Once Removed by Bill Tope

Once Removed by Bill Tope

Ellison replaced the receiver of the ancient, 40-year-old land line with a little rattle. It felt like it weighed five pounds. She had yet to opt for the new-fangled cell phones that everyone was purchasing in order to never be out of contact. Seemed little point to it now, with the passing of her mother. That call had been the hospice, telling her that Abigail Taylor had succumbed to the lung cancer that had held her in its death grip for the past 11 months. The final 20 days had been spent in the nursing home which served as a hospice.

Ellison’s thoughts were awhirl. She didn’t know whether to dwell on her mother’s basically nondescript life or to fixate on what lay before Abigail’s daughter: funeral prep, notification of relatives, interment expenses and the like. The first issue was not a problem: Abigail had pre-purchased her own burial plan years before, not wanting to burden her grieving family. Of course, thought Ellison, that’s back when she’d had a family to grieve; now there was only Ellison.

The second factor was likewise non-existent. Abigail and Ellison had no other living relatives. Ellison’s younger sister Kacie had died nearly a decade before, preceded in death by their older brother Barry, who had perished long ago in the Viet Nam War. When was it? wondered Ellison. 1968? That sounded right. Some 30 years ago, Barry Taylor had died at 22 during the infamous Tet Offensive, a chapter long consigned to the Cliff Notes of history. Abigail never fully recovered from the tragedy, although Ellison, just 9 at the time, had never really known Barry that well. He had left home and joined the marines when she was just 5. She sighed.

Suddenly the phone jangled. Ellison stared hard at it, as if it was an intrusion on her private thoughts. She picked up.

“Hello?” she said.

“Ellison?” came a husky voice. “This is Reverand Brower.”

Ellison blanked for a moment, then remembered: her mom’s pastor.

“Yes, Reverand?” she said.

“I just got the news from Integrity,” he said, referencing the hospice that had accepted Abigail. When she didn’t say anything, he added, “I had an order to call when Abigail passed.”

“Yes,” said Allison. “What can I do for you?”

“The question,” said Brower, “is what can we do for you?”

“Hmm?”

“Is there anything you need, Ellison?” he asked solicitously. “Is there anything we can do in your time of need?”

Ellison’s lips twisted wryly. Sure, she thought, you could’ve visited my mom at least once since she’d been in hospice. To the pastor she replied, “I’m fine, Reverand, but thank you for asking.” She could almost sense his righteousness and complacency seeping through the telephone.

“Abigail said she wanted the service to be held at First Church,” he said, meaning his church.

“It’ll be held at the funeral home, Reverand,” said Ellison, deciding at the very moment. Her mother had told Ellison to give First Church $1,000 for the service, but Bower’s apparent eagerness to secure this fee Ellison found unbecoming. She wondered if he would have been so eager to offer his facility if Abigail were indigent.

“Oh?” he said, drawing the word out. “May I ask why?”

Ellison rolled her eyes. “Use of the funeral home for the service is included in the package that mom paid for,” she explained. “Was there anything else, Reverand?” she asked sweetly.

“Abigail had told me she wanted me to preside at the service,” said Bower. “Is that still the case, or will one of the embalmers be doing it?”

Ellison blinked. “What did you say?” she asked.

“I said would you like for me to preside at Abigail’s funeral service, Ellison?”

Ellison drew a deep breath, released it. Whew, she thought. “Yes, please, Reverand, that would be lovely. Mom loved you, and the church.”

“We loved her too, Ellison,” said the man with apparent sincerity. “When you have a day and time, please call the parsonage and we’ll get it in the book. Okay?”

“Yes, of course, Reverand. Thank you for calling.”

& & &

Ellison’s mom had known many people in her almost 75 years, had a great many friends, although they had made themselves scarce during her final battle with cancer. Many times Abigail had beseeched her, even before she became terminally ill and went off to hospice.

“I’m lonely,” she’d murmur, sitting alone in dad’s old recliner. “Why don’t people come visit me?” she’d ask her only surviving child.

