Read Online The Widow Waltz by Sally Koslow - Free Book Online Page A

drained accounts, borrowed on his life insurance, and taken out second mortgages. We owe money everywhere. I’m not down to nothing, but I’m getting there fast.” I see my brother trying to decide where hyperbole seeps into truth. “I’ve been all over it six ways to Sunday with Wally Fleigelman—“
    “Fleigelman! What a clown. He’s your first mistake.”
    “Who says I’ve made a ‘mistake’?” I’ve allowed myself to stumble into what feels like a trap and I need to wriggle myself free, even if it means gnawing off a toe. “Wally may not be your style,” I say, pulling myself tall in my seat, “but he’s the attorney handling the estate and I happen to like and trust him. If there’s any money anywhere, he’ll find it.” I look at the sharp knife that the waiter puts down next to Stephan’s plate and picture myself sticking it into my brother’s hand. I am horrified by this image, yet grateful for the two cocktails that have helped me achieve it.
    “From what Ben reported of your finances,” Stephan says with an edge, fully intended, a trenchancy that implies bragging and lying, “it wasn’t an insignificant amount that’s missing. How’s Attorney Fleigelman doing?”
    “He’s investigating—and I’m tearing my place apart, actually, trying to find God knows what. I had Ben’s secretary send me all his canceled checks, cell phone records, the works. I’m going over them like Nora Charles.”
    The snapshot of myself that I am offering is not, I realize, flattering or dignified, and I am relieved to be rescued by my pasta. Steam rises from the bowl. I close my eyes and breathe in the savory aroma of the three herb kings: sage, oregano, and tarragon. When I look again at Stephan, I believe I see sympathy, that or the fear that I will beg him for money.
    “Shall I go with you to see Fleigelman?” he asks.
    Smart, competent brothers like Stephan produce two kinds of sisters: those who look up to their sibling, craving fatherly guidance and protection; and my kind, who run the other way, knowing that if they allow themselves to be in their brother’s debt, the interest will compound for eternity, bankrupting them of independence, of pride, of any wisdom gained from making their own decisions and mistakes.
    “That’s not necessary. I can handle it,” I say, though I doubt I can. This morning it was as hard for me to get out of bed as it would be to swan dive into an icy ocean. “But down the line, I may need your help in a different way.”
    Holding his steak knife and fork as if he had been raised by British aristocracy, not first-generation American suburbanites, Stephan cuts one small piece of filet, then another. Silence hangs between us. I stare at the gravy forming a fjord between his pureed peas and delicate mound of mashed potatoes.
    “I may ask you to sell my jewelry.” The fireplace blazes, but I feel chilled. To take this step would mean that my circumstances are real.
    “Not the pieces from Mother, I hope,” he says immediately.
    Except for the small ruby pin and a sly, amethyst-eyed lizard, the unworn lady-who-lunches collection would be the first to unload—elaborate brooches shaped like nosegays and starbursts, a diamond evening watch that stopped telling time at ten past midnight in another century, studded bangles suitable for a belly dancer, and a pink sapphire necklace shaped like a horseshoe. “Not Mother’s wedding jewelry,” I say, although I have never put on the dagger-shaped marquise solitaire or the thick matching band. “I always thought one of the girls might want them.”
    “I see.” I imagine Stephan compiling a list and wonder if he would charge me commission. “Maybe
you
should come and work with me, not Nicola.”
    I manage to laugh. “Within a day one of us would wind up in a maximum security prison.”
    “I take your point,” he says. “But have you thought about working again?”
    “Only day and night.”
    “Would you return to