ROBERT
PARKER STEVENSON
ROBERT PARKER STEVENSON dropped his
son off at a buddy’s house. The two boys were planning some major computer game
challenges along with two other friends.
He used the three names
professionally because it was different. There were a lot of Roberts or
variations such as Bob, Rob, Robbie, etc. He was the only Parker.
As he turned into the
cul-de-sac, he noticed there were plumbing and electrician trucks in front of
Medora’s home. He was on his way to see Medora's daughters at Margo’s tiny house and
studio. Probate had gone smoothly: the sale had given the girls their asking
price and the estate sale had given them about 12% more than they expected.
Parker preferred to go to
people’s homes. In a way it made him feel like he was in a modern Agatha
Christie movie without Poirot and no murder. Years ago, he would have just deposited
the survivor’s checks directly into their accounts. He might still do an
electronic transfer, but he made a personal visit to discuss it. The visit wouldn’t
be billed.
One advantage of being a
small-town lawyer, he could have a personal touch in a way that had been impossible
when he worked for a big firm. No matter that he made less. He and his family
had enough.
Because of traffic he was
running late for his appointment. He hated being late. He called Margo to tell her his car was
fenced in by cars and couldn’t move.
“No problem,” she said. “Everyone’s
here. That’s Heather, Grayson and me. And oh yes, Henry just dropped by. I’ve
asked him to stay, if that’s okay.”
Parker had been in
Grayson’s much, much younger brother Jeff’s class. He and Jeff had been on the
football team, taking advantage of the status to get the best girls. That is
until Jeff broke his leg and missed the rest of the season. Then Bobby Grant,
another buddy, had a head injury and despite all kinds of pressure, Parker’s
mother rescinded her permission for her sons to play.
“I don’t care,” she said
to everyone who asked her to change her mind. “My son’s brain is more important
than any stupid football game.”
Jeff and Parker were the
best players on the team, which had been undefeated until then. After the team
lost the rest of the season’s games. The boys, more or less shunned, found
themselves hanging out together.
His car moved two car
lengths forward.
After graduation, the
bond, weak at best, fell apart. Grayson went to Babson and became an
accountant. Parker went to UMass Amherst. His top grades won him a place at
Harvard Law.
Parker, no longer called
Bob, Bobby, Rob or any other diminutive of Robert, failed to get a Supreme
Court or even a top law firm internship, but once he passed the bar on the
first try, he found a place at the second-best law firm in Boston.
Parker smiled at the
memory. He always thought it sad when someone said about an Olympic athlete,
“Too bad, he only won a silver medal.” Silver was pretty damned good.
The traffic inched
forward. A woman pushed a baby carriage on the sidewalk next to the line of
traffic. She looked like Marcy, his first wife, but she had remarried and moved
to Switzerland with her Swiss banker husband who could afford to keep her the
way she wanted.
He didn’t miss her. As
the newbie in the law firm, he had put in 80 hours a week or more. Marcy didn’t
mind. More time for her to shop.
Was it really 10 years
ago that he decided his life left him no time for living and he took over his
father’s family law practice? Marcy was furious at the income drop and filed
for divorce. When they signed the final papers, she looked at him and said,
“Loser.”
He felt like a winner,
including the improvements in his golf game. Nancy, his second wife, was
totally different. She was looking forward to hearing about how Margo was
getting along in her tiny house and studio. They even talked about trying a
tiny house themselves, once his boys were grown and out of the house.
The traffic opened up.
Five minutes later Margo
welcomed him.
HEATHER
LOUD POWERS
HEATHER PULLED OUT from the library
parking lot. Library work shouldn’t be stressful, nor should the reading hour
for four-year-olds. Despite that, she was still shaking. Four-year-old Bobby
McClellen had thrown another hissy fit. He took all the books he could reach off
the shelves and tore some of them. The vase of flowers on the desk he threw
across the room. The glass shattered.
She suggested to his
mother she take him home, but the woman said he would quiet down.
Heather wanted to tell
her to get out and not come back, but her husband was Robert J. McClellan, Jr.,
a Selectman, who also headed the committee that financed the library.
Heather knew if she
complained to Grayson, he would tell her that she didn’t need to work. She
could stay home, be a lady of leisure. No way. She didn’t work hard for her
Degree at Simmons College to not use the studies as a librarian. Granted her
compromise with her husband was to work only part time.
Grayson insisted that she
keep her salary, much of which she saved. It was there for Grace if she needed
it, for whatever, after she got out of college.
Because she lived close
to the library, she pulled into her driveway within minutes. She probably could
have walked, but there were no sidewalks.
Once inside, she went
straight to the kitchen to make an egg salad and coriander sandwich on dark
bread and open a Coke. No, she wouldn’t tell Grayson about Bobby.
Her mobile rang. “Heather,
are you okay?” It was the head librarian. “We have to do something about that
child,” the women agreed, but they weren’t sure what politically.
By the time she hung up,
had finished eating and put the dishes in the dishwasher, she was calm. She
needed to pick up the house a bit. Heather was one of those women who pre-cleaned
her house for the cleaning woman.
Esperanza came on Mondays
and Thursdays. Now that it was just her and Grayson, she didn’t need her four
times a week like she had when Grace and her friends created so much mess.
Upstairs were two small
rooms that once had been an attic. One was Grayson’s office, the other
Heather’s.
She used hers more than he
did. He preferred to stay later in the evening at the office and have his home
time 100% at home. She used hers more as a reading room.
By 1:30 she was in her
office looking at the boxes of papers and photographs from her mother.
She sat on the floor and
started to remove the photos. Some were obviously of women in long dresses, men
in straw hats and even ties although they were on picnics. Some of the men were
playing golf with hickory clubs. Heather had no idea who they were. She wished
her mother had written on the back at least their first names.
A little girl with a huge
hair bow was probably Medora after WWII. Sometimes the child looked sweet, but
there were some when the devil shone in her eyes. There were others of her
mother in prom dresses with different boys, but there were more of their
father.
Some were of Margo or
her, she couldn’t tell which from their baby pictures, not that it mattered.
Her mother wore a full-skirted
floor-length dress. A banner saying Happy New Year was over the heads of her
and her father. Her mother had a mink stole, something that was later stolen
and never replaced. “There was no way your father would have bought me a full
mink coat, although Lord knows I tried.”
Even after he’d been dead
for a couple of decades, Medora still thought she should have had a mink coat
or at least her husband could have used the insurance money to replace the
stole. No way was she going to buy a mink coat with her own money.
Heather stared at the
photo: her mother wore the leaf ring, the one with the diamonds on her left
hand. That proved it existed. It wasn't her imagination,
What happened to it? They hadn’t found a ring like that in any of their
preparing for the estate sale. Nor had the estate inventory list and prices
included any such ring.
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