Mrs. Arlington’s impending doom was a cloud I didn’t need right now. I considered the small doorway at the opposite side of the study. Beyond was a twelve-by-twelve-foot space delegated to the HO scale train set my uncle had started for my sister and me after our dad died.
Three sides of the room held a horseshoe-shaped world of mountains, villages, pastures, and cityscapes we’d created over the years. By silent agreement, we all worked independently on our creations, and consequently there were often surprises awaiting in this safe haven. My sister, Summer, had preferred coiffed landscapes with neat rows of trees. My creations were more random spurts of imagination that kept a neighborhood or town from becoming too Stepford-like.
I rose, stretched, and stepped inside the room. Over the past few years our visits had tapered, and now the rails looked dusty, the mountains seemed smaller, the cities felt abandoned.
“That’s odd,” I said aloud, a habit I had acquired since living alone.
Off to one small corner lay something I had never seen before: a tiny graveyard. The backdrop, a large lake surrounded by rock formations and trees, was also new. A scene in progress.
Tiny tombstones with miniscule writing were lined in neat rows—someone had gone the extra mile to make it look authentic. One stone had a colorful spread of miniature flowers dotting the grass. It didn’t take much imagination to realize that Uncle Richard had built a burial site he could visit.
Losing my dad and then, ten years later, my sister had taken its toll on all of us, especially on Richard. I’d had my schoolwork and later my job for distraction. My mom became Granny Nanny to my sister’s babies in Florida.
Richard’s step finally grew lighter after I graduated from college and began working at our local paper. Now his life was filled with his teaching job at the state university in next-door Danbury, his CERT work for the town, and his endless efforts to feed me and Horace. I hoped that his addition to the train room meant that he was finally ready to bury the dead.
I spent the next half hour dusting trains and tracks with the special brushes we kept for that purpose. I never allowed our sad story to interfere with the happy memories this room held—this was my escape place. With a satisfied appraisal, I finally turned out the lights and went to bed.
When I awoke the next morning, the day felt like a promise, with the sun warming my cheeks and glitter covering the lake outside my window. Framed in the view was a large outcropping of rocks simply known as The Cliffs. While they are no rival to the Hudson Palisades, in terms of scale, their command of the relatively small lake is undeniable.
As teens we used to wind down the trails of nearby Richardson Park, hang out on the warm stone, and dare each other to jump. I have no idea how we didn’t kill ourselves when we hit the bottom of the shallow lake or one of the odds and ends that high schoolers were rumored to have thrown in there, ranging from school desks to cookware, stop signs to caskets—even an old car. Yet here I am, living testimony that even stupidity can sometimes outwit disaster.
I snatched my phone up on my way to the bathroom, noting from my alerts that thousands in town were without power. Residents on cul-de-sacs and dead-end lanes would be trapped for days before wire-tangled branches and debris could be cleared. Often soggy terrain caused trees to continue to uproot long after a storm had passed. I wondered if Brittany and her boyfriend had the sense to check on Mrs. Arlington.
I threw on last night’s yoga pants and sweatshirt and headed downstairs, where I carried Mrs. Arlington’s envelope, my computer, and a hot cup of chamomile to the living room and picked up where I had left off last night.
Mrs. Arlington had started out as a secretary before moving into the then-nascent field of computer programming, which had led to her running an entire department. Her boss, Roth Arlington, had become her mentor, and in Leocadia, he’d found an earnest learner.
Oddly, there was nothing in Lottie’s notes to suggest she and Roth had married. In my experience, people always wanted to include how long they’d been married in their obituaries. But maybe Lottie had just lived with Roth all this time. Despite her dismissal yesterday, if I wanted this obituary to be accurate, I would need to talk to her again.
“Good morning,” said my uncle as he moseyed into the room. “Making any progress?”
“More questions than answers,” I said.
“There always are,” he said cheerily. After disappearing into the kitchen, he called out, “Avocado toast will be ready in twenty.”
Uncle Richard’s avocado toast puts hipsters to shame: thick crusty toasted bread spread with homemade pesto, slivers of perfectly ripened avocado, and slices of fresh garden tomato topped with melted Brie.
Sometime later, the spell of Mrs. Arlington’s life story was broken by what sounded like a drummer with a bad tempo—much more noise than avocado toast called for.
“What’s going on?”
My stomach growled in response to the sumptuous platter on the kitchen table.
“I’m getting ready to simmer sauce. There will be a bunch of people in need of a meal tonight, including Horace.”
Richard was the kind of neighbor who knew exactly which people from his old neighborhood did not have generators. He also knew that the last major storm had caused outages in some places for nearly two weeks, damage that stretched pocketbooks and spiked stress levels that were already higher than the Cliffs these days.
A moment later, Horace tapped on the kitchen sliders and slipped inside to join us for breakfast. Feeling the soothing tug of family, I sat back and enjoyed the banter between these two old buddies. If it weren’t for them, I’d probably already be in New York City.
Obituary writing in Ridgefield, population twenty-five thousand, was surprisingly profitable, despite so many young families moving in as boomers retired to Florida to escape the state income tax. Yet for my business to survive in the long run, terrible as it was to admit, I would need to be near more dead people.
As if reading my mind, Horace asked, “Anything new with the apartment hunt?”
Richard grew quiet, and although neither ever said it, I knew they didn’t want me to leave Ridgefield, even if my plan was to do so only on a part-time basis.
“Rents are sky-high. RT—that’s the real estate broker—has a couple of leads,” I said. “I do have a new client, though. He’s a CEO with an unfortunate terminal diagnosis. He wants to meet with me to write his obituary so his family isn’t burdened.”
“Wow, talk about trying to stay in control,” said Horace.
“I get that,” said Richard. “A grieving family doesn’t need one more thing to worry about.”
Of course Richard would feel that way. He was the white knight who’d ridden to the rescue after my dad died.
“Actually,” I said, “writing an obituary can be cathartic for those who are grieving.”
“Your dad was my best friend, and I felt terrible pressure to get it right.”
“And you did,” Horace said. “It was a wonderful tribute. Maybe Winter gets her talent from you.”
“It just wasn’t enough,” said Richard, slipping into one of his self-pummeling moods.
“Let’s see, you introduced your best friend to your sister, and you were best man at their wedding. You planned his funeral, wrote his obituary because Winter was way too young for that. You executed his will, built a lake house, raised his family—did I leave anything out?”
Suddenly I knew exactly what cottage belonged in the train room next to the cemetery—it would be Horace’s.
“Don’t forget booting my mom out the door to go back to school for her nursing degree,” I said. “You rescued this family.”
Richard smiled at me. “I reaped all the benefits.”
I patted my uncle’s hand and gave him a cheek kiss. “On that light note, I’m going back to work.”
Back in the living room, I slid open large sliders to the summer morning and reviewed my to-do list. Most clients whose family members had died asked me to take care of everything, including the submissions. Along with the Ridgefield Press, Mrs. Arlington wanted her obituary to run in the New York Times—a potentially pricey venture. I was glad to see she wasn’t skimping on her last words. I was also to deliver a copy to her lawyer.
I checked the bars on my phone. Barely half, though still working, so I tapped in her number.
Nothing.
I tried her landline. It was hard to know if it was out of service or if she just wasn’t picking up. It looked like I’d have to drive over there to get more details if I wanted to do this right.
I left Uncle Richard mumbling about running downtown for more tomatoes so he could provide his personal Meals on Wheels service, as he called it. He was referring to the town program run by volunteers who deliver food to the housebound. It’s funded by generous contributions, and I’d bet my bottom dollar that Leocadia Arlington’s name appeared on that donor list as well.