“I don’t know, Mom,” she say. “People have families, they work.” These were feeble excuses, Ellison knew. Abigail had once been a dynamo of activity in her church, her neighborhood, all the groups she was involved in. But, many of Abigail’s friends had died in the ensuing years, while many just had no desire to visit a dying woman. Fleetingly, Ellison wondered what her own last days would be like.

That afternoon, Ellison went to the hospice to recover her mother’s effects. A cold name for a lifetime of accumulation, she thought. She was not ready for what she found. She told the supervisor who she was and why she was there. She was recognized immediately. Ellison had been the one and only visitor during her mom’s 2-week residence at the hospice.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the quasi-nurse, “we’ve got everything bundled up for you.” She led the way to Abigail’s room, now newly-cleaned and stripped of her effects but for two plastic bags.

Odd, thought Ellison, that all mom’s things could fit in such a small space. Acting on intuition, she placed the two bags on the denuded bed and opened them. She was stunned.

“What are all my mother’s clothes?” she asked. “And her jewelry?” Abigail had been fond of nice clothes and in the final two years of her life, Ellison had spent a lot of money on silly but elaborate apparel for her ailing mother. And the jewels: Abigail had had a lot of it and still enjoyed wearing it, so her daughter had indulged her. Their family was well heeled and could afford it.

“What was left of your mother’s things are all there, ma’am,” said the nurse.

“At least $400 in brand new clothes and God knows how much jewelry is not here,” snapped Ellison angrily.

The other woman shrugged. “If it was valuable, then it’s possible it was set aside, locked up,” she said, and excused herself to find out. She returned too soon to have made a real inquiry, and shrugged again.

Jayla, one of Abigail’s CNA’s, entered and Ellison found herself looking at the young woman, as if expecting to find her mother’s necklaces strung around her neck. But Jayla was crying and came to Ellison and embraced her.

“I so sorry ’bout your mama, Miss,” she said.

Ellison instantly felt guilty and embraced the woman. “Thank you, Jayla, and for all you did for mom.”

“Would you like to file a complaint, ma’am?” asked the supervisor.

Ellison shook her head, found she had tears swimming in her own eyes. The workers at the hospice earned minimum wage, she told herself, and her mother wouldn’t be needing her “effects” in the future, so it’s just as well they went somewhere they could be used.

& & &

Ellison sat on the sofa in the living room of the home that she and her mother had shared for the past ten years. She felt at loose ends. Over the years, she had spent her time fencing with her mother over what now seemed like fatuous issues: what to have for supper and who would cook; how much to pay the boy who mowed the law; and whether Ellison should try to re-enter the work force. Abigail was against it.

“I enjoy having you around too much, Baby,” she say. Unspoken was the notion that Abigail feared to let Ellison out of her sight, lest she perish as had her sibs. Barry’s loss had been tragic, in a medieval, old world sort of way: a soldier lost in battle. And it was so long ago. But, Kacie, dead at 23, the victim of a car-jacking, abduction, rape and murder, had been simply overwhelming. Ellison’s father was gone by then, and so it was left to Abigail and Ellison to deal with the drama.

Kacie had been everything that Ellison was not: smart, pretty, popular and athletic. Just graduated from college, the world was Kacie’s oyster; she had everything to look forward to. As debilitating as her death was, the subsequent trial of the two young men who had been charged, tried and subsequently convicted was even worse.

Ellison felt a chill just remembering the never-ending trauma. Her mom, despite having already lost her first-born and her husband, seemed to diminish after Kacie. It had been left to Ellison to pick up the pieces of what remained of her shattered family. She winced, shifted her achy hips over the fabric of the sofa and wondered what she should do next.

That question was answered by a knock on the front door. With a grunt, Ellison got up and walked to the door. When she opened it she found two tiny, elderly women peeping at her.

“Can I help you?” asked Ellison, a little bemused at their cartoon-like appearance.

“Kacie?” said the first of the women, a little bird-like thing.

Ellison shook her head. “No, I’m Ellison,” she said.

“I told you,” the second woman scolded the first.

“We’re friends of you mom’s,” said the second lady, and introduced herself as Addie and her sister as Mercy. Ellison had never seen them before, certainly not at the hospice.

“Mom…er, died yesterday morning,” Ellison told them.

