Richard Stevenson - Chain of Fools

I said, "He actually deals in old spats? Not petty-argument spats, but those cloth-and-leather things people used to wear over their insteps and ankles?"

"Parson is world renowned among spats collectors," Janet said.

Dale added, "People come from all over, every year, by the ones and twos."

"Not all his betes noires sound unreasonable to me," I said. "As a social evil, Wal-Mart would be high up on my list too."

"Parson is actually an interesting mixture," Janet said, "of small-is-beautiful and small-minded-is-beautiful."

"And he and June are chums?"

"Since seventh grade. June and Dick and Parson and his wife, Evangeline, play whist out at the Bateses' every Friday night, and they're all on the board of the museum together."

I said, "Has Bates ever been known to turn violent?"

"Not physically," Janet said. "Anyway, I know he's ambivalent about the Herald's being sold to InfoCom He's loyal to June and he'd love to see the paper's liberal traditions interred, but he also hates ruthless, amoral big business. So it's hard to imagine Parson involved in a plot to do away with me or Dan or Mom. On the other hand, it's also true that Parson and Eric couldn't stand each other "

"They fought?"

"Avoided each other, mainly. Eric had no patience with the way Parson used nature in his writing to support his prejudices, including a raging homophobia that's just barely under wraps. And Parson was jealous, I think, of Eric's talent and success as a nature writer. Also, Eric's and Eldon's being casually out as a couple drove Parson gaga. He was always fuming to people about them-an affront to nature, and all that. Dale and me he tolerates more easily. First of all, we're women, and not to be taken so seriously as men. Also, I think, he sees us as a 'Boston marriage,' one of those nineteenth-century eccentric institutions even the religious Emersonians made room for in their expansive universe. But two men together? The horror, the horror."

Dale was about to add something to this when the side door of the Osborne house opened again, and a stout, middle-aged woman in powder-blue slacks and a peach-colored blouse came out and, looking distressed, called Janet's name.

"Elsie, hi, we'll be right in. How's Mom?"

"Not good. You'll see as soon as you get in here. She's not good."

"What's the matter?" Janet said, looking alarmed.

"It's her mind," Elsie said, tapping the side of her head with her finger. We followed Janet quickly into the big house.

The woman seated in a bay-window breakfast nook just off the kitchen looked up at us and smiled uncertainly but did not get up. In her early eighties, Ruth Osborne was still tall and sturdy looking-"statuesque" in the parlance of her young adulthood-with sun-bronzed rough hands and a long face with large curious eyes, as in a painting of a Bloomsbury figure. She had a big head of Gravel Gertie hair and "wore a shapeless green shift. Lying alongside, but not on, her bare feet were a pair of worn leather sandals.

"Hi, Mom," Janet said, and kissed her mother on the cheek. "How are you doing? Dale and I brought a friend along."

Mrs. Osborne looked at Dale without apparent recognition and then at me. As Mrs. Osborne studied me, Dale leaned down, kissed her on the cheek, and said, "Hi, Ruth," but the old woman stiffened and looked embarrassed.

"I'm Don Strachey," I said, and Mrs. Osborne extended her hand, which I grasped. Her skin was dry, her grip firm.

Without enthusiasm, she said, "I always enjoy meeting my daughter's friends."

"Don's up from Albany," Janet said. "He's a private investigator down there."

She took this in, smiling tentatively, and said, "Oh, that's nice." Then she turned and looked out the window. We followed her gaze and all of us peered out at the backyard, where the sun shone down on the freshly mowed lawn and beyond the trees there were shadows.

"Mrs. Osborne, that's Dale there," Elsie said. Janet had introduced Elsie Fletcher to me on the way in as her mother's longtime housekeeper She said, "You know Dale, don't you? That's Dale there." But Mrs. Osborne did not respond and continued gazing into the backyard.

"I'm the mouthy one," Dale said. Then Dale looked at me. "Ruth and I always hit it off," she said, "on account of we're both-as people around Edensburg like to call it-'outspoken.' If we hadn't seen eye to eye on so many things, we'd probably have strangled each other."

I said lamely, "I'll bet."

Ruth Osborne was now somewhere else, and when Janet said, "Mom?" she got no response.

"We'll be back in a few minutes, Mom," Janet said, and indicated for us to follow her.

Dale, Elsie, and I went with Janet down a dim, wide hallway and into a book-lined study, where Janet shut the door. The oak library table in the center of the room was heaped with books, as was the old leather swivel chair behind it. It looked as if some sorting out of Tom Osborne's library had commenced some years earlier but had not gotten far. The oil portrait over the fireplace of a man in a turn-of-the-century man-of-parts getup appeared to be the Herald's founder, Daniel Lincoln Osborne. Below the painting, faded family photographs were propped on the mantel, with Tom, Ruth, and the five children at different ages and in various poses, most of them in wilderness settings. Also on the mantel was a bronze urn with a lid on it. An inscription had been typed on a sliver of paper and taped to the urn. It read: William T. "Tom" Osborne- 1911–1989.

Janet said to Elsie, "How long has she been like this?"

"Since yesterday morning," Elsie said, looking frightened. "I was going to call you today if she didn't snap out of it. June called this morning and said she'd be stopping in, but I was going to call you anyway." Elsie and Janet exchanged significant looks.

"And she was like this just now when June was here?" Janet asked. When Elsie nodded, Janet said, "Oh, God." To me, Janet said, "For a couple of years now there's been short-term memory loss, and she's gone blank on occasion-just sort of zombied out for five- and ten-minute periods. But nothing this long lasting."

"Mrs. Osborne was always a talker," Elsie said. "She had a mind like a whip, and boy oh boy did she ever let you know exactly what she was thinking. That's not Ruth Osborne out there, what you're seeing now. Not by a long shot."

Dale said to me," 'Be prepared,' we were told as children. But what can anybody do to prepare for this?"

"What did June want, anyway?" Janet asked."

"We go weeks without seeing June," Elsie said to me, clearly hopeful that I might become an ally in her disapproval of a daughter who didn't visit her mother often enough. To Janet, she said, "June and Parson both wanted to talk about selling the Herald to that big company that sounds like somebody sneezing."

"InfoCom?"

"Yes, they wanted Mrs. Osborne to vote for that one."

"Parson too?"

"Both of them did, yes. They tried to get Mrs. Osborne to come in here with them and shut the door, I suppose. But she wouldn't budge from the breakfast nook, so I heard a lot of what was discussed. I had baked corn to get in the oven, you know."

Janet picked up the cue and said, "Mom sure loves your baked corn, Elsie."

"Oh yes, she enjoys it when I cook."

"So what did Mom say about InfoCom and her vote?"

"Why, she didn't say anything at all. She said hello and how do you do and not a word more, as far as I'm aware. Several times while they were here, June said, 'Mom, what's the matter?' Or, 'Mom, are you listening to me?' She knew your mother wasn't right, Janet. She saw that it was more than just forgetfulness this time."

"Did June say anything about it to you?"

"No, but she gave me a look on the way out-like I knew all the time your mother's mind was going, and now June knew it too. Parson Bates was all smiles, but he was right there the whole time, so he got the picture too, you can bet your boots on that."