Stranded by Lorena McCourtney Read Free Book Online

Folding metal TV trays doubled as end tables, and most of the fringe on an old-fashioned floor lamp was missing. Blotchy gray paint covered the wallpaper on one wall, as if in preparation for some remodeling project that had never materialized.
    In total, not the elegant rooms or furnishings you’d expect in a big old Victorian house with a wealthy owner. That thought must have zipped across to Kelli.
    “There are more antiques stored upstairs, but what usually happened was that one wife would move in and change things to suit herself. Then another would come along and redo everything. Except for the first two, who he married when he was quite young, the wives were always much younger than Hiram. Maybe Ben Simpson mentioned there had been eight of them?”
    I nodded.
    She didn’t comment on Ben Simpson’s eager dispersal of gossipy information. “Apparently the wives always wanted things different than how they were, and Uncle Hiram was happy to humor them. The most recent wife threw out most of the previous wife’s furniture, but she didn’t last long enough to replace anything, so that’s why it’s so bare in here. I’m not sure where that came from,” she added with a nose-wrinkle of distaste at the sofa.
    There was nothing good to be said about the sofa, so I didn’t say anything. “Did Hiram play the piano?”
    “Oh yes, and he was quite good at it. I was always surprised when I’d come over and hear this wonderful Mozart floating out to the street. I think it relaxed him.”
    No doubt he needed relaxation after eight temperamental, furniture-tossing wives.
    Kelli led us on through a swinging door into the large kitchen. “He did most of his living in here in his last couple of years.”
    This did not look like the world of a quite good, grand piano player, even a mischievous one. Actually, it looked . . . sad. And lonely. An enormous big-screen TV blocked most of one window, and a single cot covered with layers of khaki blankets stood against the opposite wall. A tiny microwave sat on the kitchen counter beside a huge combination refrigerator/freezer. A folding card table apparently served as Hiram’s eating area. It was set up near an electric fireplace. A lone yellow silk rose stood in a cheap vase on the windowsill over the sink, beside it a mayonnaise jar filled with feathers.
    “Uncle Hiram hated to shop, so when he did do it he bought enough to last for a while. Like the thirty-four TV dinners, all Mexican enchiladas and tamales, that I found in the freezer. Plus seventeen cans of chili in the cupboard and rotten tomatoes in the refrigerator. Because he’d bought something like twenty pounds of them, way more than he could use.”
    “He was a bit . . . ummm . . . eccentric?” I asked, curious but not jumping to conclusions on the basis of thirty-four TV dinners. Before living in the motor home full-time, where space is limited, I’d been known to stock up on good buys too. I’ve also discovered that a bit of eccentricity, like the invisibility that comes to many of us with the advance of years, can occasionally come in useful.
    “Living like this, it looks that way, doesn’t it? But I think it was more that he considered his present living conditions temporary and irrelevant. He really wasn’t concerned about the details of everyday living.” She smiled. “But maybe that’s one definition of eccentricity?”
    “I wonder why he didn’t hire a housekeeper?”
    “I wondered too. I even suggested it, but he got all huffy, as if I were implying he was getting incompetent and couldn’t take care of himself. So I just dropped it. I don’t think many people knew he lived like this. He always dressed very well and cut quite a distinguished figure when he went out.”
    “Did you know any of the wives?”
    “They were all past-tense by the time I moved here. One is still around, though she’s elderly now and I think would rather no one knew she was once married to Hiram. But he was