Lethal (Lee Coburn)

One by one, she handed the other three boxes down to him.

By the time she had descended the ladder and raised the trapdoor back flush with the ceiling, he was stripping the sealing tape off one of the boxes. When he pulled back the flaps, it wasn’t tinsel that blossomed out, but a man’s shirt.

He looked up at her, the obvious question in his eyes.

She remained stubbornly silent.

Finally he said, “He’s been dead how long?”

His implication smarted because she’d asked herself many times how long she was going to keep perfectly good clothing boxed in her attic when needy people could use it.

“I gave away most of his clothes,” she said defensively. “Stan asked if he could have Eddie’s police uniforms, and I let him keep those. Some things I just couldn’t…”

She left the statement unfinished, refusing to explain to a criminal that some articles of Eddie’s clothing brought back distinctively happy memories. Giving away those items would be tantamount to letting go of the memories themselves. As it was, they were inexorably dimming without any help from her.

Time marched on, and recollections, no matter how dear, faded with its passage. She could now spend an entire day, or even several, without thinking about Eddie within the context of a specific memory.

His death had left a hole in her life that had seemed bottomless. Gradually that void had been filled with the busyness of rearing a child, with the busyness of life itself, until, over time, she had learned how to enjoy life without him.

But the enjoyment of living came with a large dose of guilt. She couldn’t escape feeling that even the smallest grain of happiness was a monumental betrayal. How dare she relish anything ever again, when Eddie was dead and buried?

So she had saved articles of his clothing that held special memories for her, and by keeping them, kept her survivor’s guilt at bay.

But she wasn’t about to discuss any of this psychology with Coburn. She was spared from having to say anything when Emily appeared.

“Dora’s over and so’s Barney, and I’m hungry. Can we have lunch?”

The kid’s question reminded Coburn that he hadn’t eaten anything in twenty-four hours except the two rich cupcakes. A search through the boxes from the attic would take time. He would eat before tackling them. He motioned the widow into the kitchen.

After clearing the cupcakes and bowl of frosting off the table, she fixed the kid a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He asked for one for himself and watched as she made it, afraid she might slip something into his. Ground-up sleeping pills, rat poison. He was short on trust.

“You gotta wash your hands this time.” The kid placed a step stool with her name painted on it in front of the kitchen sink. She climbed onto it. Even standing on tiptoe, she was barely able to reach the taps, but somehow she managed to turn them on. “You can use my Elmo soap.”

She picked up a plastic bottle with a bug-eyed red character grinning from the label. She squirted some liquid soap into her palm, then handed the bottle to him. He glanced at Honor and saw that she was watching them with apprehension. He figured that as long as she was nervous about his being close to the kid, she wasn’t going to try anything stupid.

He and the kid washed their hands, then held them beneath the faucet to rinse.

She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “Do you have an Elmo?”

He shook the water off his hands and took the towel she passed him. “No, I don’t have a… an Elmo.”

“Who do you sleep with?”

Involuntarily, his gaze darted to Honor and made a connection that was almost audible, like the clack of two magnets. “Nobody.”

“You don’t sleep with a friend?”

“Not lately.”

“How come?”

“Just don’t.”

“Where’s your bed? Does your mommy read you stories before you go to sleep?”

He dragged his attention off Honor and back to the kid. “Stories? No, my mom, she’s… gone.”

“So’s my daddy. He lives in heaven.” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe he knows your mommy in heaven!”