It Isn't Cheating if He's Dead by Julie Frayn

five dollar bill into his hand and he tipped his hat.
    On the doorstep of Gerald’s old life she
took two deep breaths and poked the doorbell. Westminster Quarters chimed from
inside the house, a sound that always took her back to her grandfather’s home
when she was a child. She closed her eyes.  The smell of aged newsprint and
dusty books and the chimes of his antique mantle clock filled her head. Oh how
she’d loved to sit in his library and touch every cover, open the pages and
feel the history.
    The door hinges squeaked. “Jemima? Why are
you standing there with your eyes shut?”
    Althea looked like hell. She’d lost at
least twenty more pounds since their last meeting a year or so ago, the lines
on her face had deepened and multiplied. Her ebony eyes were clouded like a
frosted window into her frosty soul. A wave of sympathy surprised Jem. She searched
her memory for one time, any time that she and Althea had gotten along. To a
time when Althea wasn’t an all out bitch. But nothing came to mind.
    “Hello, Althea.” Jem stepped forward and
offered an awkward hug. She was met with a stiff response, a turned head, and
one almost imperceptible pat on the back. As sentimental as always. The fact
that Mother Wolfe never changed gave Jem an odd sense of comfort.
    “Well come in already. Give me your
jacket.”
    “Jemima, you beautiful girl. How are you
handling all of this?”
    Althea’s sister, Marjorie, met her in the
entry with a powerful long hug complete with rocking side to side. Marjorie was
the polar opposite of her sister — and had always gotten along with Jem. She’d
often fantasized that Marjorie was Gerald’s real mother and that one day they’d
let her in on some deep, dark family secret.
    “I’m okay. I mean it’s been four years. I
was expecting the worst.” It never failed. One hug from a sympathetic and
caring individual, and an emotional flood ensued. She cried on Marjorie’s
shoulder.
    “There, there.” Marjorie’s pudgy hand
patted Jem’s back. “You might think you were prepared, but how can you be,
really?”
    Althea’s patented tsk-tsk cut her
sorrow off cold. “All right, enough of that. Go sit in the living room, I’ll
bring tea.”
    “Do you have wine?” Jem pulled away from
Marjorie’s embrace, smiled at her and winked. “I’d rather have a drink.”
    Althea gave her a cold look. “I suppose. If
you must.”
    Marjorie put her arm around Jem’s shoulder.
“We must. Red, right hon?”
    Jem nodded. “Red.”
    They set off to the living room. Althea
shuffled away towards the kitchen. Two glasses of wine later the door chimes
announced the arrival of other mourners. There would be no viewing and for that,
Jem was thankful. Instead Althea insisted people drop by and share their
memories of her beloved son.
    Doctor Lewis stepped across the threshold.
Jem hadn’t seen Gerald’s psychiatrist since not long after his disappearance.
What was the point? There was no one to treat. But Althea had been in constant
contact. Jem was baffled by this. The woman refused to believe her son was
mentally ill, but she was relentless in her hounding of this poor man. How on
earth could he help find Gerald?
    When the doctor caught sight of Jem, he
nodded and waved, then made his way to her side of the room.
    “Jem, dear. How are you holding up?”
    “I’m fine Sid. Really, I am.”
    “I guess four years eases some of the loss,
eh?”
    She nodded and sipped her wine. No, it
didn’t ease it. If anything, it made it more profound. Having Finn made it less
difficult. But no one here could know that. Althea would have her head.
    Within an hour, the small front room was
crowded with Marjorie’s adult children, their spouses and their many offspring.
The kids, too young to understand what the meeting represented, some of them
born after Gerald’s disappearance and none of them able to remember him at all,
ran around and laughed and screeched. Althea ran around after them,