Frozen Stiff (22 page)
Amy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What do you mean, Edna?”
Edna shook her head. “I went over to talk to him.”
“What are you saying?” John asked.
“Well, you were so upset about the farm and it was all my fault. I thought I’d try to make it right. I couldn’t get to sleep on
New Year’s Eve and you had already gone to bed. I decided to take a ride on the snowmobile and see if I couldn’t get him to change his mind.”
“In the middle of the night?” Amy asked.
“I knew he stayed up late. I thought maybe he would be in a better frame of mind. I just didn’t know what else to do. I had John’s key to the house. They asked me to water the plants when they weren’t there. I drove over and went in, but I couldn’t find him. I knew he was there because I could see faint tire tracks, but no one was in the house. I figured he had gone out for the evening. So I just went around the house like I usually do and checked all the doors. The back door wasn’t locked so I locked it.”
“You didn’t see him outside?”
“I wasn’t looking for him outside. I did glance out the window, but it was too dark to see anything. Never thought another thing about it.” Edna’s face was drained of color. “I almost killed a man. How do you like that?”
14 February: 6 pm
I
do,” Rich said.
Then Margaret Qualley, the only female Pepin County judge, turned to Claire and repeated, “Will you, Claire, take this man, Rich, to be your husband, your partner in this life, honoring him and loving him all your days on earth?”
Claire choked up. Rich held her eyes. She could feel hers filling with tears. She swallowed and said loudly and clearly, “I do.”
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the judge said, then added, “You may kiss each other.”
Rich took her by the shoulders, pulled her to him as she wrapped her arms around his waist. They had a long and deliberate kiss. They had been practicing for this moment for years.
A cheer went up in the large auditorium above the Abode gallery. In the 1800s the space had been a theater, then in the early 1900s was turned into a gymnasium and was now a special events space for all sort of arts happenings. Claire had given in to Rich’s wish that they invite the whole county so she wasn’t even sure how many people were there. They were all standing in the midst of the tables circling the room with Claire, Rich and the pastor in the middle.
Since there was no aisle to walk down they simply turned and smiled at everyone.
Rich announced, “Let the party begin!”
On this cue, the DJ started the song from Hair, “Let the Sunshine in!” They were surrounded by well-wishers in a love-fest of hugging, kissing and crying. Dancing broke out around the room, grandmothers dancing with grandsons, even the Sheriff and his wife joined in. Claire noticed that Bill had brought a new date with him. Thank goodness Amy was happily dating John Gordon.
Rather than a sit-down dinner, Claire had insisted on a more party atmosphere with hors d’oeuvres circling the room, while local beers and Prosecco from the Palate were served from the bar.
She and Rich finally sat down at what was the head table, but in the round. Bridget sat next to her with her new beau, Satish. Her four-year-old daughter Rachel was tucked in between them. Meg and Curt had just pulled up two chairs next to them. Stewart and his long-time boyfriend Harry, sat on the other side of Rich and across the table was a very happy Amy holding hands with John Gordon.
Claire looked around the table and realized she was right where she wanted to be and so happy to be there.
Bridget leaned over and said, “Mom would have loved to have seen you in that dress.”
“I can’t believe you saved it all these years,” Claire said as she ran her hands down a gown that her mother had bought for a cruise that she and their father had taken. From the seventies, the cocktail dress was nearly back in style, the top was off-the-shoulder in
deep blue velvet with a knee-length gathered skirt made of heavy silk. Claire had taken the bow off the back and had it dry cleaned but other than hadn’t needed to do anything to it.
All along she had insisted that she did not want to wear a traditional wedding dress, certainly not to wear white. “All I want is to be elegant and at the same time be able to dance.”
Claire watched as Meg walked up behind Rich and draped herself over his shoulder. She knew her daughter was happy that they had married and Rich was planning on adopting Meg within the next couple months. “Then if he croaks, I get the farm,” Meg had crowed on hearing the news.
“I can’t see you staying on the farm,” Rich had replied.
“It will be my retreat. I’ll have my studio here.”
Rich looked so handsome in his father’s old sports coat and black wool pants with a white shirt and matching blue velvet bow tie. She didn’t believe in matchy-matchy for couples, but this small touch pleased her.
All over the room a high tinkling sound started as people tapped their forks against their glasses.
Rich leaned toward her, she nuzzled into him, and they kissed for what would not be the last time that night.
And even though, outside the tall windows of the auditorium, it had just started to snow in what would come to be known as the Valentine’s Day Blizzard, Claire felt safe and warm in a way she had never felt before.
Mary Logue is an award-winning poet and mystery writer. She was born and raised in Minnesota. Her most recent books are
Doppelganger,
a middle-grade mystery she wrote with Pete Hautman;
Point No Point,
her ninth crime novel; and
Hand Work,
her fourth book of poems.
