Free Armed by Elaine Macko Page A

and continued past the town green and the Episcopal Church, driving slowly as my tires hugged the slick road. Even the hazards of driving in the snow and the cold, gray winters didn’t make me want to live somewhere else. I wore my roots like a geographic medal of honor. I had always been proud of being from a state with deep roots in the country’s beginnings and eternally grateful I’d been raised in a small town where not much ever changed. Except for now. My peace of mind had been shattered and with the murder of Mrs. Scott, my safe harbor had been placed jeopardy and I had to fix it.
    My parents named me Allessandra after my mother’s grandmother, a strong woman who came to this country with her husband and six children to find a better life. That very Italian name didn’t seem to go well with my father’s bland English-Welsh last name of Harris and pretty soon everyone started calling me Alex. But deep down I was an Allessandra. I spent most of my growing up with the Italian side of my family, which included my grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We celebrated the holidays with Italian traditions, and while the other kids at school ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I had a hard roll layered with salami and provolone cheese. So even though my bloodline only registered a quarter Italian, I leaned to that side of the family. If I had a crisis in my life, I went running to an Italian.
    I pulled my car in front of a tidy house nestled among other tidy houses. A smile spread across my face as I saw lights coming from several living rooms up and down the street. I locked the car and headed for the front door—and safety.
    “Sit down, honey.” Meme patted my hand and led me to the floral patterned sofa. “I got some pepper biscuits and I’ll make you some tea. I knew you’d show up.”
    My grandmother, Giannina Nutile on her birth certificate but Meme Redmond to everyone, was already wide awake and fully dressed, and it wasn’t even five o’clock. She gently kissed the top of my head and then shuffled into the kitchen in a pair of black low heels that barely encased her fat feet, and filled a saucepan with water. A tiny veil hat sat on top of her head held by several bobby pins. “You never know when you might want to stop in at church and light a candle for someone,” she always told me about the ever-present hat. I couldn’t remember a time when my grandmother didn’t have one resting on her rose-tinted white hair and the black heels on her feet.
    “Your mother told me what happened,” Meme said, as she came back from the kitchen. “I wanted to call, but I knew you’d come when you were ready. Geesh, I’m sorry you had to find a body like that. It must have been awful, and that poor woman.” Meme made the sign of the cross with her right hand and put a small cracked plate piled high with pepper biscuits and several chunks of salami on the coffee table with her left.
    “Worse than I told Mom, but you know how she worries.” I shrugged and broke off a piece of the hard bread.
    “Yeah, Mabel’s a real worrywart. Even as a kid. Drove me nuts.”
    I leaned back into the comfortable sofa and hugged a small pillow close to my chest. “I really didn’t want to get into it with her anyway. I’m trying to forget it, but I can’t. I can’t sleep. I hear noises all night and this crazy mannequin keeps chasing me every time I manage to fall asleep even a few minutes. And the agency is slow so I’m worrying about that.” I pushed my fingers through my hair feeling resistance from all the hair mud and spray I use to keep it puffed up. “I knew you’d be up, cooking or playing solitaire.”
    Meme placed a large mug of hot water and a teabag next to my plate and patted my hand. “It’ll take time. You’ll probably never forget it, but in a while, it won’t hurt so much. Just gotta give it time, honey.” Meme settled herself into an old armchair beside the sofa. “And don’t you worry about