The Old House (10 page)

It wasn't hard to find him; all she had to do was follow the speaking clock. He was in the kitchen, punching futilely at the numbers on the microwave. “It won't work,” he announced as she entered.

“No,” Buddy agreed. “Can I heat something for you on the stove?”

“There's no way to turn it on. All the knobs are missing.”

“How about a sandwich? And Aunt Cassie said I could open some peaches, from the pantry.”

He was easily diverted. “A sandwich and peaches. That sounds good.” He tilted his head, presumably so he was looking at her through the part of his eye where there was still vision. “Do I know you, Sister?”

“I'm Buddy. EllaBelle's daughter.”

“Oh, yes. I thought you seemed familiar. Your voice . . . I remember your voice.”

Buddy stepped over beside him and opened the ruined microwave with its blackened interior walls. There was a cup of coffee in it, and she took it out. If she'd caught his movements accurately, he had tried to set the timer for
thirty minutes, long enough to have boiled the coffee over and possibly damaged the oven again if it had been functioning.

“How about a glass of milk instead of this? Okay?”

“Okay,” Grandpa agreed. “Where's Sister?”

“Aunt Cassie's gone to Kalispell. Aunt Addie's at the library.” She opened the bread box and started getting out fixings for the sandwich. Tuna fish with mayonnaise, she decided, since that was what she spotted in the refrigerator.

“Umm. I used to go to the library at least once a week,” he told her, moving toward the table, poking ahead with his cane. “I can't read anymore. Not even the Good Book. I memorized a lot of that, though, and it's still stuck in my head. But I can't read novels. Mysteries, or Westerns. I don't like those science fiction things about all those spaceships and aliens, do you?”

“Yes, I like those. Do you want chopped pickles?”

“Yes, pickles are good. What about the peaches?”

Buddy found them in the pantry, row after row of home-canned fruits and vegetables. She made a nice lunch for the two of them, and they ate in a companionable silence, for the most part, though occasionally Grandpa would make an intriguing remark. “Sister writes novels, I think. I don't believe I've read any of them.”

And that reminded Buddy that she and Grandpa were the only ones in the house, and that Addie's rooms upstairs held not only a manuscript that had been returned, but a photograph album that had old family pictures she hadn't seen.

After Grandpa had had two dishes of peaches, he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and pushed back his chair. “I think I'll take a nap now,” he said. “I wish Blackie would come and sleep by my feet. Do you know where he is?”

“Not exactly,” Buddy replied, hoping he wouldn't press any further. It must be terrible not to remember that you'd been told that your pet had died, so that you felt the sorrow all over again each time.

She heard the talking clock several times while she was clearing the table and wiping off the counter, and then there was only silence. The big house seemed to be waiting for her to do something.

She knew it wasn't right to pry into anyone else's belongings. Yet there was a picture of her father in that photo album on Addie's dresser. A picture she had never seen before yesterday, one that demanded an explanation, though it was unlikely anyone would provide it.

She walked quietly up the stairway—hearing the squeak of that one loose step—and stood in the doorway of Addie's bedroom.

The door was open, and across the room she could see the photograph album, in plain sight.

What harm would it do to look at old pictures, taken years before?

It wasn't only that snapshot, of course. There were the things she'd overheard her aunts and her great-grandfather say. “It's not fair to hold . . . the way you feel about EllaBelle . . . against Buddy. She can't help what her mother did.” And, “I got out the clothes, with a painful memory in every
stitch I had put into every dress. . . . I'm reminded of difficult things when I look at Buddy, . . .” Addie had said. Because Buddy looked like her mother, was the implication. And, “I don't blame her for the money being gone.” How could she find out what all that meant?

And Grandpa had said, “Sister cried when EllaBelle ran off and married Dan Adams.”
Which sister had cried, Addie or Cassie? And why?

Hesitating, Buddy looked around Addie's room. It was large and sunny and full of shelves of books and pictures and objects Addie had collected over the years. A beautiful pale pink shell. A devotional book, lying flat with a purple ribbon marking a place. Photos, including one of her mother in a graduation cap and gown.

