by Joan Shott
“Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, I was wondering if you had any photos of Bobby when he was young, so I could put them in my…”
Bobby’s father cleared his throat and glanced at his wife. She watched him with a hawk-like stare as he spoke. “Well, it’s like this, Diane. We didn’t want to meet you under such unpleasant circumstances, but sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to, now do they?”
“What is it Mr. Hayes?” I asked, thrown off-balance by his question. He must have meant his son’s death.
“We simply had no choice,” Mrs. Hayes said. She patted at her throat with a tissue as if the subject they were about to broach was working her into a sweat.
“Diane, I’ll get right to the point,” Mr. Hayes said, throwing his shoulders back and clasping his hands behind his back. “When our son wanted to buy this house, and I understand this was before you met, he borrowed some money from us and said he would pay it back. We knew he was good for it, but he did sign a promissory note. He left us some money from his life insurance, but we’re still short about ten thousand dollars, and we’re not rich people. You understand.” The two of them looked at each other.
“What do you want from me?” I asked “Please don’t take the house. It’s all I have left of him. It was our home.”
“We don’t want to take the house, but if we don’t get the money, we’ll have to get involved with lawyers and then we’ll both lose. We’d rather not have to sell it to someone else since we can’t manage things from so far away. We were hoping maybe you could refinance and get a mortgage for the money and well, you see…”
My father broke in, “Now folks, you’ve thrown us for a loop, and we’ll need some time to sort things out.”
The headache that an hour ago had been oppressive, was now making me dizzy. I held on to the back of my father’s chair as I spoke. “I’m a college student. How could I pay a mortgage?”
Mrs. Hayes patted my arm. “Now, now, there’s a little time to figure things out. We have until the middle of next month to come up with the money.” Her words voiced a half-hearted attempt to seem kind, but her eyes were as cold as the sea rolling in at the bottom of my little piece of property. If I knew anything, it was that these two people had made their minds up before they ever pulled into my dusty, old driveway. Whatever I said, however much I pleaded, meant nothing to them.
She continued, obviously unconcerned by the tears I fought unsuccessfully to hold back. “I hope you’ll be able to get a plan together by then. We don’t want to do this, but we have no choice. That money was part of our retirement. We’ve already made a down payment on an apartment in Florida.”
“I see.” I was numb and couldn’t come up with anything else to say. I just shrugged my shoulders and looked at my father.
He wiped at my tears with his thumb. “We’ll figure somethin’ out, little girl.”
They left as abruptly as they had arrived, promising to keep in touch and assured me again and again it was all purely survival on their own part. “We’re not getting any younger,” Bobby’s father said as he started the car to leave.
“And I feel about a hundred years older,” I said when he was out of sight. I let the breath out of my lungs I’d been holding since they’d stepped out of the car. I was light-headed, the piercing headache having migrated to my neck. I turned to my father and laid my head on his shoulder. “What am I going to do?”
“Maybe you need to move back here for good, and it’s time you looked for a man to help pay the bills,” he said.
“Oh, please. Do you think I would marry someone just to keep this house? I’ll think of something. Thank God, I’ve got three weeks before I finals. I couldn’t keep my mind on studying with all this going on, too.”
“We’ll figure out somethin’.”
“This was our home, mine and Bobby’s, and I don’t want to lose it. He wouldn’t want that.” I paced back and forth in the driveway, my sweater wrapped against the chill of my fears and the onshore winds. “Do you believe they really need the money that much?”
“Hard to say. Some people care about money more than they care about people. If it was me, I’d try to find a way to help my family. But they don’t seem to realize that when their son married you, you became their family.”
I tried to understand their side of the problem, but they’d done a good job of turning me against them. They had complained about the lack of the ten thousand dollars, but they didn’t want to talk about the thing we shared. They didn’t want to talk about Bobby. I wanted to hear about the place where he’d grown up and what he had been like as a young boy. Had he always wanted to fly planes? Who taught him to fix cars? Did he really like to watch old movies, or did he just say that to make me happy? All the questions I never had time to ask him left holes in my waking hours. I hardly learned much of anything about him in the short time we were together, and I thought his parents could have filled some of the voids but they only created another. Now I had this nagging question sitting in the back of my mind: how could I have loved a man who’d come from the parents I’d just met? Was he really as wonderful as I’d thought?
I looked at my father who seemed almost as lost as I felt. I didn’t want the burden of my problems to rest on his shoulders. “You know what, Dad? I think you and I should have dinner together tonight. I have to head back to Seattle tomorrow afternoon.”
“Can’t stay a few days?”
“I have two homework projects to finish for school, and I have to get back to work. I told my boss I’d help him on a project. I was in such a hurry I didn’t even ask him what it was.”
“You sure you can’t stay? Danny was hoping to ask you on a date.”
“Danny? I told you I wouldn’t go out with him before I met Bobby, and I haven’t changed my mind.”
