The Old House (19 page)

Max muttered a curse and brushed past her in the doorway. “I hope he didn't tear off our stopper again. At least he didn't try to cook anything this time.”

Buddy was sorry they'd lost track of the old man for a few minutes, but she had something more important on her mind. “Aunt Addie, were you here when Mama left that last time, right after Grandpa's money disappeared?”

“When she actually threw the bag in her car and drove away? No. It was a Thursday, and I worked at the library all day. She was gone—with the bag and the money—when I got home.”

“
But the money wasn't in the bag,” Buddy said. “Grandpa remembered. They took the money out so Mama could carry some letters in it. Only he doesn't remember what they did with the money.”

A peculiar look came over Addie's face. “Letters?” she echoed.

“That's what he said. Letters that she found in the attic. There must have been a lot of them if she needed the bag to carry them.”

“Letters,” Addie murmured once more. “There was a box of letters she brought down from the attic . . . letters our parents had written to each other, years ago. She wanted to . . . edit them, and put them into a booklet form, so each of us could have copies, maybe even publish them. She said they were wonderful, inspiring letters, and they deserved to be read. . . .”

Addie was looking rather pale, and she sank into Grandpa's chair and put up a hand to massage her throat. “She put the letters in the bag and . . . dear God, could she have put the money into the box she took the letters out of?”

“
Where is everybody?” Cassie called out, coming in the back door. “Good grief, Grandpa's been at the thermostat again, haven't you, dear? Max, did you fix it? Addie, what's the matter with you? You look as if you've seen a ghost.”

Addie's mouth worked for a moment before she could summon her voice. “Maybe I have. Oh, God forgive me if I have. EllaBelle left the box on my desk, with a note on it to me—something about would I take care of this? I assumed she'd left the letters for me to return to the attic. It seemed like her—careless, inconsiderate, and it made me so
angry!
—oh, Cassie, I never even looked in the box to see if the letters were still there!”

Cassie was scowling. “What on earth are you talking about? I've had a perfectly dreadful, exhausting day, waiting around for June's father-in-law to have his hip pinned, and driving her home practically in hysterics about what she was going to do with him when she had to take him out of the hospital. She's afraid to take time off to take care of him because she'll lose her job, which she
needs urgently, but she won't be able to leave him alone, either, and they said they'll have him up and walking by
tomorrow
, imagine! He'll have to have physical therapy, and learn to walk with crutches or a walker or something, but he won't be able to shift for himself for weeks or even months—” Cassie ran out of air and gave her sister a fierce look. “Will you please explain to me what's the matter with you? All of you?”

Addie was consciously trying to calm down, taking deep breaths. “Max,” she said. “Your legs are younger than mine, and I don't think mine would work right now. Go up in the attic and find that box that had those letters in it. It's about so big”—she gestured with her hands—“and it had a pink ribbon tied around it to hold it shut. It's probably close to the top of the stairs, because there wasn't room to walk very far into the attic.”

Max gave Buddy an excised, half-scared look, then bolted for the stairs.

He was back in only a few minutes, placing the box on Addie's lap, where with trembling fingers she untied the ribbon and lifted the lid.

And there it was. Dozens of small bundles of cash, each with a paper band around it.

Buddy felt as if her bones had melted. When she saw the tears in Addie's eyes, she didn't have the heart to say, “I told you so.”

“She put the letters in the bag,” Cassie breathed, “and the money in the box, and she expected you to take it to the bank that way. She was in a hurry to leave because they were predicting a storm and she wanted to get home as soon as she could. And then of course her car slid on the ice and—” She swallowed hard.

It was too late to get the box of cash to the bank, and they couldn't think of any better place to put it for safekeeping than to call Mr. Faulkner and ask to put it in the school safe until Monday. For once Addie didn't treat him as if he were the village idiot instead of the school principal, and she expressed her gratitude to him for opening up the school after hours.

Addie had just taken the money off to the school when Grandpa's talking clock announced the hour, and he asked querulously, “Is anybody doing anything about supper?”

After a moment Cassie said, “I never believed much in fast food, it's not very healthy, but today I think we could make an exception. Max, why don't you and Buddy run over to the Hayloft and get us a bag of hamburgers and whatever else they've got to go with them? Gus says they're pretty good. Get enough for the Boardmans, too, and leave them off on your way home. She's at least as worn out as I am. Take enough money out of my purse.”

Buddy doubted if anybody really tasted the food except for Grandpa, who demolished two burgers, an order of fries, and one of onion rings.

