Ronnie

A house where cats outnumber the humans, no matter how clean, has a distinctive smell. Alma Enslik lived alone with eight cats but, cats being cats, most of them paid her little attention, though they liked being in the same room with her. Powder acknowledged her existence by bringing her the mice he’d killed after eating the liver and kidneys. The others would rub up against her legs sometimes, but to pet them she had to take the initiative and pick them up. Only Ronnie, the black, came of her own accord to lie in her lap when she sat in the armchair by the sunny corner window.

Alma had never kept pets before her husband’s death. Bill loathed animals, except, as he used to joke, on his dinner plate, and since he was a loner, she had never made close friends with her neighbors, but she stayed on cordial, “good morning” terms with them. So except for her cats, she lived alone.

Liv, her daughter, a working mother of three, lived in another state. She may as well have lived on another continent. She called every two or three weeks to check up on her and sent photos, but hadn’t even come when her father was dying. Of course, the twins were squalling babies then and would certainly have annoyed Bill no end. He never was fond of young children. Alma was, though, and she’d offered to take the kids when Liv and Eric went on one of their weeklong get-away vacations, but Livvie felt they would be too much for her and farmed them out elsewhere.

They hadn’t been to see her in over two and a half years, the visit when she gave her mother an angry stare when she heard her call the black cat “Ronnie”. Alma noticed, and pursed her lips and said, “Short for Veronica.” What right did she have to hold anything against him? Did she even remember him? She was only four years old when it happened. Her Ronnie. What would Jay and Baron say if they knew about him?

The boys in the house next to hers were very solicitous, coming over to help when they saw her carrying bags of groceries into the house, mowing her lawn in summer, pruning the shrubbery in front, doing a few minor home repairs when needed. Nice boys, Jay and Baron. She thought of them as boys, though Baron had to be over thirty and Jay just a few years younger.

Oh, she knew exactly what their relationship was. That’s what you were supposed to call it now, a relationship. Times certainly had changed. To think how Bill would have heckled them when he was alive disgusted her, though back then it would have shocked her too. Funny she found it so easy now to overlook, though it made her uncomfortable if she thought about what they must do together. What a start it gave her, the time she caught them kissing in their back yard, but she pretended not to notice. She worried about their openness, their daring. It made them so vulnerable. Even if people were no longer openly hostile, surely they didn’t approve of it, did they?

She said something of the sort when they told her they’d booked a fifteen-day Caribbean cruise, how they should be careful and not too obvious. Jay said not to worry, a gay organization was sponsoring the cruise with only gay men on board. She’d never heard him say “gay” before, and she immediately pictured hundreds of naked men doing unimaginable things on a boat. It troubled her, and she said, “But you two will be together all the time, won’t you?”

Jay gave her a peck on the cheek. “Shame on you, Alma! What could you be thinking?”

She blushed, and went back into the house. The glimpse of an orgy on the open sea had turned her thoughts to Ronnie, in ways she didn’t like to think of him. He was only fifteen when he left, and she hadn’t heard from him since. Did he think she hated him too, that she hadn’t suffered when Bill threw him out of the house? Was he angry that she hadn’t spoken a word in protest, hadn’t come to his defense? What could she have said to defend him? Bill was right to call it an abomination. She still considered it one, yet abominations no longer offended her as they once had.

She went to sit in her favorite corner chair, and the black cat jumped up in her lap. Where was Ronnie now? He’d be about ten years older than Baron next door if he were alive. Such a sensitive boy, though, and so young. How could he have survived on the streets? “As a male whore,” Bill had said, “which is what he is.” That was nearly twenty-five years ago, towards the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Surely that had killed him, and he’d died years ago in an alley or some hospice. Alone, as she would die one day.

* * *

Jay and Baron got back late Sunday night, and didn’t notice the mail that had piled up in Mrs. Enslik’s box and the fliers lying on her front lawn until after work the next afternoon. They knocked, and no one answered; none of the neighbors had seen her in nearly two weeks; no one by that name had checked into the hospital. They phoned the police, who came and broke down the door.

They found Alma sitting in the corner, dead for over a week, the coroner said. A famished black cat, the one she called Ronnie, lay curled up in her lap. The others had survived by biting small chunks out of the legs they’d used to rub against.

