There Was an Old Woman

Chapter Nine


Mina didn’t like where the girl’s questions were going, not one bit. So for a change she was happy to hear Brian’s voice. He’d told her he was coming by Saturday. That was today. But, as usual, he hadn’t bothered to say when exactly he was going to show up. He never stayed for tea unless he was trying to pitch one of his can’t-miss schemes.

Once he’d tried to get her to invest in vitamins. Another deal had involved leasing oil rights in Namibia. Namibia, for goodness’ sake! When she’d questioned him about it, he didn’t seem to know where the country was, aside from “somewhere in Africa.” Now he was on and on about some real estate scheme. She usually tossed Brian some sort of bone to get him out of her hair.

As the girl went to get the door, Mina scuttled into the living room. Where had he left those papers he’d wanted her to look at? Sure enough, there they were, under today’s newspaper on the lamp table.

She heard the front door open. A pause. Then, “Well, hello there.” Brian’s deep sonorous voice. “And who are you?”

“Just a neighbor. My mother lives next door.”

Brian was always at her about how forgetful she was becoming, so the last thing she wanted was for him to come through and find the papers she’d promised to read sitting exactly where he’d left them. Mina tried to stuff the papers into the drawer of the mahogany coffee table, but they wouldn’t fit.

“Really?” Brian said. A long pause. “Your mother lives in that house?”

Longer pause before the girl said, “Your aunt is in the living room, waiting for you.”

Mina was glad that the poor girl didn’t think she needed to apologize for the state of her mother’s house. Certainly not to Brian. She shoved the papers under a sofa cushion, then she sat on it and pulled the crocheted afghan over her. Ivory jumped into her lap and started to purr.

Seconds later, Brian stomped in from the kitchen. “Hello, Aunt Mina.”

As he started toward her, Ivory gave a yowl and disappeared under the couch.

Brian had always been on the scrawny side, but in his forties he’d turned portly and thickened in the jowls. Nearly sixty now, he still had that shock of wavy hair, only instead of auburn it was nearly black. When men colored their hair, they always made it too dark. Like shoe polish.

At least he was predictable, you could say that for him. Always favored double-breasted jackets with brass buttons and cordovan leather loafers, like what he had on now. But fine feathers didn’t make fine birds.

“Did you at least look at the agreement?” he said, not bothering with Hello or How are you today?

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Mina said, giving him a bland look and adjusting the afghan around her.

He looked back at her with that lethal combination of exasperation and bemused contempt. “It’s Saturday. I don’t work weekends, remember? And I told you I was coming over.” He shot his cuffs before folding his arms and narrowing his eyes at her. “You do remember, I told you I was coming back?”

Of course she remembered. But she’d long ago learned that with Brian, evasion worked out better than engagement. “I must have forgotten to write it on my calendar.”

Mina heard water running in the kitchen and the tink of bone china. The girl was washing up. She seemed awfully sweet, but Mina hoped she’d be careful. That gold-rimmed service that once belonged to her mother had only a few cracks and a single chip.

“So did you look at the papers I left?” Brian asked.

“Button your shirt, Brian,” Mina said. “And don’t you think you should be wearing socks?”

“Do you even still have them?” Brian asked.

“I’m sure they’re here.” Mina waved a vague hand, a gesture her mother had perfected to avoid answering inconvenient questions. “Somewhere.”

The water stopped running, and the old pipes thunked. A moment later the girl peered into the room from behind Brian. She was holding a dish towel. “I’d better be going,” she said. She snapped the towel and folded it smartly.

Mina pushed the afghan off her lap and started to get up.

“Don’t bother. I can let myself out,” the girl said.

“It’s no bother,” Mina said, following the girl out and pointedly ignoring Brian.

At the door, the girl turned to face her. “Would you mind if I came back another time? You see, I was starting to tell you about my work for the Historical Society. We’re mounting a new exhibit, and I’d love to talk to you some more about what it was like, working in the Empire State Building back then. That’s when the plane hit the building. We have surprisingly few first-person accounts.”

Mina forced a smile and said, “Of course. Come back any time. Though I hope you won’t be disappointed. My memory is not as reliable as it once was.”

“Who knows, maybe talking will bring back what it was like to work in that building.”

As if that were something Mina could forget. As the girl trotted down the steps, Mina could almost feel the Empire State souvenir that she’d slipped into her pocket growing hot.