The phone felt heavy in my hand, the black Bakelite cool against my palm. I stared at the numbers I’d scrawled on the back of a grocery list: Dr. Petrov’s office. A small, cold knot had been tightening in my stomach since Mildred’s easy lie about her “annual check-up.” It was a silly thing to fixate on, Arthur had said, just wartime nerves. But the image of Mildred by the fountain, the wad of cash, the keys, the crumpled paper, flashed behind my eyes. I had to know.
I took a deep breath and cranked the handle on the wall phone. The operator’s brisk voice answered, connecting me through.
“Dr. Petrov’s office, Mrs. Gable speaking,” a cheerful, slightly harried voice chirped.
“Hello, Mrs. Gable,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, light. “This is Elara Jensen. I’m calling about Mildred Jensen. My mother-in-law.”
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Jensen! Lovely to hear from you.” Her tone suggested she knew me, or at least my husband Arthur, from his own visits. “What can I do for you regarding Mildred?”
“I just wanted to confirm her appointment,” I improvised, my heart thudding. “She mentioned a check-up with Dr. Petrov recently, and I wanted to make sure everything went well.”
There was a slight pause, a rustle of papers on the other end.
“A check-up with Dr. Petrov?” Mrs. Gable repeated, a hint of confusion in her voice. “Well, Mildred was in last Tuesday, yes. But it wasn’t with Dr. Petrov.”
A sharp jolt went through me. I squeezed the phone tighter.
“Oh?” I asked, feigning mild surprise. “Who was it with then?”
“That was for her cleaning with Dr. Miller,” Mrs. Gable explained, her voice returning to its usual cheerful lilt. “Just a routine scaling and polish, nothing to worry about. And a lively chat she was having! Talked my ear off about all sorts.”
“Cleaning?” I echoed, the word feeling hollow. Mildred had gone out in her best dress for a *cleaning*? It made no sense. “She seemed quite preoccupied. Was she discussing anything… specific with Dr. Miller?”
Mrs. Gable chuckled softly. “Oh, bless her heart. Not with Dr. Miller, dear, he’s far too busy for chit-chat during a procedure. No, she was having quite the conversation with me afterward. Right here at the desk.”
My grip tightened further on the receiver. This was it.
“She was asking the most peculiar questions, Mrs. Jensen,” Mrs. Gable continued, her voice lowering conspiratorially, as if sharing a charming eccentricity. “All about old deeds. The Jensen family homestead, I believe she called it. Said she was just curious about the history, you know? Always thought she was a practical one, not much for genealogy.”
A cold dread spread through me, far worse than the initial fear of an affair. Not just keys, but *the deed*. My family home. The image of the crumpled paper at Miller’s Market took on a new, sinister meaning.
“The homestead deed?” I managed, my voice a thin whisper.
“That’s right! Thought it was a bit odd for a dental visit, of all places, to discuss land documents,” Mrs. Gable said with a final, dismissive laugh. “But Mildred always was one for an interesting conversation. Anyway, everything’s fine with her teeth! Just scheduled her for six months out.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Gable,” I said mechanically, the line already going dead as she hung up.
I slowly replaced the receiver. My knees felt weak. It wasn’t about an affair. It wasn’t about petty theft. It was about our home. The home Arthur and I had worked so hard to maintain, especially with rationing and wartime shortages. The home that felt like the last solid thing in a world turned upside down.
Mildred, my mother-in-law, was not just involved with a shady character; she was inquiring about the very foundation of our security. It was a calculated move. A chilling, deeply personal betrayal.
My mind raced back through the details of the past few weeks. Mildred’s casual comments about the value of older properties, her sudden interest in Arthur’s old family papers in the attic, which I had dismissed as innocent nostalgia. Her veiled suggestions to neighbors about my “nervous disposition” now made terrifying sense. She wasn’t just discrediting me; she was laying the groundwork for me to seem unstable when I inevitably tried to warn Arthur about her plans.
I pushed myself away from the phone, walking into the small parlor where the afternoon sun streamed through the window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. The deed. Where would she have seen it? Or was she just gathering information?
My protective instincts, honed from a childhood spent navigating unpredictable situations, surged to the forefront. I wouldn’t wait for Arthur to believe me, not when Mildred had worked so hard to make him doubt my judgment. I had to investigate. On my own.
The county records office was the logical starting point. It would be a slow, painstaking process. In 1943, property records weren’t digitized. They were in dusty ledgers, meticulously hand-written, stored in heavy steel filing cabinets. I knew this from my father, who had worked as a clerk for a short time before the war.
The next morning, after Arthur left for his shift at the munitions factory, I slipped out. I clutched my ration book and a small purse containing a few precious cents for bus fare. The county records building was an imposing stone structure downtown, its interior smelling of old paper and stale air.
I approached the counter, my stomach a flutter of nerves. A kind-faced clerk with spectacles perched on her nose looked up.
“Can I help you, dear?” she asked, her voice quiet.
“Yes, please,” I said, trying to sound confident. “I’m Elara Jensen. My husband is Arthur Jensen. I’m looking for records concerning the old Jensen homestead. The property on Elm Street.”
She nodded slowly, her fingers already leafing through a large index book. “Jensen, you say? On Elm. Right. One moment.”
She disappeared behind a tall partition, returning a few minutes later with a large, leather-bound volume, thick with yellowed pages. She laid it gently on the counter, open to a page filled with neat, looping script.
“Here we are,” she murmured, pointing with a slender finger. “Original plat maps, conveyances… Arthur’s grandfather, Lars Jensen, purchased it in 1908. Then to his son, Robert, Arthur’s father, in 1930.”
I leaned in, scanning the entries. There was no mention of Mildred, no current transfers, nothing to indicate a recent change of ownership or an attempt to sell. The records looked entirely normal, consistent with what I already knew.
“And are there any other documents related to the property?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “Like, perhaps, special wartime provisions or allocations?”
The clerk frowned slightly. “Wartime provisions? Not typically held here, dear. That would be more of a federal or state housing authority matter. We just handle the local deeds and taxes.” She paused, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just family history,” I quickly explained, forcing a smile. “Mildred, my mother-in-law, has developed an interest. She’s always been one for a good story.”
The clerk looked at me skeptically for a moment, then shrugged, returning to her other duties. “Well, everything looks clear here. No recent activity.”
I spent another hour poring over the faded script, cross-referencing names, looking for anything out of place. Nothing. The records were pristine. Too pristine, perhaps. It felt like I was looking in the wrong place, or that the truth was hidden in a different kind of document altogether.
Leaving the records office, the bright afternoon sun felt harsh, almost mocking. My initial surge of purpose gave way to a chilling uncertainty. If the deed wasn’t being sold through conventional channels, what was Mildred planning? And why would she specifically ask about the “homestead deed” if it wasn’t the traditional paper I was looking at?
The seed of a new, unsettling possibility began to sprout in my mind: the deed itself wasn’t the immediate target. It was something *connected* to the deed, something that allowed for an indirect transfer, something not recorded in these public books. Mildred’s peculiar questions to Mrs. Gable, the dental receptionist, now echoed with a deeper, more urgent meaning. It wasn’t about the deed itself, but what the deed *represented* in the wartime economy. My stomach churned. This was more complicated than a simple property theft. This felt like a trap, carefully laid, and I had only just stumbled into the first layer. The fear that Mildred held a secret document, something Arthur knew nothing about, tightened its icy grip around my heart. What kind of secret could it be, powerful enough to put our very home at risk, yet invisible to the public eye?
+ There are no comments
Add yours