“That’s why we came,” said Mercy.

Ellison’s heart melted. They had come to pay their respects. “Come in, ladies,” she said, stepping aside.

They took only a step over the threshold before they stopped and asked, “where is it?”

Ellison blinked in confusion. “Where’s what?” she asked.

“Abigail told us that upon her passing, she would give us the cottage,” said Addie sharply.

“What cottage?” asked Ellison, totally at sea.

“The David Winter Tollkeeper’s Cottage, dear,” said Mercy. “Abigail said we could have it,” she restated avariciously.

Ellison shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“There it is!” cried Addie, advancing uninvited into the living room and clutching in her age-spotted hands a miniature building, crafted in porcelain. Ellison’s mother had collected them for years.

“So that’s what you meant,” said Ellison with relief, glad to put the issue to rest.

“May we take it, Kelcie?” asked Mercy with a glimmer of green in her eyes.

“Yes. Sure. Take it,” said Ellison.

Mercy turned to go, but Addie was focused on the shelf from which the bauble had been swiped. “What about these others?” she asked shrewedly.

Ellison frowned. “No, she promised those to someone else,” she lied glibly.

Addie’s lips became a tight, unsmiling line. “Very well. Let’s go, Mercy,” she said. “We got what we came for.”

Out the door they walked, without a backward look or so much as a word of thanks. When she shut the door, Ellison blew out a weary breath.

& & &

The funeral service, held at Gray’s funeral home in town, was sparcely attended. So much so that Ellison ached in embarrassment for her mother, who had always fancied herself a “people person,” and perhaps she had been, until Kacie died. In the ensuing years, she had become increasingly remote and uninvolved, except for her remaining daughter.

Reverand Bower gave it his all, Ellison supposed, speaking in his rich baritone to Ellison alone, but for two attendants from the funeral home. She glanced at the rack at the front of the room, where floral arrangements were normally arranged. The rack was empty but for one space. Curious, after the service, Ellison approached and read the tag appended to the arrangement. “Blevins Real Estate, offering top dollar!” she read aloud. Perhaps they hadn’t known that Abigail didn’t live alone, she thought.

When she gazed back at the empty room, she saw Reverand Bower looming over the catafolque, expectantly, she thought. This served as a reminder. He approached the tall, solemn man had proffered an envlope, containing a check for $500.

“Thank you for coming today, Reverand,” she murmured.

“Abigail was dearly loved by our congregation,” he said, seizing the envelope and folding it away without looking at it, into the pocket of his blazer. Some some reason, this annoyed Ellison.

“Then why didn’t any of them show up here today?” she asked bluntly.

Clearly Bower wasn’t expecting this. “Well, uh, people work, they have jobs, families, other responsibilities…” he stammered.

“Uh huh,” said Ellison. “A lot of people work on Saturday. And couldn’t they bring their families with?” she asked pointedly.

“You’re feeling under duress now, Ellison,” he said generously. “When you’ve had time to think…”

“No, I’ve been thinking. I’m feeling cold, Reverand,” she said, “at the lack of compassion showed me by your congregants. I know I’m not a member of your flock, and no one owes me a thing. However, I would think that your congregation’s supposed regard for my late mother would move them to show some respect to her one surviving relative.”

“Funerals,” said Bower ponderously, as if he’d just originated the thought, “are for the living.”

“Uh huh. It may interest you to know, Reverand, that my mother’s bequest to the church was not recorded in her will. It was left entirely up to my discretion. I know she had promised you $150,000, but that amount is, shall we say, up in the air for now.”

Bower grew silent.

“It was what Abigail wanted,” he pointed out with a blank expression.

“Well, you know that disbursement of the departed’s effects are, like funerals, for the living.” Ellison smiled a mean little smile.

After Bower had departed, Ellison rebuked herself over bickering over mom’s estate on the very day of her funeral. Well, she didn’t start the fight, she told herself. But it didn’t make her feel much better about it.

At the gravesite, fifty metal folding chairs stood empty, but for Ellison and an elderly disheveled man sitting in the back row, probably there to backfill the grave. Halfway through the eulogy, she left, walked to her car to drive home. She didn’t know if Bower continued his recitation in her absence of not. When she looked back at the elderly man, his chair was empty.

