“Katie, when I asked about Merrick Landon, why didn’t you mention Cheryl Austin?” Colasanti had returned from his chat with Provost Teasdale eager to get to the heart of Landon’s contribution history.

“You didn’t ask about her, sir.” Katie was steeping a cup of tea at the edge of her desk. Colasanti could hear Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter” playing quietly from her computer speakers.

“Katie,” he sighed, “especially in these first few months while I am in this job, recognize that I am on a lot of fact-finding missions. I am counting on your years in this office to help me as much as possible. I would appreciate it if you didn’t treat any questions like a police interrogation.”

“Yes, sir.” Katie blew at the steam rising from her cup. She took a dainty sip.

Colasanti rolled his eyes, not that she was looking at him. “So, what can you tell me about Austin?”

Katie looked at her boss, eventually with teary eyes. “Professor Austin was a wonderful teacher. Like many students, I loved her and owe her a lot for helping me navigate college.”

“I’m sorry if it hurts to talk about her, Katie.” Colasanti sat down in the white leather chair used for people waiting to enter his office. “Truly.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“She and Merrick Landon were a popular couple on campus?”

“Absolutely. You’d see them together a lot.”

“In what ways were they seen together? At events? At meetings? In each other’s offices?”

“They lunched together almost every day.”

Colasanti withheld exhaling loudly in exasperation. This conversation was like pulling teeth.

“Did she make donations separately from Landon?”

“I don’t remember. You can probably find out in your reports.”

“Can you just look her up quickly for me? I know you can do that in seconds. I’m still trying to figure out the stupid system.”

“Give me a minute.” Katie set her cup of tea to her side and began typing away at the keyboard to her two computers. Colasanti glanced around the room while he waited. Katie kept the office prim and proper, as befitting the entrée to a college development office.  Behind her were a few pictures of her family, he assumed, but nothing personal faced the front of the desk where visitors might linger.

“It looks like she gave a modest amount, often around $500 a year, probably via payroll deduction, until 2002, then nothing after that. Is that what you needed, sir?”

“Hmm?” Colasanti reflected. “Yeah. I am guessing they donated as a couple after they got married. That might explain some of the increases in his donations.”

“Right, sir.” Katie was shooing a fly away from her keyboard.

“O.K., thanks.” Colasanti went to get up, then paused. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened after she got ill? I don’t mean in terms of donations. I mean in terms of the college, her colleagues, her students, once the news of her cancer came and then later her death.”

“A lot of us were devastated. None more so than Merrick Landon.”

“Do you know if either had been married before? Had any kids from a previous marriage?”

“I wouldn’t be able to answer that, sir?” Katie seemed to be getting agitated. “You might look through Mr. Sykes’ electronic files, sir, for correspondence between him and them. Maybe that will answer some of your questions.”

“That’s probably so. They should be on the h-drive.”  Colasanti got up and headed back into his office. Katie offered nothing more, returning to her tea.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to Shelly’s question, Merrick found himself ruminating about Jeremiah Watson while he waited for his shower to heat up. Jeremiah had been the last person Merrick had seen socially. They’d had their usual drinks at the Cellar that Friday before Watson’s heart attack. Watson had been the former Chair of Sciences at Hefford, and the two of them had formed a surprising friendship in the days following Cheryl’s death. All of Cheryl’s faculty colleagues had attended her funeral, offering Merrick whatever support he might need, but most of them, like the staff he worked with, dissolved back into their own lives. Only Watson, fellow widower, took the time to reach out to Merrick, offering companionship in the guise of a glass of ale and the occasional burger at The Cellar.

Watson had been a full professor of business. He and Cheryl had little reason to interact much, but that hadn’t stopped Watson from admiring her and Merrick from afar. That first meeting at The Cellar, Watson expressed deep, genuine sympathy for Merrick.

“I tell you, Merrick, Cheryl and you were the lifeblood of the college. Many of us commented on that, especially when remembering those halcyon days of the late 2000s.”

“Halcyon? One doesn’t hear that word used that often.” Merrick was nursing a Killian’s and munching on a basket of fries.

“Hey, us business faculty appreciate fine language.” Watson was drinking his usual black-and-tan.

Merrick laughed. “The things I learn all these years later. I thought you only spoke in business-speak.”

