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A Dove for Eddy

  Published by Sherry Elliott

  Copyright 2010 Sherry Elliott

  Chapter 1

  The screech of the faulty doorbell sounded throughout the house. Eddy trembled, her knees wobbling beneath her. “It’s not Friday.” Joe always delivered her groceries on Friday, and he always used the backdoor. Eddy peered over her crooked shoulder at the entryway. The door seemed so far away. “Who else could it be?”

  “Hey la-la-ady, Are you in th- there?” Some unknown, prepubescent voice stammered from beyond the door.

  She smoothed her soiled duster and set her shuffle steps cautiously. “Better not be those pesky kids again,” she mumbled, as she ran her hands over her fuzzy, gray hair. “Who is it?” she barked from behind the triple latched barricade. There was no answer. She licked the tip of her nicotine-stained thumb and cleaned the peephole. Balancing on her tiptoes, she looked out.

  She saw the back of a boy running across the street. “Darn kids,” she yelled. “Think its funny bothering old people?” Then she noticed a piece of paper on the floor below the mail slot. “Oh, so now they are sending me hate mail. Why can’t they leave an old lady in peace?” She walked around the paper, eyeing it cautiously, and then she ground her foot down on it as if she were putting out a cigarette. Crossing her arms over her chest she said defiantly, “I’m not reading it.” The yellow tabby cat looked up at her and meowed. She placed her left hand on her hip and then leaned over to address the cat, “Worthless, half-blind old cat!” The cat rubbed up against her leg. “I should’ve got a guard dog instead of a cat. He would have scared off them no-goods.” She pointed her finger in accusation, “Why you’d let anybody in here, wouldn’t you?” The cat purred loudly as she rubbed up against Eddy’s leg.

  “Fifty-two years,” she sighed. “Why did he have to leave anyway?” Eddy and the cat had the place to themselves since her husband, Fred, had passed away ten years earlier. “If he had listened to me instead of that crazy doctor he’d still be alive, but no. Did he ever take my advice about anything?” She stomped her foot, "No and now I have to manage this place all by myself!” The words like tinder ignited her smoldering anger and sense of hopelessness. “If you were here right now Fred, I wouldn’t talk to you, until you apologized for causing me all this grief.”

  Abandoned houses with plywood windows stood like mute witnesses of the once thriving community. The remaining occupied homes were reinforced with barred windows and gated fences, and her house was no exception. Time had picked at the mortar and pulled on the gutters of their 1950’s bungalow. Crumbling plaster bled onto the hardwood floors in the living room. A leaky faucet wept in the bathroom, and the metal bars on the front window were one bolt short of being secure. Still, the house held good memories. Sometimes the memories seemed so real to her that it was as if Fred was just in the other room and would walk in and join her at any minute. She knew his voice as well as her own, and sometimes she could still hear him. “Eddy,” he would say. “The Lord gave us each other, and that’s good enough, but I sure wish he would have seen fit to bless us with children.”

  How she wished she could have given him children, but the doctors had said that was impossible, and they had been right. Why could those loose, ungodly women spit out babies like watermelon seeds? But,I prayed so hard for so long for children, and He never answered. I don’t know if He even cares about common people. She shook her head in annoyance. “Snap out of it, old girl,” she said. Once again, she had been lured by his sweet memory and walked down that familiar road of regret.

  She swiped her eyes and scratched her head “Now what was I fixing to do? Oh, that darn piece of paper. I got to have me a smoke first.” She retrieved an unfiltered cigarette and slid it under her nose, inhaling the smell of the cigarette, assuring its quality before lighting up. She flipped the lid of the Zippo lighter; it still produced a tall blue flame, even though the engraving had long since worn smooth.

  “These young kids think they’re smoking cigarettes, but they’re smoking a bunch of chemicals. Got to roll your own if you want to have a decent smoke.” Eddy took a long drag and tilted her head up to blow the smoke toward the ceiling, like the sophisticated ladies used to do.“ Smooth as grandma’s silk hankie.”