The black cat hissed and spit when Baron went to pick her up, and struggled till he got her home. Both boys felt that the least they could do for their neighbor was adopt her Ronnie.

Baron

“What was that all about?” Eric asked his wife when she put down the phone. He couldn’t guess from her half of the conversation. She seemed so calm, yet it sounded serious: “Oh my God... No, I’ll be all right. I just didn’t expect... When did it happen?... That long ago... I see... Yes, of course we’ll come.”

They’d come home from work to a message on the answering machine asking Liv to call a 478 number, the area code for Macon. “It’s about Alma, isn’t it?” Eric said.

“Mama died, almost two weeks ago. The police found her body. The neighbors hadn’t seen her in a few days, so they called them.”

“I’m so sorry, Liv. What did she die of?”

“Natural causes, they say. We’ll have to go to Macon. We need to make arrangements for the funeral, and then there’s her will.”

“I suppose her wishes are in it. About the funeral, I mean.”

“I assume so, but we’ll have the funeral first anyway. They’re anxious to bury her as soon as possible. I can understand why, her being dead over a week. The cemetery plot’s already been bought – next to Daddy, you know – so what she wanted is pretty clear.”

“I’ll call and reserve a flight for tomorrow morning. Why don’t you go tell the children? You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

* * *

They rented a car at the airport, picked up the key from Alma’s attorney’s secretary, and at the same time made an appointment to read the will three days later, the day after the funeral, as it turned out. From there they drove to the house. Liv had expected to see the lawn and garden untended and overgrown with weeds and the letter box full of junk mail, but everything looked just as it had when Alma was alive. No one would have suspected the house was empty.

The inside, however, was not fit to live in. Dust lay thick on the furniture and carpeting, and the air was rank with the smell of decay and cat urine.

Patty said, “It stinks in here, Mommy. Can’t we go outside?”

“OK, you and Clara wait for us in front with Li’l Eric, but stay close to the house and don’t go anywhere. We won’t be long.” Then she said to her husband, “We can’t stay here, at least not until I’ve cleaned up and aired the place out. We’d better find a hotel.”

“I’ll call Marker and ask him to find a room for us. Let’s hope the phone’s still connected.”

It was. Liv went to stay with the children while Eric called. They walked around the outside of the house. The lawns were neatly mowed. Large, round clusters of tiny, pale blue blossoms lay thick on the hydrangeas lined up along the front of the house, a bed of pink and white impatiens at their foot. In back, the bright yellow blooms and dark green leaves of the allamanda almost hid the fence, but the hedge of spiraea in front of them had lost many of its snow-white clusters, and the magnolia tree in the center of the yard was also approaching the end of its season, its flowers open wide and a scattering of petals on the grass below. She imagined them blanketing her mother’s body as she lay peacefully in an open casket. Alma had put in a smaller vegetable garden this year; more than half the plot lay covered with straw. What she had planted, however, appeared well tended and was thriving.

“How Mama loved her garden,” Liv thought, “and what care she lavished on it!” She herself had no patience for yard work. They had a few shrubs in front of the house and some perennials along the fence in back, but most of the yard was a playground for the children – sandbox, swing set, climbing equipment, and the like.

A nice-looking colored man stepped out of the house next door and said, “You must be Alma’s daughter.”

“Yes. Liv.”

“Baron.”

She couldn’t imagine how her father would have felt living next door to a Negro. It must have unsettled her mother as well. But perhaps she’d got over those stale prejudices the family had had when she was little.

She held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you. These are my children – Patty, Clara, Li’l Eric.”

The kids looked down and shuffled their feet, embarrassed. Then Eric arrived and said that Marker would be booking them a two-room suite in a hotel downtown. She introduced him to Baron.

“So you’ve come for the funeral,” Baron said.

“Yes. Do you know when it is?”

“You have to arrange all that – funeral home, service, having the grave dug, and the rest. I’m sure her pastor will help you make the arrangements. You know what church she attended?”

Liv nodded. “I’m sure it’s the same one we went to when I was little.” Then she asked, “Where is Mama?”

“Still at the morgue. They’re waiting for your call to release the body.”

“I’m amazed how good the garden looks,” Liv said, “everything so well cared for, the flowers watered. I thought it would have gone all to seed.”