Meticulous Attachment
was awarded honorable mention by the Midwest Booksellers Association in 2006 and
Dark Coulee
won a Minnesota Book Award in 2000. She has also published a young adult novel,
Dancing with an Alien.
Her nonfiction books include a biography of her grandmother,
Halfway Home.
She has been an editor for several publishers. She is currently teaching at Hamline University in St. Paul in their Children’s Literature MFA and lives with writer Pete Hautman and toy poodles Rene and Jacques in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
If you liked Frozen Stiff check out:
Blood Country
A
s Claire stepped out of her house into the fading sunlight of an early-April day, she looked back over the roof. The bluff rose up into the pale blue sky like the walls of a fortress. One of the reasons she had bought this old farmhouse was that it had that protection. The bluff was formed when limestone that had been carved away in the ancient bed of the Mississippi River. Its sides were covered with prickly red cedar, slashes of birch, black walnuts, and oak.
Meg, her ten-year-old daughter, tugged at her jacket. “Mom, I’m going to run over to Ramah’s. She’s standing at her door. I’ll be right back.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“But watch me, Mom. Watch me until I get there.”
“Of course I’ll watch you.” She ruffled Meg’s hair and sent her on her way. Her darling daughter. Probably the most important reason they had moved down to Fort St. Antoine. Meg had been afraid in their old house in St Paul.
The two of them had lived in Fort St. Antoine for nearly nine months. The town was about an hour and a half southeast of the Twin Cities, nestled between the shore of Lake Pepin and the surrounding limestone bluffe. It was situated halfway down a natural lake that had formed in the Mississippi River. The town was named after a French fort that had been built in the eighteenth century, although little of the fort remained. The town had peaked around 1910 with a population of 730, having both a railroad station and a ferry. Neither existed now. Where the town had once been a vital transportation center for the formers in the surrounding area, it was now just a pleasant day-trip destination for tourists from the Twin Cities. The current population was around 180.
She pulled her eyes down from the bluffs and watched Meg wave from Ramah’s doorway. Ramah was an older woman who watched Meg for an hour or two when she got home from school.
Claire saw that her other neighbor, Landers Anderson, was sitting out in his garden, so she walked over to chat. “What’s up?” she yelled at him as she got closer.
“Pondering,” he told her. He sat smiling up at her, his wisps of white hair sticking out from under a green-plaid tam and an old Green Bay Packers sweatshirt snugged over his belly.
“Good thing to do on a night like this.”
“Yes, finally winter is letting loose of us. A fine day. It makes me wonder how many more springs I’ll see.”
“Oh, I’m afraid you’ll be around for a while.”
“Keeping an eye on you.” Landers patted the chair next to him.
“I can only sit for a moment. Meg and I have a big night planned. We rented a video, and we’re making popcorn. Since I don’t work tomorrow, we thought we’d have a little party. Would you like to join us?”
“No, thanks.” He lifted up the tam on his head and plopped it back down, making his white hair fly out at the sides. “I’ve got a good book going.”
“What are you reading?”
Landers laughed silently, his head bobbing up and down as if on a gentle spring, and then told her. “
The Yearling.
Seeing all the deer this year, I remembered that book that I read as a boy. Took it out from the library. It’s still good.” He paused, then asked, “How’s Meg doing at school?”
“She has her ups and downs. Last few days, she has seemed upset about something, but when I ask her, she says it’s nothing.”
“Meg thinks a lot. It always makes everyday life a little harder when you do it with full consciousness.”
Looking at Landers, Claire was surprised by how much she loved this old man. He had been such a help to her when they had first moved down. Cups of tea when she was tired from stripping wallpaper, water when their well pipes burst, a telephone before the phone company put theirs in, and a shoulder to cry on when she felt alone and disheartened and didn’t want Meg to know. He was one of those rare people who had taken growing old as a chance to reflect on both his life and others and, in doing so, had grown wise. A simple sentence from him often put the wrangled mess of her life in perspective.
He cleared his throat and folded his hands. She knew this meant he was ready to make a pronouncement. “Someone called me up and wanted to buy my house.”
“Oh, what did you tell them?” Claire felt her heart stop. She couldn’t bear to think of Landers moving away. He was so much a part of this place that she was sure the sun wouldn’t shine as much if he were gone.
“Hey, I’m no dummy. I asked him how much he’d give me.”
“Did he tell you?”
“Sure. He said a hundred and fifty thousand. For the house and the land.”
Claire was surprised. Landers had quite a nice parcel of land, but the price seemed exorbitant. She had bought her house and one acre of land for forty thousand a year ago. She knew that property values down along the lake were rising much faster than the stock market, but the offer still surprised her. “Wow.”