If I could have run to the car and driven a hundred miles an hour back to Seattle, back to where I felt more at home than I did right then, I would have. To get far away from the memory of the sight, the smell, the touch of those people — my in-laws. And my father’s meddlesome suggestion about his employee, who’d had his eye on me since the first time he’d met me, made my headache ratchet up another notch.
But I couldn’t get away as fast as I wished. First of all, my car wouldn’t go over fifty-five, and second, I wasn’t all that sure what I trusted to be waiting for me in Seattle was real or if it was another wrong turn in the road.
Chapter Seven
When I returned to Seattle on Sunday night, Nancy pumped me for information about my weekend. I tried to pretend everything had gone well, just like any old meeting between a widow and the in-laws she’d never met before. But my eyes gave me away. They stung with the tears I’d cried on the drive home, burned with the exhaustion of trying to see my situation from someone else’s viewpoint. My feelings always showed in my eyes as if they were a map of my soul.
“What happened?” she asked, as she studied my expression between sips of her diet soda.
“They wanted money. Bobby borrowed some from them to buy the house on the island, and they’re still short ten thousand. I can’t believe they’ll take the house from me if I don’t come up with the money. I was so stupid to think they came here to meet me, as if I mattered to them.”
Nancy’s delicately pruned eyebrows peaked, and the small mole just above the curve of her lip rose, too, as if the signatures of her face were standing up in disbelief. “Gee, that is pretty awful, but that’s in-laws for you. I had them, too, you know.”
“Huh?” Her pronouncement shook me out of my sense of isolation and self-pity.
“Yeah, I was married for a while. I hope I never see the creep again as long as I live ,or his family either. Richie was such a big baby. His mother always sticking up for him no matter what he did. Like the time he told me to rake the shag carpet after I walked on it. His mother read me the riot act about what it meant to be a good housekeeper.” She shook her head and then smiled. “In-laws, out-laws, no difference. What
made you think Bobby’s parents would let you off easy?”
“Because I was married to their son.” After I said the words married and their son, I sensed the disparity of the meanings ride just under my skin. The concept was still new enough to me to seem unreal, as if ideas like marriage were something you bonded with only over a long time. But I wasn’t ready to let those words go. Not yet.
“You think they decided you weren’t married long enough to deserve the house? People do strange things. I mean, who can you trust these days?” she asked.
I nodded in agreement but wondered if what was bothering me was a feeling of unworthiness of my own making. I couldn’t get all worked up about my anger at Bobby’s parents, because Bobby was the one who had left things up in the air and put me at risk. But I was sure he’d wanted me to live in our house. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have left it to me, would he? But he hadn’t thought ahead enough to make sure I had the property free and clear, never mentioned his parents’ involvement to me. It may have been just a three-room cottage on a half-acre bluff, but it was everything I had.
“Enough about them. I’d better do my homework and get to bed before midnight. I want to get to the office early tomorrow,” I said.
“That’ll make you feel better.” Nancy slipped in the remark, like a letter through a mail slot, as she closed the door to her own room. I wanted to tell her she was wrong, but the words stuck in my throat. I’d vowed not to think about Matthew all weekend, but besides my fears about losing the house, I’d thought about little else. I even dreamed of him, waking up in the morning chill with my arms outstretched, reaching for his warm, strong body and feeling instead the rumpled sheets of a troubled night.
The weekend had been more wearing than I’d realized. A few minutes after I’d settled under the covers of my bed to study, I was asleep.
*****
I woke at six and walked to the office in the gray of an overcast dawn. I’d been typing away for at least a half an hour when the door opened. Matthew’s arm appeared over my shoulder as he slipped a piece of paper under my nose.
“Hope you had a good weekend at your hideaway. Before you leave today, could you call the airline and book two tickets to Chicago for those dates?” He pointed towards the paper. “And I’ve already got rooms reserved.” He seemed excited, nervous. I found it odd that he’d had to wait for me to come back if the whole thing was so urgent. He knew how to make his own reservations, since he’d made them himself before I came along.
“Sure, Matthew.” I put the paper next to the phone. “What’s it for?”
“The Democratic National Convention.”
“Okay, but who should I make the other reservation for?”
“For you. You have to be there, too.”
I thought he might be joking. He liked to tease me now and then to try to get me to smile, something I rarely did in front of him. “You’re not serious, Matthew.”
“Of course I am. What’s the problem?”
“I can’t make any plans. I have a problem back home. I might have to quit school and this job and go back to the island.” When I put it all into words the possibility became tangible, capable of coming true. My chest ached with the weight of the memory of Bobby’s parents’ ultimatum and the choice I had to make between losing my house and losing my new life at school. I stumbled over the thought of which was worse.
“You’re not really considering quitting your job. I need you here. Do you need another raise, because we could…?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m going to have to get a loan to pay off a debt on my property or I’ll lose my home. But if I get the loan, I won’t be able to afford the payments unless I go back to work full-time. I don’t see a way out of this. The more I think about it, the more I realize I’m going to have to leave school…and you.” My voice dropped off the edge of the earth along with my hope for the changes I prayed would come into my life.
“I can’t let you do that,” he said, walking over to my desk.
