The End
"Do we really need a popcorn popper?" Wilbur Minshall asked his wife as they went through the kitchen, deciding what they would keep and what they would donate to the thrift store.
"I suppose not," she replied reluctantly.
"And what about the fondue pot, the waffle maker, the electric crepe pan and the juicer? You rarely use any of them."
Although Alva Minshall hated to part with so many of her belongings, she knew that moving from their four-bedroom, two-story brick colonial in Alexandria, Virginia, to a one-bedroom condominium in a Florida retirement community would require major downsizing. Eventually, after much bickering, they agreed to keep only their pots and pans, cups, dishes, glasses and flatware. As for the appliances, they would take only the toaster, Keurig coffeemaker, Kitchen Aid mixer and Cuisinart food processor with them.
"That's it for the kitchen!" Wilbur exclaimed, feeling a sense of accomplishment as he looked at the stack of cardboard boxes filled with items earmarked for donation to Goodwill.
"Tomorrow we can clean out the den," Alva said, knowing her husband would not be as eager to part with his personal belongings as he was with her housewares.
After using her electric griddle one last time to make French toast for breakfast, Alva was ready to help her husband tackle the daunting job ahead of them.
"Which do you want me to pack up, the books or the records?" she asked.
In truth, Wilbur didn't want to part with either, but he decided to let Alva dispose of the books. It would be much harder to get rid of the records. He had been collecting the vinyl recordings since he was a teenager. Some of his albums would no doubt bring in a tidy sum on eBay.
He thumbed through a stack of LPs, each protected by a clear plastic sleeve. Although he was only a toddler when The Beatles took America by storm, he was a lifelong fan. It would be hard to part with Rubber Soul, Abbey Road, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
"You're not going to keep any of them, are you?" Alva asked. "I thought we decided to get rid of the phonograph."
"We did," Wilbur said with a sigh. "I just want to look at these albums one last time. There are a lot of memories here. Thankfully, I have all the songs on MP3."
"That's the beauty of digital files," Alva remarked. "They don't take up space. No need for bulky photo albums anymore, videocassettes or DVDs."
She then turned and removed another handful of books from the shelf. As she placed them inside a cardboard archive box, she got an idea for a retirement gift for her husband.
I'll get him a Kindle! That way, he can have thousands of books and not need a single bookshelf.
* * *
Janice Ashmore left the beauty salon in Wilmington, Delaware, where she worked as a hairstylist, and drove home to her apartment in Newark. Along the way, she stopped at the Christiana Mall. Her aunt had sent her a $25 gift card for Barnes & Noble as a thirtieth birthday present, and she wanted to stack up on books to read in the upcoming summer months. Normally, she bought used paperbacks at flea markets and garage sales, but since she had a gift card, she would splurge and buy new books for a change.
On the way to the bookstore, she passed Kay Jewelers. A frown darkened her face. She recalled the day she and Peter Weil had shopped for engagement rings there. She had fallen in love with a marquise-cut diamond set in a rose gold band. Hoping to get the ring for a lesser price, her fiancé suggested they see what deals could be had in New York's Diamond District. Although Janice was eager to have the ring on her finger, she saw the logic of his argument. After all, there was the cost of the reception and honeymoon to consider, and she wanted a big wedding with all the trappings.
"You're right," she told him. "If we can save a few hundred dollars on the ring, we can put it toward the wedding cake or the photographer."
A month later, the engagement ring had yet to be purchased. Janice nagged Peter to visit Rare Carat's or Blue Nile's websites, but he seemed reluctant.
"I saw a ring I really liked," she announced, hounding him. "And it's only a fraction of the price of the one I saw at Kay's."
After making dozens of promises he had no intention of keeping, the young man finally admitted that he no longer wanted to get married. Worse, not only was he unwilling to take the matrimonial leap, but he wanted to put an end to their relationship as well.
"I met someone else," Peter admitted sheepishly.
The rest of his explanation fell on deaf ears. His ex-fiancée was staring down at the Brides magazine in her lap, which was open to an advertisement for an Emilia Wickstead bridal dress, when she suddenly began to scream. Her next-door neighbor, fearing that Janice might be getting murdered, called the police. It was a humiliating end to what she was sure had been the start of a new and better life.
The painful breakup had been three years ago. She had not dated anyone since.
When she walked through the doors of Barnes & Noble, she headed for the section featuring bestsellers. Seeing the prices for the hardcover books, she realized her gift card would not go far. Even if she were to buy paperbacks, the most she could afford was two. If she were lucky, she might have enough money left over to buy a coffee at the café.
