AFTER A LATE BREAKFAST, Winna spent a couple of hours working outside. It wasn’t hot, but sunny enough for sunglasses. She looked in the garage for Juliana’s old galvanized watering can and couldn’t find it, then went back inside. Had she seen it in the basement? Opening the basement door, she flipped on the light and began her descent. One of the stairs seemed to wobble. To steady herself she took hold of the railing.
All of a sudden, Winna felt the railing let go. Instinctively, she reached for the rail on the other side, but too late. She let out a yelp and fell. Already halfway down the stairs, she did not have far to fall, but followed the rail as it broke off to her left, landing on her side among shattered pieces of wood.
She lay there a moment on the cold earthen floor trying to understand what had happened. Across the basement lay the two holes hacked by her burglar. Winna rolled over on her hands and knees. The room spun. Deciding she needed to get her bearings before she tried to stand, she sat a while feeling utterly surprised and foolish. One side of her face and her hip hurt and she was shaking. Her sunglasses lay broken and twisted across the floor.
Still afraid to stand, Winna tried to assess her situation. She moved one leg, then the other to see if she could. Nothing seemed broken. Still she felt too weak and dizzy to stand.
She heard the kitchen door open and close. Surprised by her sudden terror, she tried again to get up on her hands and knees. Pain stabbed her shoulder and hip and she fell back to the floor.
“Winna?”
It was a man’s voice and she was a wounded animal hiding below, afraid to answer. She heard him walk into the hall, calling her name. The footsteps returned to the kitchen, to the open door at the top of the stairs. “Winna?”
It was Seth. She shuddered and raised one hand to her face—the cheek stung. She felt terrified and embarrassed at the same time.
Seth saw her. “What happened?” He started down the stairs.
Winna could see from the concern on his face that he would not harm her. “Be careful,” she called. “One of the steps is loose.”
Seth came gingerly the rest of the way. “What happened?”
“I was gardening and needed something down here—I fell. One of the steps—I feel so silly—I can’t get up.”
He got to his haunches. “Let’s see if everything moves.” He asked her to move her arms and legs. “Does that hurt?”
“No, but when I roll over and try to stand, I get dizzy.”
“You’re just shook up. Sit flat on your bum and raise your knees. Now give me both of your hands.” He braced his feet against hers and pulled. Winna was on her feet, dizzy, but upright and nothing felt broken.
“Don’t let go of me,” she begged.
Winna described how she had fallen and Seth slowly helped her up the stairs, testing each step before he stood on it. Once in the kitchen, he stopped to look at her face.
“You scraped your cheek and are going to have a black eye,” he said, pulling out a chair at the table and helping her sit down. He packed a kitchen towel with ice and handed it to her. “Here, put this on your left eye.”
“Thanks. I think I’d better find a chiropractor for the rest of me.”
“You just sit there. I’m going to make you a cup of tea, then I’ll take a look at that railing.”
“I hurt, Seth. Do you mind getting some aspirin out of that cupboard?” She pointed.
Seth made tea and handed her a glass of water and the pills, then disappeared down the stairs. The tea tasted good. She sipped it slowly, promising herself a second cup, but first she wanted to take the pills and lie down. Carefully, she limped to the parlor and stretched out on the sofa. She slept soundly and woke to the sound of hammering.
Cautiously, Winna got up and made her way toward the sound. “Seth,” she called to the figure crouched below on the stairs. “What’s going on?”
He stopped working and took a nail out of his mouth. “A number of these stairs are loose. It’s a wonder you didn’t fall from the first step.”
“Come up. I want to talk. I’ll make tea.”
“How about coffee—and I’ll make it,” he said, stepping carefully up the stairs.
While Seth puttered around making coffee, he told her that the railing would have to be rebuilt and that several steps near the top of the stairs had stripped nail holes.
“You were lucky. If you’d put your weight down wrong on one of those, the step would’ve let go.”
“Oh, Lord. Maybe you should check all the stairs in the house.” Winna thought impatiently of her list of things that still needed doing.
“I’ll do that. When did you have that railing worked on?” he asked, handing her a mug of coffee. “It looks like someone touched up the paint recently.”
“That can’t be. I haven’t had any work done down there.”
WINNA HAD A gruesome looking black eye. She had received an adjustment on her hip from a young chiropractor who cheerily informed her that falls were the number one reason for accidental deaths in elderly women. She spent the following days taking it easy, feeling stiff, sore, and—elderly.
Chloe and Todd said they would drop by for a visit on Sunday after Winna got home from church. Winna was not looking forward to seeing her sister. She’d had time to think back, to stew over what Chloe had said and done when she found the rosary and was not ready to forgive her. She didn’t know why Chloe felt so free to put her down for her faith or why she had tossed Winna so many critical little asides over the years. Winna didn’t know how to deflect these comments and when she had tossed them back in the form of a protest or in anger, Chloe would say she was too sensitive—that she took everything personally. Chloe seemed to think that taking things personally was far worse than carelessly saying something hurtful.
When she looked at her own behavior toward her sister, she thought of herself as understanding. She tried not to show her disapproval and was sure that she had hidden her judgments about Chloe’s casual approach to motherhood and all the men she’d lived with between marriages. She wondered if the undercurrents of her real feelings showed. Maybe Chloe was psychic—maybe that’s why she seemed not to trust her, why she sniped at her?
Now, when they stood face to face, there was a huge gulf between them and Winna did not know how to build a bridge. She wondered what it would take to reconcile, to feel natural together again.
WHEN WINNA OPENED the kitchen door and saw Chloe and Todd standing there, she welcomed her sister warmly. “I’m so glad you guys could stop by.” To distract from her lie, she smiled broadly. “What do you think of my beautiful black eye?”
“Good job, Winnie.” Todd handed her a bunch of gaily colored supermarket flowers. “So you fell down the basement stairs?”
“How sweet. You brought me flowers.” She hugged him.
“Sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” Chloe said, pushing past Winna. She dropped her handbag on the kitchen table next to a stack of books and sat down. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, as I said on the phone, I’m fine. Just a bit banged up.”
Chloe reached for one of the books in the stack beside her. “Gramma’s jewelry book. A Thousand Years of Jewelry. Have you looked up the ring I want—the big blue and green opal?”
“Actually, I have and it’s called a black opal.”
“Chloe told me about all the fun you gals had the other night,” Todd said, his eyes smiling.
“Let’s go see them now—I want to show Todd.” Chloe grabbed Winna’s hand and pulled her toward the stairs. “Come on, Todd.”
Chloe led Todd up the stairs toward the guest room. Winna followed. “They’re in here,” she said, running into the room, pulling the cushion off the window seat. She lifted the hinged lid and got down on her knees turning her head to look up at her husband. “Wait till you see these.”
She reached in and felt around, then stuck her head inside the opening. “My God, Winna, the jewels are gone.”