Why was she keeping that, in plain sight, if she felt EllaBelle had done something wrong? Something to hurt her? Was Addie the sister who had cried when EllaBelle had eloped?

There was nothing in the room to suggest that Addie had lived here with a husband, nor
that she had retained things from her own girlhood. This was a woman's room, where Addie lived alone.

What had she said about Uncle Ed? “At least Ed had the decency to die on me.” Did that mean it was a relief that he was gone?

Buddy thought about Gus, and wondered if Cassie would find it a relief if
he
were to die. Even his own son had expressed the hope that he'd fall and break his neck. Buddy couldn't imagine thinking anything like that about her father.

And when they had mentioned the fact that Grandpa had sold the store that had supported his family for so many years, they'd said something about cash. A whole bagful of cash, hadn't Grandpa said that?

If he had a lot of money, why did they have to depend on Uncle Gordon to buy tires for the car, and why weren't they able to replace the microwave and the remote control? Was it Grandpa's money Addie had referred to as being gone? If so, what had happened to it?

There was a miniature cedar chest on the far end of the dresser. Buddy reached over and
lifted the lid, expecting to see the same kind of odds and ends her mother had kept in one just like it. But there were no souvenirs of high school proms, no pressed flowers, no sentimental notes, no jewelry.

There were folded handkerchiefs, smelling faintly of cedar, and a small blue bank book.

Buddy flipped open the cover and saw that it was an account that had been started many years ago. Addie had put small amounts into it, and taken small amounts out from time to time, and the balance right now was less than one hundred dollars.

Feeling guilty, Buddy closed the lid.

The return envelope from the publishing company lay where she had last seen it. It was still sealed, as if Addie had not been able to bring herself to open it and read the rejection letter it contained.

Of course the photographs and snapshots were what she'd come to look at. She picked up the album, listening to the silence of the house. There was no reason to think she had to hurry. Neither of her aunts would be coming home to
surprise her in this room where she had no right to be.

She carried the big book over to sit in the rocking chair at the foot of the bed, and opened it on her lap.

The picture of her father and Addie, taken so long ago, was just as she'd left it earlier. This time she studied it more closely, then turned it over to see what was written on the back.
Dan and me
, was all it said,
Fourth of July
.

No date.

Slowly Buddy leafed through the album, as she had done with the one belonging to her mother. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it. Snapshots of a family, three sisters and a brother, with parents and grandparents and an occasional pet mixed in.

It told her nothing except that her father and Addie had been friends. They had had their pictures taken together at least half a dozen times. There was no snapshot of Dan and EllaBelle together.

Somewhere in the house was a sound that brought her upright, heart pounding. She had learned nothing, and now she would feel guilty
forever, snooping this way. But how else did a kid find out anything important, without snooping?

She replaced the album where it belonged and went back downstairs, trying to think of an excuse for having gone up there if she got caught. She had no legitimate excuse for being upstairs.

It must have been just the creaking of the old house, she decided. There was no one around. Not even Grandpa's talking clock marred the silence.

In the kitchen the aroma of corned beef and cabbage drifted from the Crock-Pot. She wondered if they'd keep Gus at the hospital if he
did
have a more serious injury than Addie had thought, or if she'd have to sit through another of those uncomfortable meals with Max's father present tonight.

Max came through the back door as she was trying to decide what to do next. She wished Bart would call with an update—had he talked to anyone yet who had seen Dad or his truck? But of course not. He'd let her know when there was any news. He knew how worried she was.

Max was wearing a blue jacket and a baseball cap, and he pulled the kitten out of the jacket front as he entered the house.

“Who mowed the lawn?” he demanded, putting the animal down near his bowl and getting out what was left of the tuna for him. Apparently Scamp didn't object to pickles and mayonnaise, because he ate greedily.

“I did. The mower is almost like ours at home,” Buddy said, before she remembered that she no longer had a home.

