I left a message for Ashley while I was driving （“Hey, it’s Nathan, call me when you can.”）。 I didn’t know how long Winnie and Charlie planned to stay in LA, but we had a lot to sort out, so I had to tell Ashley it might be a while before I called her for a second date. Plus she had a relationship with Louisa, too, and it would be unkind if I didn’t tell her why the woman who’d offered to help her get a job wasn’t calling.
I pulled into Louisa’s driveway and parked behind the garage. Louisa had given me a key—there was no reason to feel sneaky—but I had never been in the house when its owner wasn’t there, so it felt strange letting myself in. Turns out strange was the order of the day, and things were only going to get stranger.
I decided to do a quick tour of the house to make sure nothing needed attention—that Louisa hadn’t inadvertently left the oven on or a pot boiling on the stove. It was unlikely she’d left a cake in the oven, but I had several hours to kill before Winnie and Charlie arrived, so no harm in checking.
I started in the kitchen. As expected, nothing was cooking or baking or brewing. I put my hand over the stove burners and they were predictably cold. I peeked in the refrigerator. My heart broke a little when I saw the leftovers from our dinner （fish head and a few green beans） wrapped in plastic on a low shelf. Louisa wasn’t a Depression-era baby like my grandmother who saved everything, but I knew her to be practical. Plus—as I sadly knew all too well—cooking for one is no fun, so leftovers weren’t to be wasted. I didn’t want the place to smell like rotten fish, so I wrapped up that fish head and plunked it in the trash, then set the bag by the door and washed the plate and set it to dry.
I peeked into the pantry to find it tidy and well stocked: pasta, lentils, beans, pickled things. Some of it we could donate to a food pantry. But a lot of it would wind up in the garbage. Her pickled parsnips and radishes were prime candidates for the trash heap; I didn’t know anyone who liked those—they were so sour they could curdle milk from across the room. But unlike the leftovers, those could wait. I got a heavy feeling in my chest when I realized there would be a lot of things to get rid of, and that maybe the job of disposing of the remnants of Louisa’s life would be best left to someone else.
I made my way through the dining room, then stepped into the study. I had seen those framed photos above Louisa’s desk a thousand times, but now that she was gone, seeing her all dressed up and brimming with glamour made me feel emotional. It was almost like she’d had two different lives. The one before she’d gotten sick was all power lunches and stilettos. Her ice-blonde hair was bouncy and full, and her blue eyes shone with determination and optimism. Healthy Louisa had been a go-getter, a rule breaker, a pioneer, and radiated confidence with every cell in her body. And then the illness that was too embarrassing to name struck, and all that was taken from her. Her winning smile shriveled into a tight grimace. Her hair thinned and dulled. And her confidence turned to bitter resentment. If I were closer to my cousins, I might have pressed them to tell me her diagnosis. But the closest I ever got was “an excretory system issue,” and I understood why she was private about it. I was wrong, of course. Her embarrassment had nothing to do with the body part affected, as I was about to find out.
I walked toward the filing cabinet and opened the heavy drawer. It was stuffed with bank statements and financial documents, which would have to be shredded. I made a mental note to bring some boxes from work. I scanned the little plastic tabs until I found the one I needed: “Louisa’s Death Folder”—which was clearly labeled right where she’d filed it. As I plucked it out and tucked it under my arm, I tried not to think about why she had shown it to me just two short days before. Coincidence? Or a cry for help? I pushed the thought out of my mind, turned off the light, and continued my rounds.
I walked through the parlor, the dining room, the formal living room. I don’t know what I was looking for. Louisa wasn’t one to leave dirty dishes lying around, and there were no shoes to trip on or pillows to fluff. Perhaps it was my way of paying my respects. Louisa loved her kooky old house, and appreciating it was appreciating her.
I saved the library for last, probably because I wanted to put it off as long as possible. I knew her body had been removed, but I was still nervous about walking in there. Some people believe that the spiritual body rises up from the physical body at death and can linger. I didn’t know I was one of those people until I was standing at the threshold of that room and felt afraid to go in. From the doorway, I saw Louisa’s book on the arm of her favorite chair, and what looked like a half-drunk cup of tea on the side table. I told myself by not touching it I was preserving the scene in case questions emerged, but my reticence had nothing to do with that. Did I believe in ghosts? Or was the presence I was feeling of an entirely different nature? Because I definitely felt like someone was watching me.