Ellison had abundant free time now. Before, she was either at the hospice, caring for her mother, giving her water on a sponge of wiping her face and telling the CNAs to change her diapers, because they wouldn’t do it on their own. Otherwise, she was at home, sleeping fitfully and eating practically nothing. She lost six pounds over the past two weeks, she discovered. Before today, when she’d wanted to just go shopping or take a walk in the park or sit and fill out a crossword, she hadn’t the time. Why did she think of that? she wondered. She didn’t do crosswords. But if she wanted to, now she could. She laughed carelessly at herself and took a seat on the bench in the small park in the center of town. Children were playing kickball and tossing around a football and jumping rope.

Brown and red leaves blew in on a fresh wind and gathered round her feet. When did it become Autumn? she wondered. The leaves blew away on another gust of wind. Ellison wasn’t sure how long she sat in the park, but when she looked up, all the children had gone home for supper and the sky was overcast–no, it was getting darker. She pulled herself from the bench, grabbed her purse and made her way home. At home, she puttered around aimlessly, trying to find something for her hands to do. She just wasn’t used to having time on her hands. Prior to the hospice nightmare, Ellison had spent the prior four years preoccupied with providing care for her mother. As she aged, dementia began to set in, until which point that she became surly and uncooperative. No wonder no one visited, she thought: her mother’s behavior had become problematic. Ellison remembered the dinnertime adventures.

“I don’t know what I can fix you that you’ll eat, Mom,” she told her once more.

Abigail frowned unhappily. “If you’d learn to cook, then maybe I could choke something down.”

“What do you want?” Ellison asked her. “Tell me, I’ll fix it. And if I don’t know how, then I’ll look in the cookbook and do the best I can.”

Abigail rolled her eyes.

“Mom, you’ve got to help me here. Dr. Mittelmann said you lost eight pounds between visits last time he weighed you.”

“That damn Jew,” said Abigail derisively.

“Mom!” scolded her daughter. She had never shown any animosity to minorities before, thought Ellison.

That was during the final year. Last March, Abigail had turned 74 and it was downhill from there. Ellison told herself that her mom didn’t mean anything, that it was the dementia talking and not to take it personally. But it was hard not to take it that way when you were smothering under unasked for responsibility. Then there were the delusions and the hallucinations.

Mom began seeing things. Ellison immediately reported this to Abigil’s doctor.

“She’s either hallucinatory or delusional,” Dr. Mittelmann informed her.
“What’s the difference?” she asked.

“A hallucination,” said the MD, is when the individual sees something that is not there. They know it’s not real, but they see it all the same. A delusion, on the other hand,” said Dr. Mittelmann, Abigail’s physician for 30 years, “is when they actually believe what they see. We’re almost certainly talking here about delusions. In older persons, we call this sundowning, because it almost always occurs in the late afternoons or early evenings.”

“That’s right,” said Ellison.

“The dementia sufferer doesn’t know which end is up,” said the doctor.

Ellison nodded thoughtfully. “Seems kinda’ scary,” she said.

Mittelmann nodded. “It can be terrifying,” he agreed.

“Is there anyting you can do, Doctor?” she asked. “Some kind of medicine?”

“There have been some measureable success with antipsychotics,” he said. “Haldol has been shown effictive in extreme cases, although Parkinson’s-like symptoms sometimes appear.”

“Is there anything else?” asked Ellison

“Various sedatives,” suggested Mittelmann. “Valium, for instance. I would only prescribe a sedative with reservations. Abigail hasn’t much longer, Ellison,” he said. “Better to not dope her up with drugs. You want these last months to be as meaningful for the two of you as possible. I know it can be difficult when you are there in the trenches, but there’s a reason we call them our loved ones.”

& & &

One day following the funeral, Ellison encountered the biggest surprise ever. A knock on the front door drew her attention as she was drying the dishes. Wiping her hands on a towel, she opened the door to find a tall but clearly elderly man on the doorstep. She blinked in surprise. It was the man from the cemetery.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Hello, Ellison,” he said.

