Thomas Sniegoski: A Hundred Words for Hate

That had been two weeks ago, and he’d been visiting regularly since.

“How do you want your tea this time?” he called out from the kitchen as he turned off the faucet and took the kettle to the stove. He had to push aside a stack of fine-china plates that he didn’t remember seeing there last time.

“With some milk, baby,” he heard Fernita call out from the living room.

Sometimes she liked her tea dark . . . “ like the color of my skin ,” she would say with a chuckle, letting the bag steep in her cup for a good long time. Other times she’d take it with milk, like today.

Remy moved the plates to a tiny dinette set in the corner under a pair of windows. He had to push aside Easter baskets filled with green plastic grass to make way for them.

He returned to the stove only to find Fernita’s cat, Miles, sitting in the center amid the four burners. The black cat with the white bib of fur stared at him with intense green eyes.

“Hello, Miles,” Remy said as he placed the kettle on one of the electric burners and turned it on. “Careful, now; this is going to get hot.”

“ Hungry ,” the cat said in its feline tongue.

Remy looked over at the two dishes on the floor beside the refrigerator. One was filled with water, and the other had some Friskies in it. “There’s food in your bowl,” he told the cat, turning around to search out two clean cups.

“ No ,” the cat growled. “Hungry.”

Remy opened the cabinet to the left of the sink, catching a stack of recipes torn from the pages of magazines before they could drift to the floor. There were plenty of cups inside as well—enough to offer tea to the whole city of Brockton.

“And I said there’s food in your bowl.” Remy pointed to the dish on the cluttered floor.

The cat jumped down from the stove, his paws crinkling some stray plastic bags that lay there as he padded over to his dishes.

“See?” Remy said as he opened the box of tea bags that was left on the counter. He would have much preferred coffee, but finding the coffeemaker in the chaos that was Fernita’s kitchen was far too daunting a task. Tea would have to suffice.

“ No ,” the cat said again, pawing at the nuggets in his dish.

“Stop playing with your food,” Remy scolded, but Miles didn’t listen.

One by one he removed the pieces of food from his dish and left them on the floor. “ No, hungry .”

“Did anybody ever tell you you’re a pain in the ass?” Remy said as the teakettle began to whistle.

Miles answered no.

One can of tuna and two cups of tea later, Remy was sitting in an overstuffed wing-back chair across from the old black woman as she went through box after box of stuff.

“I just don’t know where it all came from,” Fernita said, picking up one piece of wrinkled paper, dropping it back down into the box, only to pick up another. “I think I might’ve been saving these for the tax man.”

The pieces of paper appeared to be old, very old, and Remy doubted the IRS would have any interest in them now. “Why don’t you just throw them away?” he suggested. He placed his cup on a coaster beside his chair and reached for a plastic trash bag that he’d brought from the kitchen. “Just throw them right in here and you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

Remy watched as the old woman seemed to consider this. “I guess I could,” she said slowly, and he almost believed he was getting through to her. “But what if I should need them?”

“Do you really think you will?” he asked, his tone urging her on.

Fernita’s wrinkled hand reached into the box again and picked up some of the papers that she’d already looked through. “I’d better hang on to them,” she said with a pretty, yellowed smile. “It would be just my luck to have the tax man bang on my door, and me not have my papers in order.” She put the box atop three others also filled with things she might need someday.

In the old days, she would have been called a pack rat, but now, in this more politically correct age, when everyone’s quirks were diagnosed with a fancy name and a weekly series on the Discovery Channel, she was definitely a hoarder.

And perfectly fine with it.

“And what if what I’m looking for . . .” Her voice trailed off as she gazed around the cramped confines of the sitting room. It was stuffed with old furniture and boxes of God knew what.

“What if what I’m looking for is inside one of these boxes?” she finished.

“I suppose.” Remy sighed, drinking more tea and wishing it were coffee.

“All right, then,” she said with finality. “I’d better not be putting anything in that trash bag.” She leaned back in her chair and took a sip from her cup, looking at him through the thick lenses of her glasses. They made her dark, watery eyes look huge as they fixed upon him. And then she began to laugh.

Remy couldn’t help but do the same.

When he’d asked her why she had called him, Fernita told him that an old friend named Pearly Gates had once told her that if she ever had a problem to give the detective a call. She’d produced an old business card from the pocket of the flowered apron she was wearing. It had been a long time since Remy had used that particular card—at least thirty years.

He had no idea who Pearly Gates was, but the name amused him.

Fernita was suddenly very quiet, staring off into space as if seeing something beyond the room.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

She seemed startled by the sound of his voice and looked at him inquisitively. For a moment Remy was certain she had no idea who he was.

A smile then appeared, and he knew she had returned from wherever she had temporarily been.

“Remy Chandler,” she said happily. “It’s so nice that you visit me.”

He smiled, reaching out to take her hand. “I like that you let me.”

And it was true. Remy had actually started to look forward to his visits with Fernita, who had lost something very important, but couldn’t quite remember what it was. He had to wonder if maybe it was her dwindling faculties she was missing, and was desperate to have back.

But there was something about this wonderful old woman, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

The grandfather clock, nearly hidden by stacks of old magazines, tolled the hour, and Remy counted twelve. He had planned to stay only until lunchtime. He had things to finish at the office, and he was going out tonight.

His stomach did a little bit of a flip, and he felt the nature of the Seraphim coiled in slumber at his core stir.

“I need to get going,” he said to Fernita, almost too quickly.

He reached out and patted her hand affectionately, then stood and retrieved his heavy leather jacket from the banister near the front door.

“Where are you off to now?” Fernita asked from her chair.

“I’ve got to get back to the office and help more people,” he told her. He was tempted to tell her what he was doing tonight, knowing that she would get a kick out of it, but he really didn’t feel like talking about it at the moment.

“You’re a good man, Remy Chandler,” she said.

“Thanks for noticing.” Remy slipped into his jacket as Miles sauntered toward them from the kitchen.

“And there’s my other handsome boy,” Fernita said, making a noise for the cat to come to her. Remy had to give Miles credit—he didn’t ignore her, jumping into her lap and settling down to be petted.

“When will you visit again?” Fernita asked Remy, her eyes wide through the thick lenses of her glasses. “You know I’m never gonna find that thing without your help.”

“I’ll try to stop by toward the end of the week; how does that sound?”