After My Husband Passed Away, I Sent His Mom $200 Every Month

The same excuse as always. In 5 years, the times little Malik had stepped into that house could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

And every time they kicked us out after 15 minutes with any pretext.

“Okay, well, maybe another time.”

I lowered my head, swallowing the bitterness rising in my throat.

“Go on, leave now. Standing in the draft you’re going to catch a cold and then it’s worse,”

saying this, Viola slammed the door shut. The dead bolt sounded with a definitive click.

I stood there planted, looking at the cold and impersonal iron door. Not an invitation to come in, not a glass of water.

I pressed my ear to the door hoping to hear my father-in-law’s voice or at least the sound of the television, any normal noise of an inhabited house. But no: inside reigned absolute silence—a terrifying silence as if that house were a giant tomb devouring any sound of life.

The wind sneaked through the stairwell, chilling my back. I shivered and pulled up the collar of my jacket, turning around to go down.

My heart felt heavy.

“Marcus, you left and stuck me with this debt. I’ve almost finished paying it; why are your parents still so cold to your son and me?”

The question floated in my mind, getting lost in the void of the dark staircase. I didn’t know that in the precise instant I turned around, a pair of eyes was watching me through the cracked blind—a look that wasn’t that of an old man, but one sharp and calculating.

The Shadow of a Limping Man

I went down to the courtyard feeling like I was escaping an airless basement. The afternoon sun, a pale yellow, filtered through the branches of the trees drawing spots of light on the concrete ground.

The atmosphere of the courtyard contrasted with the stillness of the fifth floor. Some kids were playing basketball, shouting at the top of their lungs, and several women sitting on benches were snapping beans and gossiping animatedly.

I was heading toward my car ready to start it to go pick up my son when a wrinkled but firm hand grabbed my wrist.

“Kesha, is that you, baby?”

I turned, startled. It was Miss Hattie.

She had been the president of the tenant association back in the day and although she was retired she kept that air of authority and the taste for knowing everything. She was sitting on a stone bench fanning herself with a piece of cardboard and looking at me intently with narrowed eyes.

“Yes, hi Miss Hattie. Enjoying the breeze?”

I greeted her politely. Miss Hattie didn’t answer my trivial question.

She made me sit beside her and looked around as if she feared someone would hear her. Then she leaned close to my ear and whispered with an air of mystery,

“Did you go up to pay the debt to those two again?”

It surprised me she knew about such a private family matter but I nodded.

“Yes, today was payment day.”

Miss Hattie clicked her tongue and shook her head with an expression of compassion mixed with certain fear. She lowered her voice even more.

“Poor thing, working like a mule to support people who don’t deserve it. Listen to me good: next month, don’t give them a single cent.”

I frowned, not understanding her. Miss Hattie was known for being a gossip but she wasn’t a bad person who would incite children to be cruel or not pay their debts.

“Why do you say that? I only have a couple of months left. It’s for the $12,000 Marcus borrowed to go to North Dakota; I have to fulfill my obligation.”

Her hands squeezed my arm tightly; her eyes opened wide staring at me and her voice, though trembling, pronounced every syllable with hardness.

“They say around here that the dead sometimes ain’t that dead.”

A chill ran down my spine; I got goosebumps. Miss Hattie’s words were like a blast of freezing air from the beyond in broad daylight.

“What are you saying? My husband died 5 years ago. We have the death certificate; we even brought his ashes back.”

She interrupted me with a wave of her hand.

“I ain’t talking about ghosts. I’m talking about flesh and blood people. Haven’t you noticed that house is quieter than a church during the day, but around 1 or 2 in the morning you hear noises?”

“One night I couldn’t sleep; I went out on my balcony to smoke a cigarette and saw the shadow of a man going up to the fifth floor. The way he walked looked real familiar to me, real familiar.”

My heart started to beat hard.

“Yes, that way of limping with the shoulder dropped a little, just like Marcus after he broke his leg in that motorcycle accident. And the strangest thing is that whenever you come to bring the money, that same night or the next, that shadow appears.”

I stood paralyzed, my mind blank. Marcus died in a work accident in North Dakota; a representative from the contracting company brought us the urn with his ashes.

“Surely you’re mistaken. Your eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”

I tried to find a logical explanation but my own voice was trembling. Miss Hattie shot me a sharp look.

“I’m old but I ain’t senile. Besides I saw him. He was wearing a cap pulled down to his eyebrows and a face mask. If he was a thief he’d be lurking around, but this one took a key out of his pocket and opened the door like it was his house.”

“If you don’t believe me that’s your problem, but listen to me and check it. On the landing between the fourth and fifth floor, the building management just installed a security camera for robberies. Ask someone with connections to get you the footage.”

Saying this, Miss Hattie let go of my arm and went on fanning herself as if nothing happened. I got up with trembling legs and walked toward my car.

My head was a whirlwind. Miss Hattie’s words echoed inside me: “not that dead, walks with a limp, opened the door like it was his house.”

I put the key in the ignition with shaking hands. A vague but overwhelming fear began to take over me.

If Marcus was alive, why had he let me carry this enormous debt for 5 years? The streets of Chicago at rush hour were chaos but I felt completely detached from all that.

In my head a movie was repeating in slow motion, connecting fragmented memories of the last five years. I remembered the visits to my in-laws.

Why did Viola always demand the money with such hardness? The $12,000 were their retirement savings; they didn’t need it immediately.

Why did they insist I pay them $200 every month without missing a cent? Their combined social security checks totaled almost $2,000; living where they lived it was more than enough for two elderly austere people.

What did they need $200 more in cash for every month? To save or to support someone?

Once last summer, in infernal heat, I brought them a bag of oranges. When Viola opened the door I saw out of the corner of my eye that inside the house the blinds were completely drawn.

They didn’t have air conditioning or the windows open; how did two old people stand the heat like that? Unless they were trying to hide the presence of someone else.

“Mama, Malik is waiting for you.”

The high-pitched voice of my son brought me back to reality. I had arrived at the gate of his school.

The boy ran toward me, sweating. I hugged him feeling a knot in my stomach.

Malik’s father. The day I received the news of Marcus’s death I fainted several times.

Viola only repeated that he had gone to seek a better future for the family.

“Now that he’s died, we’re left with nothing and with debts. You are his wife; you have to take charge for the love of my son.”

So he wouldn’t lose his grandparents I accepted working without rest to pay the debt. But what if what Miss Hattie said was true?

The idea made me swerve, almost crashing into a car coming in the opposite direction.

“Mama, are you okay?”

asked Malik, scared.

“Yes, baby, it’s nothing. I’m just a little tired.”

When we got home after making dinner and putting my son to bed, I sat in front of the computer. The screen glowed but I couldn’t concentrate.

I opened a drawer and took out my budget notebook. The line “Pay debt grandparents $12,000” was circled in red.

I had paid for 58 months; only two were left. If Marcus was alive, it meant I wasn’t paying a debt but that they were scamming me.

I remembered the detail of the limp; Marcus had broken his left ankle in a motorcycle accident in 2018. Suspicion like acid began to corrode my trust.

I needed proof. I grabbed the phone and looked for a name in my contacts: Dante was a cousin of mine, a young computer genius.

“Kesha, what’s going on calling me at this hour?”

“Dante, are you busy? I need a favor.”

“Tell me, cuz.”

“It’s something delicate. Do you know anyone who manages the cameras in the building where my in-laws live?”