Each Shining Hour (19 page)

Pandora's Box

T
he short days of January continued. Some were bright and brilliant, with skies of pristine blue that spread a soft optimism over the daytime hours. But most were overcast, wrapping the distant hills in a hood of gray vapor, encouraging the townsfolk to stay inside, to sleep, to dream of warmer days.

Despite the freezing temperatures, I often walked to work for the daily exercise. Daylight had already arrived by the time I made my morning trek, but usually I returned home on the cusp of darkness. The windows of Fleming Street radiated a cozy glow, and as I passed them, I breathed deeply of the winter air, now laced with the intoxicating smell of woodsmoke. An awareness of these small delights was slowly defining me.

During the colder months the Farmers' Co-op served as little more than a gathering place for coffee and card games. Across the valley the fields lay frozen and the farm lanes became black ribbons of endless mud. Livestock huddled around hay bales and silage bins. The tall gray silos that dotted the landscape were the
cathedrals of the rural architecture, standing sentinel against the severity of winter.

Christine and I continued to see each other, usually texting or talking on the phone on a daily basis. We went out on weekends, and as the days passed, from within the initial fog of intoxicating attraction, there emerged between us an enduring and easy friendship. Here was a finer harmony than I had known in previous relationships. When we were together, I sensed a gentle choreography to our thoughts, our choices, our actions. It seemed that a charmed ease had mellowed between the two of us. For my cautious heart, she was brave new territory.

By late January, Connie and Estelle had closed on the old bakery, but their plans for renovation were still on the drawing board. Conversely, a for-sale sign had gone up next door to me, a hope-filled step forward. My only regret was that the financial assistance we'd provided seemed to further Louise's humiliation. On the chance encounters between us, she kindly waved and looked away, regarding me with an unspoken yet embarrassed gratitude.

My pursuit of the murder mystery had gone cold and Lida had yet to find her father's old file box. Meanwhile, I was haunted by the Star of David that Christine and I had seen on Oscar Fox's grave. I found it difficult to reconcile the conflicting accounts of Oscar's apparent charity in light of his reputation as a vicious murderer. But my curiosity would have to wait. The tug of daily responsibilities had taken center stage. Still, I kept the autopsy report on my desk, mentally placing it under unfinished business.

The gray, sleepy days of January ended. February arrived and with it came the first faint breath of warmer air, the first frail stirring in the quiet fertility of the open fields. The second week brought a short string of warmer sunny days and the daffodils, the vanguards of spring, began to peek through in small golden clusters along the
county roads. The nights were cold and winter continued to hold sway, but the expanding daylight hours and temperate days foretold the inevitable changing of the season.

The fourteenth of February, Valentine's Day, was a Friday. Every female who knew my name had reminded me of this fact, twice. It seemed that my budding relationship with Christine was broadly endorsed and they wanted to ensure that no doofus act of omission on my part should derail it. During the preceding week, Christine and I had talked about the day but made no definite plans. Getting together was naturally assumed, but in Watervalley, it didn't take long to exhaust the options for diversion. We had decided to touch base at the end of the workday and go from there.

Early that Friday morning I was sleeping soundly, undisturbed even by Rhett's incredible capacity for snoring, when a clamoring downstairs woke me abruptly. Connie was being unusually noisy, banging the pots and pans. The explosive sound I heard next made me sit straight up in bed. Booming up from the kitchen came the deafening, deep-lunged voice of a woman singing.

Even Rhett had an alarmed look on his face. I immediately grabbed my robe and tumbled down the stairs to the kitchen, where I halted, wide-eyed. The singer was Estelle, dressed in a sequined jogging suit.

With one hand raised above her head and the other one holding a wooden spoon as a microphone, she was belting out a song at the top of her lungs. Her eyes were closed and she was dancing, not with just a modest shimmy, but with her whole body rhythmically gyrating, including every appendage, her considerable hips, and her large, contralto bosom. She was caught up in her own hinterland of unabashed expression and dark creative freedom.

I considered retreating quietly back upstairs, but I was mesmerized by the spectacle, locked in a state of semishock.

