“I'm so sorry, sweetheart,” she said, crushing me in a bear hug. “Where's your luggage?”
Wordlessly, I pointed to the trunk of my car.
Harper led me through the main room, where a small, raised stage and a dance floor took up two thirds of the space. A well-stocked barmore reminiscent of an upscale big-town establishment and a dozen tables completed the room. On open mic nights, theBlue Moonwas packed, same as when one of the local bands played.
We passed the kitchen and rest rooms – both were on opposite sides of the main room – and entered the games room through a baize-covered door. Harper didn’t want musicians and poets to be disturbed by the pool players, or the other way around. A back staircase next to an old-fashioned dart board took us up to the second floor where she had a couple of guest rooms.
The best of them was reserved for me. When Ange had called me, Aunt Violet had already been declared dead on the scene. “It was a massive heart attack. She wouldn’t have felt a thing,” Harper told me. She'd been able to convince the hospital to let her have the key to Aunt Violet's house from her purse, so she could save the cat. Cosmo now waited for me in the guest room. Afterwards, she’d handed the key back to the local police, until my arrival.
We were both unsure about the proper procedure. I was the next of kin apart from my two cousins, but I had no idea if my aunt had made a will or named an executor. Tears prickled in my eyes. I wiped them away.
Harper squared her shoulders, unlocked the door with an old-fashioned key, and pulled me inside. “Quick, I don't want Cosmo to run away to search for her.”
The poor kitty. He’d spent all his life being doted on by Aunt Violet, since she found him, years ago, sitting atop a pumpkin on a cold October night. Now, he stood on the windowsill. His black fur had lost its sheen, and he looked as heartbroken as a cat could.
A lump formed in my throat as I stroked him. “I know what you feel like, buddy,” I said. “She was one in a million.” He meowed softlyand lifted a paw as if to push back a blue lock that had fallen into my face.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” Harper said. “Dinner’s ready in half an hour. Towels are in the bathroom.” Cosmo meowed again.
I spotted an empty food bowl on a mat. “I think he’s hungry.”
She opened the lower dresser drawer. Inside, she’d stored half a dozen tins with salmon, tuna, and chicken, and a small bag with cat biscuits. At the back were the harness Aunt Violet insisted he wore when she took him to the park or on other visits, and his favorite ball. The cat carrier with a plastic bubble window where he could look through like a furry goldfish (or a black vampire, in bad lighting and from a certain angle) stood next to the king-size bed. I toyed with the idea of taking a quick nap, but odds were I’d end up hiding under the patchwork-quilt until we either ran out of cat food or Harper broke down the door.
A shower would have to do. It was also the perfect place to cry.
I left the door to the connecting bathroom open, so Cosmo wouldn’t fear he’d be abandoned. We both had already experienced the worst, losing Aunt Violet, I thought as I opened the hot water tap and stepped into the rainfall shower.
I was wrong.
Chapter two
Isaid good-bye to the woman who’d raised me since I was eleven, after a dinner of steak, baked potatoes and green beans that on any other day would have had me relish every mouthful. Today, I had to force the food down.
We were eating in the staff corner of the industrial-sized kitchen at theBlue Moon. Harper’s wife was visiting her parents in the state capitol Salem, so it was just the two of us, plus Cosmo. He’d become agitated when he saw me heading to the door of my room, so I’d brought him down with me. He’d watched every move I made, throning on the chair next to mine.
“I’ll look after him while you’re out,” Harper offered when I reached for my coat. “Or should I drive you?”
“Would you mind?” Cosmo hunkered down, resigned to be left behind, if I interpreted his body language correctly. “Sorry, buddy, I don’t think they’d give you a visitor’s pass.”
His whiskers drooped as I scooped him up and carried him to our room. I put a scarf on the quilt. Aunt Violet had given it to me during my last visit. Hopefully her scent still lingered on it to comfort the poor cat.
The hospital, with the morgue hidden away in the farthest corner, lay at the end of the original village. Together with the cemetery it served as a demarcation line between the old part and the neweradditions that had sprung up after the wars. Aunt Violet’s house and lending library were at the other end of the old village, where residential buildings were interspersed with mixed use.
Harper waited in the car park while I followed the elderly morgue attendant. Our steps echoed on the linoleum floor, marked by stretchers wheeled past over the years. A faint smell of disinfectant lingered, and I reached for the handrail on one side of the beige walls to steady myself. I wasn’t good with hospitals at the best of times.
In death, Aunt Violet appeared to have shrunk. Her hands were crossed over her heart. I stroked them, willing her to wake up and admire my new periwinkle hair. Her purple mane framed her pale face as vibrantly as I remembered it, but that was all. She was gone.
The morgue attendant handed me a Kleenex. I blew my nose. “What happens next?” I asked him.
“The funeral home’ll collect the body tomorrow,” he said. “We don’t keep’ em long, unless – we don’t keep’ em long.” His gaze flickered to another steel compartment, next to the one reserved for Aunt Violet on her way to her eternal rest.
My chest tightened and I nodded. At least there was no need to worry about the funeral arrangements. She’d arranged to be laid to rest in the family plot, beside her late husband. My mother was buried there as well. Maybe I should check if the space would be large enough for me too.
Harper glared at me when I mentioned that thought once I was back with her in her car. “Don’t you dare go all gloomy on me. It’s okay to grieve for her. We all do that. But she was in her seventies, and she had a weak heart, whereas you are a woman in her prime. Funky hair, free as a bird …” She ran out of things to say.
“You’re right,” I said. What I didn’t tell her was that I really had the feeling it would be a good idea to sort out my funeral arrangements too.
When we returned, the neon sign outside theBlue Moonbathed the flower beds outside in an eerie light echoing my new hair color. Through the windows, I glimpsed half a dozen folks in matching jackets with a bowling pin embroidered on the back sitting at the bar.