Maybe I should invest in a NOOK, the hairstylist thought as she passed the display of tablets. I would imagine eBooks are cheaper than printed ones.
Before actually purchasing an electronic reader, however, she would research her options first. After consulting various consumer websites, she decided to buy a Kindle at Amazon. Not only was the smaller model $50 cheaper than the NOOK, but she was also eligible to get three free months of Kindle Unlimited with her purchase.
Three days later, Janice received a notice that a package was waiting for her at the Amazon hub locker on Main Street. She picked it up on her way home from work. No sooner did she close her apartment door behind her than she cut open the packing tape and removed the E-reader from the box. Following the instructions, she plugged the unit into the wall to fully charge it. Then she went online to register it.
While eating a tuna sandwich for dinner, she browsed through the romance novels available on Kindle Unlimited. Seeing the wide variety offered, she wondered if it would be worth signing up for the service once her free trial expired.
If I were to read only one book each week, that would be worth the $11.99 a month. And I read way more than that!
* * *
Chad Lowood took the tray of dirty dishes into the kitchen to wash them. He scraped the half-eaten scrambled eggs into the trash and put the plate in the sink. He then poured the nearly full glass of apple juice back into the plastic bottle and put it in the refrigerator.
Mom's appetite isn't what it used to be, he thought.
Once this development would have worried him but not anymore. He had been his mother's full-time caregiver for the past two years, and he was getting tired of it. When Camille Lowood was first diagnosed with a degenerative disease, his heart ached for her. She was a loving and supportive mother. There were so many evil people in the world. Why had fate chosen her to suffer and die a slow, degrading death?
At first, her symptoms were mild, and his responsibility was limited to taking her to doctors' appointments and making sure she took her medications on schedule. But as the months passed, she lost more and more of her ability to take care of herself. It soon reached the point where he had no alternative but to quit his job as a systems analyst and take a lower-paying position as a programmer that allowed him to work from home. Thankfully, after selling the family home that faced Savannah's Oglethorpe Square and buying a much smaller one outside the city limits, he had enough money to support the two of them.
Although he missed the charm of the "Hostess City of the South," once Camille became completely bedridden, Chad was no longer able to get out and about that often. Not only did he have to cook her meals and make sure she took her medicine, but he also had to feed and bathe her. That left little time for him to enjoy the city's restaurants and cultural attractions.
"I'm sorry to be such a bother," the sick woman apologized after her son handed her a capsule and a glass of water.
"No need to be sorry. It's not your fault."
And it wasn't. Chad did not blame her for their predicament. She did not want to get sick. What made her illness even more lamentable was that she was only in her fifties. Many people her age were still working and looking forward to retirement and their so-called golden years. Sadly, Camille was not expected to live to see her sixtieth birthday.
"You deserved better from life," he said, taking the empty water glass from her.
"I can't complain. I had you. That was a blessing!"
Camille was only fifteen when she gave birth to her son. His grandparents helped take care of him while his mother earned her high school diploma. Unlike their daughter, they started a family late in life. His grandmother was forty-two when she became pregnant. Unfortunately, by the time Chad entered his teenage years, both his grandparents were gone. Although Camille had inherited her parents' home when they passed, she was by no means well-off. She had to work two jobs to put her son through college. But she did it without complaint. Her son was her world.
Once the breakfast dishes were put away and his mother was washed and dressed in a clean nightgown, Chad sat down at his desk and booted up his computer. Before continuing work on a billing program for an online retailer, he checked his email.
"Junk, junk and more junk," he groaned as he deleted dozens of unread messages.
His finger came off the DELETE key when he saw the email from Amazon, informing him that his First Reads for August were available. As a Prime member, he was entitled to select one Kindle book to read for free. He clicked on the link that took him to Amazon's website.
It was a place he knew well. All his life, he had enjoyed reading. Once he became his mother's caregiver, books became the one thing that kept him sane.
