There Was an Old Woman

by Hallie Ephron

  “I saved you one,” Finn said, reaching under the counter and bringing out a little paper plate holding a single perfect powdered-sugar-covered jelly doughnut.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  It was an exceptionally clear morning. Mina buttoned her sweater and folded her arms against the chill as she rocked on her back porch. The sun was already high in the sky, making the water sparkle, and the Manhattan skyline was in sharp focus. Mina picked out the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, both still distinctive amid the surrounding welter of box-top skyscrapers.

  The girl had wanted to talk to her about what it had been like working at the Empire State. Did she remember? she’d asked. How could Mina not? Steadying herself with her cane, she stood and stepped to the porch railing. Every day she looked out at that building and was reminded. Maybe talking about it would be a good thing.

  A loud smack startled her as something solid caromed off the porch column, inches from her head. Far too late, Mina cried out and ducked. With a gentle whoosh the missile landed in the marsh grass beyond her narrow strip of neatly mowed lawn.

  Idiotic. Pea-brained. Had to be that man from across the street using the narrow strip between her house and the one next door as his own private driving range. Had he been at it all morning?

  Mina took cover at the edge of the house, imagining him teeing up another ball, lining up his shot, swinging . . . Nothing. She waited a few moments more before stepping to the side of the porch and daring a glance back between the houses. There was no one there. Frank Cutler and his trusty nine-iron must have beaten a hasty retreat when he heard her cry out.

  She had a good mind to march over there and confront him. But she knew what he’d say. Golf ball? What golf ball? Then he’d shake his head at her delusional, overactive imagination.

  He could scoff at her all he wanted, but she knew what she knew. And now—she gazed speculatively out to where clumps of marsh grass that had been planted by city workers two years ago along the shoreline were now filling in nicely—she’d have proof. This time, if she wasn’t mistaken, the ball had landed just a few feet in.

  She looked down at her feet. She had on bedroom slippers. What she needed were boots. Rubber boots. Like the tall fishing boots that her father used to wear back when you could cast your net into the river and pull out healthy, foot-long herring.

  Mina found her father’s old boots, dust covered but intact, in the back of the hall closet behind the set of matching luggage that she’d used only once when she and Henry went to Niagara Falls. She pulled them on over her slippers. The boots came up over her knees, and even with the slippers they were too big, but they’d do the job. She tucked her pant legs into them. This time, Frank “Sam Snead” Cutler was not going to get away with it.

  Cane in hand, Mina clomped back outside and down off the porch to the edge of the marsh. There she paused for a moment, closed her eyes, and replayed the sound of the ball landing. Envisioned the spot. Then she opened her eyes, took a breath. She waded into the tall grass at the edge of the marsh, poking her cane ahead of her as she went.

  It was high tide, and the muddy water quickly closed over the tops of her feet. Each time she took a step her boot came out of the muck with a sucking sound. When she reached the spot, she used the cane for balance as she nudged apart the reeds.

  There was an empty beer can. A little farther on, a plastic grocery bag. She tucked the can into the bag and tossed them onto her lawn.

  A few more steps in, she was over her ankles in mud. The ball had probably sunk beneath the surface, too. If only she’d thought to pull on a pair of rubber gloves, but it was too late for that now. Reluctantly she pushed up her sweater sleeve, bent over, and began rooting around, feeling through the nasty root-clogged slime for something solid. She tried not to inhale the sulfurous marsh gas that wafted up as she disturbed the mud.

  She found snails, stones, bits of shell. She was about to give up when she felt something hard and round. Triumphant, she dug it out. A golf ball!

  She straightened, swiping aside tendrils of hair with the back of her arm, rage beating in her chest. What did he think, that a golf ball was going to dissolve like a lump of sugar in a cup of hot tea? It would be there for decades, centuries even, assuming it didn’t end up down the gullet of one of the majestic great blue herons that were returning to the marsh in record numbers.

  With each step out of the marsh, it felt as if the mud were trying to pull those old boots off her feet. Finally she was back on the grass. Speechless with fury, she marched around her house and stood on her front lawn, leaning on her cane and shaking her fist at the house across the street. He was probably inside, behind drawn shades, laughing at her.