Ellison’s mind spun. Was he a member of Mom’s church that she didn’t remember. Mom hadn’t been to church since Kacie died and Ellison had had only a fleeting familiarity with the congregation before. She hadn’t attended the church since she turned 16.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked. “Have we met before?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I saw you at the cemetery and I knew you must be Abbie’s little girl.” After a pregnant pause, he said, “I’m sorry, my name is Malcolm Macbeth. I knew you mother many, years ago. I came into town this week just for the service.”

“Oh!” said Ellison. “Would you like to come in?” she said a little uncertainly. What if is this guy were a lunatic? she thought. She’d read of people who scoured the newspapers, looking to rob the recently deceased–or their vulnerable relatives.

“If you’re sure,” he said. “I’m no threat to you, Ellison. After all, I’m 80 years old.” He smiled in a kindly fashion.

Ellison told herself she was being alarmist and invited the man in.

“Let’s sit in the living room. Have a seat, Malcolm,” she invited, leading him to the sofa.

He sat, then pulled a piece of paper from his suit jacket. “I have something for you,” he said.

“What is it,” she quipped, “a summons?” Then she giggled, embarrassed.

Malcolm smiled in return. “It’s a picture of Abbie, when she was 16,” he said.

Ellison took the photo, brown-hued and faded with age. She stared at it and held it as though it were a priceless treasure–as indeed, it was to her.

“Where did you get it?” she asked in wonder.

“We had it taken at Coney Island,” he replied. “August, 1943.”

Ellison stared at the picture, showing an Abigail years younger than she’d ever seen her before. The earliest photo Ellison had of her mom had been taken shortly before her wedding to Ellison’s father, in 1947. “I wonder, Malcolm, if I could take this to a photo studio and have a copy made?”

“No need,” he said. “It’s yours.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve others. But, I will have copies made and send them to you.”

“Thank you,” she said, genuinely touched by this stranger.

“What was Mom like, as a teenager?” she asked her visitor.

“She was a pistol,” recalled Malcolm. A wild child. “Smoked and drank with the best of them. Danced all night.”

“No!” said Ellison, privately pleased her mother had had a life apart from the misery of marriage to an unpleasant man and the tragedy of losing two children young.

“I was in the Army and on leave when we met and she invited me to her high school prom. I was too old to attend, rightly, but in those days people would give a nod and a wink to us service guys. We made a night of it!” Malcolm went on to tell Ellison in minute detail everything that happened, as if he had lived it only last night.

Ellison was charmed at two ships passing in the night and the experience leaving a lasting impression on at least one of them. She wondered why her mother had never mentioned it.

“Is that the last time you ever saw her?” she asked.

Malcolm shook his head no.

“No?” asked Ellison, surprised.

“We dated for several weeks,” he went on, “and then I went back to the war. Almost immediately I was wounded and shipped state-side for the duration of the war. By then, Abbie was pregnant and the day before our daughter was born, we were married.”

Ellison’s head was really swimming now. “Married?” she exclaimed. “Daughter?”

“We named her Madelaine, Maddie for short. Ellison,” he told her, “you’ve got a half-sister.”

“I…I don’t believe you,” she said between shallow breaths. Abigail Taylor, paragon of virtue, would never have had a family she told no one about, of this Ellison was positive.

“I thought you might be skeptical,” said Malcolm, and dipping into his suit jacket again he extracted a folded document that proved to be a birth certificate to the child that he and Abigail Macbeth had produced.

Rather shakily, Ellison came to her feet and said to Malcolm, “can I get you anything?”

“I’d sell my soul for a cup of coffee, Ellison.”

“Come on into the kitchen,” she invited her new extended family. Malcolm took a seat at the table as Ellison finessed the drip coffeemaker. “How do you like your coffee?” she asked.

“Strong, black and hot,” he declared.

“That’s what Mom used to say,” she remembered. “Did she get it from you or did you get it from her?”

“I think it came off a bag of Maxwell House Coffee,” he said with a twinkle.

“So,” said Ellison, seated with Malcolm over mugs of coffee, “I have a half-sister.” Malcolm said nothing. “What’s she like?” she asked.