* * *
Ruth Ownsby walked to New Hope's Main Street where she got the bus to travel the four miles to Peddler's Village in nearby Lahaska. Tourists not only from Pennsylvania but from neighboring states as well flock to Peddler's Village, which offers more than sixty shops and boutiques, eateries and lodgings, all set in a quaint village of colonial-style buildings and gardens. When Ruth lived in Philadelphia, she often traveled to the Village not just to shop but also to enjoy the various events scheduled throughout the year, especially the elaborate sand sculptures displayed there every August, the scarecrow contests each September and the Christmas lights in December. There was a time when I used to look forward to coming here, she thought, stepping off the bus. That was before I was forced to take a job in retail. As an executive assistant in one of Philly's most prestigious law firms, she had commanded a six-figure salary. Life was good—then. Not only did she have more than enough money to pay her bills, but she also had plenty left over to travel. Once a year, she and her former college roommate either went on a long cruise or took a group bus tour in Europe. In the twenty-four years she worked for the law firm, she had visited more than thirty different countries. Then, eighteen months ago, the senior partner in the firm died, and his son, Rushton Stegal, rose to the top spot. His first official duty was to increase the firm's profits by reducing expenditures, which included reducing the support staff. Three positions were cut completely, and Ruth was replaced by a twenty-two-year-old girl right out of college whose salary was half that of her predecessor. For six months, the out-of-work administrative assistant mailed resumes, filled out applications, answered want ads, cold-called rival law firms and signed up with employment agencies. This monumental effort resulted in only three interviews, none of which led to a job offer. "No one wants to hire a woman in her fifties," was the implied reason she remained out of work. Unable to afford the rent on her two-bedroom Fishtown neighborhood apartment, she packed up her belongings and moved to a studio apartment above an antique shop in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Just when her savings were about to run out, she found employment as a salesclerk in a gift store in Peddler's Village. The job paid only slightly more than minimum wage, but her weekly paycheck was enough to cover her rent, utilities and food. Ruth was able to supplement her income by occasionally helping out her landlady, the woman who owned the antique shop. "I have plenty of clothes," she told herself, taking inventory of her financial situation. "I don't smoke, drink, gamble or do drugs, so I won't need money for those vices. I don't own a car, and bus fare isn't that expensive. If finances get too tight, I might be able to get a second job at one of the other stores in Peddler's Village or here in New Hope." What bothered her most about her lifestyle change was no longer having the funds to travel. On her meager income, there would be no more cruises or bus tours. At least I have my memories, she thought wistfully. I know lots of people who've never been outside the U.S. With her reduced circumstances, Ruth could not afford cable TV or any of the popular streaming services, which would be useless anyway since she did not own a television set. Nor could she afford to go to the movies or the Bucks County Playhouse. Thankfully, she enjoyed reading. Years earlier, when she was preparing to take a four-week bus tour of European capitals, she bought a Kindle rather than trying to squeeze several books into her already overfilled suitcases. While packing her belongings to move to New Hope, she found the thirteen-year-old Kindle Keyboard in the top of her closet. Surprisingly, it still worked. Although she could no longer purchase books directly from her outdated model, she was able to download books and epub files on her laptop and deliver them to her Kindle to read. When she went to Amazon's website, however, she was dismayed to see that the cost of electronic editions was not much cheaper than that for printed books. In fact, in the case of Prince Harry's book, Spare, the Kindle price was $2.49 more than the cost of the hardcover book. Fortunately, a shop owner at Peddler's Village told her about websites such as Prolific Works and BookBub that offered free eBooks. "This is great!" she exclaimed after downloading several cozy mysteries. "I have all this free reading material at my fingertips, and I don't even have to walk down to the library."
* * *
On the morning of September 1, Alva Minshall kissed her husband goodbye and headed toward the front door of their condo. She and several other women in the retirement community were going out to lunch and then to a matinee performance of My Fair Lady at the community theater.
"What time will you get home?" Wilbur asked.
"I'm not sure but probably before dinnertime. You can make a sandwich for lunch if you get hungry, but don't eat the leftover meatloaf. I'll reheat that for supper."
"Have fun," her husband called to her retreating form.
It was a hot, humid day—as were most days in Florida. Wilbur poured himself a glass of cold lemonade, turned the air-conditioner up and sat down in his recliner. Since it was too early for any baseball games to begin broadcasting, he picked up his Kindle Fire, connected to amazon.com and searched for something to read. Born and raised in Virginia, he had a lifelong interest in American history, especially the Civil War. After perusing several pages of books on the major battles, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee and other key individuals in the conflict, he found a book entitled The End. The author was listed as P.J. Bedlow, a name Wilbur was unfamiliar with.
"What's this about?" he wondered.
According to the description given beneath the title, The End described the events leading up to and immediately following Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
"It probably won't be nearly as good as Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, but I might enjoy it."
He clicked on the BUY NOW option, took a sip of his lemonade, put his feet up and then swiped through the introductory material to the start of Chapter 1.
* * *
On that same September morning, Janice Ashmore poured herself a second cup of coffee, a treat reserved for Sundays and Mondays, the two days of the week she was not scheduled to work. She had no plans for the day since her best friend, a fellow hairstylist, was visiting her parents in Baltimore.
She briefly wondered what her life would have been like if Peter Weil had not broken their engagement. Surely, they would be married by now. Perhaps she might even have been pregnant.
"I won't think about that!" she firmly told herself.