  Mina crossed the street and up her blasted neighbor’s front walk, trailing wet footprints up those fancy granite steps he’d installed, each one bigger than a tombstone. She marched across the narrow porch he’d slapped on the front and up to that fancy walnut door with its stained-glass insets on either side. The doorbell was the old twist kind but in shiny, brand-new brass. Ridiculous. She turned it. Heard chimes ringing—the opening notes of “Goodnight Irene.”

  No answer. No footsteps. No sounds at all from inside the house. She raised her cane and rapped it against the door. He had to be in there. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes ago that he’d driven that ball.

  Mina gave an anxious look behind her. No one was watching. She reached for the doorknob, turned it, and pushed. To her amazement, the door opened.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Mina had just started to peer into Frank Cutler’s house when a light in the darkened front hall started flashing and a blaring Klaxon nearly blew her off the steps. She fought her first impulse, which was to scramble off the porch and race home. But scrambling and racing had long ago dropped out of her repertoire, and besides, it was too late for any of that. Two neighbors had come out and were looking on, and a dark car with a bubble light going in its windshield was already tearing up the street toward her.

  She covered her ears to muffle the blaring alarm and waited. The sedan pulled over in front of the house. A man in a dark uniform got out. Well over six feet tall and whippet slender, his skin a rich reddish-brown, he reached back through his car window for a cap and set it on his head.

  “Ma’am,” he said, touching the visor of his cap. Above it was stuck a silver badge.

  That’s when Mina realized he was eyeing her less than respectfully. Not disrespectfully, really. More like he was looking at a suspicious package. His gaze lingered on her feet, those oversize rubber boots coated in mud.

  Mina straightened and cleared her throat. Before she could explain what her neighbor had been up to, and how this time she had the evidence to prove it, he tilted his head and tsk-tsked. “We have to stop meeting like this, Miss Mina.”

  Miss Mina? She wasn’t about to play Driving Miss damned Daisy to his Uncle Tom. “Excuse me, but do I know you?”

  “Breaking in. Again?” He reached for her arm.

  Mina didn’t like that. Not one little bit. She backed away. “Don’t you lay a hand on me. I was not trying to break in. That man . . . he was—” She held up the ball and realized she had an opera-length coating of mud up her arm. She switched hands and held out the ball. “I found this in the salt marsh. It’s a protected area, isn’t it?”

  But the officer was looking past her. She turned to follow his gaze. Racing—much too fast, if you asked her—up the street toward them was a red sports car like the one that belonged to Frank Cutler. As it got closer, she could see the man himself, sitting right there at the wheel.

  Another car pulled to a stop behind him. Brian’s. She might not have recognized the gray car as a Mercedes, but the ’60s peace sign in the front grill had always struck her as a hilarious irony.

  “You’d better come with me.” The officer grabbed for her arm again.

  “I’ll do no such thing.” She wrenched away.

  Frank Cutler got
out and charged over to the house and up onto the porch. “What in the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  Brian got out, too, and stood on the sidewalk, gazing up at her from beneath the red brim of a blue baseball cap. “What on earth is she up to now?” He put his hands on his hips, like he was the grown-up in the room.

  “Everything’s under control,” the officer said. “Caught her trying to break in—”

  “Again? You stay off my property,” Frank Cutler said, taking a menacing step toward Mina. They were like cartoon characters, all of them, and Mina almost expected a blast of steam to erupt from the top of Frank Cutler’s head.

  “Well?” the officer said to Mina.

  “I . . . He . . . It’s not . . .” Mina took a deep breath and tried to gather herself. “I was not trying to break in.”

  “So you’re not responsible for setting off my alarm?” Frank Cutler said.

  “I am. I guess. But it wasn’t my fault. I—”

  “For the third time, it’s not your fault?”

  Third time? What on God’s green earth was he talking about?

  “You’ve been warned and warned again,” the officer said. He reached into his pocket and removed a pair of handcuffs.

