Even days later, I had trouble erasing Klara Heinz’s creased face from my memory. The woman seemed almost haunted by the past, by this Whitfield family and her connection to them.
I pondered it while dressing in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom. My choice of attire was limited to shorts, a few pairs of jeans, a collection of short and long sleeved tops and my navy blue dress.
“I am not wearing that dress. Ever again,” I muttered.
I slipped on a clean pair of jeans, and pulled on long sleeved knit top. Something poked at my leg through the denim. My pocket was bunched up and I shoved my fist in to straighten it out. But I knew in that flash of a second that what I was feeling wasn’t bunched up fabric at all, but the remnants of the checks from Cora’s office that I’d stuffed in my pocket in a frenzy that night in her office. It came to me as one long horrible thought but it took my mind a few seconds to grasp it.
Cora had come in the next day asking for laundry. It hadn’t even occurred to me to empty my pockets. I felt cold sweats run up my spine. My face flushed. She would’ve checked my pockets. She knew I’d been going through her things. I pulled the papers out and put them before me on the bed. They were worn and faded from the water, mashed in a ball. I tried to separate them without ripping them anymore than they already were. There were three checks in all. I pried them apart. Two were faded and ripped but essentially whole. The third had a huge chunk missing from the lower left corner. I dug my hands in my pocket searching for the missing piece. Nothing. I stood there, putting my hand in my pocket again and again, feeling the seam along the bottom. Helpless, hoping somehow that missing chunk of check would suddenly materialize but I knew that it wouldn’t.
My mind raced. Cora was so meticulous she would surely have found it in the washer after the cycle was finished. That would mean that during Bible study Cora was fully aware I’d been upstairs digging in her things. She’d been watching me the whole time with beady eyes. She knew and chose not to confront me. I clenched my fists. So stupid of me. I’d been so happy to get back to my room that night after having been trapped in the closet, the last thing I thought about was my clothing. The only thing that gave me comfort was that maybe the missing chunk had dissolved in the hot water and laundry detergent and was now floating peacefully down the Schuylkill River.
I was still a little on edge when I left my room a short time later and ducked through the gate to go see Ginny. I was hoping her guard would be busy, or gone. I knocked on the door. No one answered. I banged harder and then opened the door and stuck my head in.
“Hello!” Pushing the door open further, I walked into the entryway.
There was dead silence. Ginny sat at the table shoveling some sort of casserole into her mouth. She was focused on her food. Her blue eyes, surrounded by the loose wrinkles of her skin, were stagnant, unmoving. She glanced up and then down again.
“Ginny?” She dipped her fork into a jumble of soft brown mash. I was tempted to take her out of there right then and buy her a Big Mac at MacDonald’s. A thousand grams of fat? Maybe, but it had to be better than whatever was in that bowl. “Ginny?” I said again, a little louder. Just then Ella appeared from the basement steps. She looked at me uncertainly.
“You again?” She wore a pair of white leggings that people over a certain weight shouldn’t even consider putting on, and a long flowing top that came to the middle of her thighs.
“I’m not going to stay long. I just brought her a little present.”
I held up a bag of those fluffy orange circus peanuts that are so sweet they erode the enamel on your teeth when you attempt to chew them. I’d seen an almost empty bag on her dresser when I was here before and made a mental note to bring her some on my next visit. Ella looked at me and then at the bag and then at me again. I wasn’t sure if she was going to throw me out or grab the bag and run. Maybe circus peanuts were her absolute favorites. Then she just shrugged and walked over to the sink. Ginny appeared oblivious during the entire ordeal. I sat down at the table until she put the last brownish overcooked noodle in her mouth. Ella moved in and grabbed the plate, taking it to the sink.
Ginny continued to look in front of her. She ran her twisted fingers over the tablecloth in front of her, tracing a small pattern of flowers. I reached out and took her hand. She barely noticed. I realized that if I wanted to get anything out of this visit that I was going to have to lead. I pulled at her arm and she stood with me. I continued to move her along to the living room. Ella was still in the kitchen, cleaning and seemed, at least for the moment, too preoccupied to notice us.
Ginny sat in a wine colored wing back chair. I sat in a matching one and pulled it up close to her.
“Ginny?” I said it as loud as I dared without drawing Ella to our side. Our eyes met, and I saw that her pupils were so large they looked like big black disks floating in tiny blue pools. “Ginny, I brought you something.” I took the circus peanuts out and handed them to her. She held the plastic wrapped package in her hand and looked at it. “Do you know who I am?”
Her eyes narrowed to a squint. “Nick’s wife.” She said softly.
I touched her arm. “That’s right. Nick’s wife. I was here before.” I watched the slowness of her movement, the obvious confusion. “What medication do they have you on?”
“Harrison says I need it,” she answered.
“I’m not going to stay long. I just have something I want to ask you if you can try and think really hard.” I waited but she said nothing and gave no indication she’d even heard me. “Ginny, what did the gardener, Ralph Simpson find in the dirt that day?”
Her head snapped up as if I’d reached through the fog and smacked her face. “What?” she said.
“Was it a green coin like the one I showed you the other day?”
She put her head in her hands. I looked at the huge purpley veins that ran down them into her thin white arms. “Green coin? Yes.”
“So why did Cora let him go? Just because of that green coin? What got her so upset?”
“Nick must have lost it.” She seemed to be struggling to put her words together. “Bradford got him another one.”
“But why did that upset Cora? That Ralph found the first one in the dirt?”
Her white hair was set in curls around her head but her hair was so thin you could see her scalp in between the clumps. “She was upset.”
I struggled to keep my voice low and calm. “Why?”
“It reminded her of Nick. It wasn’t easy for her. She hadn’t seen that coin since he left.” Even in her confusion she seemed to be on guard, filtering the information. Trying not to say the wrong thing.
“So she fired the gardener?” I turned and looked over my shoulder. Ella was still in the kitchen. She had a fork and was eating the left over mush from the pot on the stove.
“Cora reacts sometimes… doesn’t make sense. Her anger…” Ginny ran her hands over her face and shook her head. “I made a mistake. I never should’ve showed it to her. I never should have…I should have left it alone.” She was crying and I was afraid that I’d be physically thrown from the house if I couldn’t calm her a little. I took the plastic package from her lap and ripped it open. I put two of the orange peanuts in her hand. She put them in her mouth and chewed mindlessly focusing on a picture on the wall. She seemed to forget where we were in the conversation so I sat, saying nothing for a few minutes.
Ella came into the room, and at that moment it appeared as if we were just having a nice visit. Ginny’s agitation had subsided. She was focused on the sugar in her mouth. I patted her hand and stood.
“Good-bye, and thank you, Ginny.” I was afraid for a minute that she was going to say something, giving Ella an indication of our conversation so I exited the room quickly without turning around.
I glanced backwards only briefly before opening the door. Ginny was staring out the window. I could only see her profile, but in the light her expression was remarkably similar to the one I had seen on Klara Heinz’s face the other day. Etched with sadness and worry, but mostly fear.