Still 5 days

I was almost finished with the ghost town article when the phone rang. Two hours to go before I had to get to Leetsville to meet the elusive Arnold Otis. I wanted one thing completed.

After the usual argument with myself—to answer or not to answer—I picked up.

“Emily?” It was Lucky. “Sorry to be calling you but I’m swamped here and with Arnold Otis coming to town this afternoon, everybody’s been calling, wanting to drop by and say ‘Hi’ to him.”

He gave a long, deep sigh.

“The thing is, I got a phone call from Delia Swanson’s mother. You know, Bertha Swanson. Lives out there on Willow Lake Road beyond you.”

“I know the Swansons,” I assured him.

“Well, Bertha says Delia’s been kidnapped.”

“Oh no,” I moaned.

“Yeah, I know. The woman’s got to be seventy-six or seventy-seven years old. Who in hell would be kidnapping her? It’s not like she’s some heiress …”

“What else did Bertha tell you?”

“Seems she thinks it’s your friend, Harry. Says something’s been going on between the two of them. Which—well—that’s all right, but not kidnapping.”

“I think I know what this is about, Lucky.”

“Thought you might. Could you do me a favor? Just get over to Harry’s and see what’s going on?”

I sighed, deeper than Lucky had sighed. I was supposed to be a writer, not a matchmaker, or a referee, or a cop.

“Sure,” I told the overworked man. “I’ll call you back.”

“Thanks. Bertha’s having a fit. Would you tell Delia to go on home—if she’s there at Harry’s—and see to her mother?”

I promised, though I had the idea that if Delia was out of that house and living with Harry, well, more power to her. At seventy-seven (or whatever her real age was), I didn’t think she’d get many offers that good.

Harry let me in and waved me back to the kitchen where his usual pot of road-kill stew bubbled on the white enameled stove. Delia Swanson, all bright smiles on her round face, got up from the table to hug me and wave me to a chair.

“Want to get Emily a cup of coffee?” she called to Harry, dressed in his neat white apron over the funeral suit.

“Sure thing, Delia.” Harry was all smiles. Delia was in charge. I imagined, for a woman who had tended to her mother all those years, this was a pleasant arrangement.

“And maybe some of those oatmeal cookies you baked last night …”

Harry nodded briskly and put the cookies on a cracked plate. He set them between me and Delia, on the table, then went back to the dish cupboard and pulled down two mugs for coffee.

Delia, a Cheshire Cat smile spreading over her happy face, pushed the cookie plate toward me. I took one. She took two, arranging them in front of her on the table. Perfect order. Two cookies waiting for a cup of coffee to go with them.

Harry set down our coffees and went back to stirring his stew. After a while, he turned to me. “What brings you over, Emily? Tree fall? I could come in the morning. Tonight me and Delia got to get into town. Things getting pretty serious, with the world ending and all. We don’t want to miss one of those meetings out to the campground.”

I cleared my throat, washing the last of the cookie crumbs down with a gulp of Harry’s chicory coffee. “I kind of came to get Delia,” I said.

“Oh dear …” Delia fluttered a hand to her lips.

Harry turned squarely around to face me. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Your mother called Lucky,” I said to Delia, “at the police station, to say you’d been kidnapped.”

“Well, of all … Mother knew where I went. And nobody forced me to come down here.”

“She reported it.” I shook my head, hating to be in the middle of this obviously happy couple. “Could mean trouble for Harry. I mean, if your mother presses charges.”

Delia frowned hard. “That’s just Mother. I told her I’m not leaving her alone, just wanted to be with Harry. I left her plenty of food—all cooked and ready to be heated in the microwave. No reason for her to get like this. Just being mean …”

“Maybe, if you went home and talked to her …”

“I was going to anyway.”

“Today?”

She looked over at Harry and then back at me. “I suppose so. When Harry’s stew’s done. We’ll go together. I wasn’t going to live here. We just wanted … oh, I don’t know … one time in our life.”

I looked down at my cracked fingernails. This wasn’t a role I relished, breaking up a Romeo and Juliet moment in the lives of these two lonely people. I finished the coffee and got up to leave. “I’ll call Lucky and tell him you’re going home this afternoon. If that’s all right.”

Harry looked to Delia and then to me. He nodded. “I’ll have her there in ’bout an hour.”

Delia got up to go stand at the stove. She called my name softly. When I turned she was smiling shyly, first at me and then at Harry. She took one of Harry’s well-worn hands in hers and brought it to her wrinkled cheek. “Harry didn’t kidnap me, you know. I wanted to come stay with him awhile. It’s just … oh … you probably wouldn’t understand, Emily. You’re from a different time.”

I thought I understood well enough. About being alone—and needing to be loved.

“What I’d like to do, right here in front of you, is to thank Harry.” She looked up at him, old eyes shining, as he stood rigid and serious in his stiff suit and white apron, grizzled chin pushed down into his Adam’s apple. “If the world does end in a couple of days … well … you never know the truth of these things until they happen, or don’t happen. You just don’t ever take the time to think about your life, you know, until you get afraid you might die. I mean … things you might have missed.” She blushed slightly. “If the reverend is right and I’m going to die … well … at least I’m not going out a virgin.”