  That frightened her. “Put those fool things away. Brian? For heaven’s sake, say something.”

  But Brian stood there staring at the ground like he was examining the roots his feet had grown. Frank Cutler’s jaw was clamped in a grim, satisfied smile. And the man in uniform advanced. When he grabbed her arm, Mina’s cane went flying.

  Mina couldn’t think what else to do, so she screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Saving her a jelly doughnut had been a small thing, silly really, and yet so incredibly sweet, Evie thought as she walked back to her mother’s house licking the last of the raspberry jam from between her fingers. She only wished Finn had set aside two. She smiled, remembering that crullers were Ginger’s passion, and Finn hadn’t set aside a single one of those. That reminded her that she needed to call Ginger and tell her about the money she’d found.

  She was almost back to the house when she heard a woman scream. She turned the corner to find cars blocking the street. A dark sedan with a blue light flashing in the windshield was parked in front of Mrs. Yetner’s house; behind it was Frank Cutler’s red sports car, and behind that was a dark Mercedes. Frank Cutler was up on his front porch. So was Mrs. Yetner. Another man, wearing a dark uniform, was up on the porch, too. A cop? Mrs. Yetner’s nephew Brian tipped back his red-brimmed baseball cap and looked on from the sidewalk.

  As Evie watched, the uniform stepped between Frank and Mrs. Yetner. He put his arm around Mrs. Yetner and tried to herd her off the porch. Mrs. Yetner looked bewildered. Then angry. “Take your hands off me,” she said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  But the officer kept right on pushing, practically lifting the poor woman off her feet. Tendrils of white hair were flying loose from what was usually a neat bun at the nape of Mrs. Yetner’s neck, and her glasses were askew. Her nephew obviously wasn’t going to help her out. He stood there in stony silence.

  “Stop!” Evie cried.

  The officer must have let go, because Mrs. Yetner collapsed like a marionette on the steps of Mr. Cutler’s house. Evie dropped her coffee and charged up the steps. She sat down and put her arms around Mrs. Yetner, shielding her from the men. Cold seeped off the stone steps through the flannel of her pajama bottoms and she could feel Mrs. Yetner’s birdlike bones through her thick sweater.

  “Ridiculous . . . pea-brained . . . ticket-writing nitwit.” Mrs. Yetner sputtered the words, hand to her chest as she panted for breath. “Trying to put me away.”

  That’s when Evie noticed that one of the old woman’s hands was coated in mud and she had on knee-high black rubber boots pulled on over her pant legs. The boots were coated with fresh mud, too, well up over the ankles.

  “Honestly, Miss Mina,” the uniformed man said, the brim of his hat pulled low over his forehead. “No one’s trying to put you away.” He rolled his eyes at Evie and tapped a finger to the side of his head.

  “Fiddlesticks.” Mrs. Yetner straightened her glasses and gave him a steely look. “I’m not your Miss Mina. And I’m not nuts.”

  “Of course she’s not,” Evie said, shading her eyes to get a better look at the man. A yellow shield-shaped patch was sewn to the shoulder of his dark gray zippered jacket. A silvery badge was pinned over the brim of his cap. She could make out the word SECURITY.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Yetner, though from his tone it was clear that he didn’t mean it, “but three times in the last month?” He shook his head. “Or has it been four?”

  Mrs. Yetner didn’t answer. She looked frightened.

  “You know it’s against the law, breaking and entering,” the officer added.

  Evie felt Mrs. Yetner stiffen. She took a breath. “Now you listen to me. I was not breaking in. And I never entered. The door was open.” Mrs. Yetner jabbed a finger in the direction of Frank. “He’s the one you should arrest. He was hitting his golf balls. See?” She held out what looked like a muddy golf ball. “Into the salt marsh.”

  Frank guffawed—an ugly sound. “Please, would you give me a break. If that isn’t the most absurd—”

  “Absurd? Exactly. And dangerous, too,” Mrs. Yetner said. “Not to mention that the marsh is a protected area. Isn’t polluting against the law?”