“My friend Jay and I have been taking care of the place,” Baron said. “Alma loved her flowers. Such a nice lady! It seemed the least we could do. And I admit we have been picking her vegetables.”

“Oh, but you’re more than welcome to them!”

“We’d have cleaned up inside, but they wouldn’t let us have a key.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Eric said. “We appreciate it.”

“Here, write down my number at least. You’ll let me know when and where the funeral will be?”

Liv nodded. “I mean to arrange for it to take place as quickly as possible. My husband only has a week off from work.”

“Such a nice man, that Baron!” she said when they were back in the car. “He was obviously very good to Mama, very attentive. I wonder why she never mentioned him.” In the back of her mind she had a feeling it might have been on account of his race.

She turned her head to the children in the back seat. “Wasn’t he a nice man, kids?” She wanted them to grow up free of the stupid prejudices that had burdened her younger years. It embarrassed her to remember them.

The twins nodded gravely. “I liked him,” Patty said.

Reverend Jenkins

Baron came to the funeral, and with him the friend Jay he had mentioned, a white man. It seemed he had also known her mother. They brought a small bouquet of freshly cut flowers. “From her garden,” Baron explained. “We thought she’d like that.”

If they hadn’t come, only Alma’s daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren would have been present at her burial, and, of course, the clergyman who officiated, Reverend Jenkins. Only then did Liv realize what a lonely life her mother must have led since her husband died. She had no one except a couple of neighbors and a house full of cats.

She had evidently stopped going to church, because the new pastor at her old church didn’t know her. She might have attended services somewhere else, but Liv didn’t have time to start calling all the churches in town to find out, so she asked Reverend Jenkins if he would be willing to deliver the eulogy. He agreed, but it meant taking time from all the other things she had to do to talk to him about her mother so he’d have something to say. She didn’t have much to tell him because she’d seen so little of her since she’d married Eric, so she resurrected some childhood memories out of which he pieced together a short but adequate eulogy, which he delivered at the gravesite. Liv thought it had some lovely turns of phrase.

Only she wore black, but the others had crêpe armbands. The children had asked for one when they saw Eric’s. She was glad the service would be brief. It was a beautiful day in its own way, with a bright sun in a cloudless blue sky and very peaceful, but hot and muggy. The children had started to complain almost as soon as they got out of the car. They didn’t like having to dress up and weren’t accustomed to that kind of weather.

The twins fidgeted constantly and Li’l Eric couldn’t stop playing with his armband, so Eric took them on a little walk in the cemetery while they waited for Reverend Jenkins so they could read the headstones and see if they knew the names of all the different flowers. Though he barely remembered her, Li’l Eric wanted to know why they weren’t allowed to see Grandma before they put her in the ground. Liv was afraid he’d get upset if she told him that dead people rot and couldn’t think what to tell him instead, so she avoided his question.

When the Reverend arrived for the ceremony Liv got the impression that seeing a colored man there made him uncomfortable, because he looked disapprovingly at Baron and his friend and greeted them coldly. Maybe he found it odd that one of the two people there who weren’t family should be a Negro. She hoped Baron wasn’t too offended by how Reverend Jenkins distanced himself from him. He took it well, though. She supposed he was used to it, living in the South. She wondered if that was why her mother had left the church. She remembered that most of them had been racists. Mama had probably broken with them because that man Baron was so nice to her.

To show Baron that she didn’t share those prejudices, Livvie made some light conversation with him while the Reverend was getting ready. Because the smell of cats that permeated the house was on her mind, she said, “I’d have asked you to the reception, but we aren’t having one. The house is unlivable. That’s why we’re staying at a hotel.”

“That’s all right, we couldn’t have gone anyway. We have to get back to work.”

“I suppose they took her cats to the shelter. How many did she have?”

“Eight, I think. They all went to the shelter except the one she called Ronnie, the black one. She was her favorite, so we adopted her. Alma would have been crushed if they’d put Ronnie down.”

“Thank you for that too. The ceremony won’t last long. A hymn or two, a short prayer, Psalm 23, a word or two from the pastor, then we say goodbye to her. Would you believe that Reverend Jenkins didn’t know her? It seems she didn’t go to his church anymore.”

She was about to ask why his wife hadn’t come – he’d said “we” – but the funeral service was about to start. No doubt she had stayed home with their children.

