Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [12]
Rocky wondered if Isaiah’s promise to not say anything about her past had extended to his wife. She pictured someone telling Bob a secret and asking him not to tell Rocky. What would he have done? He was the gold standard for every circumstance. But Isaiah was a minister, or he had been. And ministers, priests, and the lot of them were bound by confidentiality. Rocky was lost in thought about the bounds of confidentiality when Charlotte brought out a fresh pot of coffee. “Isaiah tells me that your husband died this past year. I’m sorry. This must be a terrible time for you.”
Rocky threw an accusatory stare at Isaiah.
He grimaced. “I apologize. It’s not Charlotte’s fault. She caught me talking to myself when I hauled off the garbage from those idiot renters. I didn’t even know I was doing it. I’ll have to watch myself as I get older and start blathering everybody’s business. Won’t that be the worst-case scenario for an Alzheimer’s patient? I’ll be telling the world all the secrets that people have told me about affairs, scandals, incest and petty jealousies. They’ll have to put me in the solitary confinement zone of the Alzheimer’s home. I could be a national security risk.” Clearly, he was horrified that he had spilled the beans with a person who knew the absolute importance of maintaining secrets. Tiny beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.
Charlotte ignored him and sipped her coffee. “You’re not ready to say the words yet are you? I was a small girl when my grandfather died. Not long after his funeral, I was with my grandmother at the beauty parlor and she had a new girl working on her hair who kept asking her questions to be polite, and because African-American hair takes longer to work on than the last ice age, we were there for a long time. She asked my grandmother where she lived, did she know so and so, and finally the girl asked her some questions about her husband. My grandmother said, “I’m a widow.” And she hadn’t been ready to say it. Her face collapsed and she looked sadder than the day of the funeral. You don’t have to say the words until you’re ready. And I’ll try and keep my husband from talking to himself in public.”
Rocky felt the outrage melt down her tight neck muscles. She trusted Charlotte never to say a word about this again. Charlotte understood. “Thank you,” she said.
Rocky called her brother as she promised she would.
“I’m fine. I got a job, a very part-time job, probably not more than ten hours per week. It’s on an as-needed basis. And I’ve rented a little cottage,” she said in what she hoped was her most convincing voice.
“Yeah, you sound like shit to me. Where are you again?”
She heard water running on his end of the line, which meant he was washing his dishes and that it had been his wife’s turn to cook. She pictured the thick curling hairs on his hands that grew in patches along his fingers. Her brother Caleb was an anomaly among men: he liked gadgets with extreme selectivity; a cordless phone was as advanced as he went in the department of communications. If gadgets did not have to do with house painting or sculpture, he saw no reason to bother with them. She glanced over at the sculpture that she brought with her.
“I told you. I’m on Peak’s Island and I’m going to stay for a while. I want to be where nobody knows me, nobody wants to talk to me about the saddest, most horrible parts of their life. It’s an island; people fish and they sell stuff to tourists. Oh, I’m the new dog warden. Except they call it Animal Control Warden.”
“What the hell do you know about being a dog warden?