Page 4 of The Vigilante's Lover

Three quick short knocks at the door can only be Shirley, a neighbor from down the road. I shove the prison letter under a book on the desk and rush to the front door.

The dang thing always sticks when the weather turns cool. The autumn air teases the flyaway tendrils around my forehead as Shirley gives a little wave on the porch.

“Brought you a potpie,” she says, holding up a small casserole dish.

I step back so she can pass me to head to the kitchen. Shirley is like everyone else in this small town, weathered, friendly, and nosy to a fault. I follow her through the house, glancing at the hidden letter like its naughty contents might announce themselves.

Shirley slides her dish into the oven and sets the temperature to warm.

“You can eat it when you like,” she says pleasantly.

Her face is pink cheeked, cherubic, and dimpled.

Her gray hair is a mass of curls that she keeps up at Patsy’s Beauty Parlor, same as she has since the 1980s.

You can see exactly where the little rods line up to produce the waves.

She brushes her hands together. “Starting to feel right like fall out there. You been out today?” Her question is innocent, but I know she’s worried that I haven’t been going anywhere.

“I stopped by the store for some milk this morning,” I say.

She nods and starts moving past me again. “Can’t stay for a chat today. Rowdy got fixed this afternoon and he’s howling like we’ve cut off his…” She pauses. “Well, I guess we did.”

She laughs, a merry tinkling sound. Then she whirls around and places a warm hand on each of my cheeks.

“Beatrice thought the world of you. You figure out what it is you want to do next, and I bet the whole town will be right along to help you do it.”

I nod against her hands. I have no doubt she’s right.

Shirley lets go of my face. “I would feel an awful lot better if you had someone here with you. The Petersons just had a litter of pups. You sure you don’t want one? Half husky. Make a good guard dog.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say, although I know having a dog would limit my options. “I might still go back to school.”

“Of course,” Shirley says. “You’re just twenty years old. Lots of life ahead of you.”

A long howl breaks the quiet. “Oh, that Rowdy,” she says. “You’d think we…” She laughs again. “Hopefully he won’t keep you up tonight. We’ll keep him inside except when he does his business.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say.

Shirley leans forward and kisses my cheek. “Our poor little Mia,” she says. “You know you can always call any of us family.”

“Thank you, Shirley,” I say. I’m grateful to her. I really am.

She hurries down the steps. A sudden gust of wind stirs up the leaves and they whirl in a tight cone. Shirley pauses and turns to see if I saw it. “Autumn!” she calls out. “Change is coming!”

She gets in her car and I see Rowdy with his cone of shame. He’s managed to get his head out the window even with the wide white brim. He howls again.

Poor dog. It’s not far to Shirley’s, just across the road and down a piece, but with Rowdy, she didn’t walk it. Her old Buick roars to life, and she waves out the open window as she backs down the long drive.

I’m alone again.

I wander the living room, touching each of Aunt Bea’s treasured silver bells. I’ve lived in this sprawling house most of my life, after my parents died when I was eight, so I know every nook and cranny.

I should make some tea. I move to the kitchen and flip on the gas burner for the kettle. The transfer of ownership of the house to me will go through soon, after the execution of the will. Then I’ll have to decide what to do. Sell it? Rent it? I need to go finish a degree. Do something.

I feel adrift, unmoored, like a boat some sailor accidentally freed by tying a shoddy timber hitch.

The stopper knot thrusts against you, eliciting another impassioned cry.

Oh, those letters won’t let me stop thinking of them.

But they do contain a strange coincidence, which is one reason I kept them.

The knots. I know all the knots.

My parents drilled nautical terms into me as if they were the language of our family. We had a small sailboat that we took out on the lake not far from our home.

As they taught me to handle the boat, I got to know every type of knot, hitch, and heaving line.

Since reading the prison letters, however, some of the terms have taken on a whole new meaning.

French whipping knot, for example.

Heat flutters through me again. I wish for some sort of history, a bit of sexual experience to draw upon as the emotions flood me while reading the letters. But a tiny public school followed by a small community college hasn’t afforded me much opportunity.

Besides, most people find me odd, in a Belle from Beauty and the Beast way. Studious, sharp nosed, and more likely to stay up all night reading than attending parties.

Not that I am ever invited.

The kettle whistles. I realize I have neglected to fill the tea ball or place it in a mug. Daydreaming, another bad habit, worsened by my solitude.

I spoon some loose tea into the ball and snap it closed. The kitchen is forlorn. I open the stove and pull out Shirley’s potpie. The lovely aroma of chicken calms me, but I’m not hungry.

I put it away in the fridge and wander through the downstairs, both hands wrapped around a warm mug.

The cold is coming, but the chill I feel isn’t really about the weather.

It’s this sense that I am doomed to wander through my life alone.

I can’t even imagine a life duller than the one I have lived so far.

I pause before an image hanging in the hallway. Me. My parents. I am young, maybe six, happy. My father wears a sailing hat, his big grin the only thing visible in its shadow. My mom is beautiful, her hair blowing away from her face, refined and elegant in white shorts and a sweater.

My aunt was my mother’s sister. The two of them didn’t look anything alike, and from all accounts, didn’t act the same either. My mother craved adventure, daring, and met my father when she cut off his catamaran in a local regatta.

My aunt was a kind, slow-paced woman who was never very excitable. Apparently, just like me. When my parents died in a sailing accident, just like everybody said was bound to happen with their lifestyle and their personalities, she took me in.

I head back to the living room, taking small sips of tea. I glance out the windows looking over the lawn.

Another day of my life is passing with nothing to show for it.

Maybe I should take another look at the letters. Crazy as it sounds, I think my mother would approve.