“She’s a good girl, Ellison,” answered Malcolm. “Had to be, to put up with me.”

“You don’t seem so bad,” said Ellison, whose head was still spinning with new facts.

“Time was,” he said, “when I drank a bit.”

“Really?” asked Ellison. “Are you drinking now?”

Malcolm shook his head. “I’ve been sober since Sept. 2, 1959–Maddie’s 15th birthday,” he explained. “So, I got my house in order, but pretty late for my girl, and way too late for Abbie. She could read the writing on the wall and she scrammed out of there. I guess they’d say she split, nowadays.”

“Mom always fiercely loved us kids, Malcolm. How could she just leave Maddie behind?”

But, Malcolm didn’t have an answer for her.

“What did you do, for a living, I mean?” asked Ellison.

“I jazzed around after the war for several years, but then I used the G.I. Bill and went to college. Became an architect.”

“Were you a good one?” she asked.

He only smiled.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Maddie must be about 56-years-old by now. What does she do? Is she married? Does she have kids?”

“She became an architect as well,” replied Malcolm with evident pride. “And a good one, too,” he  said with a smile. She was married, but it didn’t work out.” He frowned. “She can’t have children.”

“Then, how is she?” she asked delicately.

“Good. She’s really good. Thanks you for asking, Ellison.” He blinked away tears.

“I’m sorry,” said Ellison, embarrassed for the old gentleman.

“So, you’ve had no contact with Mom since the forties,” she asked.

“I kept tabs on her,” he said cryptically.

“How? What do you mean?”

“I found through mutual friends where she ended up; no, I’m sorry, that’s not true. I hired a detective to trace her down 40 years ago, when I stopped drinking. But then I met someone and got engaged and we married. Beth died a dozen years ago and I had already begun subscribing to your Examiner, the local scandal sheet.”

“You must’ve known when my brother died, and my sister, and my dad?”

Malcolm nodded. “I was tempted to reach out, particularly after your little sister perished, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I mean, Abbie knew where I was. Or should have. I never moved since we were together and she would naturally have picked up the White Pages at the library and sought me out. had she wanted to. But, she didn’t.”

“And you never wrote a letter or a card,” she observed.

“I did so many times,” said Malcolm. “In them I recounted our young love and what she’d meant to me. How our daughter was getting along, how she was too young to even remember Abbie because she left when she was just a year and a half old. How Maddie resented Abbie’s running out on her little family, but that I thought, with time, Abbie could make things right…” Malcolm coughed, drew out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I could show them to you,” he offered.

“You’ve still got them, after all these years?” she asked eagerly.

He nodded, replaced his handkerchief. “I’ll FedEx them to you,” he promised, grateful to be taken seriously. “I’ll always regreat not playing a greater role in Abbie’s life,” he said.

“But you came back,” she murmured, “to say goodbye.”

He nodded.

Ellison refilled their cups with coffee and they sipped in silence.

“Does Maddie know…about me, and my..…our siblings?”

“She does now,” replied Malcolm.

“What was her reaction?” asked Ellison trepidatiously.

“It was a mixed bag,” said Malcolm.

“How so?”

“She was pissed I kept it from her all these years.”

“You are good at keeping secrets,” observed Ellison wryly.

“Maddie would’ve come barreling in, hell bent for leather, and upended everybody’s life.”

Ellison nodded. “Particularly when my dad was alive,” she said. “He was an awful piece of work. You know,” she said wistfully, “all things considered I wish I’d been raised by you than by him.”

“But you’d never have known the love of your brother and your little sister,” Malcolm reminded her.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting you, Malcolm,” said Ellison. “And I want to meet my sis…Maddie too.”

“And you shall. She was busy at work or she would’ve come out from Seattle with me.”

“That’s where you’re from, Seattle?” asked Ellison. She did a little mental math. “That’s like, 600 miles away. Did you fly?”

“Uh huh, and are my arms ever tired!”

Ellison rolled her eyes. “Another line you copped from my mom?” she asked.

“Ah,” said Malcolm, “that would be telling.”

She smirked.

“May I ask you a more serious question, Ellison?” he said.

She nodded.

