who had lost their spouses. No wonder they felt drawn to each other.
* * * *
At dinner, my hands shook so badly I could barely eat. I spilled all the water from my glass twice, soaking myself and the table. I apologized profusely as I wiped at everything with my napkin.
“Land sakes, it’s just water, Pit!” said Aunt Peck with a laugh. She fetched a towel from the kitchen and mopped up. “After five babies and Joshua’s passing, a little spilled water isn’t going to bother me!”
“You’re very kind,” I said miserably. Stop shaking, stop shaking! I pressed both hands together in my lap, but it didn’t help. My body wouldn’t cooperate. What I needed was a drink. Did Joshua keep a supply of booze in the house? Probably not; he had been a minister, after all.
Aunt Peck returned to her seat and began to eat her stew again—a thick one full of beef, carrots, and potatoes, just the way I liked it.
“You must be wondering what happened to me,” I said as I struggled with my fork. With effort, I managed to spear a carrot and get it into my mouth without impaling myself.
“Do you feel like talking about it…?”
“I don’t mind.” I half shrugged and put my fork down. Eating wasn’t worth the effort tonight. “I used to work on Wall Street. I got a plum job right out of college, but I had a nervous breakdown from working twenty-hour days seven days a week. After six months of treatment, when I finally began to pull myself together again, a taxi ran a red light and hit me. I spent an hour pinned under its front wheels, and I almost lost my legs. I spent another six months in rehab…and I just haven’t been the same since.”
“I’m so sorry, Pit.” She touched my hand gently. “I’ll pray for you.”
I didn’t particularly want her sympathy—what’s done is done; no use crying over it or hoping for miracles that would never come—but she said it in such a heartfelt way that I couldn’t help but feel touched.
“Thank you,” I said.
* * * *
After dinner, she invited me to watch game shows with her, and to my surprise I accepted. I used to find game shows annoying and contrived. But now, tonight, it was almost…comforting…to have someone with whom I could sit in silence…someone who made no demands on my intellect or time or will to live.
Jeopardy had three really bad contestants; even the returning champion flubbed answer after answer. The host, struggling to put a positive spin on things, quipped that tonight’s questions must be harder than usual.
“That’s not the problem, Alex,” I couldn’t help but blurt out. “You picked idiots to play.”
“Can you do better?” Aunt Peck asked with a yawn. I think she had been watching me more than the television.
“It’s always easier when you’re at home.” I forced a laugh. But then I proceeded to come up with questions for every single answer on Jeopardy—and for the final answer, I came up with not just two, but all seven members of the United Arab Emirates. None of the players got it right. The least unskillful of the three—or perhaps the most cunning—had only risked a dollar and won the day, complete with a laughably small $1,200 jackpot.
“That was amazing, Pit!” Aunt Peck said, staring at me in awe. “You should go on TV. You’d win a fortune!”
“I don’t think I can stand long enough to play. And besides, I don’t like to travel. It took a lot of arm-twisting to get me out here!”
“I imagine Cal can be quite persuasive.” She smiled wistfully, eyes distant, remembering. “The Tortellis were always that way.”
“Cal is…quite something.” How much did she know about him? Somehow, I suspected she had no idea he ran an illegal casino.
“Oh, Cal’s a kitten. Best of the lot. Be glad you never met his father. There was a man who…well, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.” She paused. “But when Bruno wanted something, he got it—no matter what.”
“Was he in organized crime?”
“What makes you ask that?” she said sharply.
“Something Cal once said.”
“I don’t know for sure—he kept his business to himself, at least around me—but Joshua always said he was some sort of gangster. When the police found him dead in the trunk of a car, that clinched it for us.”
“How long ago did that happen?”
“Well, let’s see…it must have been 1963—early August, I think. He had been shot with a single bullet to the head.”
“It must have been hard on his family,” I said. To my surprise, I found I had a lump in my throat. I remembered my own father’s death from pancreatic cancer. It had been devastating to Mom and me; she had never recovered from it.
“Yes. Yes, it was. But the Lord gives and the Lord takes—maybe it was for the best. At least Cal and the other boys didn’t follow their father into a life of crime, so something good came of it.”
She yawned, covering her mouth with a plump-fingered hand. “Oh, excuse me!”
“Quite all right. I’m tired, too.” Farm people went to bed early, I reminded myself. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll turn in.”
“Me too.” She yawned again, then stood unsteadily. I reached up and steadied her arm. “I can barely keep my eyes open!”
* * * *
Once Aunt Peck disappeared up the stairs, I prowled through the house, doing a quick security check. She had left all three outside doors unlocked, so I locked them. None had deadbolts or chains, unfortunately; they all should have been replaced with steel-core security doors years ago. The basement door had a simple hook and eye; nothing I could do about it now, so I left it alone.
Next, I examined all the windows. Not one single lock had been turned, so I did it myself. Perhaps they didn’t believe in burglars out here. Or perhaps they didn’t have much worth stealing.
Returning to my bedroom, I opened my window about three inches. A cool wind began to billow the curtains. If angels or ghosts wanted in tonight, they would have to get past me.
I did not undress. Instead, I lay on top of the quilt, listening to the unfamiliar noises around me. Houses have their own rhythms: the creaks, the squeaks, the little settling sounds. When the furnace suddenly kicked on with a whump, I jumped so much, I almost fell out of bed.
A little later, raccoons or possums or some other beasts I had never heard before began to yowl and hiss in the yard. Mating? Fighting? Slaughtering the chickens? I had no way of knowing. Since Aunt Peck didn’t come running down from her bedroom in a panic, I assumed the racket fell into the “typical farm sound” category.
Then I heard a low but steady crunch-crunch-crunch: tires on gravel. The vehicle was moving very, very slowly toward the house.
Rising as fast as I could, I grabbed my phone and flashlight and went down the creaking hallway, through