  She cranked the handle of the hand-operated cigarette roller. Except for a few squeaks it was still in good working order. Before they had sold the business, Fred had managed to retrieve the roller from the convenience store they had owned in downtown St. Louis. Known as Fast Freddy’s to the locals, they sold everything from nuts and bolts to diapers. They even had an impressive imported tobacco selection, for those with more discriminating taste. “We were nice to everybody, even those snooty country club types.” Eddy imitated Doctor Viviane’s wife’s thick New York accent. “James would just lawve some of those cigeahs from Cubeah, and that French cawfee.” She never said hello or goodbye, just stated her business and hung up, which really irked Eddy. The good doctor’s wife expected Fred to personally deliver her order, and of course, Fred always bent over backwards to please all of the customers. So, no matter how busy his day was, he found time to deliver Mrs. Viviane’s order. “I wonder where she’s getting her cigeahs from now. Ha!”

  Eddy paced back and forth as she talked to herself. “We made a bundle on imports, until that ten-acre bargain basement moved to town and under-priced us on every item in the store.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Our imports couldn’t even keep the doors open.” Shaking her head, she snarled, “They sold those lousy cigarettes.” Then she spit out the loose tobacco fragments and wiped them from her lips with the back of her hand. “You won’t catch me darkening the door of that place, no sir-eh-bob.”

  Looking at the folded letter on the floor, she talked to herself. “I guess there won’t be any harm in looking at it. Never know. It could be a letter from the Prize Patrol telling me I won the sweepstakes. But if they do come over, I’d need to put on a nice dress, since I’d be on television. I’d wear the red one Fred got me on my fortieth birthday. I bet I could still wear it.” She looked down at her figure and placed her hands on her hips. “But if I did win a bunch of money, those hooligans would be over here trying to rob me blind. I can’t have any of that.” She shook her head back and forth in disgust.

  Then a wry grin spread across her wrinkled face. “Maybe, I could take that money and travel the world, making people wait on me for a change. I wouldn’t have to be nice to anybody. I’d just tell them what I thought, and if they didn’t like it, they could take a flying leap, see if I care.” She savored images of waiters bringing her fruity drinks with little umbrellas.

  “But, I wish Fred could be here with me when the Prize Patrol came to the door. He’d be so proud.” She took a moment to conjure up a memory of Fred smiling at her approvingly, but the recollection slipped away far too quickly. She pointed her finger at the letter, “They’d better pay me all the money up front. I’m not settling for that fifty thousand a year for twenty years stuff, no way. They like to take advantage of old people who don’t have twenty years to live. I'd take all that money, and I might even get me a boyfriend.” She covered her mouth and snickered. “Now, that would sure enough make Fred come back from the grave.”

  She yanked her handkerchief out of her pocket, “Maybe I’d better just take a look at the letter.” She braced her back with her freehand then bent over and picked up the paper, being very careful to touch it with the handkerchief and not her hands. “Blast it all. I think I touched it.” She ran over to the germicide on top of the coffee table and generously applied it to her hands. “Now that’s better.” She felt in her pockets. “Where did I put my glasses?” Searching her pockets, she walked the familiar path to her bedroom. The wooden floors groaned
and squeaked with every step.

  Fred had papered the bedroom walls with palm tree wallpaper back in the 1960’s, because it reminded her of their trip to Cocoa Beach. The room had always been a retreat for her, like crossing the state line into Florida, and it still had that effect, even though the paper had begun to fade and peel away from the walls. “Fred,” she said, “this paper needs mending.” She waited for a moment as if she expected him to answer, but there was only the stillness of the house.

  Fred had let her decorate any way she wanted. “A happy wife makes a happy husband,” he had said so many times.