  “Polluting? For Chrissake, I wasn’t even here. You saw me drive up,” Frank shot back. “What’s it going to take to get you to stop harassing me?”

  The officer heaved a heavy sigh. “You can always press charges.”

  Frank glared at Mrs. Yetner. Then his look slid over to Evie and he wavered, the anger bleeding from his face. “I guess not. But she’d better keep off my property. I don’t want to have to file a restraining order.”

  “Just you try,” Mrs. Yetner said under her breath.

  “Oh yeah? And you’ll do what exactly?” Frank crossed his arms and scowled down at her. “I don’t like being threatened.”

  “Neither”—Mrs. Yetner held his gaze, and as the seconds ticked by she seemed to grow calmer and calmer while he looked more and more like a balloon getting too much air blown into it—“do I.”

  He was the first to look away. “Stupid cow.”

  “Pardon me? What did you say?” Mrs. Yetner asked, calmer still.

  Frank gave her an uneasy look. “Nothing.”

  Mrs. Yetner took a deep breath. “All right then.” She straightened her back and rose to her feet. Evie stood with her. “I’m going home now. I think I’ve made my point.”

  Evie retrieved Mrs. Yetner’s cane from the grass and handed it to her. But Mrs. Yetner’s first step was a stumble.

  “Here,” Evie said, taking her arm again, “let me help you.” Evie could feel the men watching as she helped Mrs. Yetner cross the street.

  Brian at least hurried over and took Mrs. Yetner’s other arm. “Aunt Mina, doesn’t this prove the point that I’ve been trying to make? You didn’t even remember the other times this has happened. I can only imagine what other little mishaps you’re covering up, or worse still, forgetting.”

  Mrs. Yetner’s grip tightened on Evie’s arm and she blanched. The scar down the side of her face and neck was livid.

  As they continued across the street, Brian went on in a quiet voice that Evie could barely hear. “You may not like it, but it’s time to start looking seriously at nursing—”

  “I am not going into a nursing home,” Mina spat back at him.

  “Fine. Elderly housing then. Assisted living. Call it whatever you like. Some kind of residential setting where they can give you the help you need and not make you feel like you’re being a bother.”

  That stopped Mrs. Yetner in her tracks. She stared at Brian, her mouth open.

  Brian went on. “Look, I know you’re not feebleminded. That’s not what this is about. But let me call a
round and make some appointments so you can at least see what your options are. I’ll try to set up some visits for tomorrow. Monday afternoon. All right?”

  Mrs. Yetner sagged, and in a quiet voice, she said, “Oh, all right. If you must.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  It wasn’t until Mina was inside her house with the door firmly shut that she let go of Evie’s arm. Feeling utterly defeated and trembling with humiliation, she sank down on a bench in the entryway and stared at the mud she’d tracked across the threshold. Mina could hear herself panting like she’d been running.

  “Are you all right?” Evie asked.

  “Of course I’m all right,” Mina said. How could her own nephew talk to her that way? And in public?

  Evie made a murmur of sympathy. What would have happened, Mina wondered, if the girl hadn’t shown up? That man was going to handcuff her and haul her off to jail? And Brian, standing right there and not lifting a finger to help.

  As if she couldn’t take care of herself. She’d been taking care of herself for—

  “Here, let me help you off with these.” Evie squatted down in front of her.

  “It’s all right. I can do it.” Mina bent over and strained to reach the boot. Tried to take a deep breath, but that made her back ache. She needed to slow down, to breathe, and get the pounding in her chest to ease.

  Reluctantly she gave up, leaned back, and let Evie pick up one of her legs then the other, tugging off the tall rubber boots like her mother used to do when she was in first grade. Her feet came out bare. Mina reached into each boot and pulled out the bedroom slippers that were stuck inside. She dropped them on the floor and slid her feet into them.

  Evie set the boots on the mat by the door. Then she went into the kitchen and came back with some paper towels. She wiped away the mud Mina had tracked into the entryway.

  “Are they still out there?” Mina asked.

  Evie stood and looked out through the window in the front door. “They’re talking.”