“I’d run that ignorant comment up the flagpole and see if anyone in this fine establishment salutes it if I didn’t want to remain unobserved.” He chortled and waved at the waitress to bring him another black-and-tan.

“What happened to those good-old-days, Jeremiah? I appreciated so many folks coming to the funeral this week, but everyone seemed so dour, well beyond the occasion.”

“Too much change, Merrick.”

“You have to admit that’s a mostly predictable lament from faculty.”

“You don’t think four presidents over twenty years isn’t a tad ridiculous?”

“Par for this industrial golf course, Jeremiah.”

“Is it? You were a casualty of it. You bitter about it?” The waitress had brought Watson his beer and he took a healthy glug.

Merrick deflected the question. “Did you know that neither Collins nor Hendrickson came to any visitations or the funeral?”

“Really? Not even Hendrickson. That seems unlikely for an HR person. They don’t usually pass on an opportunity to pretend their human. Good for you that they didn’t, if you ask me.”

Merrick took another sip of his Killian’s. “I know. I probably would have been upset, but on the other hand, the respect would have been for a long-term, very popular, faculty member. I gave up on it for me.”

“If it helps, I thought the turnout from faculty showed the respect we had all for Cheryl.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Merrick offered his bottle for a toast; Watson clinked his beer glass.

“To Cheryl.” They both took healthy draws from their drinks.

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Edward Sykes, Colasanti’s predecessor, had methodically saved communications from the Development office during his tenure. They appeared to be electronically saved in duplicate, once in a file by year, and again in a file by donor name. Austin’s, given the alphabetization, was one of the first Colasanti found. All the letters to Austin were the standard “thank you for your donation” end-of-the-year tax-supporting letter that employees got. That is up until 2003, of course, the year she and Merrick presumably donated as one.

Landon’s file, whose oldest letters were his own end-of-the-year thank-you letters, contained more personalized letters starting in 2011. For those years when he donated $5000, his contributions were shown in a bulleted list, with $2500 annually attributed to the “Lindsay Chesterton Poetry” scholarship. Colasanti made a note to ask Katie who Lindsay Chesterton was, wondering if she too would refuse to answer that question.

The most puzzling part of these letters is that they were written only to Merrick. No reference to Cheryl Austin anywhere. He made a note of this too with a giant question mark. He quickly noted the same basic questions throughout the letters sent to Landon through 2022. They weren’t form letters, and sometimes, smaller amounts of money were given for different reasons, but the $2500 was always connected to this poetry scholarship. Colasanti grabbed his list of active Hefford scholarships, but couldn’t find any reference to the Lindsay Chesterton poetry scholarship.

Upon clicking on the 2023 file icon, Colasanti was shocked to see the file empty. No letter to Landon at all. He added that question to his list and headed back to the outer office where Katie was typing away.

“Katie, you know of a Lindsay Chesterton poetry scholarship?”

“Oh, my, I haven’t heard of that scholarship in a few years.” Katie didn’t look up from her typing.

“I don’t see it on the active scholarship list. Does that mean it’s now inactive?”

“That would seem logical, sir.”

Colasanti turned his face to his inner office to hide his frustration. After a couple of seconds, he turned back to Katie. “Who was Lindsay Chesterton?”

“A poet.”

“I kind of figured that, Katie. Anything more you can tell me?”

Katie stopped typing and leaned back in her chair. “She was a student here. After she graduated, she had some poetry published. The English Department recommended we start a scholarship to encourage other poets.”

“Meaning that Austin spearheaded that request?” Colasanti could feel a couple of key jigsaw pieces falling into place.

“I wouldn’t know about that, sir.”

Colasanti bit his tongue. “Do you remember when it was started?”

“Not off the top of my head, sir. You can probably find that information in Dykes’ files.” If Colasanti wasn’t crazy, he could have sworn she had cut herself short from adding “also.”

“So, I’m probably wasting my time asking if you know why it stopped.”

Katie smiled. Colasanti turned back into his office and pulled the door shut a little more forcefully than he should have. Then he remembered he had to ask Katie one more thing. He sheepishly opened the door again.

“Just taking a chance here, Katie. Ed’s file for Landon and 2023 donations contains no letter. You have any idea why not?”