“I don’t have a choice. It’s either go back to work full-time, maybe two jobs, or lose my house. I can’t give up my home.”
“I don’t get it. I thought that house was yours.”
“So did I, but last weekend I found out there’s still an outstanding lien on the property. Not a million dollars, but it might as well be.”
“Hey, it’ll work out,” he said. He reached over and stroked the top of my arm, and when I looked up at him I couldn’t move my eyes from his. I was frozen with fear, but I realized I wasn’t worried about losing the house as much as I was worried about losing my heart.
*****
I ran from the office to the church to make it in time before Lilly’s meeting ended at one that afternoon. I peeked in the doorway and saw her sitting in the circle of chairs. My heart was beating like a drum roll, and I thought it would never return to normal. I still wasn’t sure which was upsetting me more; the danger of losing the house on Useless Bay or Matthew’s touch that burned on my skin like a brand. Whichever it was, I was still shaking.
Lilly strolled out of the church, talking animatedly with one of the men whom I’d seen before when I came to meet her. She looked up and her gray eyes brightened and her face broke into a smile. “Diane, I’m glad to see you. I missed you last week. How’s everything? Oh, Richard, here’s my friend, Diane. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She nodded at him, and he said his goodbyes to us and walked away towards the bus stop.
I looked back at him and wondered if he was the person she’d mentioned who helped her when she needed it. I thought I should be there to help her more than I had been lately, but my own life was such a mess I doubted I would be much help to anyone. I took Lilly’s arm and led her in the direction of the street where I knew we could duck into one of our usual coffee houses and find a quiet place to talk. “Lilly, I need to talk to you.”
“Oh my, are you all right?” She reached for my hand and entwined her fingers in mine.
“I need your advice.” We crossed 50th and headed down the Ave. Her weight against my arm seemed more pronounced than usual. She seemed like the tides, coming and going with her good days and bad days. I didn’t want to upset her with my news, but she’d told me many times she felt better when she was needed. Her eyes looked at me now as if she ached to be able to help me, if only to listen. No matter what I decided about the house and school, I vowed I’d never desert her.
We stopped at the first coffee shop we came to and found an empty booth. Lilly ordered her usual coffee, and I shook my head at the waitress. “Nothing for me.”
“Tell me what’s going on,” Lilly said.
I folded my hands over hers as if we were both joined in prayer. Maybe we were. My heart wasn’t racing as fast as it had been, and I was able to catch my breath. It was good just being with her. “I met my in-laws last weekend.”
“Lieutenant Hayes’ parents, you mean?” she asked.
“Yes. I’d never met them before. They were here from the East Coast.”
“Well, that’s nice.” She looked up and did a double-take when she must have seen in my expression that it was anything but nice. “What happened when you saw them?”
“They wanted money.” My words spilled out and ran away from me. “They said Bobby borrowed money from them for the house on Whidbey Island, and he still owed them when he…died. They said they got insurance money to cover most of what he owed, but it’s still ten thousand short.”
She gripped my hands tightly. “Slow down, Diane. Take a breath. That’s a lot of money. Do they think you have that much?”
“I don’t know what they think, but I have a week to come up with the money, or they’ll get lawyers involved.” I slipped my hands out of her grasp and ran my fingers through my hair over and over.
“And if you give them the money, the house is yours?”
“Yes, I suppose so, because it was left to me in his will. That’s what the man from the Navy told me, but he also said I was responsib
le for any liens. Before this happened, I didn’t even know what a lien was.”
“And his parents want the money from you? I don’t get it. Sounds a little cold-hearted to me. When your son marries a woman she’s part of your family.”
“I thought so, too. But I got an odd feeling they hope I can’t pay them.”
I fixed my hands under my legs. The cold vinyl of the seat pressed against my palms and measured my heartbeats. “There’s nothing I can do but quit school and go back to my job at the grocery store and find a part time job, too. That’s if the bank will give me a loan.”
“This makes no sense to me.” Lilly said. “Didn’t you get some widow’s benefits from the Navy? What about insurance?”
“The insurance money went to them. I get a little bit each month from my survivor benefits, but I pay the taxes on the house and the rest goes to my school and repairs on the property.”
“His parents got the insurance? Must be some mistake. If I were you, I would hire an attorney to take a look into that. How do you know how much insurance money there was and if all this is on the up and up?”
“I don’t have money for a lawyer. I don’t want to lose our house. He wouldn’t have wanted someone else to live there. I don’t have much time.” I stopped, caught my breath, and said, “And I don’t want to leave my job. I’m too attached. What am I going to do?”
“Too attached to your job?”
“Too attached to Matthew.” I could tell her the truth. She’d never judge me like my father would. And Nancy, well, Nancy would be Nancy. But Lilly would give me the best advice of anyone I knew. I’d talked to her about Matthew again and again since the first time I met him, and she always encouraged me to follow my heart.
“I’ve tried to stop wanting him, but I can’t. I’ve tried harder than I’ve ever tried anything in my whole life,” I said.