What’s a Lady Got to Do to Fulfill Her Life

What’s A Lady Got To Do …

To Change Her Life

Prelude

“Leanne Benson?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Dr. Johnson from Cedars-Sinai Hospital and I hate to inform you that we were called to your father’s house, Robert Benson, late last night by the alarm company.” The man spoke coldly.

“Was he broken into? Is he okay?” Leanne gasped as she was getting ready to head out the door for work, surprised that Ben, her husband, hadn’t arrived home yet. He was coming in on a business flight from New York. Maybe it was delayed, she’d call in a minute.

“No, apparently Robert set off the house alarm, calling them that he was having a heart attack.” The emotionless displaced voice on the other end of the phone line spoke.

“What do you mean having, is he okay?” Her dad hadn’t been getting along well, health wise since her mom passed away last year. Her and Ben had been trying to get him into a nursing home. Although he looked well the last time she visited. He was too stubborn to leave and could she blame him, all of his children had grown up in that house.

“I’m afraid he died before we could get him to the hospital.” Cold and distant. How many times had he called to break others news as tragic as this?

“Wha…” Leanne stared stunned at her iphone as it beeped, alerting her via her house monitor app to the fact someone was at her front door.

The front door bell rang. “Crap better not be some bloody salesmen at this time of the day. Not now anyway.”

One always expects the worst when their parents get old, but expecting and experiencing it are whole other stories.

Numbness ran through her as she pulled up the camera image on her app, it was the police. No doubt to let her know about her dad.

“Ah, gotta go. The police are here at the door, probably to tell me the same news as you just did.” She clicked off  her phone before a response could be made and strolled to the front door, fighting back the tears. Leanne opened the door and stared into the face of a handsome square jaw cut officer.

“Hi, Mrs. Benson, I’m here to inform you…”

“Yeah I just heard, my father passed away.”

The handsome cop looked at her quizzically and down at the paper he held. “Yes, ma’am news can travel fast these days . He suffered massive internal injuries and there was nothing the hospital could do. I’m so sorry.”

“Massive internal injuries, from a heart attack?”

“No, from the car crash he was in.”

“What? He was at home, I just got a call from the hospital.”

The police officer winced his face, glanced at her oddly and looked at the paper in his hands. “Does your father drive a Mercedes AMG Roadster License plate 3247 HWV?”

“Ah, no that’s my husband’s car.” Her heart thumped hard.

“Is your husband, Ben Benson?”

“Yes.” Everything began to spin in front of her.

“I am so sorry to inform you that Ben Benson died from a car crash at 6:10 this morning.”

Her legs wobbled, the world spun away. The officer struggled to catch Leanne as she slumped to the ground.

 

Chapter One

 

Tears streamed down Leanne’s face as she walked through her dad’s house. It had been a month since he’d passed away. Her brother and sister had agreed to sell the place and split the money, along with the will that stated all three were to receive his estate evenly. She didn’t really care, it wouldn’t bring him or her mother, who’d passed away last year, back.

Nor would it bring back Ben. She could barely come to terms with one, let alone the other. Especially at a time when she could really use Ben’s shoulder to lean or cry on.

Her sister Kathy walked up to her as Leanne stared at the prints of Lake Louise and Banff Springs Hotel. They were set in the 1920’s. Another era, art deco, everyone seemed happy, money flowed freely, fashions and being fashionable decorated the magazines. Everything seemed simpler and easy before the big crash and the starving thirties that followed. Definitely another era. Life until last year had been quite the struggle, the recession had hit her business, house selling and buying very hard. She’d come up with the idea to offer special services to her ultra rich clients and she’d sold many places in the last year. Just when everything seemed to be coming around and beginning to smell like roses, then this. Now she had more than enough money, only no one to share it with and after the payout on Ben’s insurance policies and her dad’s estate, even more finances. Only all of that really didn’t matter, she stared at the inexpensive prints of her mom’s.  Irene loved these, and no matter how many times they moved or redecorated, she would never part with them.

“You okay? Can’t imagine what you’re going through with burying Ben two weeks ago and now this. I’m having a hard time coping with just knowing dad and mom are gone. Leanne?”

