Chapter Eleven
They hit the road in silence, with Judy following GPS directions home, and her aunt turned away, to the window. They wound through the dark outskirts of Kennett Square, passing check-cashing agencies, a tacqueria, and a Mexican restaurant until they reached the town proper, with its charming brick houses, mullioned windows, and gas streetlights. A quiet sniffle came from the passenger seat, and Judy patted her aunt’s arm.
“I love you, Aunt Barb. I’m sorry about Iris.”
“Thanks,” her aunt said, without turning her head from the window.
“She sounds like she really was an amazing person, giving everything away.”
“I know, I had no idea. I always wondered what she did with the money she earned, because I know she didn’t have anybody to send money home to.” Aunt Barb sniffled again. “I guess she kept what she needed to live on and gave the rest to the mission. What a wonderful person.”
“I’ll say.”
“Thanks for indulging me, too. I don’t know why I’m running us ragged tonight. I guess it was so I didn’t have to think about the fact that she was…” Aunt Barb’s voice trailed off, and in the sudden silence, the GPS said:
“Prepare to make a left turn in one hundred feet.”
Judy switched into the left lane, ready to make the turn, and it occurred to her that life should come with a GPS, to tell you to prepare for the twists and turns on the way, big ones or little ones, like that a beloved aunt would have cancer, or your boyfriend would forget to drop the dog off to get flea-dipped, or that seventy-five asbestos cases would come from New York to suck the life from your practice. The trip through the growing room at the mushroom farm made the damages cases look like a first-world problem, but problems were problems.
“It doesn’t make sense, but death never makes sense.” Aunt Barb rummaged in her parka pocket and produced her balled-up Kleenex. “In a way, it was just like Steve. Even though I knew he was going to die, I still couldn’t believe it when it happened. Just like her, he was so vital and healthy, he did everything right.”
“I remember.” Judy had loved her uncle, an accountant. A reserved and careful man, he’d taught her chess, not only the game itself but the exotic names of the various openings, like the Sicilian Defense and the Queen’s Gambit, as well as chess notation, which was like some mysterious language that only they spoke, Ne4 Nge7. Judy always got special attention from her uncle and aunt, because she was their only niece and they’d never had children of their own.
“I’m feeling him tonight, too. Maybe that’s why I went crazy, running hither and yon. It’s funny, when you get older, one death kicks up all the other deaths.”
“I bet that’s right.” Judy noted that her aunt hadn’t mentioned the possibility of her own death, though it had to be uppermost in her mind.
Aunt Barb blew her nose. “I guess we can’t really know what Iris was doing today. It seems strange that she didn’t tell me, though. She never lied to me before.”
“She didn’t lie to you exactly, did she? You just assumed she was going to work, but she didn’t go to work.”
“That’s true, but still.”
“Like the clothes and shoes you gave her. You didn’t know she was giving them to the mission, you just assumed she kept them.”
“Yes, that’s true, too.” Aunt Barb nodded. “So what do you think she was doing then, on Brandywine Way?”
“We don’t know enough about her life, to say. Maybe somebody told her they had some stuff for the mission so she went to pick it up before work, that’s possible.” Judy heard herself say it. “The detective will let us know, but I’m thinking that the police probably took her cell phone. That’s how they found the wallet and came to your house.”
“Oh, right.”
“And like the cop said, fingernails break all the time, and because it was a nice day, she decided to drive with the window open. All of that is completely possible.”
“I suppose so, but I want to see what the police come up with, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Judy didn’t mention the autopsy, but she didn’t need to.
“You know the most ironic thing is that Iris was so worried about me with my cancer. She wanted me to go to church with her tomorrow morning, to say a prayer before the mastectomy.”
“That’s very sweet,” Judy said, meaning it. The GPS was about to tell her to turn left, but she turned it off.
“I’m going to go myself and say a prayer for her, and I suppose I should talk to the priest and arrange for her burial.”
“You’re going to the Spanish church?”
“Yes.”
Judy turned left. “I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know, but I want to.”
“Thanks.” Her aunt looked over with a smile, her wan face barely illuminated. “And then there’s only one more thing I want to do before Monday morning, for Iris.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to plant a rosebush for her. I have a cutting that came in the mail from the nursery, and we were going to put it in together on Sunday.”
“I’ll help you do that, too,” Judy said, touched. Her aunt was always thoughtful, her actions straight from the heart. Judy would never forget that when it was time to outfit her dorm room at college, she and her mother had gone shopping for all of the practical items: a small refrigerator, a microwave, a mesh hamper, and a pair of flip-flops to prevent athlete’s foot in the showers. But Aunt Barb had taken Judy antiquing, and together they’d found a beautiful old quilt, hand-stitched in a flower-garden pattern, that made the dorm room homey. That very quilt was still at the foot of her bed, to this day.
“Thanks, honey.”
“It would be my pleasure, Aunt Barb.” Judy turned onto her aunt’s street, cruised past the houses, and turned into the driveway and cut the ignition. The dashboard clock read 10:48, so she knew her mother would be waiting up, probably tapping her foot.
“God, I’m tired.”