“Certainly not, sir. Mr. Sykes didn’t share much about his personal file-keeping.”

“Of course not.” This time Colasanti let the door swing slowly shut as he made his way back to his desk. He decided to take a walk around campus and free his mind.

The next morning, Colasanti decided he probably had done as much fact-finding as he could and decided he would turn his attentions to devising a plan to reach out to Merrick Landon in the eventual hope of landing some kind of planned gift. He wrote down the things he knew and didn’t know about Merrick:

Known

Respected leader for almost twenty-five years.

Married to respected English faculty member who had a thirty-three-year tenure at the college.

Austin donated close to $60,000 to Hefford up until 2011.

Landon donated close to $25,000 prior to marrying Austin.

Landon donated close to $60,000 while married to Austin, mostly to a Lindsay Chesterton poetry scholarship.

Landon donated $25,000 the year after Austin died.

Landon had an unpleasant departure from Hefford.

Austin suffered a life-ending health condition around the time of his departure.

Austin died in 2022.

Unknown

Why did the poetry scholarship suddenly stop?

What exactly was the final $25,000 donation for?

Why was there no record of that specific donation?

How does Landon feel about Hefford these days?

Is there anyone connected with Hefford Landon might favorably respond to?

The latter question seemed like one he might be able to get an answer to. There were still quite a few faculty and staff around who knew Landon from his time here, and probably most of them, like Katie, respected him very much. For a second, he thought about asking Katie to participate in that first meeting with Landon but then recognized she would not appreciate the request.

He glanced back over his lists and kept his pen hovering over Lindsay Chesterton’s name. He thought for a second about finding her in the student information system (more complicated than his donation system), but decided to do a Google search first.

It didn’t take him long to find a Lindsay Chesterton poet. He started with her own website. She had published six books of poetry with names that reminded him why he didn’t like poetry: “The Anguish of Abandonment”; “Catching Lightning Bugs In Tahiti”; “Life ImBalance”; “Lonely Is Virginia Woolf”; “My Time In Lethargy”; and “Cached Garbage Bags.” Fearing the worst, he clicked on a link to one of her new poems, “Misappropriations,” and was frustrated to find a formless paragraph of words with no line breaks or punctuation. He quickly exited that page, heading back to her home page.

It looked like she was on the faculty at Southern Illinois University. So, she didn’t live that far away. That might help if he asked her to meet with him and Landon. He left a message on the site’s contact form, telling her who he was at Hefford and that he would love to have a few minutes to chat with her. He left his office number.

Several days later, Katie transferred a call to him, saying only that it was someone he had recently contacted.

“This is Phil Colasanti.”

“Hello, Mr. Colasanti.” The voice was almost girlish, and the opening was followed with a kind of gurgle. “This is Lindsay Chesterton responding to your message.” She gurgled again.

“Oh, Lindsay, thanks so much for calling me back. You can call me Phil, by the way.” He quickly pulled out from under a pile of papers the yellow pad he had been using for his fact-finding on Landon.

“Sure, Phil. I don’t get many calls from Hefford anymore. I was intrigued.” The gurgle had become more distant. Maybe she had moved him to speaker phone.

“I am glad you were intrigued. I am still pretty new here myself, so I am doing a crash course on college history, especially key alumni.”

“You’re the new head of the Development?”

“Yes.”

“Meaning fund-raising? Do I assume you want to ask me for money?” A louder gurgle.

“I would never turn that down, but that is not really the reason for my call. I wanted to talk to you about Professor Austin and Merrick Landon.”

“Oh. Such a fine couple.” No gurgle.

“They set up a poetry scholarship in your name.”

“They certainly did, Phil. I was really touched. This was back when I had only published two of my books with obscure publishers. I wasn’t sure of my name value, or maybe what you guys in development call, ‘brand.’”

“Do you have any idea why that scholarship stopped once Dr. Austin passed away?”

“Did it stop? That’s news to me.”

“Yes. I suppose there’s no reason you should have known but that’s kind of surprising.”

“Well, early on I was informed by the college as a kind of courtesy. It’s not like I was donating money to it. Mostly, Cheryl and Merrick made a big deal about it when it was established and included me in a lot of those initial discussions. However, all that ended after she passed away.”

