Nella's Mission

From his office on the 35th floor, overlooking Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, Michael watched the Wharton Crew Club rowing down the river. He enjoyed the way men battled the river’s current on late afternoons. For some reason, it usually put him in the mood for his first drink of the day, a cold, dry martini.

Having recently resigned his position with the law firm where he had worked for ten years, he sat watching for the last time. It made him sad. He no longer wanted to be an attorney. He had no desire to be anything.   

"Michael, it’s almost time to leave. Just about the entire office will be at Benjamin B’s waiting for you,” said Marge, his longtime administrative assistant.  

He turned and saw her blurry face. He reached for his glasses. Now he could see her just fine; tall with a tight, salt and pepper hair bun. “You’ll be there too, right?” He asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said.

He stood and stretched. He took his suit jacket from its hook and put it on. Everything was in order. His desk never looked neater. He picked up his briefcase, heavy but not with paperwork. “Marge?” He called. “You go on ahead. I’ll join you in ten minutes. I just saw the Wharton guys rowing and I want to watch them one more time.”

Marge listened carefully for the tone of Michael’s voice. She was worried about him. He’d been let go, actually. The firm’s CEO had announced that they felt they were holding Michael back, that he should pursue bigger cases and make more money. But the real problem was that ever since his divorce, Michael’s work had suffered. A week ago, he lost an important case the firm thought was a sure thing. “Don’t dawdle, please,” she said. “I’ll have a cold, dry martini waiting for you.”

“Fine,” he said. She picked up her leather briefcase and left.

He massaged his temples a bit and then opened his briefcase. He reached in and pulled out a loaded Colt revolver. He was ready. He had it all figured out. He was only 49, much too young to retire, but the thought of working another fifteen years overwhelmed him. Divorced, and now unemployed, he wasn’t needed. His daughter, married and successful, lived in Denver. When Karen, his second wife, left him, she said, “I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life than to have a nincompoop like you.”

He laughed aloud at the thought, the sound echoing into the outer office. It startled him. He decided that would be the last sound he ever heard. He wondered if he would hear the sound of the pistol being fired before the bullet put him to sleep for good. 

He put his hand on the trigger. “That better not be loaded,” a woman said. “Y’all don’t pay me enough to clean brains and blood off a them walls and windows.”  It was Mrs. Weinreb, an African American woman, who was widowed when her Jewish husband was killed near the end of the Vietnam War. She never remarried.

Michael looked up and saw the cleaning lady. He noticed her name tag. “Take the night off, Nella. No one will expect you to clean up.”

“You’re serious about killing yourself?”

He sat and put the gun on his lap. “Yeah.” It was all he could summon.

She took a quick look at his name plate. “Listen, Mr. Michael del Barton. I don’t have time to give you some big lecture about why you shouldn’t do that. You gonna do it, nobody’s gonna stop you. If you got any money, you can leave it to me.”

Suddenly, he was curious. “What would you do with it?”

“Quit my job, fool. You got enough money for me to do that? If you don’t then maybe you should shoot me first, before you do yourself in,” she said. “I’m not exactly having loads of fun. My feet and my knees hurt bad; arthritis, I guess. My left shoulder too.” Thick around the middle, she leaned on his credenza, not quite sitting on it.  

“Your life can’t be that bad, Nella.”

“Well, maybe not, but it’s a lot worse than yours and you’re ready to check out, so commence shooting.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Want me to shoot you? We can do this in reverse. I’ll shoot myself after I do you.”

Michael smiled. “Isn’t there somebody in this world who needs you, Nella?”

Mrs. Weinreb put her duster on the credenza. “Like who? I was so young when my husband died. Never married again. Didn’t go out much either. Every night since then, I ask myself why the good Lord made me. I’m a tired old woman now.” She pulled a tissue out of her apron pocket and dabbed her right eye. She stood up, straightening her apron. “Well maybe, it was for just this moment. You asked, does somebody need me. You do. Right now.”

“And if I don’t kill myself, what will you do then?”

“That’s up to the Lord, fool. The question is what you’re gonna do.” She pointed at the gun. “A better answer will come. Have a little patience, Mr. del Barton.”

Michael nodded. He put the gun back in his briefcase and closed it. He stood and kissed the woman’s cheek. He pulled out his billfold and tried to put a hundred-dollar bill in her hand.

“Oh, no, Mr. del Barton. You think the good Lord took me this far just for a C-note? Ain’t no grace in that.”

He nodded. “I guess not.

“You got a job to do. I done my job. Now you do yours, fool.”   

The martini was, as promised, cold and dry. Just the way he liked it.