Murder at Icicle Lodge

“How do you know my Aunt Carmela?” Alberta asked.

Jinx, Helen, and Joyce wanted to know the same thing but remained silent and waited for Cathy to respond. They didn’t expect Vinny to talk for her.

“Just hear her out, Alfie,” Vinny said.

Alberta looked at her friend inquisitively, but he merely smiled reassuringly and sat down on a chair near the fire. He was exhausted, but it was obvious that he knew about the secret Cathy had been desperate to share with Alberta since the moment she arrived at Icicle Lodge. Only now had she found both the time and the courage to speak.

“What’s this all about, Cathy?” Alberta said. “And what’s this got to do with my Aunt Carmela?”

“I don’t mean to be cryptic,” Cathy said.

“Well, you have been,” Alberta corrected. “You’ve been dying to get me alone and tell me something since I first got here. Well, you have my undivided attention.”

“Let’s sit down,” Cathy said. “And you all might as well join us, Carmela was your family after all.”

Cathy led them to the love seat and chairs in front of the fire and Alberta, Helen, Joyce, and Jinx joined Vinny to sit around anxiously waiting for Cathy to disclose whatever information she had about Alberta and Helen’s spinster aunt. Their minds were racing with the possibilities, but as so often happens when too many thoughts invade a mind at one time the result was chaotic silence. All the thoughts and ideas canceled each other out so what was left was a blank slate of nothingness.

That’s how Alberta’s mind felt as she stared at Cathy. She couldn’t imagine what Cathy was going to tell her about her aunt, nor could she fathom why she would be the one to tell her. She had just met Cathy; how could she know anything about her aunt? How could she know anything about Alberta?

“As I said, you should all hear this because Carmela was your family,” Cathy repeated. “But La mia famiglia è la tua famiglia.”

“What do you mean?” Alberta asked. “How is your family my family?”

“Carmela was your aunt,” Cathy said. “But she was also mine.”

“That isn’t true,” Helen barked. “We never met you before we got here. There’s no way Aunt Carmela was part of your family tree.”

“She was related to my husband, Mike,” Cathy said.

“That’s impossible,” Alberta replied.

Even though she was convinced she was right, there was a tingling sensation in her gut that made her realize that she should listen to Cathy, and that whatever the woman was going to tell her would change her life. She wasn’t wrong.

“I think you should spell out exactly what you’re trying to tell us, Cathy,” Joyce advised. “We all loved Aunt Carmela very much.”

“So did my husband and I,” Cathy replied. “And so did Mike’s mother, Annette.”

Alberta wracked her brain, but couldn’t remember her aunt or anyone mentioning an Annette Lombardo before. Who was this person and how was she connected to her aunt?

“Who’s Annette?” Alberta asked. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“Annette or Nettie, as everyone called her, was, well, she was Carmela’s girlfriend.”

The women were stunned into silence not because they didn’t understand what Cathy just told them nor because they had a problem with a woman having a girlfriend, but because they couldn’t comprehend their spinster aunt having any sort of love interest in her life that they wouldn’t have known about.

Alberta and Helen looked at each other as if they were asking, “Did you know?” They then stared at Joyce hoping she would confess that she had always known.

“Don’t look at me,” Joyce replied. “I’m as stunned as you are.”

“Aunt Carmela was a lesbian?” Jinx asked, finally saying out loud the L word, which had hung in the room since Cathy’s announcement.

“I honestly don’t know if that’s the label they would have used,” Cathy informed. “But she was in love with Nettie and Nettie was in love with Carmela.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a stunod, but how did she have time to have a girlfriend?” Alberta asked. “I don’t remember ever seeing her with another woman.”

“I do,” Helen said.

“Really?”

“A few times at some gatherings, in church, once at the market,” Helen admitted. “I never thought anything about it and just assumed she was a lady friend.”

“And not a lady friend,” Jinx added.

“Lovey, this isn’t funny,” Alberta scolded.

“Oh, Gram, don’t tell me that you’re upset that Aunt Carmela was in love with a woman?”

“Of course not! Don’t be silly,” Alberta said. “I’m . . . I’m upset that she felt she had to keep it a secret from us. Cathy’s family obviously knew.”

“It wasn’t talked about openly, it was more like the pink elephant in the room,” Cathy explained. “The truth of the matter is that Mike never approved of their relationship, not entirely, but it wasn’t because it was two women, it was never that. It was hard on Mike because Nettie was his mother and his father’s widow and he wanted her to remain that way. When she became something else, it was an adjustment that he was never quite able to make.”

Alberta felt her heart race and the blood start to pulse at her temples. She didn’t want to ask her next questions, but she had to.

“Was he nice to Carmela?” Alberta asked. “Did he make her feel welcome in his home? I’d hate to think that he made her feel uncomfortable.”

“They got along,” Cathy said. “After a few years they even got to like each other, but Mike could never shake the feeling that his mother had betrayed his father. It was petty and unrealistic and he acknowledged it, but it’s how he felt. And I swear to you it had nothing to do with the money.”

“Money?” Helen said.

“What money?” Alberta asked.

“The money that Nettie left Carmela when she died,” Cathy said. “Carmela was well off and had saved quite a bit of money on her own, I think she even had some investments, but when Nettie died she left Carmela everything, all her worldly possessions including her house on Memory Lake.”

“My house used to belong to your mother-in-law?” Alberta asked.

“Many years ago,” Cathy said. “Trust me, Mike and I never wanted it. We didn’t care that she left it to Carmela. We had our own house and the bottom line was that Nettie wanted Carmela to have it because they loved spending time there.”

For a few moments the women were speechless. They tried to wrap their heads around Carmela’s secret life and clandestine romance and weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

“Joyce, did you ever see them together at the house?” Helen asked.

“Once or twice I saw Carmela sitting with another woman outside on the banks of the lake, but it wasn’t like they were cuddling or holding hands,” Joyce said. “I thought they were just friends.”

“They were friends,” Cathy said. “But so much more than that.”

“They were committed to each other in every way.”

The women turned to face Vinny, who up until that point had remained silent. At the same time they all realized that Vinny had known about Carmela’s secret life all along since before Alberta moved to Tranquility and into her house.

“You knew about the two of them?” Alberta asked.

“I hope I find a love like they had some day,” Vinny said, wistfully. “I still haven’t given up hope.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Alberta asked. “You know I was shocked and couldn’t figure out how she had so much money and property.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Vinny replied, “It wasn’t my story to tell.“

But it was now part of Alberta’s story. She felt the tears well up in her eyes and her instinct was to turn away from her family so they wouldn’t see her cry, but she fought the urge. No more secrets, no more hiding. It was time to break the cycle.

With her family as witness, she cried for her aunt, who out of fear or shame was forced to hide her truth from her own family. Alberta also cried for herself because she finally understood why Carmela had chosen her as her sole beneficiary—she knew that Alberta was hiding her truth from her family just like she was. Maybe Carmela didn’t know the specifics and didn’t fully comprehend that Alberta wasn’t truly in love with her husband, Sammy, and was pretending to be a good wife, but Carmela knew a compatriot when she saw one. Alberta was her kindred spirit.

Knowing the truth about how she had come into such wealth didn’t immediately make Alberta happy. But she wiped away her tears and grabbed the hands of the three women she was closest to, three women who were family, but who were also her friends. At least Carmela had Nettie, and it was a great comfort for Alberta to know that Carmela had not lived her life alone or without love. It may have been a life lived partly in secret, but it was still a life well lived. And that was a sentiment Alberta would do her best to carry on.

A family, no matter what the shape or size, is still a family.