The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [107]
I pulled gloves from my fingers and looked around. I didn’t wear the ring, would save it for special occasions. The house smelled of lavender, and I could see small knitted sacks set beside the lamp, another on the mantel, filled with the herb. I squeezed the one on the entry table and inhaled the fragrance. “Where’s Olea?” I asked.
“She’s … well … she’s …” Louise kept wringing her hand in her apron. She turned abruptly, picked up books stacked beside a single chair, and straightened them.
“Is Olea all right?”
“Yes. Well, I believe so.”
“Louise?”
“She doesn’t live here anymore,” she wailed.
“What?”
She collected herself. “How was your trip? Did you have a good time? Did you get new ideas? I love your coat, I simply love it!” She stroked the fur.
“Louise. What’s happened?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She sat down and took a hanky from her apron pocket and blew her nose. “She came in one day and said she’d found another house, down the street, and that it was time we each had our own place. I … I didn’t know what to say. I haven’t lived with anyone else since that time—” She stopped. “She asked me to move with her, but I. Well, I’d made a commitment to you. And we have boarders, so I couldn’t up and leave them without a cook now, could I?”
I imagined Olea becoming upset about Louise’s not moving with her, but what would have made her leave in the first place?
“Did the two of you argue? How soon after I left did this happen?”
If Louise had been running things on her own, that might account for the tired look on her face, the dust where my fingers left an impression when I’d reached for the lavender sachet.
“It wasn’t very long after you left, no. Olea has most of the money between the two of us, as I’m sure you know. John Stone may have had the marriage annulled, but he still left her with resources.”
“Olea was married? To a Stone?” So that was the reason for the constant tenderness whenever her middle name was mentioned.
“He married her and then left her.”
I sat down now and looked around for Lucky and the cat. I didn’t see him nor any sign of the cat either. I let Louise continue.
“When they got married, he didn’t realize she was … Jewish. His family wasn’t happy once they learned that.”
“Olea is Jewish?”
She continued to wring her hanky through her fingers. “Let me get you cocoa,” I said, to give myself time to consider her revelations. The image of a large candelabra on the Bakkes’ hearth in Minneapolis came to mind. It was a menorah!
“Oh, that would be so lovely.” She leaned back into the divan, and I saw then that her ankles were swollen and she wore slippers.
I said from the kitchen. “But Olea’s a Christian—”
“I know it,” Louise said. “She is. Her family is Jewish. She converted, but she lets her heritage stand, of course. Being Jewish in the furrier business wasn’t a problem, but she is truly faithful. It’s so sad she’s gone.”
The kitchen was in need of a thorough cleaning. Bits of toasted bread caked on the stove. A red sauce was so hardened on the enamel that my fingernail split when I tried to loosen it while I waited for the tea water to boil.
“Are you Jewish?” I asked, standing in the doorway. “Were you?”
“Not really,” Louise said.
“She must have felt terribly betrayed by her husband,” I said as I turned back to the whistling pot. Moments later I carried the tray out of the kitchen.
“John was quite the charmer,” Louise said. “He loved his light Winton motorcar. Your coat would look lovely riding in that. He relished leisure, fine fashion. He was very successful.” She sighed. “It’s so hard to talk about.” She got up and began unpacking my trunk.
“That can wait, Louise. Where’s Lucky?” I braced myself for the worst. He was an old dog.
“Lucky’s with Olea. I so hope you can talk Olea into coming back. I don’t really want to be alone