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The GeneCo Trust: An Ill-Favored Meeting

The quiet tone of the doorbell disturbed the otherwise quiet street, and after a moment, a light flickered on in the hallway behind the door. It creaked open slowly, the entrance guarded by a housewife who seemed to have aged too much too quickly. Her brown hair still retained some of its former shine, but was dulled by half a week’s neglected washing. Strands flew up around her lined and tear-streaked face, dark circles obscuring the color of her eyes. She clutched a thick and baggy sweater over a shapeless, colorless shirt and ill-fitting pants, peering at the gentleman on her doorstep while her hand at the neck of her sweater trembled slightly.

He swept a black fedora from his dark hair and bowed slightly, careful not to tip the capped vase cradled in his left arm.

“My lady,” he began in a low, soothing tone, “my name is Robert Graves. Please allow me, as a representative of—”

He stopped when her eyes fastened on the cradled vase. The slight tremor in her hand grew and spread throughout her body until she trembled like a leaf. He quickly hung his hat from the fingertips of his left hand and extended his right toward her, as though to catch her, but she stepped back reflexively, out of his reach. Only after a moment did she seem to realize what she had done, and to cover her startled reaction, she gestured jerkily at the hall.

“Please...come in, Mr.—”

He could hear the pause, the subtle breath she took to steel herself to complete his name in her quiet, faded voice.

“—Graves. Just through here.”

He bowed his head silently and followed her down the hall, glancing to his right when he heard a shallow gasp. Another person stood there, a young girl this time, barely into her teens. Her wide, startled eyes fastened on him, on his neat black and white suit with its distinctive oval cufflinks, and then on the demure pottery container in his arm. There might have been a trace of tears in her eyes before she suddenly turned and fled, vanishing into another part of the house.

He noted her swift retreat, but said nothing, silently turning his gaze back to his hostess.

“My daughter,” she explained. “She is—not herself.”

He bowed his head with a solemn expression once more. “Quite understandable, ma’am. Please don’t trouble yourself over it.”

She gave a jerky nod and took the final steps into a small living room, antique furniture pushed back against the walls and still crowding the tiny room. He watched as she picked up a feather duster that seemed to have been just abandoned and began nervously twitching it over the mantelpiece. He noticed that there seemed to be an empty place in the middle, between a series of old-fashioned, framed photographs. A kind-looking gentleman appeared in them with the quiet woman in front of him and the girl he’d seen in the hallway.

“Perhaps it would be best if I simply left this with you,” he murmured, setting his hat momentarily on the arm of an over-stuffed armchair and shifting the closed container to extend it in both hands to the woman. “And did not intrude upon your family’s sanctity any longer.”

She turned back to him slowly, as though loathe to confront him again, but when she saw the offering, took it quickly from him, not quite snatching it out of his hands. She cradled it to her breast, brushing slender fingers over its smooth side as her eyes began to shimmer like her daughter’s. After a moment, realizing that he still watched her with something suspiciously like pity in his eyes, she pushed it into the open place on the mantel, retreating from him by fussily arranging the frames around it.

When she peeked through the unkempt curtain of her hair at him, she saw that he now held an envelope embossed with the same oval design that graced his cufflinks and froze.

“This is also for you,” he said, extending the envelope to the woman with one hand while his hat now dangled from the other. He couldn’t help but note the way she stared at it as though it was a live adder. When it was obvious that she would make no move to take it, he reached out and leaned it against the urn centerpiece.

She backed away from it slowly, her eyes wide as she took in the unignorable placement. She did not seem to hear him when he tapped his hat back onto his head.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he bid her, ignoring the hypocrisy in his words. “I wish good health to you and yours.”

He turned and exited the way he had come, leaving her frozen in her shabby living room and staring at GeneCo’s funeral urn and check as he closed the door behind him.