Once home, she ate the remaining five chicken wings straight out of the fridge and stumbled upstairs. Maude was not surprised to see a warm bubble bath waiting for her in the master bathroom. Back in the grad school days, before they were married, Maude would return home in the evening, after teaching Comparative Primate Anatomy, to find a tub filled with fragrant foam awaiting her in the West Ferry apartment she shared with Don. At first, she thought it was the most romantic thing he had ever done. After a while, she realized it was his loving way of saying “Honey, you stink!”
She chuckled as she entered the room, shedding the long sleeved t-shirt and jeans as she walked across the hardwood floor toward the bath. “You remembered.”
“I did.” He replied.
She walked in the bathroom and immediately noticed the heavy crystal tumbler with a healthy dram of whiskey perched on the medicine chest that stood next to the claw foot tub. “Bonus!” she called out as she climbed into the pearly bubbles.
At the same time the following evening she sat in the tub, tumbler in hand, pondering the recent turn of events. In her wildest dreams, Maude never would have thought she would be back at the university and working on the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery Collection. It was like getting a “do- over,” a chance to do the project she had originally wanted. Do-overs were rare in life and this was the best one of all. Being no longer affiliated with any university, Maude was essentially a volunteer on the project, which suited her just fine. She was free to study the bones unencumbered. She had no budget to adhere to, no administration to deal with and nobody to impress. Those complications would be dealt with by others. Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the open door. It was Don with the bottle of Jameson and another glass.
“So what's the long term plan here?” he asked as he refilled her glass, then his, and took a seat on the edge of the tub. There had been no reproach for working all through the weekend and leaving both the care of the boys and the house to him. Don had always been supportive of her endeavors and she knew now would be no different. Still, he had a right to know where, if anywhere, all this time in the anthropology lab was leading. In his typical style, he asked a simple question and listened while she gave a long and complicated answer.
“This is a big deal, Don. They estimate they will remove nearly 400 burials between now and September. All of the clay is making the cleaning very difficult. We are lucky if we get two complete burials cleaned each day. They really need my help.”
He simply looked at her, knowing there would be more.
“You know I am loving every minute of this. I would give anything to be in the field helping with the excavation, but I could not justify paying anyone to work for me so that I can go volunteer, right?”
The blue eyes continued looking at her impassively, waiting for her to find a solution.
She continued. “I also know that I can't continue to work long hours at the lab on weekends. I appreciate you holding down the fort the way you did, by the way.”
A nod this time.
“It's a shame I can't get some work done during the day. It's usually pretty slow after lunch. If I could get to campus for even a few hours to clean and photograph the skeletons, maybe, between the pictures and my notes, I could work on some analysis back at the shop... I could clear off the work table in the back so that I have plenty of room to spread out. Do you think you could cover me for a few hours one or two days a week?”
Finally a comment from Don, “Do you think it would really only be a few hours? I know once you get started it will be hard for you to just stop when the clock strikes two.”
“I will have to. Look, Don, I know that I am asking a lot of you, but I really want to do this. If my work on campus interferes in any way with our business, I will let it go with no argument. Will you let me try?”
Don got up and clinked his glass with his wife's and said “Here’s to your triumphant return to anthropology!” As he left the bathroom, Maude detected a smirk on her husband’s face.
“What's the look for?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking your ghosts might have more to say about you working on this project than I do.” He was referring to their assumption that the shop they rented was haunted. Over the years both Maude and Don had heard strange noises and voices that occurred without reasonable explanation. Twice when he was younger, Glen, their eldest son, claimed to have seen someone standing by the window when the shop was supposed to be empty. Their younger son, Billy, was still not comfortable being in the shop alone. “You better hope one of your almshouse inmates doesn’t follow you home!”
She smiled “Well, the ghosts have been quiet recently so maybe they are bored with me. Perhaps some new people will perk them up a bit.”
“Be careful what you wish for! You should get out of the tub, by the way. You’re starting to prune.”
Maude smiled and raised her glass once again in the direction of her husband. “Thank for this.”
With a wink and smile, Don raised his own glass and left.
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