time. Of course I kept way beneath it, not trying to look inside. It didn’t do me a bit of good, though. Even though it was a butter-soft twilight, clear, peach-colored, beautiful and edgeless, when anyone with a lick of sense has every window open, Ellis’s was shut.

  But then I heard laughter. A man’s, harsh as barking. A woman spoke then, ending with a bell trail of giggles. Silence, then more talking. It got louder and a door slammed. A scraping sound. Other sounds I couldn’t identify as I was frantically shrinking myself, trying to get behind and between two shrubs that were considerably smaller than I.

  They had come out onto the patio. The door slammed again.

  “Hey, kid,” the man said. Was it Larry? “Take out the trash.”

  “Ma, kin I go over t’Dud’s house?” Could I have heard right? Someone would name their child Dud? Stay focused, Louisa, I told myse
lf. This must be the boy who was in that bed. Squatting in the bushes was awkward, and branches were in my face and neck, but I was afraid to move. A whine of mosquito approached my ear, and I raised my shoulder to shield it. No one was visible to me, but my memory of distance told me I was only ten or twelve feet from them.

  “No way. You’re supposed to see your father this weekend. So you need to get that history paper that’s due Monday done ahead.”

  “He texted. He’s got something else. Like always. I gotta work Saturday till two anyway.”

  “Oh. Maybe he’ll be free next weekend.”

  “Uh huh. So can I go?”

  “I guess. But don’t be later than nine thirty, honey. Call me when you get there. And when you’re leaving to come home. That’s why I got you the—”

  “I know, Mom. Don’t worry.”

  “Hey, that trash needs to go out before you go,” the man said. “Please.” The please delayed and mocking.

  A mumble that might have been “Later,” and another door slam. Maybe a minute of silence. I tried to make my huddle smaller, tucked in my hands, which looked stark and white against the shrubbery, dirt, and weeds.

  “You spoil that kid,” he said. “You shoulda backed me up. I asked the way you said to.”

  “Don’t start. Please.”

  “Well, for chrissake, I’m trying, but the kid has an attitude. He needs a good—”

  Her voice came in, a descant over his rising one, but I couldn’t make out all she said until I picked up, “—even a job, so please stop. So, back to this weekend. I really want to go,” she interrupted.