True Flies
Ex-wife was the first one out of the car. She said, “Let me handle this.”
‘This’ was Stella.
Stella was sitting on the porch watching rain fall into a coffee can. Bernard saved coffee cans. He painted them blue and potted them with geraniums.
The yard was littered with pellets of ice. Hailstorm: machine-gunned tin roof. An August cold-front stunned the summer heat. Intermingled, coalesced. Hail stopped. Rain started. Cool air felt like an adrenaline rush, unexpected relief from the heat felt stolen.
Ex-wife ran across the yard and up the cinderblock steps. Ex-wife’s name was Lauren.
Lauren was still in her funeral clothes: silk sleeveless polka-dotted blouse, black brushed-cotton skirt striated shiny from acquaintance with a hot iron, canary yellow belt, tortoiseshell clasp. She used a Food Town flyer as an umbrella.
“Good Lord, who ordered this weather?” She wiped water from her tanned arms, shook her hands dry and sat down in Bernard’s rocker. “Missed you at the service. Breaks my heart when it rains at a funeral.”
Stella looked at the others waiting in the car like abandoned lap dogs. She said, “People die everyday. Some days it rains. You do the math.”
Lauren’s patent leather Mary Janes scooped wide across the top of her foot revealing four star-shaped tattoos. She followed Stella’s gaze and proudly flexed, stretching her foot so that Stella could see. “I’ve got four stars, one for each of my children.”
“Do you have four more for each of their fathers?”
Lauren was momentarily distracted by her chipped fingernail polish but not for long. She was already bored, not in the mood. She said, “I suppose you’ve had plenty of time to get your things together. Are you about ready to clear out so we can get his stuff sorted?”
“By ‘sorted’ do you mean take what you want and throw the rest away?”
“Let’s not make this more difficult than it has to be.”
Stella watched Lauren’s mouth: thin lips, poorly capped, off-colour teeth, slanted crocodile smile, lipstick faded into puckered creases, crevices, tongue working to get something from between teeth, got it, chewing.
“I know it’s an inconvenience for you but think of Denise.” Lauren pointed out to the car. “It’s her daddy that’s dead.”
Stella said, “It’s an inconvenience for me but a great loss for everybody else?”
“I’m sure you liked him. He was a likeable guy. But he was a husband and a father to us.”
“Actually he was an ex-husband and he hadn’t heard from Denise in over a year but you all come running as soon as he’s dead.”
“Really Stella, this whole thing is pretty simple. Get your things and go. Everybody’s trying to be nice. Don’t make me call the sheriff. Bernard would want us to be civil and I’m sure he’d have wanted you taken care of. I’m not going to send you off without nothing.” Lauren stood up, held open the warped screen door and motioned for Stella to go inside. “Hurry up. Mosquitoes are getting in.”
“Did you know that mosquitoes are true flies? They only have one pair of wings rather than two.”
“Stella! Get inside! I don’t have time for nonsense.”
Things, mostly packed except: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, hairbrush, decoupage cigar box a gift Bernard cut from the library’s collection of National Geographic.
Lauren said, “What’s in that?”
“Are you afraid I’m going to steal something?”
“I don’t know are you?”
“You couldn’t give most of this stuff away.”
When Stella was ready Lauren gave her an envelope with a fifty dollar bill inside.
“Is this my inheritance?”
“You’re not family, not married, not common law. Take it or leave it.”
Stella took it.
Outside she could no longer see the others waiting. Car windows: fogged from hot breath, anticipation, droplets of lung mist, boredom and when she gone be done, we should have brought the sheriff, turn on the radio while we wait, can’t will run the battery down, I’m about to starve, wish she’d hurry up.
Lauren said, “There’s talk in town.”
“There’s always talk in town.”
“I know you and him weren’t sharing a bed but if you were sharing needles best get yourself checked by the doctor.”
“What makes you think we weren’t sharing a bed?”
Lauren laughed.