Janice finished her coffee, rinsed out her cup and headed to the bedroom where she put on a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt from Cape May, New Jersey. After making her bed, she picked up her Kindle from her night table, went out to the living room and stretched out on the sofa with a pack of Little Debbie snack cakes. Taking a bite of a Nutty Buddy, she paged through the selections of romance novels available through Kindle Unlimited.
The majority of book covers featured hunky men with bulging muscles clutching scantily clad women in passionate embraces. On the third page of search results, she spied a book that looked out of place. There was no woman or man on the cover. The title, The End, took up more than half the available space. Beneath it was the name of the author, P.J. Bedlow. The only picture on the cover was a small, simple drawing of an engagement ring.
"Is this supposed to be a romance?"
She clicked on the thumbnail, which linked to the book's product page. According to the written description, the plot centered around two ex-lovers who meet years after breaking their engagement, and their romance resumes despite both of them being in new relationships.
"It might not be so bad," she reasoned. "And if I don't like it, I can just stop reading and select another book."
Janice picked up a second Nutty Buddy, clicked on The End in her Kindle's menu and began to read.
* * *
To Chad Lowood, Sunday was no different than the other six days of the week. His routine never varied regardless of what day it was. As was his custom, the first thing he did was cook his mother's breakfast and take it to her on a tray.
"Here you go, Mom," he announced cheerfully. "Two poached eggs, a slice of raisin bread toast and a glass of Mott's apple juice. Bon appétit!"
"What day is it?" Camille asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"It's Sunday," her son replied.
"No. What's the date?"
"The first of September. It's hard to believe summer is almost over."
The sick woman took one look at the food on the tray and turned her head away.
"I'm not hungry," she claimed.
"You've got to eat something. You know that you can't take your medicine on an empty stomach."
Chad scooped up a forkful of poached egg and tried to feed his mother.
"Maybe later," the sick woman groaned.
"You need to keep to a strict schedule with medications. Come on, Mom. Just a few bites."
After several minutes, he was able to coerce his mother to eat one poached egg and half a slice of toast. He then gave her a pill that she washed down with a few sips of apple juice.
"No more," Camille uttered.
Once she had taken her medicine, her son dutifully performed the rest of his morning routine: wash and dress his mother, change her bed linens and clean up the kitchen. After these chores were done, his time was his own until he had to prepare lunch. He poured himself a glass of sweet tea and sat down on the sofa.
"I think I'll read for a couple of hours."
Having finished Stephen King's latest novel before going to bed the previous night, he had to find something new to read. Since it was the first day of the month, Amazon First Reads would have a new selection of books available free to Prime members, one of which was usually a thriller. Of the eight titles being offered, he chose The End by P.J. Bedlow. Having made his choice, he downloaded the file to his Kindle and sat back to forget about his own troubles and lose himself in a fictional world created by P.J. Bedlow.
* * *
Like Janice Ashmore, Ruth Ownsby looked forward to Sundays. Normally, she worked six and a half hours a day, Monday through Friday, and seven and a half hours on Saturday. Occasionally, she was called in on her day off when one of the other salesclerks called out. Although the overtime pay was always welcome, she didn't like having to work seven days a week.
"Even God rested on Sunday!"
With neither a vehicle nor disposable income, she often remained in her apartment on her days off. When the weather was inviting, however, she would walk along the Delaware Canal in New Hope or cross the bridge into New Jersey where she could either stroll along the streets of Lambertville or enjoy the scenic setting of the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park.
On the morning of September 1, there was a threat of rain in the air, so she chose to remain indoors. On her tight budget, she limited herself to one cup of store-brand instant coffee in the morning. As she drank it, she closed her eyes and reminisced about all the times she went to Starbucks when she worked in Philadelphia.
What I wouldn't give for a pumpkin spice latte right now! she mused.
Besides the twin bed, the small kitchen table, two folding chairs and a dresser, the only piece of furniture in the studio apartment was a Queen Anne wingchair—all of which she purchased at a flea market. On the wingchair, which she dubbed her "reading chair," was the old Kindle Keyboard. Since moving to New Hope, it had become her only source of entertainment. In search of a new book to read, she booted up her Dell laptop (which still ran Windows 7), went to BookBub and browsed through the selection of free cozy mysteries. Many of the titles offered were either prequels or the first books in a series. Ruth read them without any intention of paying to read the remaining books.
"What's this one?" she wondered, seeing a book with a cupcake and a dead body on the cover.
She clicked on the link for The End by P.J. Bedlow to read the publisher's description.
"It seems to have all the elements of a cozy mystery: an amateur sleuth, a pet cat, a cupcake bakery, a handsome police officer and a murder."
