Three women, different in background and experience yet united in their pain over the loss of their mothers. Carmen was almost fifty, a vice president and product manager, overseeing a division at Procter & Gamble, single, an extrovert who loved salsa dancing, travel, and gourmet cooking. Northern Italian cuisine was her newest passion. She was taking a crash course in Italian in anticipation of a trip to Italy next year.
Dee Dee was married—almost twenty years—and had two daughters who were driving her crazy not only with their teenage drama but also with their piano, cello, gymnastics, and ballet lessons. She was a lawyer specializing in products liability and claimed that her hobbies would be “reading, jazz (especially John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk), and interior decorating” she added, “if I only had the time,” singing the words to the tune from The Wizard of Oz. She was in her forties.
And then there was Elise, in her early sixties, with two grown sons and one granddaughter, who had retired from one career and was now deeply ensconced in another, with one published book and another one in the works. Her hobbies were—
The phone rang. Elise’s train of thought and the warm serenity of the bath shattered like glass. She closed her eyes, exhaled, and groped along the bathmat until she found her phone, forgetting that her hand was covered in white, fluffy bubbles.
“Hi, Bobby.”
“Hey, babe, how you doin’?”
“Fine. How are you? How’d the meeting go?”
Her ex-husband’s baritone filled the phone receiver. Elise closed her eyes again. She supposed it was a good thing that she and Bobby got along; it made life easier. She knew the conversation by heart, as if it was a play and she was now “off book.”
“Uh-huh, and what did he say?”
She turned the tap on again, adding hot water to the warm. The sensation was delicious. Now the water was up to her neck.
“Right, right, I get it. So what’s next?”
Bobby was an IT manager, proficient in all things software, bits, bytes, cookies (the inedible kind), and internet security. He knew spyware, malware, and every other kind of “ware” there was. Elise knew enough to turn on her laptop, move the mouse around, and do her work. The insides of the computer were a mystery that, unlike the books she read, she was content to ignore. Unless there was a problem, and then she simply turned the machine over to him.
“I think you only keep me around because you need someone to take care of your laptop for you,” Bobby would tease. Elise didn’t bother to persuade him otherwise.
“Sure, baby. Uh-huh, I called Dan. He’ll be over tomorrow and take care of that. Right. Sure.” She yawned.
“. . . won’t be able to help you at your mother’s . . .”
She’d been listening on automatic, but the key words “your mother’s” woke her.
“Sorry? I . . . uh . . . didn’t catch that.”
“There’s an issue with the off-site servers and I’ll have to go in on Sunday, so I won’t be able to help you at your mother’s condo. Can you manage on your own?”
She said, “Yes,” and eventually, “Good night.” She wiped the bubbles off the phone, made sure it was dry, and set it down. And then she sat up in the tub, oblivious to the rush of cool air across her body.
“. . . your mother’s . . .”
She was her mother’s executrix, going about the business of after-death and following the probate attorney’s instructions. Order the death certificates, file this, copy that, email here, sign there, find the deed for the condo, and inventory the contents.
Oh Lord. Just the thought of the property inventory was enough to turn Elise’s hair white—whiter than it already would be if she didn’t color it every five weeks. Because Elise’s mother did not just have a house full of the usual household goods: dishes, clothing, TVs, furniture, whatnots. Marie Wade had several collections of household goods—their very order and nature was all that had kept her from being classified as a hoarder and earning a place on a reality TV show. Marie had loved beautiful things, she had loved to travel, and she had brought home mementoes from every destination. She had adored jewelry and had learned enough about each style and era to become an expert. She had adored music and had collected not just one but two or three different recordings of her favorite works. And on and on. And so there were, by Elise’s initial count, ten sets of china (including the Christmas and the zebra patterns), five distinct collections of jewelry (including southwest Indian, Victorian, and art deco styles; white, pink, pale amber, and black pearls; and silver and 18- or 24-carat gold pieces), and art from Marie’s southwest phase and her Asian phase, plus her collection of African masks from various nations, her modern African American pieces, and the landscapes she’d purchased in her later years when she joined the Sierra Club and became passionate about natural environments that were in danger of pollution or erosion. Her favorite piece had been a mountain view of eastern Kentucky, an area that had piqued her interest when she learned that mining companies were blowing the tops off the rugged hardwood-forested hills. Marie Wade’s two-bedroom condominium was not just a home; it was a museum of arts and cultural artifacts.
And it was up to Elise to sort through every piece, itemize it, and record it on the estate household-contents inventory form. And then do something with it.
The thought of the task made her want to submerge herself in the tub like a submarine.
She’d started the process several times, but it was a daunting mission. Each time she’d given up in frustration and anguish. These were her mother’s things—Marie’s treasures—each item lovingly chosen and used or displayed with pride. It broke Elise’s heart because she knew there was no way she could keep everything. In fact, there was no way to keep hardly anything. She didn’t have the space. And while their tastes were often similar, Elise’s style was more minimalist and modern than her mother’s. For Marie, every era had appeal.
An image of the ground-floor coat closet—full of . . . stuff from ceiling to floor—flitted across her mind. The closet wouldn’t clear out by itself. Elise sighed.
Chapter 3
Carmen
Carmen stopped at Starbucks for a coffee, then headed home to her house in Mason, fielding three business calls (from the offices in Shanghai, London, and Dubai) and a personal one from her father. Bluetooth was her savior—considering the time differences with her clients and the length of Carmen’s commute, it had made sense to convert her car into a moving satellite office. Technology was a wonder. She took care of Spring Chu’s issue, Eric Needham’s question, and the brief meeting to check in with Jehan Muhammad and Rory Jones within the thirty-minute drive so that by the time she reached her neighborhood, the only call remaining was the one to her father.
“Dad, how are you? Am I calling too late?”
No, her father explained, but he couldn’t talk long, the ten o’clock news was about to come on, and among the things that Reverend Howard Bradshaw—now retired—was religious about was the evening news.
“Okay, well, I would’ve called earlier but I was out. What’s going on? Are you all right?”
“I’m just fine, baby girl. Don’t you worry about me,” her father replied. “I didn’t want anything particular other than to remind you about the dinner coming up next Wednesday night. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”