Pepto Bismo Dreams Ch. 02

In the master bedroom Harvey seated his wife at the chair standing before her vanity. "Dearest, I have some shocking news for you, too."

Charlotte looked nervously up into her husband's eyes.

"Dear, do you recall the nasty bout I had with mumps several years ago?" pausing he waited for her reply.

Puzzled his pregnant wife nodded.

"I've been trying to find the time to tell you this. It hurt me to discover it, it hurts even more tonight." Again he paused, watching his wife's face for any sign. "My wife, the Doctor informed me months ago that the silly childish disease that laid me out so completely did something more." He paused again before continuing, "That illness destroyed my ability to impregnate a woman. My dear pregnant wife, I am incapable of producing children. I have been sterile for two years."

There was dead silence in the room except for a moan of disbelief from Charlotte, the love of his wife, his pregnant wife. She seemed to deflate as he looked at her with her frightened eyes desperately searching his face for some sign.

After moments he sighed, then pulled her to her feet to lead her into the darkened bathroom. "I know you are unaware of an unusual feature of our window here."

He reached with his toe to hook a small stool and pull it before the window. Gently pulling her before him, he lifted her to stand looking out the window.

"This is a wonderful view for those tall enough to look out. For the moment ignore the grandeur of our river valley. The view is the same as that provided in the bedroom windows, except that the tall shrubbery is not here to prevent looking down." Keeping his arm around her he gently cupped her chin and directed her face down and to the left. The moon was nearly full, flooding the valley in bright, soft light.

"Do you recognize the Knudsen's backyard, Charlotte?" he asked. "The last night you spent in their lovely home I happened to glance out this window as I was washing for bed. Can you guess what I saw from here? No? Well, maybe a hint will help. The moon was not nearly as full, but the back door was open, spilling light into the yard. I saw an attractive couple come out that door, the woman carrying a basket with wine and glasses. It looked like a moonlit picnic."

He paused again, feeling his wife trembling in his arms as tears ran down her shocked and frightened face.

"It seemed I was unable to move from the view as I watched the man below begin undressing the woman he was with. As I watched they kissed passionately. Then they moved out of the light and into the shadows where I could no longer see them. I stood there for a time, watching the white of the woman's shirt which had been dropped carelessly on the lawn."

His wife was sobbing, her hands covering her face, her body shaking.

"My goodness, dear, will you look at that?" Harvey pulled her hands from her face and turned her to look to their left.

About a mile away, about where the road to the town below turned to start its way down the steep face of the bluff there was a tiny spark of light at the base of the bluff. In the distance it looked like a bonfire.

"Something seems to be burning there, at the base of the cliff. I wonder what it could be?"

His horrified wife gazed, stricken at that bright pinprick of light so far away. A horrific suspicion burst in her mind. "No, no!" her mind screamed in her head. "He couldn't, he wouldn't..." She could just make out shapes in the distance, moving about the fire. Maybe what she saw were men moving between the fire and where she stood. She turned terrorized eyes to his. Harvey's cold eyes met hers unblinkingly.

"I lost my best friend that night, Charlotte. And my marriage changed forever. Do you understand?"

The woman stuttered, words coming from her mouth but nothing Harvey could understand. Certainly she was not speaking in comprehensive sentences.

Finally he pulled her down off the stool and led her back to their bedroom.

Just as they stepped from the bathroom there was a knock on the bedroom door. When Harvey opened the door he found the cook there, her face white and strained. "Sir, there has been a terrible accident. Oh my goodness, Mrs. Knudsen is lying on the sofa, terrible distraught. It's Mr. Knudsen, sir. Please come down, there is a policeman to see you, sir. Please come. I am so sorry, sir. So sorry." The poor woman broke into sobs, covering her face with her apron.

Harvey pushed past her, hurrying down the stairs. A Jessup city policeman was standing just inside the entry hall, his cap in his hand. "Sir, there has been a terrible accident. It was Mr. Knudsen, sir. His car failed to make the turn down the hill, sir and he drove right off the cliff!"

- - - - - -

Mr. Appleton insisted on a thorough investigation of the accident that killed his friend and business partner. The Chief of Police was disgusted at his insistence, it was a clear case of combination of mechanical failure and reckless driving. In the end his initial statement was proved true. One of the tie rods on the Knudsen Ford T-model had come loose, probably when Mr. Knudsen made the turn to head down the steep cliff road at a high rate of speed. He had been driving so fast that when he hit the hole at the lip of the bluff the shock had knocked the tie rod off. Everyone knew it was impossible to steer a car when any portion of the steering linkage, such as the tie rod, was broken. It was a mystery why Mr. Knudsen had been speeding, but he had to be going very fast to hit the bump so hard it disconnected the tie rod. The auto had tumbled end over end down the steep bluff. It was the Chief's belief that Mr. Knudsen had not been alive when the vehicle reached the bottom and burst into flames. Which was another error on Mr. Knudsen's part, he had not replaced the gas cap the last time he had refilled the automobile.

The town was sorry to see the change in Mr. Appleton with the death of his friend. The man seldom smiled, not like before. And where he had been a good, lenient businessman, content to take his rightful share of profit now he seemed hell bent to milk every penny out of a transaction. He was still fair, everyone gave him that, but he was unforgiving in his dealings.

The town was in awe of the way Mr. Appleton treated widow Knudsen and her orphaned daughter. Mr. Appleton insisted they move in with him where he treated them as family. It was obvious he considered the daughter as much a member of his immediate family as the son his wife bore him early the next year.

The man was more than fair in handling the widow's share of the business, investing it as if it were his own and holding it in escrow for her child.

In later years whispers were heard that the relationship of widow Knudsen and Mr. Appleton was more akin to that he had with his own wife than was decent. With Harvey J. Appleton's business the primary employer in the little town and the kind way he treated those in need little attention was given to such unsupported rumors. Indeed the whispers were surely wrong. Otherwise the widow would surely have given birth to another child or so. It was well known that women with her physical characteristics were given to having large families. One child was hardly possible if such carryings on had been true.

The two women had become inseparable. They each were as active in the town social life as before but it seemed like they never went anywhere one without the other. The loss of Mr. Knudsen had affected the ladies also, their good humor seemed to have disappeared. The two women seldom smiled except at their children.