Chapter 26 – The Facts
Miranda was grateful for the opportunity to return to work at the library the following Monday. She was unable to sleep at night and unable to find enough diversions for her mind during the day, if she remained at home.
The commute was certainly more pleasant in her new car than it would have been in her tin-can toy car, but parking was more of a challenge. She coped by positioning her baby blue behemoth at the farthest corner of the library parking lot, where there was nothing for her to hit—or to hit her. Of course, she would have to walk a half-marathon from her car to the library door, but that was no problem. Miranda always wore sensible shoes.
Annabelle had maintained the status quo in Miranda’s absence. The result was a week’s worth of returned books still piled on piles of piles, waiting to be shelved. After all, there was no question that Annabelle’s delicate manicure took precedence over mere service to the reading public.
Since Miranda arrived early, even after walking ten minutes from her car, no one was there to see the smile with which she piloted the first of many overstuffed book carts out into the stacks.
As early morning gave way to mid-morning, Annabelle made her entrance and took up her throne at the checkout counter. There she would reign over her literary serfs as they brought their check-in offerings to her like taxes to the manor’s lord. There she would dispense checked-out volumes like a regent dispensing boons to the peasantry. Most of all, throughout the day, she would bewitch all mere men with her sultry beauty, like Morgan Le Fey.
With so much to do, it was no wonder Annabelle had little time to devote to other aspects of the library: books, shelves, fellow employees. So it was that when Miranda returned to the counter to deliver an empty cart and pick up another load of books for shelving, Annabelle was oblivious.
“Hi!” bubbled Miranda. “How’ve you been?”
Annabelle seemed confused and spent a second seeking the source of the voice chirping at her. Her eyes settled on Miranda at last. “Hello, Marianne. How’re you?” Annabelle looked away again.
“Well,” Miranda chimed, “not sure if I’m good or bad, but at least I’m back.” She chuckled at her feeble, attempted humor.
“Back from where?” said Annabelle.
Some things never change, thought Miranda, but she said, “Doesn’t matter,” and rolled her book-laden cart out of Annabelle’s sight and definitely out of mind.
….
At one ‘clock that Monday, when Miranda was eating her tuna salad and reading Finding Your Own Way to Grieve in the park near the library, people were stirring in far-off Minokee.
Martha Cleary trundled up the front steps of the Krausse house carrying in a basket her famous broccoli-chicken-cheddar casserole, steaming beneath a thick towel. She balanced the warm bundle on one forearm and knocked loudly on the front door with the opposite fist.
She waited.
She knocked again, louder.
More waiting.
She pounded hard enough to rattle the glass in the living room windows.
“Who is it!?” snapped an unfriendly baritone some distance from the other side of the door.
“It’s your neighbor with your dinner, boy! Open up!” shouted Martha.
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’. Hold your horses,” the same grumpy voice responded.
Moments later the door opened. Martha shoved her way past Shepard, who maneuvered his cane to keep his balance as she barreled through. He shut the door and turned toward the kitchen. Martha had gone straight to his refrigerator with the confidence of a long-time family friend. She plucked an empty jelly jar out of the refrigerator door and tossed it into the trashcan across the room. Then she rearranged the contents of the refrigerator shelves so she could insert her casserole.
“It’s right out of the oven, but I can see you ain’t ready to do justice to a decent meal at the moment, so I’m putting it away. You kin put some on a plate an’ nuke it when you want it.” Martha shut the fridge and turned to look at the man waiting in the doorway, leaning heavily on his cane. “Dang, ya look like the very devil,” she said.
“Thanks for the food, Miz Martha,” he said with more etiquette than enthusiasm. “Smells really good.”
“Course it does,” she said. “Consider the source!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said politely.
“Look at yerself!” Martha ordered.
“Ma’am?” he said.
“I know ya’ve had a hard time, and I’m truly sorry fer yer loss and all. But, dang it, boy, if yer Grandma and Grandpa Krausse could see you now, they’d have a hissy fit! There’s no excuse fer lettin’ yerself go like this! It ain’t healthy! Boy, I can see I need to take you in hand, fer yer Grandma’s sake if fer nothin’ else.”
Shepard backed away and tottered into the living room as if to show his visitor to the door. “I’m fine, Miz Martha, really,” he said. “Nurse comes by once a day, physical therapist comes four times a week. Got plenty of pills. Thanks again for the food.” He actually reached for the doorknob, but he was overly optimistic.
“Jest git away from the door, I ain’t leavin’ ‘til I’m good and ready,” Martha asserted. “Now sit yerself down here. There’s things gotta be said.” She sat on one end of the couch and slapped the middle couch cushion a resounding whack.