She clicked on a link that took her to Amazon's website where she "purchased" the book for free. Then she powered down the laptop, curled up on the wingchair with her coffee cup on the floor at her feet and let her mind escape the depressing confines of her shabby, penny-pinching existence.
* * *
On the afternoon of September 1, Wilbur Minshall put down his Kindle Fire and went into the kitchen. Though tempted to heat up the leftover meatloaf, he opened the deli drawer and took out roast beef and provolone. He put the meat and cheese between two slices of rye bread and then added iceberg lettuce and tomato. Lastly, he spread Hellmann's mayo on one of the slices of rye and cut the sandwich in half.
"A pickle would be nice," he said, opening the jar of Vlasic kosher dill spears.
As he ate his sandwich, he continued reading The End. He had already completed the first seven chapters, and during lunch, he read most of Chapter 8. Although the book would probably never receive a Pulitzer Prize, as The Killer Angels had, it was a good book. The author caught the reader's attention in the first chapter and held it.
When Wilbur returned to the living room, he was unsure if he should watch a baseball game or continue reading. Although he was a lifelong Baltimore fan, he chose the book over the Orioles-Yankees game.
Meanwhile, in Newark, Delaware, Janice Ashmore was still curled up on her sofa, reading The End. In her mind, she pictured herself as the main female character and Peter Weil as her love interest. P.J. Bedlow's romance attracted her interest to the point that she only put the Kindle down once the entire morning, and that was when she had to go to the bathroom.
By one o'clock, her stomach began to growl. Apparently, the two Nutty Buddies she ate were not enough to fill her up. Normally on Sundays, she made herself a salad for lunch, but cutting up the various vegetables and adding the toppings took time. She wanted to eat something quick, so she put frozen French bread pizza in the microwave.
She was so enthralled by Chapter 6, in which the two former lovers enjoy a passionate moment aboard a cruise ship, that she was unaware that she dropped a slice of sauce-covered pepperoni onto her favorite pair of pajama pants. Not even the ringtone of her cell phone tore her away from the book.
"It's probably a telemarketer," she assumed, ignoring the call. "And if it's not, whoever it is can leave a message for me on my voicemail."
In Savannah, Chad Lowood reluctantly put aside his thriller to make his mother's lunch.
"I had no idea the book would be so addicting," he sighed as he headed toward the kitchen.
He knew his mother would not be hungry and that he was wasting his time making her food, but he stuck to the established routine, fearing that if he deviated from it once, he might be tempted to do so again and again. Thus, he made two grilled cheese sandwiches, one for each of them. He then poured a small cup of milk for her and a large glass of sweet tea for himself.
"Wake up, Mom," he called to the sleeping woman. "It's lunchtime."
"I'm not hungry."
"I know but you've got to eat something. You have to take another pill."
"I don't want anything."
"It's your favorite: grilled cheese with Velveeta. Mmmm!"
"I don't want it. You eat it."
As he coaxed a few bites out of his mother, he longed to return to the living room. He had just finished Chapter 8 of The End and was eager to begin Chapter 9 since the unidentified serial killer had already claimed two victims and was closing in on a third. Once his mother had swallowed her pill, he took the tray back to the kitchen where he poured the rest of her milk down the sink and put the empty cup into the dishwasher. As for the mostly uneaten grilled cheese, he ate it along with the whole one he had prepared for himself.
While savoring the buttery toasted bread and gooey melted cheese of the sandwiches, he continued reading P.J. Bedlow's thriller.
Up north in Pennsylvania, Ruth Ownsby was enjoying her cozy mystery. She wondered if, like the other free eBooks, The End was the first in a series. If so, she might want to purchase the second one.
"How much can it cost?" she wondered. "Most of the cozy mysteries I've seen on Amazon are under five dollars."
Lunch for Ruth did not involve a sandwich or frozen pizza. Always on a mission to economize, she ate Ramen noodles for her midday meal. Since she bought the noodle soup in bulk, it amounted to only twenty-nine cents per serving. She sure as hell couldn't make a sandwich for that cheap!
As she waited for the water for her soup to boil, she stood by the stove, Kindle in hand. She pushed the larger of the two buttons on the side—her thirteen-year-old Kindle did not have a touch screen—to advance to the next page and read the three sentences that concluded the eighth chapter.
"This book is so good," she said as she poured the boiling water over the ramen noodles, seasoning mix and bits of dried vegetables. "It's hard to believe I downloaded it for free."
After finishing the last of her hot soup, Ruth drank a glass of cold water. It was not a concern for the environment that made her drink from the tap rather than from a plastic bottle. She simply refused to spend precious money on bottled water, even cheaper store brands.