“Exactly. Now I am on a fact-finding mission to figure out why it stopped then.” Colasanti was unrolling and rolling his sleeves absent-mindedly through the conversation.

“Because she had passed away.” Colasanti would have appreciated the gurgle over the tense silence.

“What do you mean, exactly?” Colasanti wasn’t sure how to explore the delicate subject.

“She and Phil were the champions of the scholarship. Hefford promised to find other donors to help build it up, but at least the last I knew, which would have been, hmm, maybe 2019 or 2020, they had developed no other donors for the scholarship.”

“That’s certainly peculiar. Since it was before my time, I can’t speak to what might have happened . . .  or not happened.”

“I guess the good news is that you would like to re-start it.” Gurgle.

Colasanti hesitated. He wasn’t necessarily interested in re-launching that specific sponsorship, as he had a bigger fish he wanted to land, but he couldn’t exactly tell Lindsay Chesterton that. If Merrick demanded the scholarship as part of a bigger giving plan, Colasanti would welcome it with open arms.

Chesterton must have inferred a lot from the lack of a quick response. “With all due respect, Mr. Colasanti, it’s one of the reasons I haven’t donated to the college.”

“I can understand that. Anyway, this all leads more specifically to why I called. I would like to reach out to Merrick Landon to try and rebuild some bridges between him and the college. I thought it would be best if I could bring along a friendly face from his past.”

Chesterton snorted in laughter. “Have you read any of my poetry, Mr. Colasanti?”

“Uh, I have to admit, just one, at your website. Is that a pre-requisite?”

Chesterton snorted again. “No, I’m just not sure many would characterize me as a friendly face.”

“Not even for Merrick Landon?”

“Oh, I adore him and Cheryl, even more so since her death. I think I can remember the face to prepare for him.” The gurgle was gone again. “So, when would this meeting be?”

“It may be a while. I’m looking at a long-term game-plan, Lindsay. I needed to know that my goal of having a face-to-face meeting with the three of us could be pulled off from my end. Now I will work on him. Sit tight. We’ll have plenty of time to pick a specific date later. For now, thanks so much.”

“You’re welcome, Phil. Keep me posted.”

Colasanti hung up, pondering Chesterton’s comment about her not-friendly face. Her website had offered no picture of her, just shots of her cats, books, and yard. He went to Google Images and typed in Lindsay Chesterton, poet. The images that popped up would qualify as “severe looking,” Chesterton almost always shown with her jet-black hair pulled back in a bun, eyebrows plucked and arched, eyes staring straight at the camera, thin lips glossed with bright red lipsticks, mouth in a permanent pout, pale face and neck adorned by no jewelry, unless one counted the bejeweled glasses that hung from a chain. Colasanti let out a whistle. There was no doubt that Chesterton was a striking woman, but pity the fool that it struck.

In the end, who cares, he thought. If her face reminded Merrick Landon fondly of his wife and their commitment to a scholarship . . .  and a college . . .  then Chesterton could fit the cliché of angry woman poet as much as she wanted.

He turned to his computer and started typing a letter.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Merrick sat on his back porch watching Donegan chasing squirrels. The shadows formed by the setting sun made his tree-filled back yard look magical. He loved this time of evening. It had become routine. He’d come out with a small glass of scotch, a blanket made and given to him by Cheryl when they were dating, draped over his bony legs, a book of Sudoku puzzles, and a small bowl of water that he left by his chair for when Donegan worked up a thirst hunting the backyard vermin. It was in these moments he could both curse and revel equally in his life.

Tonight, though, his enjoyment was interrupted by the letter, still unopened, sitting on the patio table. He had almost thrown it away when he first brought it in from the mailbox, but he set it aside and tried to forget about it throughout the day. That was easier said than done. The official Hefford envelope, return address one he knew so well from his working days, leaped from the paper. He toyed with a match he had brought out to light the citronella candles. The letter could be ashes in seconds.

He knew it was mostly childish to be harboring bad feelings toward the place. The people he were most disappointed with were long gone. He hadn’t even heard from anyone but Jeremiah Watson from the college in several years, and certainly not by official letter. The unopened letter probably meant nothing. All the more reason to burn it. “I have received Schrodinger’s letter,” he called out to Donegan, who watched from the middle of the yard, tail wagging slowly. “As long as I don’t know what is in this envelope,” he chuckled, waving it at the dog, “the letter remains both meaningless and dripping with relevance.”

