Lost Angel

03

The woman in the orange hat was standing by the chess table, opening her arms. Tony sat up and kissed her on the cheek. Then he let her have the seat. The chess table had only two seats, built of concrete. Next to the table was a small brick wall. Tony sat on it.

"Oh, Tony, you are the spitting image of your father when he was your age, how quickly time goes by!" said Aunt Mecha.

"Aunt, this is Hilda LaFeubrer. Hilda, this is my Aunt Mecha. She's my father's aunt, technically, but I consider her the aunt I never had. I've been expecting her, I wanted to introduce her to you."

"Pleased to meet you, my dear," Aunt Mecha held out her hand to Hilda. "LaFeubrer? Do you have anything to do with the fashion house?"

"Yes, it's owned by my family. In fact, I am the head designer of the maison. Teté LaFeubrer was my grandmother."

"Oh, what an incredible coincidence! I've been going to the presentation of your grandmother's collections for years! I used to go with my friends!" Aunt Mecha opened her arms.

"Really, Aunt?" asked Tony, "Were you in the fashion world?"

"Well, my friends and I were very close friends with Sebastian Komm, the journalist specializing in fashion and society news. He would pass us tickets to the fashion shows, we would go to the very exclusive parties. I always liked the LaFeubrer collection. Your grandmother was a woman of very good taste."

"Oh, thank you," said Hilda. "I remember Sebastian Komm. He was an acquaintance of my grandmother's."

"It's a pity that then that terrible misfortune happened. Her daughter and son-in-law died in..." Aunt Mecha looked at Hilda. "Oh, but... Was it your mother, the one who died in that terrible plane crash?"

"Yes, it was my parents," said Hilda.

Hilda's parents had died in a plane crash, Hilda had told Tony when they first met.

"Oh, you poor thing, how you must have suffered!" Aunt Mecha placed her hand on Hilda's hand on the table. "And I know very well what it's like to suddenly lose a loved one! That's how my second husband died! Because I was married four times," she said. "I don't know if I mentioned it."

"No," said Hilda, "Four times?"

"That's right. The first time was when I was very young, I was twenty years old. He was a sailor. We lived together for a while, but then he decided that his true love was the sea and he left. We divorced. Then I married an industrialist older than me, who died three years after we were married. He left me all his money, thanks to him I was able to live relatively well. But it was a shame, I loved him. Although he was a very quiet man, we would sit at the table and I would tell him the news of the day and he would just nod his head... Yes, yes, he would say. Anyway, now that I think about it all the men I was married to were of few words. I wonder why."

"Opposites attract," said Tony.

"It was painful when my husband died suddenly, so I understand what you went through, my dear. Oh... I don't mean..." she corrected herself, "Of course it's much harder to lose your parents as a child. I was widowed in my thirties. Then I married twice more, both times ending in divorce. My third husband played a lot of chess, now that we sit here I remember him. A grumpy old man, every time he lost he would start shrieking. He taught me how to play chess, but he didn't play much with me because he said I couldn't keep my mouth shut and he needed to concentrate. Anyway, men didn't last long in my life. The only one that did last was the woman who works in my house, Alice. She's been living with me for forty years!"

"Alice?" said Tony. "I remember her. Does she still live with you?"

"Of course she does, and she works like the first day."