When her bargain lunch was done, she washed the spoon and bowl and returned to her wingchair. At the rate she was going, she would no doubt finish the book before going to bed.
* * *
By the time Alva Minshall returned from her outing on Sunday evening, Wilbur was hungry. Although he had not done much all day except sit in his recliner and read, he still managed to work up an appetite.
"Which would you rather have with the meatloaf, creamed corn or green beans?" she asked as she put the main course in the microwave oven to reheat it.
"I'm starving. Better cook both."
Alva, who had eaten two full plates of food at the luncheon buffet, was not in the mood for meatloaf. Perhaps she would just have the green beans.
As his wife set the table, Wilbur continued reading. He was on Chapter 12, which described the arrival of Robert E. Lee at Wilmer McLean's farm in Appomattox Court House. He assumed the following chapter would describe in detail the terms of the surrender and the signing of the document.
The ding of the microwave announced that dinner was ready.
"Come and get it," Alva called in case her husband hadn't heard the bell.
Wilbur took his usual seat at the table, squirted Heinz ketchup on his meatloaf, picked up his fork and took a large bite. Rather than ask his wife if she enjoyed the play, his attention was riveted on the Kindle Fire that was on the table beside his plate.
"You're not going to read during dinner, are you?" Alva asked indignantly.
"I'm almost done with this chapter."
"Honestly! Sometimes I regret buying you that damned thing! You never put it down. You're like a teenager with a cell phone."
An unintelligible grunt was her husband's only comment. Clearly, her complaint had gone in one ear and out the other.
* * *
Janice Ashmore looked at her watch and was surprised to see how late it was. She could not remember the last time she had spent an entire day sitting around the apartment in her sweatpants and slippers, reading a book.
"The last time I read that much was when I was self-quarantining during COVID."
No doubt her mother would have criticized her for being lazy. She stifled the twinge of guilt she felt by rationalizing the situation.
"What else am I to do with my time? I have no boyfriend, no children and not even a pet to take care of. My apartment is clean—well, clean enough to suit me anyway. Also, my choices are limited. I could go shopping, but why waste my money? I don't belong to a gym, and I'm not into sports. There are a few jigsaw puzzles in the closet and several word puzzle magazines on the coffee table, but I'm not in the mood to do either."
That left streaming a movie, binging an old TV series or surfing the internet.
I'd much rather read.
Besides, the book was a real page-turner. She was already on Chapter 12 wherein the former lovers were reunited but now had to reveal their secret liaisons to their current partners.
* * *
It was nearly five o'clock when Chad Lowood managed to tear himself away from his thriller. He was loath to put his Kindle down since the discovery of the killer's identity was imminent. The book had only fourteen chapters, and he was on Chapter 12. Usually, the second-to-last chapter of a thriller contains the climax; the final one is reserved for the dénouement, the point at which loose ends are tied up and readers' questions are usually answered.
"I'm so close to discovering who the killer is, and now I have to stop and make dinner for my mother!" he exclaimed with frustration.
As he headed for the kitchen, he realized he had not given any thought to what meal he would prepare. His mind had been on The End all day, and he hadn't taken any meat out of the freezer to defrost.
"I don't suppose it matters what I make her; she won't eat it. I'll have to force her to take even a few bites."
He stood in the pantry, staring at the boxes and cans on the shelf. Finally, he picked up a box of San Giorgio rigatoni and a can each of Redpack crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. As he placed the water for the pasta on the stove and turned the heat on high, he put the tomato products in his stewpot. Then he added sugar, basil and wine. His mother wasn't a big fan of his short-cut pasta sauce, preferring her old-fashioned recipe that required hours of cooking. But what the hell? At least it didn't come out of a jar.
When the water began to boil, he turned the sauce down to a low simmer and set the timer. He returned to his Kindle, intending to put the twelve minutes it took for the pasta to become al dente to good use. He was still on Chapter 12 when the timer went off.
"Damn!"
He quickly strained the rigatoni and put the cooked pasta into the stewpot. Once the tubular noodles were coated with sauce, he spooned them into bowls. Finally, he sprinkled grated parmesan cheese over the cooked pasta.
"Here's dinner, Mom," he announced, carrying the tray into his mother's bedroom.
"I don't want anything."
"You say that every meal," he pointed out, trying to maintain a cheerful demeanor. "It's becoming a habit with you lately."
"I'm not hungry."
Chad knew Camille needed to eat since she was advised by her doctor to take her medication with food. However, he was in no mood to cajole her. He wanted to get back to his book.
"Maybe you'll be hungry for it later," he said and took the tray back to the kitchen.
