Northeaster by Cathie Pelletier

Author:Cathie Pelletier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2023-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Bubbles was washing the breakfast dishes. She had convinced Barbara Ann to eat some scrambled eggs and toast. Ellie Haigh could eat nothing. Word had gone out to neighbors and friends the night before. Those few locals who could manage the sidewalk snow dropped in that morning, stomping it from their boots and carrying a casserole wrapped in aluminum foil, or a loaf of fresh bread, or a dozen donuts. Bubbles had arranged the dishes on the kitchen counter, knowing the space would be filled by that afternoon.

Ellie sat at the table staring at the cup of coffee Bubbles put in front of her. It had been a night of dozing from exhaustion, and then dreaming the scenarios of grief. Jimmy had come home and was standing outside their front door in falling snow as Ellie urged him in from the storm. In another, he was calling to her for help, his voice coming from an ocean so gray with fog she couldn’t see him. She was now maintaining as best she could for Barbie’s sake. She waited until the little girl had taken Skybow outside for his morning walk in the snow before she told Bubbles her decision. She wanted Jimmy to come home one last time. She wanted his wake to be held there on Gates Street, in the house they had recently bought.

“It seems like yesterday we signed the papers,” Ellie said. “Jimmy had so many plans.”

“Oh, Ellie,” Bubbles said. She came to the table and put her arms around her friend. “Waking Jimmy here at home is going to make it harder on you and Barbie. Take some time to think about this.”

But Ellie was adamant. She wanted her husband to enter once more through the front door of the home where he had been a loving husband and father when he left.

“We can wake him in the parlor,” she said. “Jimmy loved that room.”

Bubbles said nothing. It was difficult to argue with a grieving widow. Barbie had come back in from the storm and was taking off her boots at the door. She heard her mother’s remark. Her father would be coming home until his funeral?

“Call Wiggin Funeral Home,” said Ellie. They were in nearby Dover and had handled the funeral for her stillborn son. “Ask them to take care of details.”

Barbie wasn’t sure what she felt just then, maybe fear mixed with aversion. A dead body? In their parlor? And then a wall of guilt came down. Her own father. How could she be afraid of this news? She should be happy to have him home again.

“Tell the funeral director I want Jimmy buried with our baby boy,” Ellie added.

Barbara Ann moved silently away from the front door and over to the stairs. She ran up to her bedroom, Skybow now following into his newly acquired territory. Barbie closed the door softly so she couldn’t hear the voices rising from the kitchen below. This was new information to process. The question that had taken her thoughts away from her father being waked at home was now running wild in her head.

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