Shepard Krausse had known Martha Cleary all his life. Even though he was tired, in pain, and incapable of complex contemplation or elegant articulation, he was lucid enough to know when there was no alternative but surrender. He hobbled to the couch and sat, easing his burned legs into a nearly comfortable position.
“You say you’re doin’ okay?” asked Martha.
“I get the feeling you’re about to disagree,” Shepard said with a sigh.
“Yer durn tootin’!” she said. “Look at ya! Yer hair looks like raccoons been nestin’ in it. Ya got food and some kinda pink or red liquid spilled in yer beard. Yer shoes don’t match. Yer shirt don’t go with them shorts—lord, ain’t no shirt ever been made that’d go with them shorts, they’s hideous. Yer shirt ain’t buttoned right, neither. Yer eyes is sunk like ya ain’t slept since Lincoln was president. Yer pants is hanging on ya all scarecrow-like, so I know you ain’t been eatin’—prolly since it happened. By the way, you ain’t smellin’ like no rose, neither.”
She stopped and seemed to await his reaction.
“Yeah. So?” he said.
“Tell me the truth, Speedy: are you capable of taking care of yourself or not?” asked Martha.
“I am capable of taking care of myself, Miz Martha,” Shepard said.
“Then why ain’t ya doin’ it?” she snapped. “Yer not feeling well, yer hurtin’, yer sad, life stinks right now. I get that! You lost two good friends. Sure. But you ain’t lost yer last friend. You got people around ya wantin’ to help ya. Ya got a little gal right next door who’d do anything for ya. And you ain’t even doin’ anything fer yerself!”
“People wouldn’t want to be so nice to me if they knew what really happened.”
Martha swallowed the first words that came to her mind. She took a calming breath and said, “I find that hard to believe. Just what do you think ‘really happened’?”
“The whole thing was my fault, and I walked away scot-free.”
“Beg to differ on that, but go on with the story.”
Shepard sighed and slumped back into the cushions. “Pietro told me to stop, but I just kept talking it up, on the air, night after night, thinking the Great Shepard Krausse was bullet-proof. Man, I was such an arrogant SOB. I know the Montgomery clan, and I know what kind of self-important, amoral stuffed shirts they run around with. If anybody knew what they were capable of, it should’ve been me. Instead, I chose to live in my fantasy world where the bad people fear the law, and the guilty get punished, and the innocent go to Disney World. Stupid me. I poked at the monsters until they fought back. Then I was surprised that they fought dirty.”
Martha pat
ted his knee with one knobby-veined hand. She waited, and after a moment he went on.
“We were leaving for work,” he said. “Pietro was behind the wheel, I had just let Dave into the back seat, and I said I had to go back in the house and get my cellphone. Pietro said he’d get it, but I said no, I was halfway there already. Dave started to get out of the car and come with me, but I told him to stay.”
His voice broke when he said, “He stayed. They both stayed in the car.”
He stopped to breathe deeply and collect himself.
Martha said, “And we all know what happened next.”
“Oh, no, Miz Cleary, you don’t know the best part – the really stupid part: Bean found my cellphone after the explosion. It was in my friggin’ pocket the whole time. So not only did I provoke the monster, I staked my friends out for the slaughter like a goat tethered to a tree by tiger hunters. And I didn’t even have the decency to die with them, because I was too dimwitted to know what was in my own pockets.”
Martha said, “Shepard, honey, don’t do this to yourself.”
Shepard forsook good manners and shouted at the elderly lady, “Exactly what do you want me to do!? Huh? What will make everything all better?! Nothing! There’s nothing for me to do! Nothing I could do will ever change what happened!”
“That’s right, you cain’t change what happened!” Martha shouted back at him. Then she stood, laid a comforting hand on his shoulder and said quietly, “But you can decide what happens next.”
Shepard covered his eyes with one hand and dropped his chin to his chest.
Martha massaged his shoulder. “Now, I’m gonna do jest what yer Grandma Krausse would do if she wuz here. You take a shower, and I’m gonna help you organize your clothes and get spiffed up, then yer gonna eat a good home-cooked meal, and then yer goin’ to git in bed and git some rest. Okay?”
He nodded.
Martha placed her hands under his arms and helped him stand. As they moved toward the bed- and bath-rooms, she scolded him, “An’ the next time you answer a door, young man, you better be dressed and in yer right mind or I’ll know the reason why. Get me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Then after a second he added, “Thanks, Miz Cleary.”
“Yer very welcome, Speedy Boy,” she said.