Free The View From Here by Cindy Myers

her spot just outside the open doorway, Maggie spied a circa 1950s sofa and chair, a gilded mirror, a box of canning jars, three teddy bears, and a mounted elk with only one eye. “I’m looking for some curtains,” she said. “Something to cover a big window.”
    The woman—Lacy?—leaned her broom against the porch railing. “I don’t know,” she said. “But let’s go see.”
    She led the way into the shop, down narrow aisles lined with everything from old Barbie dolls to sets of Haviland china. Garage sale castoffs sat side by side with what Maggie suspected were valuable antiques.
    But she didn’t see so much as an old tablecloth or faded bedspread, much less a set of drapes large enough to cover a wall-wide window.
    They reached the back of the shop and a row of six dusty, wine-colored velvet theater seats. Beside them sat an old-fashioned movie projector. “How big a window are you looking to cover?” the woman asked.
    â€œA big one.”
    â€œThen I may have just the thing.” She reached behind the row of seats and dragged out a large cardboard box—the kind that might have once held a washing machine. She opened the top and began pulling out yards and yards of wine-colored velvet. “Theater curtains from the old Ironton Theater,” she said. “Do you think they’d work?”
    Maggie grabbed two fistfuls of the velvet and stretched it out before her. It was dusty and a little faded, but still sturdy. And there was certainly plenty of it. “How much?” she asked.
    The woman eyed Maggie, then the box of velvet. “Thirty-five dollars.”
    â€œI’ll take it.”
    Together, they stuffed the fabric back in the box. “I’m Lucille Theriot, by the way,” the woman said. “I own this place.”
    â€œMaggie Stevens.” Maggie took the offered hand. “Who’s Lacy?”
    Lucille laughed. “I have no idea. It was supposed to be Lucy’s, but the sign painter goofed. Come on. Let’s drag this up front.”
    All that velvet proved heavier than Maggie had anticipated. By the time they reached the front of the store, both women were red-faced and out of breath. “What . . . brings you . . . to Eureka?” Lucille asked.
    Maggie waited a few seconds more before she answered. “My father was Jacob Murphy,” she said. “He left me his place, and I came up from Houston to settle his affairs.”
    â€œAh. I heard you were coming to visit. Welcome to town.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œAre you trying to cover those windows in his cabin?”
    â€œJust the ones in the bedroom. You’ve seen them?”
    â€œNot exactly. And certainly not the ones in his bedroom.”
    â€œOh, I didn’t mean . . .”
    Lucille laughed. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t have taken him up on the offer if he’d asked. Murph was a good-looking man, and he was only about eight years older than me, but we were just friends. I’m the one who sold him the windows.”
    â€œYou did?” Maggie glanced around her, wondering if there was a hardware department she’d missed.
    â€œI bought out an estate over near Rico and the guy was a glazier who had all these odd sizes of windows someone had ordered for a custom home and never built. Murph had mentioned he wanted some new windows for his place, so I hooked him up. Murph always said he owed me for those windows. It was our running joke that someday I’d collect.” Her expression sobered. “It was a big shock when he died. He seemed like the kind who’d go on forever.”
    â€œHow did he die? No one told me.” She’d been so consumed with mapping out the details of her father’s life that she hadn’t thought to ask about his death.
    â€œI heard it was a heart attack,” Lucille said. “He was working up at his place, stacking rocks or something, and