Frances Crane

March Prompt, March 18, 2019

Harriet Green took a deep breathe  and crossed to her neighbor’s kitchen door. She was sure Mrs. Desse was there as her car was. Also her mother-in-law’s car. Mr. Desse’s car had disappeared after his sudden, very recent death. And that made things so complicated for Harriet Green—she didn’t know Mrs. Desse, a very reclusive woman, well, but her own husband and sons were having fits from the strange wailing noises emanating from the Desse house at night. How do you tell a new-made widow she’s a neighborhood nuisance and please be quiet. It a strange noise, didn’t sound human. But they had heard it for a month or two before Mr. Desse’s death. It had stopped directly afterwards, to her family’s relief, But when Mrs. Desse’s mother-in-law had arrived—to support her, it was said—it had started up again, And that was too much.

She pressed the doorbell and waited. It was Mrs. Desse’s mother-in-law who answered. She was an unpleasant-looking person, Harriet thought. As her son had been. And she was rather rude, with her snapped demand about what Harriet wanted to talk to the widowed Mrs. Desse about.

Mrs. Desse appeared behind her. “That’s all right, Louise.”  She looked very tired, “I’ll take her into the den, so we won’t disturb you.”  Being disturbed did not appear to be what the woman cared about. Harriet thought for a moment she was going to fuss, but then the older woman shrugged and walked away, to Harriet’s relief.  She just could not make her complaint to the poor widow in front of this other person.

She began by telling Mrs. Desse, not for the first time, how sorry she was about the loss of her husband. And asked her if there was anything she could do for her. The she edged into apologizing for what she was about to say.. Quite fulsomely. And then touched gently on the fact that that her husband and sons were light sleepers and that sounds carried all too well in the quiet of night. Mrs. Desse seemed very uneasy.  When Harriet got around to making clear exactly what she had come about, Mrs. Desse lost all the color in her face. “Oh goodness, your sons. Oh I never imagined.”  She looked sick. “I’ll . . . do whatever I can.” She looked so sick Harriet could only thank her and wish her well again. And leave.

Mrs. Desse and her mother in law left the next days for an unknown destination, but another neighbor told Harriet it was supposed to be a very secluded place, where they could recuperate. Only Mrs. Desse cane back. Apparently the older Mrs. Desse had died in the secluded place. Of an aneurysm, the same thing that had killed Mr. Desse.