She was dubbing her own words into the song “Lady Marmalade” and finished with an earsplitting “I made homemade marmalaaaaaaaade!”

She held the last note in a long finale, stretching both hands skyward and ending at a volume approaching that of a tornado siren.

Upon finishing, she clenched her fist in a notable expression of satisfied glee. Only then did she notice me sitting at the bottom of the steps with a frozen and bug-eyed face.

“Mmm, mmm. I am in fine voice this morning. Good morning, sweetie! Did I wake you up?”

“Estelle, I think it's safe to say you woke up the entire zip code.”

“Everybody should be up. It's Valentine's Day!”

My initial shock had passed. Despite Estelle's energy, I was returning to the half fog of sleep that I had been so delightfully immersed in only minutes prior. “And so it is. Estelle, where is Connie?”

“She had some things to do this morning, so I volunteered to come help get your day going.”

“Well. Mission accomplished.”

“I brought some of the pastries that will be in the bakery along with some homemade marmalade. I want to try them out on you.”

“Sure.”

“I have a few vol-au-vents and some chouquettes.”

From some distant memory I knew these were French treats made from puff pastry. I poured a cup of coffee and moved to the table, where Estelle brought me a plate. The pastries were heavenly, and while I ate them, I could only wonder what Watervalley would think of having such unique culinary options. They also brought to mind another matter.

“Estelle, are you going to try and serve anything besides bread and pastries?”

“I'm thinking I might need to have some lunch options, maybe some sandwiches. I've been hearing a rumor that Lida Wilkins over at the Depot Diner is going to start selling fried pies and baked goods.”

“Yeah, I've heard as much. Seems kind of a shame for you two to be in competition.”

“Seems tacky to me. But if she wants to cut in on my pastry business, I'll just have to cut in on her lunch business.”

I nodded, knowing this was just the way things had to be. Still, I really liked both women and wanted each of them to succeed.

“Here, Dr. B., try some of my orange marmalade. That's what got me going. It just seemed a cue for a song.”

“I can see that.”

“Oh, come on now, Dr. B. Don't you ever catch yourself doing something and just getting a song in your head?”

“You know, Estelle, I don't think I'm wired that way.”

“Are you telling me you never sing to that pretty girlfriend of yours?”

“I'd say the fact that we are still dating is proof of that.”

“Well, what about dancing? You take her dancing, don't you?”

“Mmm, can't say that's happened either.”

She stood over me with her hands on her hips, shaking her head.

“Mmm, mmm, mmm. Dr. B., you need to loosen up, boy. You are just way too white and uptight.”

She walked back to the stove, robustly giggling, amused to the point of giddiness. I finished eating, thanked her, and walked back upstairs to get ready for work. What was it about the Pillow
sisters? One was stern and the other was silly. Both had a way of putting me in my place.

When I arrived at the clinic that morning, Clovis Benefield and his wife, Edith, were waiting on the front steps.

“Hey, Clovis. You're here bright and early. Are you okay?”

“I've swallowed poison, Doc. I need to get my stomach pumped.”

His words alarmed me, but nothing about his appearance did. He was placidly calm, albeit clearly worried. It was like someone yawning while telling you he was choking. I unlocked the door and told them to come inside.

Clovis was a timid little fellow in his seventies who long ago had taken on the role of designated worrier. With his frazzled hair and stubbly chin he always wore a racked and anxious face. He would be constantly muttering to himself, adrift in some sea of interior monologue. He barely spoke above a whisper and sometimes it seemed he was drifting out of consciousness in midsentence. Edith was a lot more levelheaded and sociable, but had become legally blind in recent years. They made an interesting pair.

I was alarmed about the poisoning until Clovis explained the source. During the night he had reached for his glass of water and taken a huge gulp only to realize that he had grabbed Edith's denture cup by mistake.

“Clovis, you might feel a little icky, but I don't think we'll need to pump your stomach.”

“You sure, Doc?” he replied. “I don't want to take any chances.”

“Quite sure. Not to worry.”

