By Esther Cohen
Beulah believed she was an organized person, and in a funny way, she prized this quality of hers, and linked this to her belief that she could do what she intended. She always had a defined task, a task she accomplished. And every single day of her life, she wrote lists of intentions. Those intentions were in a variety of categories: throw out food from the freezer was a frequent recurrence, although she had to admit, if she was being honest, that her having food in the freezer to begin with was kind of an oxymoron. She wasn’t much of a cook – a can of soup and an English muffin was often enough for her. Still, on her supermarket list was always an item or two of frozen food – peas, for instance – to keep in the freezer just in case. Although there really never was a just in case - she rarely had visitors in her house, and when she did, she certainly had no intention of feeding them. The frozen food was one of her few irrational blips.
Other things on her list every day. She wrote them at night before bed at 10 PM. She kept all her lists in the same black notebook so she could use them for reference. In case.
Some of her daily entries, varying not at all, were these:
Wake up by seven. Six thirty is preferable.
Go for a walk lasting at least 20 minutes.
English muffin for breakfast with a slice of cheese and coffee.
Read for an hour. Non-fiction preferable.
Now she added Delores to her daily list:
Figure out who killed Delores. Develop a strategy for determining the murderer. She went to the Lawyer’s Store and bought a new notebook, labeling it: Information About Delores. The notebook was different from the many other black and white MEADS. The only notebook she bought for years.
Delores didn’t seem like a black and white person. Hers had been a colorful life so Beulah bought one with a red cover. She even bought a red pen. Entirely uncharacteristic.
But Delores seemed worth it. She’d only seen her once, but she’d been a person who’d made a real impression. Unlike anyone Beulah’s met before. Warm, open, joyful even, Delores had truly seemed to have loved her life, loved the chance to live fully. At 71, Beulah recognized, at last, that her life hadn’t been about joy. She’d been goal oriented – to get good grades in school, to find a job and keep it. To work hard every single day. To travel a little, to other states. But never to leave the country. To keep up with the news.
She’d thought very little about having a good time. She wondered if now was too late to start. And if she’d met Delores to learn what she seemed to know so well: that life could actually be good. Ironic if that was the takeaway. Could she start a new life now? Would being a detective change things? And could she actually solve a crime? Did she have what it takes?
She’d put every single thing she learned right there in her first red notebook. Confident the information would lead to the killer. Her first list of facts included uncharacteristic speculation:
Delores was loved by many people.
Hers was a big circle of family and friends.
Would someone she loved murder her? Maybe, and maybe not.
Esther Cohen can be found here: esthercohen.com
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