“Why don’t you go up to bed, and I’ll deal with my mother? It’ll take a law degree to survive the cross-examination we’re about to get.”
Aunt Barb chuckled and picked up her purse. “I’ll be right in. I have to get the cutting from the garage and bring it in the house. It would probably be fine, but it’s supposed to be cold tonight and I don’t want to lose it.”
“I’ll get it. Tell me where it is.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Believe me, I’m getting the easier job. You deal with my mother, I’ll deal with the plant.” Judy yanked the key from the ignition, and grabbed her purse. “Meanwhile, I don’t even know what a cutting looks like. Is it big?”
“No, not at all. It’s just a cane. It should still be in the box from the nursery, I didn’t take it out.”
“What’s a cane?”
“A cane is the term for the stem on a rosebush.”
“Of course it is.”
Her aunt snorted, opening the car door. “Like a lawyer has the right to complain about obscure terminology.”
“Okay, a fair point.” Judy got out of the car, chirped it closed, and cleared her head with a lungful of fresh, cool air. She glanced at the house and saw through the window that the living room was empty. “She must be upstairs already. You want me to come in and be your lawyer?”
“Ha! I can handle my own sister.” Her aunt took out her keys, unlocked the door, and handed the set to Judy. “Take this, you need them to unlock the garage. It’s the little key with the red surround. Can you lock it when you’re finished?”
“Sure. You lock the garage, in this neighborhood?”
“It was Iris’s idea, after I got the electric mower. She heard people were stealing equipment, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.”
“Right, so what am I looking for? A cardboard box near some gardening equipment?”
“Exactly, I think I put it on the far wall, next to the tools. You’ll see that I have the blue carryall and Iris has the purple. I think it’s in between them. I wanted it as far from the door as possible, to avoid the draft. The light switch will be on your right side when you go in.”
“Got it. Good luck with Mom.”
“Pssh. Child’s play.”
“Ha!” Judy let her aunt inside the house, then turned and continued down the driveway, the gravel crunching under her clogs. Weariness washed over her, and she slid her phone from her purse and checked the screen to see if Frank had called, but he hadn’t, which was par for the course. She was always the one doing the calling, making sure he was on track to come home, to meet her, or to run errands. If they got married and had a baby, it would be redundant.
A motion-detector light went on when she reached the garage, and she found the red key, unlocked the handle, and pulled the old metal door upward, rattling in its tracks. Her aunt’s yellow Mini Cooper sat parked in the darkness, and Judy went to the right doorjamb, fumbled for the switch, and turned it on. A bright fluorescent panel in the ceiling came to life, but she didn’t see a cardboard box. She walked beside the car to the far wall, where there was a red gardening cart with two wheels, with a rake, shovel, and a spade with a long handle. Suddenly, the fluorescent light flickered and phased off, plunging her in darkness.
“Perfect,” Judy said to herself, reaching for her phone, flicking on the flashlight function, and aiming it at the far wall, walking over to look for the box. A cone of intense brightness traveled over a green heavy-duty hose, a bag of Miracle-Gro potting soil, yellow jugs of Preen and white of Roundup, a stinky spray bottle of rabbit and deer repellent, and a red jug of something called Sevin, with a label that showed creepy pictures of ticks, worms, and God knows what.
“Gross.” Judy pointed the flashlight along the floor to the right and spotted a large purple plastic chest next to the same type of chest in blue, but still didn’t see the damn box. She went over to the wall and started rummaging around, juggling the flashlight to search through a dirty assortment of trowels, hand spades, and a weird tool that looked like it could dislodge an eyeball. But still no box. The flashlight’s beam fell on the plastic chests, which were large, and she considered that maybe the cardboard box was inside one of them. She couldn’t remember whether her aunt’s chest was the purple one or the blue, but no matter. She went over to the blue one, opened the lid, and aimed the flashlight inside, but all it contained was a pair of messy knee pads, a red Phillies cap, a kneeling pad, and a bunch of mismatched gardening gloves in wacky patterns like kittens, puppies, and daisies. The chest was such a happy clutter that it had to belong to her aunt.
She closed the lid, and just to be thorough, went over and opened the lid to what had to be Iris’s chest. She aimed the flashlight inside, but no cardboard box was there either, only a pair of oversized white cotton gloves, sitting neatly folded atop a clean trowel and spade, and underneath that was a book entitled Roses for the Beginner, with a greeting card sticking out from the cover, on top of some old newspapers. She reached for the book, opened the cover, and inside was a birthday card. Judy opened it to find her aunt’s handwriting:
Iris, You are already a better gardener than this guy! Happy Birthday, from B!
Touched, Judy replaced the card, closed the book, and was about to put it back when she noticed a large white envelope sticking out from underneath the old newspapers. She picked up the envelope, which was heavy and bulky but unsealed. She lifted up the flap, looked inside, and couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It must’ve been the flashlight, playing tricks on her eyes.
She knelt on the garage floor, set her flashlight on the edge of the chest so that it cast light on the envelope, and slid out its contents.
In her hand was a thick stack of cash, bound with a rubber band.