He nodded with a mix of reluctance and resignation. “Come on, Edith. Let's go back home.” He took several steps away, but Edith remained, looking in my direction with a quaint grandmotherly
smile. She was clearly amused by the whole affair. After Clovis was out of earshot, she spoke confidentially.

“Thanks for talking some sense into him, Dr. Bradford.” She turned to leave and then stopped and added wryly, “Somebody has to.”

At two o'clock Ann and I met with Sunflower Miller. After she'd spent weeks reminding me of our agreement, I had finally arranged to discuss her plan to implement some community health programs. To her credit, Ann was very much in favor of the idea, despite knowing that Sunflower would do everything she could to give the programs a holistic flavor. I was less enthusiastic and blamed myself for knuckling under in a weak moment of distracted hunger.

When she entered my office, Sunflower walked directly toward Ann.

“Hi, I'm Sunflower Miller. I hope Dr. Bradford here hasn't already tainted your thinking about good nursing practice.”

“Good to see you too, Sunflower,” I replied.

She smiled at me in her clever, taunting way. I was left thinking she was just teasing, but I couldn't be sure. No doubt, that was exactly what she intended.

Thankfully, the two women hit it off, allowing me and my ever-contracting attention span to be present in body only. I found myself wondering about Sunflower. In every conversation she found a way to throw out snippets of wisdom regarding the human condition. She could make any discussion take a somber turn by suddenly assuming a serious face, her way of telegraphing that it was time for a teachable moment. Unlike anyone else I knew in Watervalley, she saw life here as a complex construct of human affairs with undercurrents of conspiracy and oppression.

“Dr. Bradford?”

“Hmm?”

“Dr. Bradford? Did you hear what I said?” It was Sunflower. Apparently I had become oblivious to the discussion.

“I'm sorry, no. I guess I lost focus for a minute there. Would you repeat the question?”

She glanced at Ann, who was now regarding me without expression.

“Don't you agree that part of our Seniors Wellness program should include how to do a really effective herbal colon cleanse?”

Where had I been? How had the conversation progressed to this nonsense? “You know, Sunflower, for Watervalley that might be a bit of an overshare.”

Her gaze turned withering. “I'm sure the pharmaceutical companies have some sanctioned torture we could teach instead.”

Luckily, before I could answer, Nancy Orman opened the office door to tell me I had a visitor. I took this opportunity to escape.

“You two talk amongst yourselves,” I said jokingly.

As I exited, my immediate thought was that John had stopped by to see me, something he had begun to make a habit of whenever he was in town. He always had a pertinent item to discuss, but I also noticed that he looked for a glimpse of Ann. Conversely, she always managed to appear with some pressing question for me during John's visits. They rarely spoke, but I noticed an unmistakable lift in her mood and a wry smile on her lips after he had stopped by.

But this time my visitor wasn't John. It was Lida Wilkins. I was surprised to see her, since weeks earlier the results of her stress test and blood work had come back normal.

“Doc, come out to the car. I've got something for you.”

Her SUV was parked outside the rear door. She lifted the tailgate and brought out an ancient brown file box.

“It took a little while, but I finally found it underneath some old dresses.”

It was her father's work on Oscar Fox. She handed the box to me.

I was beaming. “Lida, if you weren't a married woman, I'd kiss you.”

She winked at me. “Crap, Doc. You're a good-looking young man. Not only would I let you kiss me, I'd insist on drawing a crowd to witness it.”

I laughed. “When do you need this back?”

“That would be whenever you're tired of looking at it.”

“Fair enough. Thanks so much.”

“Hey, Doc. Not to change the subject, but is it true that Connie and her sister are starting a bakery?”

“Well, I don't guess it's a big secret or anything, but yeah. At least that's the plan.”

Lida's face shriveled to a hard frown. “That's just great. Nothing like competition to raise my anxiety. I've been telling folks we're going to start making pastries so I can recoup some of the lost business.”

“I see. Seems to me there should be plenty of business for both of you. I think she's shooting more for a coffeehouse along with sweets and some special catering.”