In Eric’s opinion, the eulogy did not succeed in presenting Alma as a unique individual, and Jay and Baron found nothing in it that spoke of the woman they had known. Except for the names of the deceased and those who survived her, it would have done as well for almost anyone else. He described her as a decent Christian woman who had brought up her daughter to fear God, and a loving grandmother, and said that now she would rest beside the man with whom she had lived as a faithful wife for the many years of their marriage.

When he finished the eulogy, he asked them to join him in a hymn. That only he, Liv and the colored man knew the words – the children didn’t even know the tune – must have made him realize that Alma had not raised her daughter to be as God-fearing a woman as he had claimed.

On the way back to the hotel Eric asked, “Why didn’t he say anything about your brother? That was a serious omission on his part.”

“About Ronnie? I didn’t tell him about him. There’s nothing I could say about him, really. I was so young when he died. I don’t even know where he’s buried.”

Eric was shocked. “You don’t?”

It suddenly hit him that there had been no headstone for her brother. Before he could ask about it, she went on: “Besides, that was a tragic moment in her life. I wanted the eulogy to tell about the good things.”

Eric felt he ought to say something. “It was very wrong of you to leave him out like that. I’m sure Alma would have wanted him to be remembered.”

“You’re right, and I’m sorry for it now. But what’s done is done, and we can’t do it over, can we?” she said, smiling, and patted his thigh.

Evan Marker

Alma’s attorney, Evan Marker, had expected that reading the will would go without a hitch. Her daughter might expect to inherit everything as sole surviving heir, and the house did make up more than half the value of the estate, but the remaining assets all went to her – its contents, the car, stocks, savings, etc. As he understood it, she and her husband were fairly well off, and he doubted she would make a fuss over a sizable charitable contribution. It was a touching gesture on the old woman’s part, really.

The meeting started off well enough. The only possible annoyance he foresaw was that Mrs. Enslik’s daughter and her husband had brought the grandchildren with them. They looked very young, and he feared they’d get bored listening to the will and become fidgety.

“You’re Mrs. Livia Redding, I assume?” Marker asked.

“Liv, please.” She introduced her husband and the children.

Marker had his secretary bring some paper and colored pens to keep the youngsters amused and sat them on the floor by the coffee table. “We’ll have to wait for two other people who’re mentioned in the will,” he explained. “They should arrive any minute.”

It seemed they’d already met Mr. Christ (pronounced with a short i, he imagined); hardly surprising, considering that they lived right next door to her mother. Liv beamed with pleasure when she saw him, and said, “I’m so glad Mama thought to remember you in her will. You’ve been so good to her. Do you know what Baron has done?” she added, turning to Marker, and went on to gush about what wonderful care he’d been taking of her mother’s garden.

“It came as a total surprise,” the man answered. “We just got Attorney Marker’s call last night. You remember my friend Jay?”

“Of course. How nice to see you again.”

Jay shook hands with her. Without the black hat and veil, dressed casually in a blouse and slacks, he saw she was a good-looking woman, about thirty, with soft features and short dark hair. She had a pleasant smile, the only thing about her which reminded him of Alma. At the cemetery her demeanor had been appropriately grave, though she hadn’t wept. Here she seemed carefree – too carefree, he thought, for someone who had just lost her mother. Her husband, on the other hand, looked bored and anxious to get it over with.

They sat down. Marker opened the envelope and took out the will. Just then the little boy came over to show his mother the picture he’d drawn.

“That’s beautiful,” she told him, “but Mommy and Daddy are very busy right now. You save up all your pictures and show them to us when we’ve finished, OK?”

Li’l Eric nodded gravely and went back to the coffee table.

“Cute kid,” Jay said.

All these good feelings didn’t last long. Liv did a double take when she heard “except the house”, and when he read on “which is to be used as a safe home for gay teenagers who’ve been rejected by their families”, her face froze.

She turned her fury on Marker. “You knew this,” she said, “and still you went ahead and read her will with my children right here!”

“Calm yourself, Liv,” her husband said. “I don’t think they heard a thing. They weren’t paying us any attention... until now.”

The children had heard the tone of their mother’s voice and were staring at them, troubled and confused.