“You tie up the newspapers, too?” He'd noticed the wagon load near the back steps.

“I didn't know where to take them,” Buddy said.

“Come on, I'll show you where the recycling place is. It's just a big bin, behind the grocery store.”

“I'm supposed to be watching over Grandpa,” Buddy said. “He's taking a nap.”

“He usually sleeps for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Just like a baby,” Max said. “We can be back before he wakes up.”

She wasn't sure that was the proper way to watch over the old man, but she did want to
get back out in the sunshine. “Okay,” she agreed, and was glad Max pulled the wagon and didn't expect her to do it.

They were on the way back when she finally asked the question that had been on her tongue for some time. Her mouth felt dry, and she didn't know if he'd answer or not. “They said Grandpa sold his store for a lot of money. Cash, he said. A whole bagful of cash.”

“Yeah, I guess it was thousands of dollars. They were all mad at him for demanding it in cash instead of a check to put in the bank. That way, it probably wouldn't have disappeared.”

Buddy paused on the sidewalk to take that in. “It disappeared? Don't they know what happened to it?”

He stared at her in surprise. “Yeah. Didn't you know? Your mother stole it.”

Buddy staggered as if she'd been kicked in the stomach. “That's a lie!” she exclaimed when she could speak. “My mom never stole anything in her life!”

Max shrugged. “I wasn't here when it happened. I just heard about it. They talk about it when they don't know I'm listening. For once, I don't think the whole town knows, but I've heard it plenty of times.”

“Then you must have heard wrong!”

Max started walking again, pulling the empty wagon. Buddy wasn't sure she had the strength to walk with him. She felt outraged, sick, disbelieving at his accusation.

“All I know is that as long as Grandpa had money, they seemed to be able to do the things they wanted. While he ran the store I don't
think they bought a lot of stuff, but they could fix anything that broke, at least. Then, after the money disappeared, they couldn't afford it. Cassie doesn't have any income of her own, except for what their father left her and Addie. It pays the taxes and basic expenses, but there isn't much left over. At least it makes it possible for her to stay here and look after Grandpa. He has Social Security, but that's not very much, either. And Addie has a small salary from the job at the library, and once in a while a small check for an article she sells to a magazine. And Pa—”

A bitter spasm twisted Max's face. “He's got a pension because he hurt his back and can't work. But he spends a lot of time over at the Hayloft. He even buys drinks for other guys sometimes. We would just barely survive if we didn't live here, in Grandpa's house, which will belong to Cassie and Addie when he dies. It's been paid for for years, so that part doesn't cost anything. Once in a while my mom sends a check to use for me. School clothes, things like that. But I don't always get it the way I'm supposed to, unless
Cassie insists. I always make sure she knows when it comes.”

He didn't state where the money from his mother went, but when Buddy's mind began to work again, she made a good guess. Gus treated more friends at the tavern.

“You're sure they said my mom took the money? You mean Addie and Cassie said so?”

It would explain why Addie felt resentment against her younger sister, if it were true. But how could it be true? “Mama was the most honest person alive,” she said stubbornly.

Max kicked a small rock off the sidewalk as they reached the house and took the wagon back to the garage. “All I know is what I hear,” he said.

“And this is what Addie holds against Mama? That she thinks Mama stole money from Grandpa? Money that would have helped support them all, and keep the house up?”

She sounded angry, and Max dropped the handle of the wagon and held up his hands. “Hey, don't shoot the messenger, okay? You asked me, and I told you what I know. I didn't make up the news. I just know what I hear them all saying, you know?”

“I'd
never have come here if I'd known this,” Buddy said.

“I wouldn't have come here, either, if I could have helped it,” Max said as they walked from the garage to the house. “Though living with Pa in two rooms over Mallory's garage wasn't great. This is better, in many ways. Cassie means well. So does Addie, I guess. And I don't mind Grandpa. When his mind isn't wandering, he's kind of a neat old guy. Get him talking about the old days that he still remembers and he can tell some terrific stories.”