“How embedded are you here in Sacramento? With Abbie’s passing and the loss of your siblings, I wondered if you have any strong ties to the area.”

Ellison considered the question. She had lived within 20 miles of Sacramento all of her life, the last decade within this very home. With her isolation owing to her mother’s illness, and her withdrawal from all of her only casual friends, she found the city’s hold on her only tenuous at best. She’d not been on a date for many years.

“Why do you ask, Malcolm?” she inquired.

“Maddie’s never had any family other than myself,” he said. “And I’m not getting any more youthful, and I genuinely think that you and my daughter would get along well. I think you two would get along famously. Would you consider relocating to our home?”

“You mean to Seattle?”

“I mean to our very domicile,” he said.

“Well, I don’t know. I mean, we’ve known one another what, three hours? And Maddie and I have never even met. What if we didn’t get along so famously?”

“Then you could move back to Sacramento. Or buy a home elsewhere in the Seattle area.” Malcolm was persuasive. “I’m not asking to sell everything you own and get on a plane with me back to Washington this afternoon,” he said. “Come back with me for an extended stay. Meet Maddie. Get to know me better. If you don’t like the location–or us–turn around and come back, no hard feelings. No harm, no foul. What do you say, Ellison?”

“Are you sure you were an architect?” she asked archly. “You talk more like a used car salesman.”

He laughed with genuine warmth. “How am I doing?”

“I think I’m ready to take it for a spin, kick the tires, look under the hood,” she replied whimsically.

& & &

Malcolm said he had to get back to Seattle, as he was involved in myriad community activities and charitable projects, some of many years standing. And Maddie still couldn’t get away. Using his American Express Card, Malcolm paid for Ellison’s plane fare to Seattle. She begged him not to, but he was determined to be of service. He maintained that, at his advanced age, he would spend his amassed wealth as he damned well pleased. On the evening before their departure, Ellison and Malcolm dined at the Hilton, again on Malcolm’s dime. He indicated that, since retiring from the architectural firm that Maddie still worked for, some 11 years ago, his Second Act had been to dabble in Seattle real estate. He said that if she would be more comfortable, Ellison could buy some land or a finished property and then sell it and move in with Maddie and him when she felt the time was appropriate.

“There’s a land rush in Seattle, Ellison,” he told her. “Real estate is a viable component of any portfolio nowadays. I’d keep your place in Sacramento too, because land values are similarly high. Why, I’ve invested in property over the past decade and now I own 20 properties free and clear.”

“I’ve always been fascinated by real estate, Malcolm,” Ellison confided. “Do you think you might relax your grip one one of your properties that has a home already on it? I don’t think I want to wait to inhabit the property and don’t want to labor through the construction.”

“I don’t know,” said Malcolm, hesitating. “It’d be better if you entered the market on your own; you know what you can afford and what you really want. I’ve often found that entering into business with either friends or fellow congregants is a recipe for disaster.”

“But you’re more than a friend,” she said. “You’re…family.”

“Let me think about it,” he said.

& & &

That night, Ellison lay abed dreaming of her sojourn to Seattle. The temperature in the Seattle of her dreams was a balmy 78 degrees. The sky was clear of any sign of rain. In her dreamscape, Ellison saw her mother. She had never, in all her years, dreamed of Abigail before. The old woman sat in her wheelchair, but she wasn’t scowling, as he normally was in life.

“How are you, Mom?” asked Ellison, leaning over the chair with her hands on the armrests.

“What didn’t you give that money to Reverand Brower?” Mom’s effigy asked. Her thick gray brows seemed to cover half her face.

“I can put that money to better use that Brower,” said Ellison. “I told him to forget about the money, that it was at my discretion and I decided that no, he wouldn’t get his pound of flesh.”

“So what are you gonna waste it on instead?” demanded Abigail, twitching in her wheelchair.

“I’m going to invest it,” said Ellison. “I’ll probably double or even triple your money. You’ll see, you’ll be proud.”

Hesitating at first, Ellison told Abigail about making the acquaintance of her first husband, father of her oldest child. Abigail scowled darkly.

“You remember how your father was?” she asked.