“I’ll have my secretary watch them,” Marker said. He pushed the button on his intercom. “Carole, could you please bring the children to the outer office while we finish up in here?”

The children safely out of the way, Marker returned to the will. Since she knew of no local organizations that helped gay teenagers, Mrs. Enslik had designated Mr. Franklin and Mr. Christ to choose one and to oversee the transfer. She had reserved a thousand dollars to cover whatever expenses they might incur.

“We won’t take the money,” Franklin said. “That goes to the safe home too.”

He seemed perfectly unaware of the daughter’s hostility, though her anger hung so heavily in the air one could have cut it with a knife. Not so the black man, Mr. Christ. He’d fixed a stony gaze on Mrs. Redding and braced himself for an onslaught. Perhaps he picked up on the cues more easily, being from the South, or perhaps Franklin had his mind on something else.

“Those homes do so much good,” Franklin went on. “The one that took me in saved my life.”

“If she hasn’t yet realized that the men are gay, she’s certain to catch on now,” Marker thought, but Liv took no notice of what had just been said. For a second he wondered if she was just uptight about her kids hearing anything having to do with sex, then dismissed the possibility out of hand. The woman was definitely homophobic, rabidly so. He could read her like a book. Well, better to get it over with. It was none of his business, really.

“Do you know a suitable organization to donate the house to?” he asked the men.

“Not here in Georgia,” Franklin said, “but the home I lived in in Boston can put us in touch with one.”

“What home in Boston?” Liv began. Then it hit her. Instantly, her good looks vanished. Her features hardened and her mouth twisted into a grimace. “Oh, Jesus!” she exclaimed.

The intensity of her reaction seemed to bewilder her husband, though he must have known what she thought of homosexuals.

“I won’t allow it!” Liv finally found her voice. “Couldn’t she have left it to a Christian group that works on curing these youngsters?”

Christ put a hand on his partner’s wrist and clenched it tightly. “Steady, Jay.”

“Then you’re contesting the will?” Marker asked.

“Of course I am! What do you think?”

“Are you sure, Liv?” her husband asked. “Do you think you should?”

“I’ve never been surer of anything in my life. It’s my decision. I’m her daughter.”

“I only want to spare you what could be a very unpleasant business in the long haul. Do you think it’s worth it?”

She turned to Marker. “Are these men willing to give up their claim?” She wouldn’t speak to them, wouldn’t look at them.

“It isn’t their claim,” he reminded her. “They’re only acting as representatives.”

“And we’re not willing,” Christ said in an icy voice.

Liv glared at them. “I’ll fight it tooth and nail.”

“Then I advise you all to get yourselves a lawyer,” Marker said.

Christian Worthy

His wife’s reaction to her mother’s will flabbergasted Eric. He knew from a chance remark she’d let fall here and there that she wasn’t exactly big on homosexuals, but he’d had no idea she felt this vehemently about it. While he had done his best to keep up appearances, giving a polite nod in Jay and Baron’s direction, which Liv fortunately didn’t see, she’d stomped out of the office without so much as a goodbye to the attorney. Now, in the car on their way back to the hotel, she seemed unable to drop the subject. She kept talking on and on about it. He was getting irritated.

“I’m glad now they won’t let us stay in the house,” she said. “Can you imagine living next door to those people?”

“Can’t this wait till we’re alone, Liv? I’d have thought that after the fuss you made about not wanting the children to hear...”

“I haven’t said a word about you know what.”

“No, but it disturbs them. I do wish you’d let this slide. Just see how upset it’s got you!”

“Oh, I’ll calm down eventually.”

“I hope so. Maybe when we’re back home you’ll see things in a different perspective.”

“I’m not going home. I’m staying here until I’ve seen this through.”

“But we have a plane in three days!”

“We can cancel.”

“I’m going home then, Liv. I have my job, you know. I dropped everything at a moment’s notice to come here.”

“Then go.”

“I thought you didn’t like Macon!”

“I don’t, but I have a job to do here.”

“It doesn’t need you here to get done. What about your real job?”

“You mean my paying job? I’ll ask for a leave of absence, or I’ll find another. This is more important.”

“More important than our lives?”

“This situation is part of our lives, and I’m going to see it through.”

“And the kids?”

“The kids will stay with me. It’ll be no problem caring for them on my own. I’ll have a lot of time on my hands.”

