Deadly Southern Charm

“How awful.”

Edith took off her glasses and wiped the lenses with her napkin. Her eyes were dry.

“Tom’s birth was so difficult, it prevented me from returning to the mainland with the other dependents. The boys and I didn’t come back to Virginia until early 1945.”

“You must have been relieved to be back home.”

“My mother wasted no time finding me a new husband. Arthur, seventeen years my senior, was an executive in a local bank whose bad eyesight and flat feet had kept him out of the military. He was polite, shy, affluent, and mesmerized by what he called my ‘russet tresses.’” Edith made air quotes.

Gail shifted in her seat.

“Our brief New York honeymoon was long on sightseeing and short on connubial activities—Arthur spent most of his time brushing my hair and muttering about its cinnamon color. The boys and I settled into the old, dreary house Arthur inherited from his parents. He was pleased when I was invited to join a garden club; he thought I would make social connections befitting the wife of a bank executive. I just wanted to hone my knowledge of herbs and plants. Arthur’s feeble efforts at fatherhood evaporated when Frankie and Tommy showed no interest in his stamp collection.”

Edith refilled Gail’s cup and fiddled with the sugar bowl. Gail eyed her mother-in-law over the rim of her cup until she resumed her narrative.

“We’d just marked our first anniversary when Jake’s mother died and left money to Frank and Tom. Without telling Arthur, I opened accounts for each of the boys in a savings bank that offered higher interest rates than Arthur’s bank. When he found out, he was furious that I’d ‘acted behind his back,’ then shouted that I was too stupid to make financial decisions. Arthur succumbed to a fatal heart attack on the sixth tee at the country club that very spring. My fox gloves were spectacular that year.” Edith smiled at the memory.

Edith paused staring into her teacup. “Arthur was leveraged to the hilt, even mortgaging the house to cover his bad investments, so I was left with nothing but a thin gold wedding band. We moved back with my parents, and I took a job in a local college library.”

Edith rose from her chair, left the room, and returned carrying a large framed photograph of a pleasant looking young man with curly hair and wire-rimmed glasses. She placed in on the table, gently stroked the face, and smiled.

Gail recognized the picture. “Your husband, Henry, as a young man.”

Edith smiled and nodded. “One snowy morning, a man in his thirties with a hitch in his gait, requested an obscure engineering reference book. It took a while to find because it had been misfiled on a dusty shelf in the basement. He thanked me and spent hours poring over the book and making copious notes. Two days later, he came back, asking for another technical book, which I found easily. When he came back a third day, I asked what he was up to. He told me that his name was Henry Beadle and that he had earned an engineering degree from the college in the late thirties. Like most men in his generation, he’d gone to war soon after, leaving part of his foot on a hillside in Italy. He worked at the shipyard and had an idea for a new kind of switch. He hoped to patent his invention and wanted to make sure it worked before he hired an attorney.”

Edith rested her chin on a hand, lost in happy recollection.

“One day, while searching for something else, I found a book that I thought might apply to Henry’s switch theory, and set it aside for his next visit. ‘This is just what I was looking for, but didn’t know it,’ he said when I showed him the book. He took it to a table and spent the rest of the day taking notes. I stood behind his chair just before the closing chime so he could work until the last minute. When the end of day sounded I tapped him on the shoulder. Flustered, Henry thanked me, gathered his papers and left. He was back when the doors opened the next morning, and I had the book waiting for him on the counter. He apologized for treating me brusquely and keeping me from getting home to my husband.”

Edith caressed the thick gold band on her left hand.

“I wore Arthur’s ring to discourage suitors and remind myself that I was done with men, but I explained to Henry that I was widowed and my sons had been at a Scout meeting.

“Two days later, he asked if the boys and I would like to go to the circus with him. ‘It’s the least I can do to thank you for your help,’ he said. Henry and the boys took to each other right away. I hadn’t realized how much they needed a man in their lives and began to wonder if I did, too. That trip to the circus led to Saturday movie matinees, outings to museums, and, as the weather warmed, baseball games and the ocean. Henry became a regular at Mother’s Sunday dinner table. I enjoyed being with Henry and liked how he slipped his arm around my shoulders sometimes,” Edith said, touching her shoulder as if searching for Henry’s familiar hand.

“Tom settled things one summer evening when a trip to the beach was cut short so Henry could get home to prepare for work the next day. ‘Momma, why don’t you just marry Henry so he can live with us?’

“I blushed with embarrassment. Henry said ‘Why not indeed. Momma? Will you marry me?’ and slipped to one knee. I could only nod. He finally kissed me—it was well worth waiting for.”