Ellison and her mother had scarcely spoken of the man, due to Ellison’s dislike of him and Abigail’s embarrassment at having become saddled with such a miserable bastard. Alan Taylor had psychologically abused his family until he thankfully died 15 years ago at 65, less than a month after retiring. So Abigail and Kacie, who was still living at home, never had to realize the hell that living with the man 24/7 would be.

“What’s Dad got to do with Malcolm?” asked Ellison.

“All men are evil,” said Abigail with a sort of perverse relish.

Briefly, Ellison wondered, not for the first time since meeting Malcolm, why her mother hadn’t simply run off once she found out what her husband was really like. But inside she thought she had the answer: Alan Taylor, MD, was a well-regarded and prosperous psychiatrist and he keep the household larders full and the bank accounts well-funded. Abigail got used to the substantial lifestyle, so different from what she experienced growing up, and stayed in place. Maybe, thought Ellison, her mother had developed a maternal instinct as well.

In the context of her dream, Ellison went on to tell her mother about her plans to journey to Seattle and, with any luck, wind up with her new friend Malcolm and her half-sister Maddie. How would dream-Abigail take news of her first born? Ellison had wondered. It was not what she had expected.

& & &

“Right on time, Ellison,” said Malcolm, appearing at the lounge at the airport an hour before boarding. “You’re as good as your word,” he said approvingly.

“I didn’t want to miss this moment, Malcolm. It was such fun talking to Maddie over the phone last night. We talked for hours and never finished our conversation. We’ve so much catching up to do!” Ellison said.

“You know, I think Abbie would have approved of your move to Seattle,” said Malcolm. “I’m certain that she loved you and I don’t think she’d want her first-born to be lonely either.”

“I talked to Mom last night,” said Ellison. At Malcolm’s queer look, she explained, “in a dream.”

Malcolm nodded and smiled. “What did she tell you?” he asked lightly.

” ‘Don’t you trust any man,’ ” Ellison quoted her mother.

“Well,” said Malcolm equably, “you said yourself that your father wasn’t much of a role model, and she hadn’t seen me in more than 50 years.”

“Yes, but she was right all the same,” said Ellison unexpectedly.

“Umm?” murmured Malcolm.

“Mom gave me some interesting information on you, Malcolm Juniper, aka Malcolm Macbeth, aka Manny Jones, and so on.”

Malcolm narrowed his eyes at Ellison. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

Behind Malcolm at the table in the lounge appeared three tall men, two in uniform and one in plain clothes. The non-uniformed man placed his hand on Malcolm’s shoulder and said, “This is the end of the line, Malcolm. Come on now, go with us and leave this nice lady alone.”

Blowing out a breath, Malcolm raised his hands above his head and slowly came to his feet. He looked down at Ellison and said, “how did you know?”

“I told you,” she said. “I talked to my mom last night in a dream. She told me that all men are bad, and although I was unprepared to believe her, she gave me certain facts and figures, names and dates. When I woke up, on a hunch, I phoned up the local office of the FBI and repeated what she’d told me.”

Malcolm’s eyes were deadly lasers, burning holes through Ellison.

“I don’t know if the woman you got to play Maddie will get away, but I’m sure the Bureau will work a deal for a lesser sentence in exchange for throwing you under the bus.” When still Malcolm said nothing, Ellison continued, :”you’ve been at this for quite a while. I’ve no idea how you learned about Abigail Taylor and her sordid life; perhaps from the newspapers, but the agent I talked to said it would take a little bit of time to put the bogus sister in place. Real estate fraudster and confidence man; what a racket, Malcolm.” She grinned into his scowling face.

As the police led Malcolm away, Ellison’s mind drifted back to the evening before. Were the dearly departed imbued with special insights and the ability to communicate with their loved ones, in times of peril? Ellison figuratively shrugged and picked up her Margarita and sipped, stopped and licked the salty rim and smiled, in spite of her loss of a hopeful dream of the future. She wondered, could I dream of Mom again tonight? Or Kacie?” The FBI hadn’t believed her story, but she didn’t care. Another predator had been removed from the street. She wondered what Kacie might tell her tonight.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Bill Tope 2026

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