“A lot of time. You know this won’t get cleared up in a couple of days.”

“I know. The first thing we need to do is hire a lawyer.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”

* * *

They searched the Yellow Pages for a large firm specializing in probate.

“Well, who shall we go with?” Eric asked.

Liv opted for Christian Worthy. “The name sounds promising,” she said.

Eric grunted. “Baron’s last name is Christ,” he remarked dryly.

She made an appointment to see the lawyer the first thing in the morning. She thought Mr. Worthy very professional, very knowledgeable. He actually had a copy of the will in hand, obtained from her mother’s attorney.

He was not very encouraging. He listened carefully to her side of the story, the expression on his face becoming ever more doubtful as she went on. “Do you think you can help me?” she asked.

“We can try. I suspect the local zoning ordinance might not allow putting that kind of home in the neighborhood.”

“Excellent!”

“Mind you, in that case the court might allow them to sell it and use the proceeds to buy a house somewhere else. Contesting charitable donations almost never succeeds.”

“But...”

“It doesn’t matter what charity. The one exception is when the testator has come under the influence of a cult and leaves all her money to it. That doesn’t seem to be the case here. Would you say your mother had become alienated from her friends and family? Had she broken off all relations with you?”

“I’m sure those men next door must have manipulated her, poisoned her mind. I can’t think of any other explanation. It goes against everything she believed, everything she stood for.”

“That will be hard, if not impossible to prove. She didn’t leave the house to them, after all. And people’s values change. It’s not the same world you lived in when you were growing up. Do you know of anything in these men’s background that would indicate they’re not respectable, upstanding members of the community?”

“What a question! You know what they are!”

“I meant something in the nature of criminal records.”

“I think one of them spent some time on the streets before one of those so-called safe houses took him in. There’s a good chance he had to steal or prostitute himself to survive.”

“He’d have been underage and his record would be sealed. And his having lived in one only makes him more suited to carry out your mother’s instructions.”

“Could we petition to have the house left to some other... charity?” The catch in her voice showed it went against the grain to call that kind of organization a charity.

“For example?”

“A group that cures them.”

“You’d find yourself in the center of a maelstrom. Have you any idea what a hornets’ nest that would stir up?”

“A home for unwed mothers, then.”

“Doubtful. We have three of those in Macon. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll run a background check on those men and see what I come up with. I must ask you this, though. Can you think of any other reason, any reason at all, why your mother might have chosen this particular charity?”

She hesitated. Ronnie had been dead for years, and their secret dead and buried with him. All anyone ever knew was that he’d run away; no one suspected why. “No,” she said.

“Then I’ll get to work on it.”

“How long do you think this will take?”

“Months, probably.”

“Could I possibly get permission to move into the house while this drags on? It’s wearing, living in a hotel with three small children.”

“There’s no reason for you to stay in Macon.”

“I want to stay. I’ll go crazy living on the other side of the country, wondering what’s going on. I’d drive you crazy with my phone calls.”

He thought she probably would anyway.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

Judge Harris Cole

The morning Eric was due to leave, Christian Worthy phoned to tell her that when he filed to contest the will the probate judge ordered that she surrender the key to the house.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because you’re disputing her not leaving it to you.”

“But I was going to give the place a thorough cleaning,” she protested. “If we let it stay as it is much longer it’ll be unsalvageable!”

“I’ll set up a meeting with the judge. We can probably get him to agree to allow you to clean it.”

He called back and told her to be in court at one. Liv passed the information on to her husband.

“Already?”

“He’s not hearing the case. I need his permission to keep the key so I can clean Mama’s house.”

“Frankly, I’m surprised the attorney didn’t advise you to drop the whole thing. I thought he’d try to talk you out of it.”

“He isn’t giving me much hope, but he says there are a few angles worth pursuing. He’s going to run a background check on the two.”

It sounded as if they meant to play dirty, but Eric kept the thought to himself.

“So long as you’re back not much after three” he said. “I have a plane to catch.”

“The lawyer says it shouldn’t take long.”

“Good luck. These things always do.”

* * *

Justice Harris Cole had had his clerk contact Mr. Christ and Mr. Franklin to see if they objected to her entering the house pending the outcome of the case. They did not; as far as they were concerned, she could move in. Not that it made any difference. The law was absolutely clear on that point.

