Chapter V #2
“Hello, Mrs. Kerr,” Mae responded in a professional tone. Mrs. Kerr’s curvy frame barreled down the street towards her. Upon meeting, Mrs. Kerr gulped in a large breath, and her cheeks and nose burned scarlet red.
“I’m so glad to of caught ye! I been checkin’ in at yer office, but ye’ve been away. Mr. Turner had given me yer address, but I hate to bother ye at home. It’s just… Have ye any news about me Lily?” Her eyes met Mae's pleadingly, reflecting the utter desperation in her voice.
“Yes, Mrs. Kerr,” Mae began, “we had a motion scheduled with the judge yesterday.” Mae watched the woman’s features peak into hopefulness. “Unfortunately, we were unable to keep the appointment.” The fleeting hope vanished as her mouth dropped open.
“What do ye mean? Unable to keep it?” She wrung her hands in front of her tattered shawl. “What does that mean for me Lily?”
“I’m not sure as of yet. I haven’t managed to make it over to the courthouse yet.” The words came out as professionally as Mae could muster.
Winona’s face reddened and her nostrils flared. “You couldn’t have managed to make it over to the courthouse?” Her emphasis on the word blew out the last ember of strength Mae had.
“Unfortunately, Henry passed away yesterday before he could make it to the courthouse.” The words lacked the bite she had wanted and instead came out as a sort of feeble excuse.
Winona’s hand flew to her mouth as her eyes widened. She lunged forward, and thick arms enveloped Mae’s thin shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Turner.” The woman’s embrace was unexpected, and Mae stiffened in response. “What happened?”
Mae pulled back from Winona, and irritation at the sudden change in tone slowed her response. “Natural causes.” She repeated the captain’s words with dripping disdain.
“Oh, that’s awful…” Winona’s hands rested against her heart. “My Markus has been gone just over a month and the hurt doesn’t go away.” Her eyes filled with tears as she averted them over Mae’s shoulder.
Mae needed this conversation to be over. She needed to be rid of this woman and the stark reflection she provided. She needed to cry, and she wouldn’t do it here. She needed to go inside.
Mae drew in a steadying breath and brought the conversation back to Lily. “Unfortunately, due to our absence, the judge may have denied it by default, so she was likely remanded to the Foundling House.”
“The Foundling?” The subject of Lily immediately brought Winona back to the issue at hand. “What will happen to me Lily now?”
“Unfortunately, there isn’t much to be done now. She will likely be sent west to be adopted out.”
“Be there anything that ye can do, Mrs. Turner?” The mother’s hands clutched Mae’s.
Mae's chin came up and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kerr, but I am not a lawyer, so I can’t appear before the judge in Henry’s stead.” The excuse sounded hollow even to her own ears.
Mae stood blankly, facing the woman. She couldn’t discreetly make her way around the woman to the office, so she interlaced her hands and shifted her weight.
Her Lily? What about Henry? Mae's eyes narrowed on the flowered calico patch that ran the length of the faded brown twill near the seam.
Perhaps Lily would be better off in a home that could afford to keep her.
Mae let her perusal run over Mrs. Kerr. Her right boot had begun to split about the sole, and the drab knit of her sock was poking through.
How would a woman without two pennies to rub together be able to provide for a little girl and herself?
Mae had been disappointed by Henry's agreement to take this case.
There was certainly no payment forthcoming from this woman.
But Henry had insisted that it was the right thing to do, had reminded Mae of their ‘professional responsibility’ to help the community when they could.
The taste of bile permeated her mouth as she decided that some legal proceedings were indeed for the betterment of those involved.
She cringed inwardly. Henry would have been disgusted with her just now.
Winona took a staggering step back while she processed this last bit of information.
Sidestepping the woman, Mae freed herself to proceed down the last hundred feet to her office, Winona’s heavy breathing audible from the narrow passage.
Finally, the scuttling of the devastated woman’s feet faded into the background as she ascended the steps of the landing.
Mae turned the key in the lock of the office door.
