Women’s World - Robin Brande - E-Book

Women’s World E-Book

Robin Brande

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Beschreibung

Four short stories and a mystery novella:

THE FISHWIFE: Jack and his wife Freddie have shared plenty of adventures in their many years together. Now death is the final adventure. But there's something Freddie needs to do before she can let Jack go. A tale of love, loss, and hope for a second chance.

NUDE, SMILING: A clever law student creates a unique way to pay for law school.

THERE IN THE STAIRWELL: A woman is haunted by what happened to her in her office nine years ago. But at a dinner party, peace comes from an unexpected source.

A KINDNESS, REALLY: A young woman wonders if sparing her child a life of torment is a kindness, really.

PAINTED LADY: Detective Lily Maines tries to distract herself from her own personal tragedy by diving into a stack of unsolved murder cases. Pulling at one small thread can sometimes unravel a much larger crime--one that no one else has noticed yet. It will take time and patience to fit the pieces together. But as Detective Maines has learned, justice is a marathon, not a sprint.

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Women’s World

Selected Stories

Robin Brande

Ryer Publishing

Contents

The Fishwife

The Fishwife

Nude, Smiling

Nude, Smiling

There in the Stairwell

There in the Stairwell

A Kindness, Really

A Kindness, Really

Painted Lady

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

About the Author

Also by Robin Brande

The Fishwife

The Fishwife

There’s an art to morphine, like knowing how much paint to put on your brush.

Just enough to keep him comfortable, not so much that he loses himself. Jack wants to be awake. Not all of them do.

“Slower,” he tells me.

“Sorry,” I answer. “Almost done with this one.” I let his leg relax a little before pushing his knee toward his chest again. Jack groans. “Sorry,” I say again, “but I don’t want you to get stiff.”

Jack closes his eyes and lets me move him. I wonder with patients who are this bad whether to keep doing their therapy. Maybe I should let them be—stop making them hurt when it won’t do much good anymore anyway. I can see it’s coming on fast with Jack. But if I stopped doing his therapy he’d think something was up. That’s bad, too.

“I didn’t tell you about our honeymoon yet,” he says.

“Nope. How’s this?”

“Better. So, our honeymoon. Freddie thought we should go to Alaska. There wasn’t much for her there, but she knew there’d be good fishing for me. She’s a good sport about things like that. You ever been to Alaska, Sheila?”

“When would I go to Alaska?”

“It’s incredible there.” Jack pauses as I start in on his left leg. He takes a deep breath. This one always hurts more.

“Sorry,” I say, as if that helps.

Jack licks his lips. His eyes are closed. I told him once to pretend he’s somewhere else. Alaska seems as good a place as any.

“I wanted to fish for halibut,” he goes on. “You ever seen one of those? Even in a picture?”

“I doubt it.”

“They’re ugly mothers. They’re born with an eye on each side of their head, just like normal fish, but then over time one of the eyes just moves over.”

“What do you mean, it moves over?’

Jack lifts a finger to his closed eyes and draws me a line. “I mean one eye just starts moving—tick, tick, tick—until it’s right next to the other one on the top side of the fish. I don’t know why they’re not born that way already. Seems like a lot of extra effort.”

“How are your shoulders today, Jack?”

“The right one hurts a little.”

“I’ll go easy,” I say.

“We rented a boat and a captain for the day. The captain was some nineteen-year-old kid named Orick. His dad owned the boat, but he let Orick take people out in it on the weekends to earn some extra money. I think we paid him three hundred or something. Nice kid. Knew how to find fish.

“Freddie gets seasick, so she took a bunch of motion pills before we set out. They knocked her out. She slept the whole way—didn’t wake up until the afternoon. But then once she was up she was up. She’s a charmer. She had that kid going. He was in love with her right away.” Jack smiles to himself. “That’s how it is with all of us. At her mercy.”

“How long did you know her before you got married?”

“Two months,” he says. “Two months and I proposed. I didn’t see any reason for waiting. We got married eight months after we met. Ow! Jeezus, Sheila.”

“Sorry, sorry.” That wrist wasn’t so tender yesterday. There’s a new spot every day now, it seems.

Jack licks the sweat off his upper lip.

I ask him, “Do you want more meds?” He shakes his head. I know he wants to stay up for Freddie, but she’s late today. Usually she gets here by six, and it’s already eight. “I think we’re done for now,” I say, setting down his arm. There’s no point in hurting him more than I have to.

“There’s a picture over there,” Jack says. “Get it for me, will you?”

“Which one?” There’s a whole shelf of pictures of the two of them. Then I spy it: Freddie wearing a bright yellow slicker, smiling and holding a big fish out in front of her. “Is this Orick?” I ask, pointing to the kid by her side.

“Yeah. Look how he’s looking at her. He was like that the whole time. Completely in love.”

“How old was Freddie here?”

“Twenty-eight. That was fourteen years ago.” Jack studies the picture, touches Freddie’s face. “I think she looks even better now, don’t you? The way her face is. She just seems…more real somehow.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. She’s too young here.”

“Freddie told us a story while we fished,” Jack says. “This guy hooks a magical fish, and the fish promises him—do you know this one?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “Tell me.”

“The fish says he’s really a magical fish and that if the fisherman throws him back in, the fish will grant him a wish.

“The fisherman’s a decent guy, so he just throws the fish back in. Doesn’t even make a wish to catch another fish. It doesn’t even occur to him.

“The guy goes home to his wife and tells her the story, and she’s a real bitch about it. She can’t believe he’s so stupid. She tells him to march right back out there in the dark and find that fish and make a goddamned wish.