He fingered the match in his left hand while slapping the envelope with his right hand on the table. “What to do, Mr. Donegan? What to do?”

Donegan came running back to his seat, convinced he was missing something tasty. Merrick thrust his leg out to keep the dog slightly away, then lit the match followed by the envelope, watched the flame move slowly from the corner near the return address, then sweep, buoyed by oxygen, to the right. He slowly dropped it into the empty pot he kept by the table and watched it burn away.

“Come on, Donegan. Nothing to see here. Time to go in.”

Less than an hour later, fatigued by trying to read Islands In The Stream, which he found annoyingly tedious, Merrick dragged himself upstairs to bed, Donegan following faithfully, of course. Merrick got in on his side of the king-sized bed and patted for the dog to jump onto the other side. Within seconds, the dog was stretched out right next to Merrick in the middle of the bed, just as he had done while Cheryl was still alive. Merrick groaned and tried to push the dog onto the open side of the bed, but he knew it would be for naught. The stubborn dog would eventually jump off the bed rather than populate Cheryl’s side of the bed. As with other nights, Merrick wondered if Donegan still expected Cheryl to come home to bed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a steamy mid-July day when Rochelle interrupted Merrick from his afternoon nap in his deep, maroon-colored recliner.

“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to wake you. The mail came and I was just setting it on the table by you.”

Merrick rubbed his eyes, grogginess consuming his entire being. “That’s o.k., Shelly. It’s always just bills and junk though.”

“Doesn’t look like any bills today. You did get something from Hefford.”

“You can put that straight in the trash, Shelly.”

Rochelle paused, eyeing him suspiciously with her dark green eyes. “Don’t you want to see what it’s about, Mr. Landon?”

“Nah.” Merrick stretched his long legs, bent over, and started the process by which gravity would eventually help him get out of the chair.

“Once you read it, you can still throw it out. What if it is something important about the wife?”

“Why would there be something important four or five years later?”

Rochelle glared at Merrick. “Honestly, sir, the missus would want to slap you right now, you know.”

“Well, the missus ain’t here no more, in case you haven’t noticed. Throw it away, Rochelle.”

“Mind if I read it. Just to make sure it’s nothing important.”

“No, Shelly. It won’t be important. Throw it away now.”

Rochelle was not accustomed to Merrick using such a curt tone. He had always been the kindest employer. Feeling her face getting red, she turned away to head to the kitchen trash. “Yes, sir.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rochelle held the latest Hefford letter in her hands and wondered what to do with it. Merrick was in the backyard with Donegan, and as usual she had stepped out front to get the mail when it had come. She knew she could just leave the cable bill on the kitchen counter but questioned whether she should do the same for the Hefford envelope or tell Merrick about it, which would almost certainly result in him telling her to throw it away again. She wondered how many other envelopes from Hefford had been coming to Merrick. She only came here one day a week, so if she had now seen two letters over a month, with six other days a week, surely he had received others. Had he tossed them all? Had he looked at the first one, assuming the others were the same?

She knew her curiosity was not helpful, but she really did worry about Merrick. Rochelle understood that she was Merrick’s only connection outside of his reclusive life. His anti-social stance on life since the death of his wife was not healthy. That was obvious. The careers he and Cheryl had carved out at Hefford had defined them, had been the locus for everything that interested them. When they had first hired her all those years ago, she immediately could tell they poured their souls into the college. It broke her heart to see Merrick potentially throwing that away in some kind of bitterness regarding that past.

She walked to the kitchen window looking out over the back. Merrick was flinging Donegan’s favorite stick all over the yard, Donegan happily chasing, retrieving and bringing it back ad infinitum. On the other hand, the old guy did look pretty happy out there, she thought.  ‘Well, both of them do,’ she chuckled to herself.

Taking a deep breath, keeping her eyes half out the window, she quickly tore open the envelope. She unfolded the single-page letter on Hefford letterhead. She quickly scanned the contents:

“Dear Merrick,

I am writing again to see if I could interest you in a meeting. As I mentioned before, one of my goals is to connect with some of the living history of Hefford College, and clearly you represent so much of that, both in your own right and in your wife’s right. People talk about you and your wife’s tenures with so much fondness and love, and I’d be humbled to honor that sentiment as well as bring you up to date on some of the new history Hefford makes every day.