He contacted Evan Marker himself to get the details of the will. The reasons behind the woman’s objections were clear enough, and he vaguely sympathized with her, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. A distasteful business, all in all. If the media got hold of it – and the gay rights groups would make sure they did – it could create quite a stink nationwide. Thunder from the pulpit, editorials in the liberal press, interference from politicians, picketing, vigils, protests, everything a probate judge usually gets to avoid and most definitely not the kind of brouhaha he welcomed this close to retirement. Hardly worth an insignificant piece of property of only moderate value. He already regretted having agreed to hear the woman’s petition.

The lawyer made a formal request that his client be allowed to clean her mother’s house. The premises were unsanitary, he explained, her dead body having sat in the living room with eight cats for over a week until it was found, and she didn’t have air-conditioning.

“I’ll allow this much,” he ruled. “Your client may enter and clean the house, but first she must go there in the company of Attorney Marker and make a complete inventory of its contents. She will, of course, have to cover the costs out of pocket.”

“Costs?” the woman asked.

“His time, Mrs. Redding. Once the inventory has been submitted to me, she may go there alone to clean or hire someone to help her. I’ll go further. She may, if she so chooses, pack its contents in cartons for eventual shipping, but under no circumstances are they to be removed from the premises until I or another judge have ruled on the validity of the will.”

He hoped it would be another judge.

“Once it’s cleaned, can I move in with my children until a decision is handed down?”

He cut her short. “You are not to address the court unless I ask you to. Mr. Worthy here is representing you. And my answer is ‘Absolutely not’.”

After a hasty conference between Mrs. Redding and her lawyer, Judge Cole listened apathetically to him explain why she wanted permission to live in the house. He knew it all already. Cooped up in a hotel room with three young children for no one knew how long. Blah blah blah. That was her decision. These things took time. If people weren’t willing to be patient, they should leave well enough alone and bow to the wishes of someone who had gone to the trouble of making a proper and airtight will. Yes, airtight, as far as he knew, like it or not. The whole thing was at best a colossal waste of time.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “but the law does not make exceptions for personal convenience, and the house is precisely that item in the will which is being contested.”

Jessie, the court stenographer, looked at him, appalled. What on earth was eating her? She knew what the law said. Then he remembered she belonged to Pastor Rich’s church. He should have dealt with the matter in chambers. He’d better have a word with her before she went home and tell her to keep it under wraps.

“That doesn’t help me very much,” Mrs. Redding said.

Harris Cole glared at her.

“It doesn’t solve my client’s problem,” Worthy said.

He threw her a crumb. “Since you’ll probably have your children with you when you clean, you may also use the stove and store groceries in the refrigerator.” Then he brought his gavel down on the bench to signal the end of the hearing, something he never did in this kind of case. He felt somewhat sorry for the woman, going through all that heartache and expense when nothing but disappointment awaited her. Well, she’d brought that on herself.

“On herself and on us,” he thought as he left the courtroom. “A lot of pointless busy work for everyone involved.” Only the Lambda lawyer would consider it worth the effort. (Lambda would certainly be providing the lawyer who’d represent Christ and Franklin.) Ought he to advise her to drop her suit and then recuse himself? A tempting option, but there was still time for that.

Jessie

“How did it go?” Eric asked. He didn’t sound sincerely interested. He’d finished packing his bags and was obviously itching to get to the airport and back to Idaho.

“The judge says I can clean the house and put everything in boxes, but he won’t let me live there until the case is decided one way or the other.”

“I thought you didn’t want to live next door to those people.”

“I changed my mind.”

“I wish you’d change your mind about more than that.”

“I know that, and I won’t. I think I can win this. Mr. Worthy checked, and a group home there would be in violation of the zoning laws.”

It seemed to Eric that the men next door would find a way around that, but he said nothing.

The phone rang. “You get it,” Eric said. “It’s probably more lawyers.”

“Mrs. Redding?” a voice said. “My name is Jessie. Er... you saw me in court today. I was the stenographer.”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to tell you how distressed I am. I mean, how Judge Cole refused to let you move into your mother’s house. Your house! It seems so unfair to make you and your children stay in a hotel.”

