The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart by Leanna Renee Hieber

you for having the patience with her that I no longer have. It would be good of you to go. Her calling hours are Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.”
    “I’ll do so this week.”
    Mrs. Northe and I picked out a hair-pin and brooch set I could take as a present.
    ***
     
    A few hours later, I met Father in his office. He immediately left his paperwork and escorted me to the door. He seemed to be done taking my presence for granted too. Usually he would have made me wait.
    We rode the Lexington Avenue Elevated rail north as far as we could, then a trolley into the Bronx until the vast necropolis of Woodlawn Cemetery—a garden-style cemetery founded seventeen years ago, in the year of my birth—spread out before us.
    We strolled toward the Gothic stone pillars and iron gates. Familiar ornate tombs loomed in the verdant distance.
    “Tell me again how you and Mother met.”
    My father eyed me. “Again? Haven’t I told you this a thousand times?”
    “It’s important.”
    He smiled, the green eyes I’d inherited from him twinkling. “It was at the Cooper Union. A speech.”
    “But not just any speech,” I added.
    Here began Father’s tale, which I’d never tire of hearing:
    “Abraham Lincoln’s speech, the one that would make him president. But I didn’t know about that then. I was only vaguely interested in politics. All I wanted was to open a museum. I was told potential investors for all sorts of noble causes frequented the Union, so I was sure to bring my friend Weiss, who knew everyone who was anyone, along to help me navigate the crowd.
    “I was admittedly riveted by the odd-looking, tall man whose voice was reedy, almost a joke of himself, but no one laughed when Lincoln built to his conclusion. Everyone held their breath. But for me, that great man was outshone by a woman who stood near the front of the dais: tall, elegant, and utterly radiant. Weiss saw the object of my stare and chuckled: “‘Viel Gluck… Lots of luck, friend.’” I asked Weiss who she was.
    “‘ Germania in all her glory,’” he said, “‘as painted by Philipp Veit in the heart of Germany’s democratic revolution. Currently she’s giving the Lutheran Society hell. She’d like them to ordain women.’”
    “I laughed. I could see from across a room of breathless people that she was full of fire and life. Lincoln would go on to be president, and I knew my life would never be the same for having seen Helen Heidel. Thankfully for us, she cared about art as much as any cause. Once Lincoln was done stunning the crowd, Weiss introduced me to her and presented my cause. And by grace alone and a good bit of planning the Metropolitan, she came to care for me.” Father’s tale ended as we reached the gates.
    And then she died in the street. Rescuing me, at the age of four, from an oncoming carriage.
    That was the part none of us said. But I thought about it every day.
    The familiar bent, old woman near the open, wrought-iron gate looked up at us with a stunning smile that transformed her wrinkled face. She wore a drooping, tattered shawl, and at her side was a baby pram overflowing with cut flowers.
    I knew what to look for: black-eyed Susans, golden daisy-like flowers with coal-brown centers. These were Mother’s favorite. Father used to call her his Black-Eyed Helen for her dark eyes and bright personality. Laying these bright flowers down on a smooth gray stone was my earliest memory.
    I pointed to the lone bright sprigs that were being drowned out by tumbling roses.
    “They’re wildflowers, of course,” my father explained, gesturing to the flowers as we crossed through the gate toward the stone mausoleums marching ahead of us, sloping rows of small Gothic and Romanesque houses in a silent city of death, shaded by lush trees and shrubbery. “But a part of your mother was always a bit wild, as if she walked barefoot in the field like a goddess of spring when merely crossing busy Madison Avenue. All auburn hair and dark