“That’s what I thought too. Wow. But I didn’t say it So then he offered a little more. I told him I’d sell over my dead body, and that might not be too far off. He told me the offer would only be good for a short period of time. I wonder if it has anything to do with that new development they are thinking of putting in down here. People get so greedy when there’s a little money to be had.”
“Are you considering selling?”
“Not really. I don’t need the money. But sometimes I do think I should move to one of those senior apartments. Then I wouldn’t have to go fussing around in the garden all the time.”
This comment made Claire feel better. Landers loved his garden. She didn’t think he could live without one. She saw Meg was running down the road and stood up to go.
“You ready to get your hands dirty tomorrow?” he asked her.
“You bet.” They had a date to work on his garden. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Don’t arrest anyone tonight,” he said, and chuckled at his own joke.
L
ANDERS ANDERSON PICKED
up a handful of black soil and squeezed it. The earth formed a soft ball in his hand, like crumbly pie dough. He leaned back on his heels and smiled. Spring filled him with glee. There was no other way to think about it. Anticipation of all that was to come, all the green that would burst out of the ground, all the color that would swirl out of the green. Buds and flowers and leaves spurting out of this black goop he had created. He looked up into the fading blue sky and, in this his eighty-first year, was glad for spring to be here again.
He dropped the dirt ball back onto the garden bed and straightened up. Standing took an effort, joints rubbing together like tools left out in the rain. He wasn’t supposed to be out here in his garden. Or rather, he wasn’t supposed to be working in his garden, according to the doctor at the Mayo Clinic. Triple bypass surgery ten years ago had not cured him, only pushed the problem off. Although the doctor was a somber man, he had waxed eloquent for a moment when he declared that Landers’ heart and arteries were shot, describing his heart as “one of the worst traffic jams I’ve ever seen.” Landers laughed at the description but hadn’t been pleased by the prescriptions: no heavy lifting, hardly any walking, lots of tiny pills always handy.
But the way he looked at it, this effort of living, either you enjoyed it or you might as well dig your own grave. He had given up tennis, then he had given up golf, but he’d be goddamned if he’d give up puttering in his own garden. It would hurt him every day to see it neglected and Landers was persuaded that this pain would do him more harm than a few moments of shoveling, a little extra effort bent over weeding.
Besides, he was asking for help. Claire would come over tomorrow morning and help him uncover all his beds and stir up his compost heap and put some manure on the gardens. He could trust her to do it well. Of course, he would watch her and direct her. She didn’t know much about gardening, but she was learning, and she had the love of it. She knew that you needed to touch the soil, get your hands dirty, run fingertips over flowertops, pinch the leaves, clip the branches, deadhead the old blooms. The gardening seemed to be good for her, calmed her down. She was so jumpy. Must be hard to be a cop. He looked up again at the sky and was thankful she had moved in next door.
The light was fading. He could see the blue leak out of the sky, the gray trees around him lose the little green they had in buds. He wiped his hands on his pants and was turning to go into the house when he saw what he had been looking for. Bending forward so quickly he almost toppled over, he caught himself on the fence and then leaned in closer. Yes. Oh, yes, it was the first spear of the new tulips he had planted last fall.
Tulipa greigii.
Small frilly plants with purple-striped leaves, long-lived, hardly like what one thinks a tulip to be. All winter he had been looking forward to watching their leaves shoot out of the ground and then the swell of bloom and finally the red blossom. They would probably last more years than he would. He reached over and touched the tip of the new shoot. Then he heard a sound, the gate creaking. He had been caught. Again, he stood and felt unsteady.
As he turned to face his visitor, he heard a whistle in the air and then saw something coming at him. He tried to make it what it wasn’t—the wing of a blackbird, a tree branch falling, something natural and explainable—and then the shovel hit him.
T
HEY WATCHED BLACK BEAUTY
, and at the end Meg told her that it was her very favorite movie in the whole world.
“But last week I thought
Charlotte’s Web
was your most favorite movie.”
“Oh, Mom.”
Claire wrapped an arm around her. “Oh, Meg. It’s time for bed.”
“But it’s only eight-thirty. I don’t have to go to bed until nine.”
“I’m exhausted. So that means you have to go to bed. You can read for a while, though.”
Claire followed her up the stairs and tucked her into bed. She kissed her daughter on the forehead and said a silent prayer to carry her safely through the night. Meg turned the light on by the side of the bed and propped herself up on her pillow. Claire stood in the doorway and gazed at her for a moment. Meg was caught in a pool of light, her dark hair shining. Her eyelashes dipped over her eyes, reading. A beautiful child.
Claire turned into the darkness of the hallway, glad again that they had moved to this quiet community where the most violent act she would do in a day was to bend and pull a weed from the ground. She hoped it would stay that way.