"Where are you going?" his mother called. "Aren't I supposed to have my pill now?"
Chad did not reply. Instead, he picked up his Kindle, sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat his rigatoni while he read.
* * *
Unlike Janice Ashmore, Ruth Ownsby felt no guilt at all about having spent the entire day glued to her Kindle. She frequently did just that. From time to time, she picked up her head and looked at the window, more to stretch her neck than to gaze out at the streets of New Hope.
"It's getting dark out," she noted. "That's a sure sign that fall is just around the corner."
Ruth liked the autumn, especially the month of October. She enjoyed seeing the colorful fall foliage and feeling the cold nip in the air. Winter was a different story. She didn't like the frigid weather and hated snow. Come November, she would take her winter coat down from the attic along with the boots, scarf, gloves and wool hat. Despite all the heavy garments, she would still shiver on winter mornings as she waited on Main Street for the bus that would take her to Peddler's Village.
"And it will be dark as well as cold when I get out of work."
When she stood up from her wingchair—she had been sitting in it for several hours—she felt a dull ache in her back.
"I really should have gone for a walk."
However, The End had too mesmerizing a plot to put the book down for any length of time. The cupcake baker and the handsome police detective were zeroing in on the killer. And the heroine's adorable Siamese cat had just found a bloody glove in the alley behind the bakery.
"I suppose the baker and the detective will become an item," Ruth predicted as she read about the tender moment that took place in Chapter 12. "I really should go on Amazon and see if P.J. Bedlow has written any other books about these two characters. I'll be surprised if she (or he) hasn't since so many cozy mysteries are series-based."
Readers seemed to enjoy familiar characters and were often more interested in the interpersonal relationships between them than they were in the solution of the crimes.
After a quick trip to the bathroom, Ruth went into the kitchen for something to eat. She opened the cabinet and took out a box of generic macaroni and cheese, which was less than half the price of Kraft's. Not counting her cup of sugarless, black coffee for breakfast, her meals for the day amounted to just under a dollar.
As she drained the elbow macaroni in the colander, she tried not to think about the restaurants she had frequented in Philly or while she was traveling through Europe. And all the food on the cruise ships! Life had been good—while it lasted. To take her mind off the loss of her former job and the resulting drastically reduced circumstances, she returned to her Kindle. While eating her mac and cheese, she vicariously enjoyed the baker and detective's first kiss.
* * *
Later, Alva Minshall was still griping about being ignored when Wilbur came to the end of Chapter 12. Rather than put the Kindle Fire down as he had said he would, he swiped the touchscreen and turned the page to Chapter 13.
"If I knew you were going to ignore me," his wife grumbled, "I wouldn't have rushed home to cook you dinner. I'd have gone out with—"
The sixty-seven-year-old retired schoolteacher's nagging was suddenly cut off mid-sentence. As though in a trance, Wilbur had put down his electronic reader, leaned over the table, put his hands around his wife's neck and squeezed the life out of her.
As Alva breathed her last, Janice Ashmore was interrupted from her reading by the sound of the doorbell. Rather than tear herself away from The End to cook dinner for herself, she ordered a Big Mac meal from Grubhub.
"Just a minute," she called as she removed her wallet from her handbag.
She exchanged the money for the bag of food and told the delivery boy to keep the change. Then she spread the food out onto her kitchen table, squeezed ketchup on the fries and put the straw in her large Coke. Biting into the Big Mac, she used her remote to turn the page on her Kindle, which was propped up on its stand.
After coming to the end of Chapter 12, she swallowed and reached for a ketchup-laden fry with her right hand as she pressed the remote with her left. On the screen, in a large font, was printed CHAPTER 13. Janice dropped the French fry and the remote on the table. Dazed, she removed a sharp knife from the kitchen drawer and took her car keys out of her purse.
Ten minutes later, she pulled up in front of Peter Weil's condo.
"Janice?" her former fiancé cried, astonished by the sight of her. "What are you—"
The unsuspecting young man never got to ask his question. The jilted hairstylist plunged the knife into his heart, killing him instantly.
To the south, just outside of Savannah, Chad Lowood sat at the kitchen table, engrossed in his thriller. The half-eaten rigatoni in front of him was getting cold. Amid the novel's escalating suspense, Camille called out from her bedroom.
"Chad, I have to go to the bathroom. Can you get me the bedpan?"
"I'll be there in a minute, Mom," he replied, his eyes never leaving the Kindle's screen.
"I have to go now!"
He swiped the screen. The quarter page of text signaled that he had come to the end of Chapter 12.
"I'm coming now," he said as he swiped once again.
