Free Prudence Couldn't Swim by James Kilgore

look around the bedroom?” she asked. “I still haven’t been in there.”
    â€œLet’s go,” I replied, though I had mixed emotions about finding out more of Prudence’s “other life.”
    Mandisa went straight to the clothes closet, which she opened with a key. Episodes of my times with Prudence dangled from the hangers.Every slinky top, her black leather jacket, and the white Fila hi-tops with the red laces were all there. Why had she left my house without saying a word? How did I miss it? I was supposed to be the con man.
    I opened the drawer of the nightstand. The biggest object was a cube, which held more pictures of the old woman and the girl whose photos I’d found under the mattress at my house. There was also a wedding party picture, taken somewhere in a park. A slightly younger, slightly less shapely Prudence was a bridesmaid in passionate pink. Her smile was innocent, a look I’d never seen.
    â€œWho are these people?” I asked as I moved toward the closet with the cube in my hand. Mandisa was loading the clothes into black garbage bags. I handed her the cube.
    â€œThat’s her mother,” said Mandisa, pointing to the older woman. “The young girl is Prudence’s daughter. It’s her sister’s wedding.”
    I never knew Prudence had a daughter. If truth be told, I didn’t know much about her at all. But then some real husbands and wives don’t know much about each other either. I never knew wife number two could slice someone in the neck while they slept. I was lucky to live through that one, though the memory didn’t help me sleep soundly.
    â€œWhere does the daughter live?”
    â€œSomewhere at home with relatives. Prudence was going to send for her, plus the sister’s two children. I think the sister is late.”
    â€œLate?”
    â€œShe passed away.”
    â€œSounds complicated,” I said.
    â€œAfrican families are complicated, my friend. We don’t just live by ourselves with our big screen TVs like Americans.”
    I went back to the nightstand. I hoped to find a lead somewhere, maybe a store of letters. Prudence seemed to live in a dark hole. She had no cell phone, no computer, not even an address book. Underneath a couple of
People
magazines I found two letters from Zimbabwe written by G. Mukombachoto. They weren’t in envelopes but were “air letters” a curious thin blue paper that folded neatly into a rectangle and got glued shut for mailing.
    G. Mukombachoto wrote in a language I couldn’t understand beyond the greeting: “Dear Tarisai.” I went back to the closet to showthe letters to Mandisa. She was on her fourth garbage bag. The clothing rails were almost empty. She hadn’t started on the shoes.
    â€œPrudence used to go to church rummage sales for clothes,” said Mandisa. She held up a bright blue suit with matching hat and showed me the masking tape price tag. Two dollars.
    â€œIt’s a Donna Vinci,” she added, “pure silk. Probably cost two hundred new. Worth a lot more in Africa. She and I were thinking of doing an import-export thing. Even with the kitchen appliances. It’s big money back home.” Mandisa wasn’t such a square after all. She was already calculating the profits from Prudence’s little estate and hoping I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t. Legally it all belonged to the husband but my years of easy money were behind me. Something about selling off the property of dead friends pricked what conscience I had left.
    â€œI found some letters from some G. something or other that starts with an “M.” I said, “Can you read them?”
    â€œLet me see.” She took the letters.
    â€œThat’s Mukombachoto,” she said, “Prudence’s real last name.”
    She unfolded the blue papers and stared for a few seconds.
    â€œWas she a princess?” I asked. “She once told me