The Bluestone Review 2025

The Bluestone Review

Novel Excerpt Larry Ellis

Her husband had been dead for four months when the mangled envelope appeared in her mailbox. She took it out and saw that it was addressed to him, John Thompson, but originally to a post office box in the town across the river. That address had been lined through and her own address – the house where she had lived with him for over ten years, almost all of their married life – had been scrawled in red ball point: “656 Whiteoak Street, Walhonde, WV.” The color logo in the corner of the envelope made it clear that it was a credit card bill. She gathered the other mail from the box and took it into the house and laid it on the kitchen counter and then took the redirected bill and put it atop the secretary desk in the front hallway. “I’m not sure I want to open this thing,” she told her friend. “The estate is closed. I don’t want to face another bill. I’m not sure I even want to know what’s in it. I might just mark it ‘not at this address’ and stick it back in the box.” “You don’t have to worry about paying it,” she advised. “We just went through that with Dad. His debts die with him. John’s debts died with him. They can’t hold you liable for it and they know it.” The next morning, she opened the bill and found there a record of another life. The neat, itemized statement showed that John had bought two tickets to a minor-league day game in Charleston on May 14th. He charged food and beer to the card, as well as a team T-shirt (one that she had never seen) while at the ballpark. Then, only hours later, a charge of $84.73 for a room and more beer at the motel adjacent to the ballpark. The next day he incurred a charge of $104.32 for the delivery of a dozen roses – a bouquet that had never crossed her doorway - from a florist across the river.

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