Seeing the words CHAPTER 13 on the screen caused all rational thoughts to flee from the computer programmer's brain. It was as though a mindless zombie had taken over his body. He rose from the kitchen chair and silently walked into his mother's room.
"Quick! I have to GO!" she whined.
Rather than pick up the porcelain bedpan, Chad took the extra pillow that was on what had once been his father's side of the bed.
"What are you doing?" Camille asked.
Her son did not answer. Instead, he placed the pillow over her face and held it down until she was dead.
Lastly, in New Hope, Pennsylvania, Ruth Ownsby stopped reading long enough to wash her dinner dishes and boot up her laptop, which was connected to her landlady's wireless internet account. She opened Internet Explorer and went to Amazon's website where she discovered that P.J. Bedlow had not written a series about the cupcake baker. On the contrary, The End appeared to be the author's only work. Disappointed, she returned to the novel. Ten minutes later, she came to the end of Chapter 12. She pushed the advance button on the side of her Kindle and turned the page to Chapter 13.
All of a sudden, something inside Ruth snapped. It was as though all the anger she had been suppressing since losing her job rushed to the surface. She stood up and put the Kindle on the seat of her wingchair without even bothering to turn off the power. Then she walked downstairs to the antique store, used the spare key hidden beneath the doormat to unlock the front door and went inside. Since she sometimes worked there, she knew the owner always kept $100 on hand to put in the cash register when she opened the shop each morning. Ruth pocketed the fives, tens and twenties but left behind the rolls of change.
Giving no thought as to what might happen to her should she be caught stealing, she took a taxi to Doylestown Station. From there, she boarded a train to Philadelphia. Two hours later, she was ringing Rushton Stegal's doorbell. His teenage son answered it.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Is your father home?"
"Dad!" the young man called. "It's for you."
The son disappeared, and a few moments later his father came to the door. It took Rushton several moments to recognize his former employee.
"Ruby, what are you doing here?" he demanded to know.
"It's Ruth. I worked at your firm for more than twenty years, and you can't even remember my name," she said, in a droning voice.
"I think you should leave," the lawyer said, fearing an unpleasant scene, and attempted to shut the door.
Ruth leaned forward to stop it from closing.
"Look, I don't want any trouble," he said, "but I will call the police if you don't go."
He reached into his pocket for his iPhone. When he looked at the screen, Ruth raised her arm and brought a rock down upon his forehead—once, twice, three times. She continued to pound away at his bloody head long after he stopped breathing.
* * *
The day of September 2 experienced as great a media frenzy as September 11, 2001. In all fifty states and in every major city in America, there were an alarming number of murders. For months to come, the body count rose steadily. The victims soon numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Reminiscent of the days of COVID-19, the revised numbers of deaths were reported in newspapers and on TV each day.
Police departments, many of whom had officers who either committed murder or were victims themselves, worked long hours, hoping to solve these senseless atrocities. Jails were overcrowded with suspects, many of whom were apprehended shortly after committing their heinous acts. In every case, there appeared to be no motive for the crimes. Men, women and even children committed murder as though compelled to do so, without any premeditation involved.
Some conspiracy theorists and gullible kooks believed these bizarre, puzzling homicides were the result of a terrorist attack and that our nation's enemies had used mind control against our citizens. This theory, widely ridiculed by saner folk, was not as crazy as it sounded. Oddly enough, no one, not even the nation's tabloids, came close to suspecting that a disgruntled former Amazon employee by the name of P.J. Bedlow had found a way to embed subliminal commands in epub files and that he distributed his directives to kill among different novels and nonfiction books. He was then able to cleverly market these eBooks to readers of different genres. Thus, The End could be described as a thriller to one person, a romance to a second, a cozy mystery to a third and a nonfiction work of history to a fourth.
As Porter Joseph Bedlow sat at a table in a San Francisco Starbucks, drinking a venti Caffè Misto, he congratulated himself on the success of his venture. It had worked far beyond his expectations. He read recently that an estimated ninety million Kindles had been sold to date. Obviously, not all the people who owned them would borrow or buy The End.
"Maybe it's time I write a sequel," he said, staring down at the keyboard of his MacBook Pro. "Or perhaps I'll have it translated into other languages. La fin. Das Ende. Slutet. Today America; tomorrow the world!"
Thus, The End, sadly, was only the beginning.
The image below is the cover of The Black Cat Murders written by Karen Baugh Menuhim, which is Book 2 in her Heathcliff Lennox series. Kindle edition, paperback and audio are sold on Amazon (and is available through Amazon Unlimited).
Salem wasn't happy when he found this book on my old Kindle Keyboard. (Maybe he'd prefer Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat.)