I promise you that I will ask nothing of you but your time at this moment. I’d love to take you to lunch and share our stories about Hefford College.

Please call me at your earliest convenience.”

It was signed by Philip W. Colasanti, Vice President of Development, and included all the requisite contact information.

“What’s that?” Rochelle was startled out of her concentration by Merrick standing at the door, Donegan on the steps behind him.

“Oh,” Rochelle stammered. Her face must be as red as her hair again. “You caught me sir. I was reading one of these letters from Hefford before I tossed it. I’m really sorry.” Merrick remained silent, reaction completely imperturbable. “I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t something important.”

“I suppose it’s alright, Shelly.”  Merrick made his way into the pantry to get a doggie treat. Now Rochelle couldn’t see his expression at all. “So, was it?”

“Was it what? Oh, was it important?” Rochelle was taken aback by both the overall response and now the question. “Probably not. Someone wanting to meet with you.” She held the letter out toward him. “Want to read it?”

Merrick first handed Donegan a treat, then wearily sat down at the stool by his kitchen counter. “Might as well now that the cat is out of the envelope, so to speak.”

Rochelle blushed again. “Honestly, sir, I really am sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Merrick reached across the counter and took the letter. “You’re forgiven, Shelly.”

Merrick read the letter slowly, puzzling Rochelle given how short the letter was. Outside of the dog panting, the kitchen was eerily quiet. Finally, she broke the silence: “maybe you should take him on his offer. Get yourself a free meal out at least.” She smiled.

Merrick laid the letter down on the counter.  “So, I’m living history, am I? Like Stonehenge, only with me the giant stones can be taken to lunch and asked to spill forth its secrets. No thanks.”

“I think he was being sincere, sir.”

“Sincere? He says he would be ‘humbled.” What a load of hogwash. He turned and tossed the letter into the trash. Rochelle and Donegan stood there looking at him, no doubt both wondering how to make sense of the action.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Mr. Landon, the message light on your answering machine is blinking again.” Rochelle was still amazed that Merrick even had one.

“Ignore it, Shelly,” Merrick yelled from the den where he was deep in the middle of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

“Do you know who it’s from?”

“That Colasalami or whatever his name is from Hefford.”

Rochelle walked to the top of the two steps that led down into Merrick’s den. “Why don’t you meet with him and blast him with all of your grievances. Couldn’t that be therapeutic?”

Merrick laughed. “I have thought of that. But Cheryl’s ghost would haunt me forever for being so boorish.”

“Then can’t you at least tell him you aren’t interested? How many of these messages have you ignored?”

“Three or four? Not as many as I have ignored from the local Republican party. Do you recommend I answer their calls?”

“It’s not the same and you know it, sir. With all due respect, you can be as stubborn as my mama’s goat. I don’t know how the missus ever put up with you.” Rochelle playfully waved her towel in his direction.

“Thankfully, she did, Shelly. God rest her soul.”

“You’re right! God rest her soul, sir.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Colasanti slammed his office phone down violently, so much so that a few seconds later Katie poked her head in her door.

“Everything alright, sir?”

Colasanti wiped his brow with his handkerchief (yellow to match his blue suit, of course). “Not really, Katie, but thanks for worrying. Just placed another call to Merrick Landon, only to have it go to an answering machine.”

“Could he be out, sir?”

“For the last month? When three letters were never answered, I switched to calls. I have been trying for close to three months to reach him. For a recluse, he must get out a lot,” he snapped sarcastically.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be bothered?”

“Bothered to have a free lunch and a pleasant conversation? I find that hard to believe.”

Katie turned around and headed back to her desk. He could have sworn he heard her say something about “in his shoes.” Colasanti sighed and leaned back in his chair. He had many successes in reaching out to new donors in this first quarter of his time at Hefford, but Landon’s unwillingness to even respond to him had turned personal. He thought about whether he should just drive the 80 miles to Merrick’s home and pop in on him unannounced, but he knew that would certainly make matters worse. Besides, if Landon was as reclusive as everyone said, he might greet him at the door with a shotgun.

