Victoria comes in. Even if he can’t actually smell the world on her, he can see it in the way her wardrobe is changing. For much of the winter, she wore a huge, fluffy yellow coat over black leggings so she resembled a tiny Big Bird. Today she is in a jaunty plaid trench coat. She just misses being his type, he thinks. His old type, the kind of woman he liked in his twenties, a Lucy. Margot, Sarah before her, even Gretchen—those had been attempts to change his type. He should have stayed true to himself. As Shakespeare would have said.
“Good morning, Vic—”
“Did you give Aileen a parking place?” She is working hard to control her emotions, whatever they are. Her cheeks are flushed, her voice trembles.
“I have arranged for her to park in the building,” he says. “She was feeling vulnerable, walking here after sunset.”
He wonders at his immediate impulse to fudge the information—arranged for her to park in the building. As if the plan is temporary—it is, he won’t need Aileen forever—as if it’s an act of kindness, no more. Gerry has always thought of himself as an essentially honest person, and not simply out of virtue. He lies for a living, he doesn’t want to do it for free. Besides, it’s wearying to lie, a waste of time and energy to track one’s mistruths. Being honest is expedient and efficient.
Yet soft, tactical lies, so-called white lies—is it okay to call them white or is that now racist?—are the social WD-40 of day-to-day life, greasing all the tiny connections, keeping things frictionless. It’s his money. Victoria has no right to inquire how he spends it. Victoria is on a need-to-know basis, whether she knows it or not. How did she even hear about Aileen’s parking place? The two women never cross paths, as Aileen pointed out.
Phylloh, he thinks. Phylloh is stirring the pot.
“I’m the one who comes and goes, running your errands during the day,” Victoria says. “If anyone gets a parking space, it should be me.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” Gerry says. “But given that your schedules don’t overlap, why can’t you share it?”
She opens her mouth, as if to object to this reasonable offer, then closes it, nods stiffly. She’s gotten what she wants, yet she’s still unhappy. Gerry has spent a lifetime trying to please women like this, women who cannot allow themselves to let go of their grudges and principles.
“Anyway, remember that registered letter they tried to deliver to your mother’s house? The one I had you sign for? It was a wrangle, but the post office finally agreed to let me take it, after I showed them your mother’s death certificate, then explained why you couldn’t come in person. It took three trips.”
Victoria offers him a legal-size envelope. It’s certified, not registered. Not an important distinction, but one that irks Gerry. An assistant should be detail-oriented. He extracts what appears to be a will, accompanied by a note from a lawyer.
“This makes absolutely no sense,” he says, scanning the document. His father’s name, his mother’s name pop out at him, but everything else is a jumble.
“What?” Victoria is forever saying “What” and it’s unclear to Gerry if she’s hard of hearing or reflexively says this in order to have something to say. Whatever the reason, it’s highly annoying.
“It’s a letter to my mother stating that my father’s will was contested.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize your father had died.”
“Oh, he definitely died. In September 2001. How can a will be contested almost two decades later and why would my mother care?”
Only it hasn’t been two decades, not according to this letter.
Dear Mrs. Andersen,
This letter serves as your official notice that the probate challenge against Mr. Andersen’s estate has been denied and you remain the sole beneficiary…
Based on the details he can glean from the letter, his father died in early summer 2018, days before Gerry moved back to Baltimore. Had someone tried to contact his mother then? It was a confusing time, with different nursing aides coming and going. In fact, he had sacked one when he realized she sometimes took the day’s mail and chucked it into the recycling bin, unopened. Did his mother even know his father had not died in 2001, as Gerry had been told?
Told by her. That was the only reason he believed his father dead. Because his mother told him, in great detail, how he had died on 9/11.
Your father visits me. We make love in the garden.
In hindsight, he had decided that was the first clue of her dementia. But what if—