Gail sighed. “How romantic.”

Edith beamed at the recollection. “We were blissfully happy. Henry patented his switch and several other arcane but lucrative devices. Not for lack of trying, we never had a child together. As you know, Henry was a wonderful father to the boys. He felt fortunate to have survived the war and considered it an honor to raise Jake’s sons in his place. I never told anyone else the truth about my first husband.”

“Why are you telling me all this now?” Gail asked.

“It’s time someone knew the whole story. As you recall when he turned fifty, Henry declared that he’d made enough money for one lifetime and retired. We traveled a lot and visited many parts of the world, but never Hawaii. Then, after nearly forty years of wedded bliss, cancer darkened our door.”

“That was a hard time for all of us,” Gail wiped away a tear. “I’ll be right back, my heart pills make me need to pee all the time.” She headed for the powder room.

Edith realized that it was a day very like today when she gathered ingredients for a special tea for Henry. He had been too weak to hold the cup but smiled as she held it to his lips. When he’d finished, she crawled into bed and held him in her arms until he fell into his final slumber.

Edith emptied the teapot into her cup, rose, turned up the kettle, and rummaged in the back of the cupboard for a different container of herbs. She measured those into the pot and filled it with hot water.

“You’ve done a good job keeping the house updated. It will show well. You could be out by summer,” Gail said as she sat down. “Mother, don’t make this difficult for everyone. We don’t want to go to court to invoke your power of attorney, but it is time for you to move to a place where you’ll be well cared for. It’s not safe for you to live alone anymore.”

Edith ignored the comments and refilled Gail’s cup.

“There is so much of Henry here that I never feel truly alone. The night before his memorial service, I worked the contents of his urn into the soil around my prize camellia. Maybe that’s why it weathered several hurricanes and recent bitter Virginia winters. Bone meal was interred in the columbarium the next day. This is my home, Gail. I will die here and join Henry under the camellia.” Edith did not add that she believed she would join Henry in the not too distant future.

“But you can’t do that,” Gail sputtered.

“I can and I shall. I named Phoebe as my executor. She will inherit the house and carry out my wishes. Drink up, dear.”

At a loss for words, Gail drained her cup then gasped. She clutched her chest as her eyes rolled back in her head.

Edith pulled her phone from a pocket, tapped 9-1-1 into the keypad, but did not hit send.

Her eyes drifted to the picture of her young sons as the rest of the story of “the day that will live in infamy”

rose from the depths of memory.

“Gail, there’s more to Jake’s story.”

Gail pressed a hand to her damp forehead. “Really?”

“I drove to the gate guarded by a very nervous Marine. He was distracted by the bombers flying overhead, and it took him a minute to process scene before him. A convertible driven by a pregnant woman in a bathrobe, a little boy bleeding from a deep cut on his cheek in the back seat, and a man—an officer by his uniform—slumped against the passenger door with half of his head missing.”

“What the—?” Gail said.

“I begged the guard to do something!” Edith said. “But when he opened the door, Jake’s body fell to the ground. I could tell by his expression that he knew that head wound had not been caused by a bullet from the sky.”

“You shot him.” Gail’s words slurred.

Edith smiled. “I told him to never marry a redhead as I sped off. In the rearview mirror, I saw the enemy plane bear down on him.”

Gail slumped forward, her breathing ragged.

“You know stress didn’t cause my second husband’s heart attack.” Edith waited several more minutes and then tapped the send button on her phone. “Please send an ambulance. I think my daughter-in-law is having a heart attack.”

After reciting her address, Edith finished her tea and went to the door to wait for the first responders.

ART ATTACK, by Heather Weidner

“Move the amethyst goblet more to the left,” gallery owner and curator, Harvey Owens, demanded, pointing to the right.

Jillian Holmes, Harvey’s personal assistant, was balanced on a ladder in front of the glass cabinet. “Better?” She slid the goblet about four inches to the right and farther away from three green urns.

“I liked it better where she had it before,” said Ilsa Prescott, owner of the featured glass and stoneware collection. As she stepped nearer to the display and shook her head, her silver bob shimmered under the gallery lights.

“Here, let me do it.” Harvey hardly waited for Jillian to step down from the ladder before he moved the goblet back to where it was originally. “Hand me the green urns,” he said, snapping his fingers. “

“Be careful with those, Harvey!” Ilsa shouted. “Those pieces are the cream of my collection. My late husband and I bought them on our travels and I expect them back in one piece after the exhibit ends.”

“Thank you for reminding us again that you loaned them,” Harvey said peevishly.