“‘I’m sick of this shack,’ she tells him. ‘You go get me a decent house.’

“So the fisherman goes back out, and he’s embarrassed to have to do it, but he calls to the fish and the fish comes back. The fisherman makes his wish. The fish tells him, ‘Go back home. Your wish has been granted.’

“The guy goes home and his wife is sitting in a beautiful little cottage. And the rest of the story is all about how greedy the wife is, and how she keeps sending the poor guy back again and again to ask the fish for bigger and bigger houses. Finally the fish gets fed up with the guy’s wife never being satisfied . She’s bitching even about living in a castle—I don’t know, maybe the moat wasn’t big enough or something. The fish says he’s not in the business of pleasing greedy women. He tells the fisherman to go home and never bother him again.

“When the fisherman goes home, he finds his wife sitting in the same dirty shack where she started. I guess you have to know your limit. Like Freddie said—pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”

“I like that,” I say.

Jack hands me back the picture. “I’ve got to sleep now. Tell Freddie to wake me when she comes.”

“Okay, Jack.” I tuck him in like a child. He’s asleep before I can get to the other side of the bed.

It’s past ten when Freddie arrives.

“How is he?” Freddie whispers. She leans over and lets her face rest just above Jack’s mouth. She does that a lot when he sleeps. She told me she likes to feel his breath on her cheek.

Freddie pulls a chair beside mine. I’ve still got the picture out. She looks at it and smiles. “Me and my lover Orick. Did Jack tell you about him?”

I’m not sure how to take her sometimes. “Just a little,” I say. “He was pretty tired today.”

Freddie takes the picture and puts it back on the shelf. She grabs another one and shows it to me. It’s one of Jack standing next to an enormous fish.

“There’s Jack’s halibut,” Freddie says. “A hundred and seventy-five pounds—more than Jack weighed. Did he tell you about bringing him in?”

“No, he didn’t get that far.”

“Jack worked at it for over an hour. Look at it—it’s huge. It wore him out trying to bring it in. When he finally got it to the surface, Orick pulled out a pistol and—bang!—shot it right in the head.”

“What?”

Freddie laughs. “Scared the crap out of us. Jack didn’t know what was happening. When he saw the gun he leapt in front of me like he was going to take the bullet for me. I nearly died laughing when I found out what was really going on.”

“And what was going on?”

“Orick said you have to kill halibut before you bring them on the boat. Otherwise they thrash around and they’re heavy enough to crush you. A few weeks before some fisherman brought one on board and the fish broke both his legs. The fisherman drifted for three days with the fish on top of him before someone rescued him.” Freddie waves her arms and imitates a muffled cry for help. She’s laughing so hard I’m afraid she might wake Jack. I hold a finger to my lips. She nods and settles down.

“How was he today?” she asks me.

I tilt my hand back and forth. Freddie nods. She stands beside the bed and looks at Jack’s face. She takes her finger and smooths the skin under his eyes. Then she lays her palm against his cheek.

“I’m moving in tonight, Sheila,” she tells me. “I told Craig I’m leaving him.”

In all the weeks I’ve been coming here, I’ve never heard of Craig. It’s hard to pretend I’m not shocked.

“Craig?”

Freddie gives me a strange look. “He’s…Jack didn’t tell you?”

“I don’t —”

“Craig is my husband now.”

“Craig? But what about Jack?”

Freddie shakes her head. “He really never told you?”

“No.”

“Huh,” Freddie says. “I just thought…huh.”

She glances at Jack. He’s still sleeping.

“Always trying to protect me. I don’t care if you know. Everybody knows. I’m an idiot. Jack and I aren’t married anymore. I’m the world’s biggest idiot.”

“When did you—”

“Six years ago. I divorced him six years ago this May.”

I can’t believe it. Freddie can see I’m having trouble. She comes and sits beside me again and lays her hand on my wrist. “Let me tell you a story,” she says. “You’ll like this one.

“You can probably tell Jack’s older than I am. Sixteen years, in fact. It wasn’t a problem when we got married because he was only forty-four. He seemed younger than he was, and I didn’t really think about the age difference. But then one day he turned fifty, and suddenly I got very scared. I started thinking, ‘He could die any time, and I’ll be alone. He smokes, he eats too much, he won’t exercise—he’s killing himself. I’m going to end up alone.’ So like any good young wife, I started harping on him to change. ‘Exercise. Eat better. For godsake stop smoking.’

“He started taking vitamins and he exercised a little, but he wouldn’t stop smoking.

“And then I started getting really scared. I really worked myself into a panic. Two more years passed, Jack wouldn’t stop smoking, and I was sure he would die any day.

“I told him, ‘It’ll be just like you to die right after I’m past my child-bearing years. Then I’ll have no husband and no children. I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.’ And I told him, ‘If you get cancer while I’m still young, you have to promise me you’ll let me harvest some of your sperm so I can have your child after you’re gone.’ I don’t think I was really serious about that—I was just trying whatever I could to make him stop smoking. I thought if I kept talking about all the things I’d do if he got cancer, he’d get the message and quit.

“But the more I thought about it, the madder I got. He said he didn’t want to have children with me because he thought he was too old, but here he was killing himself. He wouldn’t be around to have to raise the children anyway, so why wouldn’t he let me have them?

“And pretty soon that was all I thought about. I was thirty-six and only had a few good years left. I thought, ‘I have to have a baby. I have to have one. This is my time. This is my last chance.’

“So I left him. Divorced him right away. And I spent a year looking for a good father for my future children, and I’ve spent another five years being married to him.