The Warning

by Denise Kelly LeBlanc

conclusion

“No, I’m not. I just arrived this morning.”

Erin wasn’t accustomed to conversations with random strangers but tried to be congenial, her discomfort evident in her restless fidgetting. Sipping her still too hot coffee she looked at the grizzled man and noted a friendly twinkle in his eye.

“We don’t get a lot of strangers around here. My name is Joe Steele and I’ve lived here all my life, so I’ve the right to say that this isn’t the most exciting place.” He extended his hand to shake Erin’s. “What brought you here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Erin felt her small hand lost in Joe’s large paw. She liked the boisterous tone of his voice, loud with an underlying rumble that threatened to erupt into laughter at any moment.

“Erin Dawson. My grandmother lived here for the past year. She recently passed away and I came to pack up her things. Her name was Clara Thomason; did you know her?” The warmth she’d felt inherent in Joe had made it easier to air this painful fact.

Oddly, it was the soccer mom next to her who had the greater reaction. Erin felt the woman’s instant paralysis, could sense the tension emanating from her.

“Now you just calm down, Marilyn Stephenson,” Joe said to the woman, leaning forward and speaking with an edge to his voice and an exagerrated formality. “We aren’t talking to you and have no plans to start, so you can keep your nose out of this young lady’s business. Now, Erin, why don’t you and I go sit at that table over there and get to know each other.”

Erin nodded, anxious to distance herself from the woman named Marilyn. She sought safety in Joe’s kindness, refuge from the daggers being shot from the perfectly made-up green eyes. Allowing herself to be led to the table, she felt a large calloused hand on her back. Joe held her seat out like am old-fashioned gentleman, all the while forcing Erin to sit with her back to the room. Perhaps he was shielding her from the stares of the patrons, but with Marilyn behind her she felt decidedly uneasy.

Sitting down, Joe pulled at the front of his flannel shirt as other men would straighten a suit. He leaned forward, rubbed his beard and finally spoke.

“In answer to your question, I knew your grandmother very well. I’ve known her since we were kids, in fact. She was a wonderful woman.” He looked down when finished speaking, lost in memories of the woman he’d known.

Erin was instantly and thoroughly confused. She froze a moment with her mug halfway to her lips. “Since you were kids? But Gran only moved here a year ago.”

Joe looked up, his eyes narrowed slightly. “Well now, that’s interesting,” he said sitting back and crossing his arms. “Why don’t we start with you telling me what you know about your grandmother’s past.”

The strangeness of the situation was choking Erin. The only thing that made her relax slightly was the sight of Marilyn leaving the coffee shop. She watched her talk on her cell phone and tried to grasp the threads of her knowledge from the fogged in depths of her mind. Focus, Erin, she told herself and managed to funnel her racing thoughts.

“Gran never talked about when she was young. She told us that she was an orphan and lived in a group home in Toronto. No more details, none that I know of, anyway. We assumed that it was a bad childhood and she didn’t like to talk about it. I never pushed the issue.”

When she heard herself speak she felt the need to defend what seemed like a lack of interest in her grandmother. Had they really known so little? Gran had always been good at diverting attention from herself by focussing on others. It was what had made everyone love Clara. Now she wondered if her Gran’s attentiveness had been calculated to keep her secrets.

Joe’s laugh finally surfaced. “Well, Clara always did have an imagination.”

“I guess that means you weren’t friends in the orphanage,” Erin said, voicing one of the theories she’d come up with.

“No, darling, I’m afraid there was no orphanage. Clara was raised by both parents right here in town. One of the most prominent families in the area.”

“Why would she have lied?” Erin replied, trying hard to understand this latest revelation. She was beginning to wonder who the woman was who’d called herself Gran Clara.

“There’s a lot I don’t know about Clara. She’s a bit of a local legend. Clara was well-liked. A fun girl, the first one to take a dare, you know.” He smiled to himself at some secret memory, but Erin wanted him to stay on topic.

“Local legend?” she prodded gently.

“That all happened later, after she left. No one knew for sure why she left, and like in any small town that’s the quickest way for rumours to start. The story that stuck over the years was that she fell in love with someone her parents thought ‘unsuitable’. Clara was always strong-willed so instead of give up her man she gave up her family, and in doing so all of her family’s money.

“The only person happy about it was her brother, Dr. Stephenson. Now, you want to be avoiding him,” Joe said, leaning closer and lowering his voice slightly. “I spoke to Clara a few times last year and he was hassling her something awful. No matter how many times she told him she didn’t want his money, he kept thinking she came back to fight him for it. Greedy bastard like him could never see past a bunch of dollar signs.” Joe’s jaw set in a hard line and he stared out the window.

“Stephenson? Didn’t you call that woman who was here earlier by that name?”

“Yes I did. Now that was Dr. Max Stephenson’s daughter, Marilyn. She kept her name when she married. As much of a snob as her father, she is. I’d stay away from her, too, if I were you. You’re better off without that part of your family.” He patted her hand in a gesture of warmth, as though to impart some sympathy for the fact that she found herself a part of such a lineage.

These were her relatives. Having been raised by a single mother, no father in her life, she was accustomed to a very small family. Suddenly there was a group of strangers who shared her blood.

But this was not what she wanted to know. With all of these discoveries, suddenly what the girl had said seemed possible; anything seemed possible.

“When she spoke it was in a near whisper, her eyes fixed on the watery blue gaze of her councillor. “Do you... think she was... died of natural causes?”

Joe’s eyes narrowed and he seemed to regard her in a different light. “Now why would you go and say something like that?”

“Who examined the body?” she continued, her thoughts racing.

“Dr. Stephenson is the coroner in town. But you didn’t answer me. Why are you saying this?” The note in his voice was that of a man who would not accept silence as an answer.

Erin spoke in a faraway voice, her mind already three steps ahead. “Someone told me. The little girl who lives in the house behind the wrought iron fence, on the dirt road by Gran’s house. I saw her when I went for a walk.” She was hastily getting ready to leave. She knew she had to get to her grandmother’s, try to find some kind of answer there. It was all she had to fill in the blanks.

She only half-noticed Joe’s face blanch. He pushed himself back from the table. “Darlin’, no one has lived in that house since...”

But she cut him off in mid-sentence. “Thanks so much for the information. I really have to go now but I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

She practically ran out the door, not hearing him call after her. The drive to the cottage was a blur as her mind was occupied trying to decide where she would begin her search.

Arriving at Clara’s she flung the door open and looked around frantically trying to find a clue. The desk seemed a logical place to start. She rolled back the top and shuffed through papers. Bills, letters, documents. All of which would have to be sorted, but she was not worried about that now. She wanted some clue as to her Gran’s final days.

As she lifted a pile of papers something fluttered to the desktop. Erin picked it up with a trembling hand. It was an old, yellowed photo, frayed edges. Her hand flew to her mouth when she saw the person in the photograph. Standing in front of a small horse was a young, curly-haired girl. Turning the photo over in her hand, she saw in faded ink the words ‘Clara Stephenson, age 8’.

It was the girl she’d spoken to that very morning.

She backed away in total shock, dropping the photo as though it burned.

A noise behind her caused her to jump: the door closing. She turned to face a man she’d never seen but knew instinctively was her Gran’s brother. She’d come back to warn her about this man. She remembered her words, “You need to know...”

He took a step towards her. Saying a silent prayer of thanks to her grandmother, she grabbed a letter opener off the desk and was ready to fight.