Fear itself

The Widow Bird
1

“Thank you for another day, O Lord; may I use it to your everlasting glory.”

And it did look to be a glorious Indian summer Sunday. Sunny, once those high clouds burned off, with highs in the low seventies-about ten degrees higher than normal for Wisconsin, this time of year, but Ida Day would have started her morning with the same prayer of thanks if it had been fifty and raining, or twenty below and snowing. When you were seventy and still had all your faculties and most of your teeth, every day was a good day.

Mind you, Ida’s idea of how to use a Sunday to the Lord’s glory was not the same as most folks, especially around La Farge. For one thing, it didn’t include church. She and Walt had always distrusted organized religion; the more organized it was, the more they distrusted it. If she wanted the word of God, Ida had only to look up at the sampler hanging over the bureau. Deuteronomy 31:8: “The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

She had stitched it herself, for Walt, to encourage him during those last difficult days. Throat cancer-no goddamn way to go. Ida still had Walt’s old army Colt in the bottom drawer of her bureau; if and when she found herself in a similar situation, she was reasonably confident she’d have the right combination of courage and cowardice to use it.

But today was not a day for morbid thoughts. Today was a day for, let’s see…for apples! She still had a few bushels left over from the Gays Mills Applefest. Oh, yes-Ida could almost smell it already, the sweet, faintly winey bouquet of autumn apples being cidered.

Although, come to think of it, cidering was best left for a cool day; not only were you less likely to draw wasps, but you could mull the first gallon to warm you.

Then Ida remembered the pumpkins sitting on the front porch. She’d told herself she wasn’t going to carve jack-o’-lanterns this year, but yesterday the little Steinmuller boy had come trudging up the sidewalk hauling a rusty red wagon piled high with pumpkins he’d grown himself, a dollar for the big ones, fifty cents for the little ones, two bits for the gourds. It was right off the cover of a Saturday Evening Post; how could she resist?

Pumpkins, then. After breakfast-two eggs and a rasher of bacon, black coffee, and her first Pall Mall of the day (don’t bother lecturing her: she’s already buried two doctors; three, if you count Walt)-Ida sharpened her carving knife on a Washita stone dampened with vinegar, spread newspapers out on the porch, turned the likeliest looking pumpkin around and around until she discovered its natural face, and had just finished sawing off its cap when the phone rang.

“It never fails,” she grumbled, hauling herself up from the overturned milk crate she’d been sitting on and hurrying into the house to pick up the phone in the living room before the answering machine in the kitchen got into the act. There was nothing Ida hated more than shouting hold on into the receiver while her own flat Appleknocker voice bleated I’m not here now, leave a message at the tone into her ear.

“Hello?” She’d made it.

“Ida Day?”

“Yes?”

“Ida Pender Day?”

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Day, this is Arthur Bellcock.”

“The man who’s writing the book about Eddie?”

“One of the only advantages to a name like mine, Mrs. Day, is you never get confused with any other Arthur Bellcocks.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Eddie told me he’d given you my name and that you’d probably be in touch, but I thought it wasn’t going to be for another month or so.”

“That was the plan, but due to a scheduling conflict, I’ve had to push things up a few weeks. I was wondering, and I understand if it’s an inconvenience, but I’m actually down in Madison winding up another project, and it would be so helpful if I could drive up tomorrow evening.”

“Oh, I think I can manage to clear my schedule, Mr. Bellcock. And Eddie did encourage me to tell you anything you wanted to know.”

“Good. Because I definitely want to capture him, warts and all.”

“I’ll do the best I can. But you understand, Mr. Bellcock, I was fourteen when Eddie was born, and I moved away from Cortland when he was ten.”

“I understand. At this early stage, everything I can learn about your brother will be a great help. By the way, will Mr. Day be around?”

“Only in spirit,” said Ida. “Dr. Day passed away ten years ago.”

“I’m so sorry. You live alone, then?”

“Alone, but not lonely, as I like to say.”

“A laudable attitude. Until tomorrow then, Mrs. Day.”

“Until tomorrow, Mr. Bellcock.”