Nell

Petty worries had nagged me during the night, and when the grandfather clock in the front hall struck five times, I arose in a humour that mirrored the cold pre-dawn darkness.  Twenty minutes later I started off on the daily walk that takes me through two communities, where I like to say "there's at least one vignette per morning."  

This morning I was in no mood for vignettes. I had just rounded 21st Street and was starting up into the heart of Sharpsburg, when a police car pulled alongside me.  It was young Officer Novak.  

"'Morning, Mrs. K," he said, "There's been some trouble up on South Canal Street.  I have to ask you to alter your route this morning."

"Trouble?"

"Well, there's been a shooting, and the street is blocked off.  The paramedics are still there."  Before I could ask more, he nodded and was off.

  Nell Barker had been homecoming queen the year my oldest daughter was a freshman.  She had been the first one from Sharpsburg to be so chosen since that community had joined the school merger, so although I did not know her personally, I knew who she was.  Now, some twenty years later, she was dead.  It was months before I learned the full story.

She had married Bill, her high school sweetheart and they had settled in Sharpsburg.  Bill enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh on a scholarship and planned to go on to medical school. Nell tried to get work as a fashion model, but was unsuccessful and became instead, a check-out clerk at the Giant Eagle.  When their daughter was born a year or so later, Nell refused to return to work.   Bill took odd jobs after classes, but the money was not enough, so he left school and was hired by American Roller Bearing up in RIDC Park.  Shortly thereafter, Nell became bedridden with an ailment that defied diagnosis.  They moved in with his mother, so that someone could take care of Carry, the baby.  In time, Nell graduated from lying in bed to spending her waking hours in her wheelchair in front of the TV set.  Bill and his mother wanted Nell to try physio- and psychological therapy, but every time she was pressured, her condition worsened, and she took to her bed for weeks.  Throughout it all, Bill remained totally devoted to Carry, even after taking up with a much younger woman.  How Nell got hold of the gun, no one knew, nor could anyone say how she arose from her wheelchair to commit murder-suicide, but she did. 

In retrospect, petty worries that nag in the night are petty indeed.