Chapter 39

The Journalist 2

1948, Kansas City, Missouri

He knocked on the door, an old hand at his job selling brooms, solvents, and other cleaning products door to door in suburban neighborhoods. It was a good job despite living from hotel to hotel.

There were benefits however. The housewife was a lonely creature, forbidden to work unless it was a desperate situation. A woman was expected to marry, stay home to take care of husband and child, and be happy while they were at it. Woman who could obtain the few respectable positions in the world like teacher or secretary were cursed to a life as old maids.

Unhappy married women, unhappy single women, they bought his products either way.

He tended to approach the suburbs while their husbands were at work. If not, he found himself more often being chased off of front porches or had a slammed door in his face due to the jealous natures of the male half.

Kansas City, another on his long list of places he traveled to. The house he approached now needed a new coat of paint and a few more roof singles, something a husband should have been able to take care of easily. He rang the doorbell putting on his best smile –

- which promptly fell off his face as soon as the door opened.

A pretty young woman opened the door, revealing a distinct black eye.

"Can I help you?" her voice soft but he was glad to hear there was a touch of defiance in her tone. He wrenched his eyes away from her injury to meet her with a true smile this time.

"Good morning, miss, just your friendly neighborhood peddler, seeking if you'd be interested in a few of my wares. My name is Horace Widdenberg."

Always he called them miss to soothe their vanity. "Ma'am" always made the women feel old but in this case, looking at the youthful features before him, he could truly call her miss.

"We don't need anything right now. Thank you very much." She made to close the door.

Horace hated to see this sad woman go. "Frozen peas!" he blurted out.

At her confused look, he sought to explain, "A bag of frozen peas will help with the swelling and the pain." His eyes touched against the dark bruise. "My mother used them."

"I'll keep that in mind." Her situation wasn't the first and it wouldn't be the last.

"I'm around every Tuesday if you need anything. Even if it's just to talk."

The housewife's eyes flickered towards his judging his intentions but nodded curtly at his offer.

Horace spent the rest of the day visiting the rest of the houses. He ran into the usual characters in common who politely bought his items to get him out of their houses, and those who bought his products to get him to stay. Preferably overnight. He had seen it all.

As he crawled into his standard issued hotel room, the unhappy young woman entered his thoughts. Maybe he was tired of travelling around. His own wife had died years ago, and his five children clamored for a mother figure in their lives. Maybe his heart was just telling him to settle down.

Or maybe it was just her.

A week later he stood at her door. He had to admit, not everyone was a saint. Wives could be harpies and husbands, drunken louts, but a hand should never be raised in anger against another, much less a man towards a woman. Not like his father ever paid attention to that. To him, a husband's home was his kingdom, one no outsider could interfere with.

The woman appeared at the door before he could even ring the bell, her eye already faded to a yellowish brown.

"How are you?" He stumbled over his words like an errant schoolboy, his rehearsed advertising spiel fleeing from his thoughts at her sudden appearance. Had she been waiting for him?

"Better. Thank you for your advice. It's a hot day. I thought you would like some lemonade."

His eyes lit up. She had been waiting for him! He smiled warmly at her as she opened the door to let him in. It was a small sliver of trust, one he wouldn't betray.

Her name was Zelda. Her house was picturesque as they sipped their drink. Well kept, ordered yet tastefully decorated. She cared deeply about her home. They talked of everything and anything - his travels, her childhood. He found in her an amiable companion, and she saw in him a kind man.

They avoided all talk of her husband, the man who inflicted pain on her. He made sure hers was the last house on his route this time to offer the chance of speaking to her. Spending an hour with her was beyond his wildest dreams.

The bell chimed on the mantle, and Zelda looked up in surprise. "My son will be home from school soon. He's a good boy," she added gathering up the glasses.

Nothing like his father was the unspoken thought between the pair.

Horace stood taking his hat in hand. "I'll be in Philadelphia next week for a meeting with the higher-ups. I can bring him back something if he'd like."

A desperate invitation so that he'd come again. He could always tell his boss that he was close to a sale, one that warranted multiple visits to this woman, and what lovely visits they were.

He brought the child back a Cubs baseball and easily charmed him with his exciting tales of far off travels. He even managed to convince Zelda to accept a few trinkets he bought.

The smile on her face was worth more than the biggest of his sales.

TBAATBAATBAATBAATBAA

Zelda touched the little figurine of a smiling couple Horace had gotten for her. The thoughtful man!

The salesman had just played catch in the backyard with her young son and gave her an earnest goodbye as he left for the day. She thought her marriage would be like the happy pair. When had her life become such a dichotomy? Her time was spent in fear when her husband was home with her, one of bliss when he left. This simple peddler proved to be a much better husband and father than her real one. They had talked for hours. The wife found herself being able to use her rapier wit much to the salesman's delight.

She knew it was not meant to last. Either her son would slip and reveal this informal suitor in her life, or her nosy neighbors would blab it directly to the vile man himself. She never expected a plate of cold chicken would be her downfall.

"I didn't slave away all day to come home to cold food, woman!" The man roared and threw the offending dish to the ground with a flurry of shattered glass.

Zelda grimaced at the mess. "It was hot when dinner was ready," she muttered picking up the pieces. He backhanded her roughly to silence her causing a cut on her arm as she landed on the remnants of his dinner.

"Keep your mouth shut, Zelda!"

It was the days with the kind-hearted Horace that gave her the courage to voice the innermost feelings in her heart.

"I want a divorce."

Her husband turned red with fury. "Hah, and what? You'll take our boy and live off of what, the millions of dollars you have hidden away? You can't type and you can't teach. You'll be living off the streets if not for me!"

"Living out there is better than living with you!" she shouted out. The man turned still with a cold wrath and Zelda knew she had crossed the line. She had no idea what he would do next.

"Mommy?"

Zelda gasped. The noise must have woken her son. He had picked the worst moment to walk in on their argument.

Her husband seized the innocent boy, striking him with furious blows. Her son's cries of pain did nothing to stop the onslaught. After the father of her child had spent his rage, the man grabbed a beer and stormed off into the living room, turning on the radio to deafening levels.

The mother cradled her boy gently in her arms, horrified at what her husband had done. She had to get out of here, she had to! She gathered the injured child in her grasp holding his head steady against her neck and ran off into the night.

Horace, she could only think of finding him.

She knew he was staying at a hotel, but there were at least a dozen in Kansas City! Which one could he be at?

A pretty red-haired woman dressed demurely beckoned to her in the street. "Over here!"

The woman did as she bid, her son's pained breathing in her ear. She turned the corner only to see a quaint smaller hotel before her, and the man himself emerged from the front entrance like a ghost.

"Horace!" Zelda half sobbed before his strong arms wrapped both she and her son in a reassuring hold. "My husband… cold dinner… beat my boy," she could only gasp out between her teary hiccups. She looked at him with pleading eyes, "Please take us away."

"Where?" He hated to see her so distraught and only her and her hurt child kept him from wringing the neck of the man who inflicted her with such pain.

"My parents are in Lawrence, Kansas."

"We'll take my car then."

"But it's a 300 mile car ride!"

He looked deeply into her eyes. "I'll stay by your side no matter what Zelda."

And the salesman did. Through the trio's flight across state lines, her arrest and trial, Horace was near her at the jury's acquittal and her successful divorce. Zelda gladly took his name after she married him, this marriage infinitely times happier than her first. After 47 years, six children and a plethora of foster children, they felt truly blessed.

Based on the Cold Case episode, The Brush Man, which unfortunately and as usual, did not have the happy ending I was looking for.