6 - Pages of Sin

protesting locally either. A few years ago, I’d seen her at the local hardware store thrusting flyers into men’s hands as they passed her. A large, colorful banner hanging from a table nearby read, Wax Your Chest to Stop Deforestation. A pink-smocked cosmetician waited patiently at the table with a pot of wax warming over a Sterno flame.
    Shaking off the bizarre memory, I said, “Had Wanda been ill?”
    “Yes, although some people would argue with me on that point.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    Lost in thought, Mom stared down at her drink for a minute. Finally she looked up at me. “Wanda was agoraphobic.”
    I winced. “Oh, dear.”
    “Yeah, it was bad. And you know how people can be. There have always been a few who brushed off the fact that she was ill. They called her snooty and antisocial for staying home and not joining the real world.”
    “That’s just ignorance,” I said.
    Mom nodded. “Exactly.”
    “So what happened? Did she just stop leaving the house?”
    “Pretty much. One day she seemed fine and the next day, she wouldn’t answer my phone calls. I took it personally. I didn’t know what I’d done, so I drove over to confront her.” Mom sighed a little. “She wouldn’t come outside, but talked to me from behind the screen door. She looked perfectly fine, all dressed up and wearing makeup and everything. But she couldn’t come out on the porch.”
    “That’s so sad.”
    “I told her she didn’t have to come outside, I’d come inside and visit her. She insisted she didn’t have time to visit that day, so I called her the next day, then once a week for months, but she would never call me back. I guess she was too embarrassed. It broke my heart, but I finally stopped calling her.”
    “So she shut herself off from all her friends.”
    Mom’s lips twisted in a wry grimace. “Not exactly. One day, a few months after I made that last phone call, she called me out of the blue.”
    “Wow. What happened to change things?”
    “Byron built a six-foot wall around their property.”
    “A wall? That’s all it took? Were you allowed to come inside the wall?”
    “No,” she said slowly. “But for some reason, the wall gave her some sense of security and control over things. After that, she was willing to talk to me on the phone.”
    I glanced at her sideways. “So, you had a phone friendship?”
    “Yes. Then later, when everyone started using computers, we would e-mail every so often.”
    I had plenty of friends whose only means of communication with me was through e-mail, so who was I to judge? “At least she finally had some contact with the outside world.”
    “Yes. And thank goodness for online shopping, not to mention the TV shopping networks.”
    “Right. No reason to leave the house ever.” I sipped my lukewarm tea. “How did her husband handle her staying home all the time?”
    “Byron has essentially lived his own life, but he’s never left her, so that’s something.” Mom gazed casually at the ceiling. “Of course, he was very close to Wanda’s sisters, too.”
    My eyes narrowed in on her. “I’m hearing something in your voice. What was going on there?”
    “Nothing that I know of. It’s just that they were always very . . . close. That’s all.”
    “Mom, spill the beans.”
    She sighed again. “Byron grew up next door to the Bradford girls. According to some of the locals who lived here back then, he was always dating one sister or the other, then switching back to another one. By the time we moved here, they were all in their twenties, and he and Elaine seemed to have settled into a serious relationship. But then he married Wanda. And yet, they were all very close for years, until Elaine stopped visiting.”
    “Interesting.” I turned back to the original subject. “So I take it Wanda has a bunch of books that Byron wants to get rid of.”
    Mom nodded. “Right. He’s such a sweetie. When I ran into him at the market yesterday, I offered to help him clean out Wanda’s things. I know that sort of task can be so difficult for the spouse left behind. And it might be tough for her sisters, too.”
    “That was nice of you.” But I shivered a little. Nice, maybe, but it was slightly creepy to think of my mother rummaging through a dead woman’s personal things. I’m not sure I could offer to do something like that for someone other than a close family member, and even that would be difficult. But clearly my mother didn’t have a