That’s the problem with courting donors. There were so many lines to tread around carefully. He had already planned to have Lindsay Chesterton show up with him, if a meeting could ever be set, without giving Landon forewarning. The ethics behind that strategy was already tenuous, but to even attempt it they needed it to occur in a public place where ideally the moment could be managed better.

Thinking of Chesterton opened a new line of thought. Finding her contact information, he quickly called her again.

“You want me do what?” she asked after Colasanti explained his new strategy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Merrick waved at the mail carrier driving away as he and Donegan made their way to the top of the hill back home. Donegan pulled at the leash believing he had one of his best chances ever of getting to that person who came to his master’s house almost every day, leaving things that at best caused Merrick to sigh.

Merrick pulled from the mailbox a couple of envelopes and several catalogs, the volume of which always increased starting in October through Christmas. The catalogs all came from companies Cheryl might have once used. Merrick shook his head in amusement that they kept wasting their postage sending these to his home. Not only had he never ordered from any of them, but he also didn’t even look at them, merely dumping them straight into the recycling bin. As he walked to the kitchen door, he dismissed one of the two envelopes, a semi-regular notice from his gas company that he should get insurance for the gas lines in his house.

He stopped short of the door when he looked at the other envelope. It showed his name and address in flowery handwritten lettering and bore a return label proclaiming “Lindsay Chesterton.” Now, that was a name he hadn’t heard for a while.

Given that the Fall weather was considerably cooler, Merrick opted for another cup of coffee over a cold drink. While he waited for his single-serving coffeemaker to brew a cup, he got Donegan fresh water and wondered about the contents of Lindsay’s letter.

Lindsay had been one of Cheryl’s students, graduating with a degree in English. She had dabbled in poetry, and her work was often featured in college publications at the time. She had gone on for an MFA and developed a respectable career as a poet/faculty somewhere in the Midwest. He had forgotten where. Her return address showed Cambria, Illinois, which sounded familiar.

Lindsay and Cheryl had remained close friends long after Lindsay’s graduation. Merrick could remember many times Lindsay had come to the house to visit Cheryl, mostly before Cheryl’s cancer. He recollected one visit after her diagnosis, and then, of course, a visit for the memorial and the funeral.  She was a bit of a rough character, which never bothered Merrick, but she put off some of their Hefford colleagues. Merrick remembered vaguely a couple of her poems, which he admittedly never really understood. Not that he particularly understood much poetry. He made a mental note to add poetry to his “for Cheryl bucket list.”

With a steaming cup of black coffee in his hands, he grabbed the envelope and made to the den. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart lay next to his recliner, the next book he was ready to tackle. First, though, Chesterton’s envelope.

Opening it, he found more of the flowery handwriting as had been on the envelope.

“Dear Merrick,

Surprise! Sorry to have been a stranger. I’ve been thinking about you and Cheryl a lot the last few months. Cheryl’s spirit occasionally still makes her way into my work.

I have been asked to come back to Hefford for an event and would love to see you. Given you are right on the way in and out of town, I would be glad to stop by the house or meet you someplace around there. Your choice.

The time frame would be November 17 and 18, and I am sure I could juggle my responsibilities with the college to meet whenever and however you want either of those days.

I am so hoping we can meet. Please let me know. You can reach me at either my cell phone or my office phone as on the enclosed business card.

With much love,

Lindsay.”

Sure enough, there was a business card that had fallen on top of the Achebe book. Southern Illinois University. Now, he remembered. Apparently she was an Associate Professor there.

He set the letter and the card down on the side table and took a healthy glug of coffee. Donegan came up to sniff them, and Merrick lightly petted his head. He thought of Lindsay and Cheryl, who made a rather rag-tag team when they got together: Cheryl, petite, long, silky blonde hair, in fashionable dress; Lindsay, tall, thick, curly black hair, most likely in clothes befitting of a drill instructor. He could easily remember Cheryl introducing Lindsay at various campus events, often to read a poem. There had been other students Cheryl championed, but the bond between her and Lindsay was the strongest. He was then struck by the image of Lindsay and Jeremiah Watson after the funeral, serving as his family in a way, helping to manage the niceties expected of a funeral and memorial while he stood to the side completely spent.

All of this sudden thoughts made him smile and pet Donegan more aggressively.

“What will I wear, Donnie boy?”

Part Three

Part One