She was met with the familiar scent of wood polish and paper.
Letting the door slam shut, she collapsed down into her desk chair in the front corner of the office.
Their life’s work was sprawled in front of her.
The bookshelves stared back at her with their green spiny eyes, the golden numbers rippling down the line in a cascading glossy wave.
The small hot plate sat with the kettle atop it still, teacups for clients stacked neatly to the side with their requisite saucers.
Henry's favorite blue coffee cup with the gold trimming hung on the rack along with hers, both dangling from their thin arms on the old walnut rack.
As she stared vacantly around, she saw that the room had been put out of sorts in the previous day and a half.
Henry's desk had been moved several inches out of place, leaving behind an indent where the heavy walnut desk had stood for the last decade. Moving past the desk, her eyes lingered on the chair. That was where Henry had drawn his last breath. Where he’d taken his last glimpse of this world before his eyes closed eternally.
Had he called for her? Had his last thoughts been of her or of Simon?
Had it been painful? She closed her eyes, but the image of his lifeless body emblazoned itself on the backs of her eyelids.
She felt a sudden seizing in her chest and blackness started to cloud into the image of Henry.
Gasping, she fought to open her eyes, to ground herself to anything solid in her shrinking sightline.
Breathe. Breathe. Where was Henry? She needed him.
Needed his strong embrace that had helped her regain her self-control when she panicked.
Willing herself to draw in a deep breath and release it over several seconds, over and over, her chest loosened.
But her self-control broke down at the sixth breath, and soon the tightening of her chest was because of the wracking sobs overcoming her slight frame.
The tears streamed down unchecked this time, sliding into the corners of her mouth and tasting like a briny mix of pain and desolation.
Air forced its way through her throat, bypassing her swollen and stuffed nasal passages, and ripped through her chest on its way to her lungs.
What was she going to do without Henry? He was her life.
Her love. Questions continued to spiral through her mind as she lay listlessly in the chair.
When her tears finally slowed to a trickle, she was exhausted.
A somber tolling of the bell informed her that it was now afternoon.
She must make her way back to the house to meet Simon and begin preparations for Henry's burial.
Tidying up had a calming effect, as it always had, and she forced herself to move around the room, putting it to rights.
She re-stacked the papers in a neat pile and placed them gently into their filing box, with edges aligned precisely.
At least in organizing the room, it could provide the illusion of reorganizing her broken life.
The coat rack caught her eye, and immediately she went to it.
She ran her hands down the familiar thickness of Henry's coat, then pressed the collar to her nose. It still smelled like him. The faint scent of bay rum engulfed her senses as she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Her arms felt too big, trying to hug the empty coat that had once been the stabilizing force in her life. As the scent receded, the panic of the loss caused her to grab large swaths of the coat, trying to reclaim the calming effect. But she couldn’t.
The collar was the only place that had retained that glorious smell, and now even that was fading away.
Small tears formed again in her eyes as her lips broke down into a tremble.
She went to her own coat and removed his pocket watch, holding it to her heart. Then, she slipped it back into her pocket and pinched the tears from her eyes. She gazed around again at the disarray of the room and took a deep, steadying breath.
She shuffled her way around the room until she made it to Henry's desk, bracing herself to push the heavy piece of furniture back into its original place. Her foot slipped on something near the leg. As she looked down, every muscle in her body seized. It was Henry’s pen lying near the left-hand side of the desk.
Her mouth dropped open and gaped at the backside of Henry's desk, the side where his perfectly maintained drawers were now visible.
They were all askew, pulled open at various depths, the meticulously stacked papers strewn this way and that.
This was not how it had been yesterday. The ledger—she needed to find the ledger.
As she shuffled the contents of the drawers, her movements became jerky.
There was no ledger. She glanced around as a cool bead of sweat began to form at the base of her neck.
Who had been in here? A muffled tick drew her attention back to the watch; her shaking hand dipped into her pocket to hold it tight. Something scratched against the back of her hand, and she snatched her hand out before realizing that it was Henry’s handwritten, unfinished notes.