Better Off Without Him by Dee Ernst Page A

hard time getting my head around all this. I need to sit someplace quiet and try to sort this out before the girls get home.”
    “Absolutely,” Ben said, picking up Lana as he stood and holding her against his chest. She looked so smug. I swear, she was smiling. “I need to go down to the basement and finish this up, but I should be out of here in less than an hour.”
    “I’ll clear this up,” MarshaMarsha offered. “Why don’t you go into the living room and just sit for a while?”
    “Excellent idea,” Patricia chimed in. “I’ll help you, Marsha.” She looked with regret at the martini pitcher. “I don’t think you’ll be needing any more of these today.”
    “Oh, no,” I said. “I need a clear head for the rest of the day.” I was getting up, and starting toward the front of the house when the doorbell rang. We all looked at one another, and moved as one to the front door.
    I opened the door and there stood my aunt, Lily. She was paying off a tired-looking taxi driver who apparently hauled at least six pieces of luggage from his cab up the walkway to my front door. She smiled brightly as she stepped over her Louis Vuitton make-up case.
    “I’m sorry I didn’t call, Mona, but I didn’t want to get into an argument over the phone, so I just came on over.”
    “From Brooklyn?” I asked, as I took her coat. “With all this?”
    “Everything else is in storage,” she explained. “Hello, Patricia, how are you? And Marsha? Did I interrupt something? Ladies’ lunch?”
    “Sort of.” I said. Ben was gallantly moving several suitcases into the hall. “Aunt Lily, what’s going on? Why are things in storage?”
    Lily adjusted her sweater. “I sold the apartment.”
    My jaw dropped. She had, for years, lived in a two-bedroom coop in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. “Sold?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re moving?”
    “Well,” she shrugged. “Eventually. I don’t know where, exactly. So I just thought I’d stay with you until I figured it all out.” She smiled serenely. “I know you won’t mind. I just hope Brian isn’t too upset.” She looked at Ben. “Those go up in the guest room, dear. I don’t know who you are, but I do hope you’re going to stay for a while.” She swept past us into the living room. At that moment, Fred, who finally figured out that the doorbell he heard was his doorbell, came bounding out of the den, barking furiously and knocking over two large suitcases. The phone, mercifully silent until now, began to ring. And the carbon monoxide alarm, hung at the top of the stairs, inexplicably began to wail.
    I looked at Patricia. “Forget that clear head crap. Make more.”
     

Chapter Three
    My Aunt Lily is my father’s only sibling, his younger sister, and she is also my godmother, born of a generation who took the duties of godmother very seriously, so she has always been a keen and, I must admit, welcomed presence in my life. Every year, from my fifth birthday until I went away to college, she spent a whole day with me in New York City – a fancy lunch, a trip to a museum, and a carriage ride in Central Park. She took me to my first ballet. For my sixteenth birthday, she gave me a strand of pearls. I’m quite sure that, had I been a boy, she would have taken me to a discreet whorehouse and bought me my first woman instead. After the death of her husband, my sweet Uncle Larry twelve years ago, she sailed gracefully into old age without him, traveling to all the places they had dreamed about together, and keeping two season tickets to the Metropolitan Opera. I know she loved Uncle Larry very much. It’s a tribute to her strength and zest for living that the mourning process did not interfere in any way with her desired lifestyle.
    Aunt Lily is tall, thin, stooped, and dressed like Miss Marple, in straight skirts, soft blouses and cardigan sweaters. She wore stockings and low-heeled shoes in all weather, and although I had seen her in a bathing suit, she generally kept most