“Thank you, but there isn’t much I can do about it, is there?”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, I talked it over with my husband, and he agrees we should ask you stay with us until this business is taken care of. We have a very large house, and there’s just the two of us.”

“You’re very kind, but I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Oh, but you wouldn’t be intruding. We love children and haven’t been able to have any of our own. And we’ve a finished basement you can use as an apartment – two little bedrooms, your own bath, a large play area for the children. There aren’t any toys or children’s books, but we’re close to the library, and we do have a television and stereo set down there.”

“But I don’t even know you!”

“We could meet, couldn’t we? How about you all come have dinner with us tonight?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to ask my husband. We never do anything without consulting each other.”

Eric couldn’t believe his ears. That might have been true once upon a time, but she’d disregarded everything he’d said about contesting the will and brushed aside all his objections.

“What was that all about?” he asked when she got off the phone.

* * *

Liv knew he wouldn’t like the idea, but she had her way. She didn’t have to wheedle or browbeat him; her arguments were unanswerable. The children needed more room. The least they could do was meet these people and see the accommodations. They had a dog; the kids would like that. She’d insist on paying them something, of course, even if they refused. How could they be anything but nice people when they’d made such a generous offer? He could change his flight plans. He’d only miss another half day’s work if he caught a morning plane. What would they think of them if he didn’t come to see where his wife and children would be living and with whom? How could he be so selfish? “Don’t you go making up your mind in advance,” she said. “Give them a fair shake.”

They brought a box of chocolates. Eric had suggested wine, but Liv knew Georgia better. They might not drink alcohol. As it turned out, Dennis, Jessie’s husband, did – beer. He was a burly man with a very pink face. (From razor burn, Eric thought. His wife must have made him shave for company.) His right arm hung useless by his side, the result of an accident on the job. Jessie pointed out that since he no longer worked there’d always be someone to watch the children if Liv had to see her lawyer or go to court.

Their hospitality was impeccable, yet Liv saw at once that her husband felt uncomfortable there. She, on the other hand, felt right at home. She’d grown up in Macon. She enjoyed the familiar Southern home cooking, and the Country Western music on the radio, the tacky artwork on the wall and the Christian magazines on the coffee table didn’t bother her as they did him. She didn’t even mind their all holding hands to say grace before the meal. Maybe they only did it because they had company. Eric hated it, though.

They sent the kids downstairs to play with the dog after supper so they could discuss the arrangements. The space Jessie and Dennis had set aside for them was more than adequate. The twins could share the double bed in one bedroom and Liv and Li’l Eric sleep in the singles in the other. Most of their talk revolved around homosexuality, however. That made Liv happy; she could unburden herself. Eric hadn’t had the patience to hear her out.

Their politics were typically redneck. Eric had suspected all along that their invitation had more to do with homophobia than sympathy for Liv’s plight. He couldn’t imagine two men going to bed together, and the thought of what they must do there turned him off, but what these people said about them was just as abhorrent.

* * *

“I think I’ll accept,” Liv said on the way home.

“I know you will, but I don’t like it.”

“Why ever not?”

“They’re rednecks, Liv. I thought I’d vomit if they said ‘Christian’ or ‘family values’ one more time. I don’t like the idea of our kids being exposed to that.”

“I liked what she said about keeping it out of the papers. How the gays would have a field day if they found out.”

“That was the judge’s idea.”

“You’re always finding fault. You’re just prejudiced against Southerners. I’m one too, don’t forget.”

“So I’m learning,” he thought. It rankled that his opinion apparently didn’t matter to her.

Anel Viz returned to his childhood passion of writing at age 60, and looks forward to making it a full-time occupation when he retires. His work in many different genres, including verse, prose poems, flashfic to novella-length stories, humor and essays, has appeared on line and in print. His most recent novella, Dancing for Jonathan, is available from Dreamspinner Press, and his short story, The Stray, can be found in the  Queer Wolf Anthology.

He had short stories published in Forbidden Fruit and they are available in our Archives.

All these good feelings didn’t last long.  Liv did a double take when she heard “except the house”, and when he read on “which is to be used as a safe home for gay teenagers who’ve been rejected by their families”, her face froze.

She turned her fury on Marker.  “You knew this,” she said, “and still you went ahead and read her will with my children right here!”