She simply stared at the prints as her mother’s words from her diaries whispered in her ears. She’d through read them all of this week. One of the things that her mom wanted Leanne to have after they both passed away was the dairies of her travels. It seemed that Irene had always written her travels and holidays in a journal. Her thoughts, feelings, commenting that ordinary life wasn’t worth mentioning. She never knew her mom liked to write and as she saw some of the pictures she scrawled in her journals, drew as well.             Obviously it was where Leanne got her artistic skills from. She knew her mom always regretted not pursuing either her writing or drawings. Back then women weren’t encouraged to do more than look after the family and their man.

Leanne pursed her lips, she’d done the same, too busy with her career to put time aside to pursue the drawing that she said she loved to do and rarely did. Was she any different than her mom in that respect? Back then it was a different culture, the woman stayed at home and raised the kids. Leanne sighed, in the age of liberation, was she any better? At least she had the choice to do more with her life. Mom never did.

Her and Ben were talking possibly thinking of starting a family this year. Her career and business had taken off, he’d been doing quite well as a bank manager. All gone. Money she knew wouldn’t be a problem, Ben was a big one on insurance and had several policies stored in their safety deposit box. She gave those all to her lawyer to deal with.

Her dad’s estate was worth millions. Still what did it matter, the money and security that she fought so hard to earn all her life she now had. Leanne stared at the prints. Only everyone around her was gone. Tears streamed down her face as she downed her glass of wine in one long guzzle. None of this material stuff really mattered, did it? When there was no one to share it with.

Tears unleashed down her face. She couldn’t take it any more and had to get out, away from here. “You guys decide what you want. All I want are these two prints. Put the sale of the estate into my account, whatever you don’t want here just donate to the Goodwill store.”

Her sister stood stunned as she grabbed the two framed prints off the wall and stormed out. Tears streaming down her face, she couldn’t take being in the house anymore. The childhood memories of two loving parents, growing up in this hose her entire life, gone. Her first kiss with Ben. Here in this house. The moment she knew he was the one.

            So lost, I feel so lost and empty, she admitted to herself. What am I going to do with my life now?

Leanne placed the prints on the front passenger seat of her BMW and began to sob uncontrollably. Everything cut away, except work. She dabbed a Kleenex on her cheeks, trying to look civil. For the most part she’d held herself together when out in public, until today. She didn’t realize being in that house would be so hard.

That house.

What a thing to say.

Should be, was, her life until now.

All gone.

What had possessed her to storm out with a pair of lousy twenty dollar prints? She stared at the scene from Lake Louise painted in art deco shades of brown, purples and blues. One woman in full dress on the window ledge and another in riding gear, perhaps just getting ready to ride a horse around the lake. Both intent on the view of Mt. Victoria at the rear of Lake Louise. Her mother’s words from her diary. A diary that she never knew she kept, that Leanne read just in the last few weeks.

I stare today out the window of the Prince of Wales Hotel at the serene beauty of Lake Louise. Named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, words do little to express the serenity here. Mountains fall away straight into the pastel blue of the lake, as if unable to stop itself, needing to wash its base in the clear waters. If this was in England, The Lady Of The Lake, Evienne or Viviane, as she is usually called, would come walking gracefully out of the waters, sword held high to give to Arthur. Men would bow to her beauty and swear allegiance to her.

            Mt.Victoria at the rear of the lake stands as a restless former lover, waiting his turn again to kiss the feet of Louise’s waters. They say if you stand outside as the sun sets behind the hotel you can here music playing in the air. I’ve heard it, soft hums and sweet voices, like angels singing in peace. Nothing quite as serene, when everything is still and the earth is singing its joy to you. 

            July 5th, 1948

 

All Leanne knew she’d never experienced anything quite like that, the prints hinted at it, but since painted by human hands, failed. She was going to go there, stare out the same window as her mother did and this woman, gazing in wonder at the beauty of Lake Louise. She’d sit on those shores someday and paint what her mom saw and felt.

Yes, work the only thing that had begun to go positive this year and something she could throw herself into and get lost in. She knew who she had to thank for that, Sam, and perhaps could be more than a shoulder to cry on. Leanne clicked on her seatbelt and drove straight to ‘A Lady’s Nice Things’ lingerie store.