Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(39)

Sometimes I wish I could stop thinking about Charlie for just a few minutes of the day, but I can’t. I suppose it’s only fair I suffer this way, because sure as the sun rises, I’m the one who caused his death. I was so caught up in the way he was doting on me, I let him hang that opal pendant around my neck without giving thought to what the consequences might be. I might just as well have poured a cup of arsenic into his soup.

Most every night, I kneel down alongside the bed and pray for God to come and take me too. What good is a life like this? I ask him. What earthly good?





Way of a Widow

Olivia thought of Charlie every day. Sometimes he’d seem real as life, so real that she could believe he’d come walking through the door at any minute. Other days, try as she might, she’d be unable to picture his smile or the tilt of his head—such a thing usually happened when the wind howled and sheets of rain cascaded down the windowpane, or when a fog thick as oatmeal rolled in from the river. On days like that, she’d turn against herself and swear he’d been a figment of her imagination, a fantasy lover who never truly existed. Moments later, she’d open a closet door and see his jacket, or reach for a salt shaker and slide her hand across his eyeglasses; then it would slowly come back. Bits and pieces at first, the crook of his nose, a single dimple on the left side of his face, a callous on his index finger—until eventually she’d see the whole of him. When she recalled the way he held her hand, whispered in her ear or cupped her breast, a heavy wedge of sorrow would press against her heart and she would wonder whether such a brief interlude of happiness was worth the heartache that followed.

Olivia’s marriage had come and gone with the quickness of a tornado. She had everything for a moment—then there was nothing but loneliness. “What have I done?” she would sigh, picturing the brass nameplate that for thirty years sat atop her desk at the Southern Atlantic Telephone Company District Office. For over five decades she’d been Olivia Ann Westerly, and regardless of the circumstances, couldn’t settle into the wearing of any other name. Once, when the Parcel Post deliveryman asked for Missus Doyle, Olivia said, “Are you sure you don’t mean Boyle? There’s an Althea Boyle downstairs on the third floor.” The puzzled driver indicated the nameplate on her door read Doyle, but she simply sighed and said, “Ah, that Doyle. That was dear, sweet Charlie.”

Olivia could not get used to living in the Wyattsville apartment. She was plagued with the feeling of a person passing through, a visitor with no right to clear away Charlie’s clothes or discard the yellowing toothbrush. Even after she’d been there for months, she’d crawl into bed, her clothes on and shoes within reach, always ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Most nights she’d lie awake for hours, counting stars, watching as the moon rose and then faded into nothingness. Not until daylight threaded a ribbon of pink across the sky, would she drift off to sleep and then she’d dream of being back in her own apartment. She’d see the pink wallpaper and the polka dot towels in the bathroom, the geranium on the kitchen window sill, the blue silk bedspread. When she woke up, she’d wonder how she came to be in an altogether different place—a bedroom where there was a large brown ashtray on the night table and a pair of men’s slippers poking out from beneath the bed. Once she remembered, she’d cover her head and slide back under the blanket, hoping another hour or two of sleep would remedy the sorry state of affairs.

Charlie’s apartment was nothing more than a temporary stopover, Olivia told herself, a place to stay until she could move back to Richmond, where she had friends to visit and things to do. Of course, she no longer had her wonderful job, which was of considerable concern, but surely she could come up with something else. With that as a plan, her suitcase remained packed and sitting alongside the front door, week after week. She bought only enough groceries to last a day, two at the most. She passed right by the four-roll packages of toilet paper and tomatoes that would have to sit on the windowsill for a day to ripen. “Who knows where I’ll be by then,” she’d sigh and opt for an overripe avocado instead.

When Clara Bowman brought a dish garden for the kitchen windowsill, Olivia refused to accept it. “I honestly don’t think I’ll be staying,” she said.

Clara, forgetting the urn on the living room mantle, replied, “Why, Charlie Doyle would turn over in his grave, if he heard such a thing!”

Still Olivia felt she belonged somewhere else. Richmond, she reasoned, it had to be Richmond. Twice she went to visit the building where she’d lived—where, if she’d had any sense, she’d still be living. The first time she’d gone as far as the front walk and then stood there for almost an hour remembering how it felt to reach into her handbag, take out the key, unlock the door and walk in. Two days later, she came back again, this time venturing into the vestibule. It was all wrong—the walls, which for as long as she could remember had been a glossy white, were now painted flamingo pink. Gone was the serviceable gray carpet; in its place a flowered thing already marked with scuffs of dirt. Olivia sighed and flopped down on the lobby chair, which had been covered over in a hideous shade of rose.

Unfortunately, Helene Kapuski, a woman with a tongue rumored to be so loose it flapped at both ends, happened along at that very moment. “I certainly hope you’re not thinking of moving back,” Helene said, “because your apartment’s been rented to a charming young couple from Atlanta. He’s a stockbroker. Charlene, his wife, she’s a decorator.” The words stung Olivia like a swarm of angry hornets. “Charlene was the one who did the lobby,” Helene beamed. “And, your old apartment—why you wouldn’t even recognize it!” When she started telling how they’d painted the walls apple green, Olivia walked off, so despondent, she cried the entire way home.