  She smiled and waved her hand in the air. “Just in case you’re looking, Fred, you might want to turn your head, because this letter may make me cuss. People in heaven aren’t supposed to hear those kinds of things, so excuse me.” She found her bifocals and slid them over the bridge and into the indentions on the narrow part of her nose. Then she put on her rubber gloves and carefully unfolded the paper, laying it on the paper towels that she had spread out on the coffee table. “This paper better not be coated with Anthrax.” She stepped back and shook her finger in the air. “If it is, I’ll come back from the grave and haunt them no goods.”

  Dear Mrs. McGrath,

  “Well, at least they spelled my name right. I hope it’s not one of those chain letters that say you’ll bring sickness on yourself if you don’t send seven letters to people you know. I don’t know seven people...”Her voice trailed off. “That would sure enough make me sick, worrying about something like that.”

  My name is Karen, and I live across the street. My family and I moved here two years ago from Chicago. The man that mows your lawn and delivers your groceries is the only person that I have seen come to your house.

  “Well, she’s nosey,” Eddy said as she pulled off the rubber gloves and sanitized her hands. Taking off her glasses, she rubbed the narrow part of her nose. “I’m not reading any more of this letter. I got better things to do.” Again, she applied hand sanitizer, making sure she covered the tops as well as the palms of her hands, as she walked into the kitchen. Filling the teapot, she set it on to boil. She put in a smidge of sugar in the imported Irish tea, and lifted the cup up to her nose, inhaling the subtleties of the fine leaf tea. She sipped the malty flavor then licked her lips, “Rich and smooth, just a bit of heaven on earth.” Closing her eyes, she recalled the trip to the emerald isles that she and Fred had taken many years ago.

  “The most beautiful green country side that I have ever seen,” she sighed. They had gone during the St. Patrick’s Day festival and had enjoyed good food, good times, and good tea, not to mention a little ale. “Those were the days, weren’t they, Fred?”

  But even the glorious Irish tea could not make her forget the unread letter which nagged on her like a sore tooth. She carried her tea into the living room and stood above the letter trying to make out the words without the benefit of her glasses. Narrowing her eyes, she leaned over the letter. “Blast it,” she said.

  “Why’d they have to write so small?” She retrieved her glasses, applied the rubber gloves, picked up the letter and continued reading.

  Could you help us? My brother found a dove in our yard, but I think it has a broken wing. Could you take care of it and help it fly again? I hope you can help, please say yes. My brother put it in a cage and set it on your porch.

  “What do they think I am? A veterinarian?” Eddy sputtered. “I’m not taking care of a crippled bird.”

  `My mom said I couldn’t keep it, because I have a low immune system from the chemotherapy.

  Karen

  Eddy stood frozen in place. She let the word chemotherapy sink in. “Cancer, chemotherapy is given to people with cancer. That can’t be. If there were a kid across the street with cancer, I’d know. Who do they think they’re fooling?” Planting both hands on her hips, she squared her feet firmly on the floor. “They probably plan to lure me out and hit me over the head, then take all my money.”

  She walked over to the living room window and held back the corner of the drapes. Peering across the street, she saw that the neighbor’s living room curtains were pulled back. She noticed the shape of someone sitting in the window, but she couldn’t quite make out the person’s appearance. “Where did Fred put those binoculars?” She foraged through the hallway closet, scooting aside stadium cushions, golf clubs, and other relics from younger, happier days. “Here they are.” She pulled off her glasses, blew the dust off the binoculars, and then adjusted the lens until the scene across the street came clearly into focus.

  A girl probably no older than twelve sat in a wheelchair looking directly back at her. Her head was as smooth as glass. Eddy rubbed her eyes then looked again. “She doesn’t have any hair,” Eddy whispered. Karen smiled back at her. Eddy’s hand rose. Then she self-consciously brought it down to her side. “She looks as pale as a ghost . . . Maybe she is a ghost.” Eddy scanned the lawn and then her porch. There it was: a dove in a cage.