Addie, when she got back, didn't apologize to Buddy for the things she had thought about her mother. She really didn't have to. Her grief, her pain, were unmistakable. She made no pretense of trying to eat anything, though Cassie insisted she have at least a cup of tea.

Finally, after their fast-food supper, Cassie surveyed the work Max and Buddy had done through the day. “Well, you've gotten rid of a lot of it, but I hope you aren't going to leave it like that. It's still a mess. He'll break his
neck tripping over what's left if you don't finish the job.”

“Can't we just move those few boxes and do the rest tomorrow?” Max wanted to know. “We're beat, Cassie.”

It wasn't until bedtime that Buddy remembered that she'd prayed about finding the money, and about restoring her mother's reputation, and that she'd not yet given thanks for the answers to her prayers. She hoped God would understand that she wasn't ungrateful, just too excited to think straight.

She awoke Sunday morning to the sound of the telephone, and then Cassie calling her. “Buddy, it's your father!”

She practically flew out of bed, not worrying about being in her pajamas. “Daddy? Where are you?”

Her father's voice, sounding normal and cheerful, came over the wires. “Still in the hospital, honey. It's taken longer than they thought it would, but now they say I'll probably get out in a few days, as soon as I've finished this course of IV-antibiotics. Then Bart will drive me to Montana. It was nice of
Cassie to agree to have us stay there until I can go back to work, which will be another few weeks, probably. I've talked to the dispatcher at Edmonds Trucking, and they may have an opening at their headquarters in Missoula when I'm ready to drive again. It may work out that the sensible thing for right now is to set ourselves up somewhere near Haysville, so there'll be relatives nearby. The company does some of its dispatching from Kalispell, and that's not too far for me to get home between trips.”

“Haysville!” Buddy blurted out, stunned. Did she want to stay here, in Mr. Faulkner's old school, with Mrs. Hope for a teacher, and all those strange kids? Yet, she'd been there two weeks now, and it hadn't been too bad.

“Well, we'll have to work that out. I just wanted to talk to you, be sure you were okay. Let you know I'm doing better.”

“I'm okay. Dad, Aunt Addie sold two books for quite a bit of money. And the money that was missing—well, you don't know about it, but the money Grandpa got for the store, that disappeared, we found it last night. Do you
remember seeing a little flowered bag—I think it was purple and pink—in Mama's stuff? It probably had some family letters in it.”

Dad didn't hesitate. “Yeah, I think I remember it. And the things inside of it were packed away with some of her other belongings, after she died, to look at later. Is it important?”

“Maybe. I'll look for it when we get our stuff out of storage. Mama thought she might try to publish the letters. I'm glad you're maybe going to be here by next weekend,” Buddy told him. “You'll be here for Grandpa's birthday party. He's going to be ninety-two.”

Dad laughed. “Good for him. I always liked the old boy. Well, I have to go, but we'll see you in a few days, Okay? And . . . I love you, Buddy.”

She sucked in a deep breath. “Dad—I hope it won't hurt your feelings, but I've got a favor to ask of you.”

“I'm about as susceptible now as I'm ever going to be,” he said. “Ask away.”

“Could—would you be willing to call me by my real name from now on? Amy Kate? Buddy is such a stupid name for a girl.”

There was a silence, and then Dad sighed. “I guess you're getting too grown up to be my Buddy, aren't you? Well, it'll take some getting used to. And I'll probably forget and have to be reminded quite a few times. But I'll try.”

She hung up and went to get dressed, feeling happy and encouraged, even if there was a chance they'd be stuck here in Haysville for a while.

She didn't smell anything good from the kitchen. Everybody else was already around the table when she got there, even Gus, though he was grousing because there wasn't any fresh orange juice. “You said you'd get some oranges for today,” he complained as Amy Kate slid into her place.

“I didn't have time to think about oranges,” Cassie told him. “I was too busy with June Boardman and her father-in-law at the hospital.” She glanced at Amy Kate. “June and I went all the way through school together, ever since first grade. I wish there was something I could do to help her now. I'm afraid we're running out of time this morning. I didn't
have time to fix anything fancy, so we're just having cold cereal.”

“I like cornflakes,” Grandpa said. “Used to have them when I was a little boy.”

“I like them, too,” Amy Kate said, and upended the box over her bowl.

Addie stirred sugar into her coffee. “You know, Cassie, I had trouble going to sleep last night, and I got to thinking. Maybe we could help June and solve some of our own problems, too.”

“At least we're not broke anymore,” Cassie said, encouraged. “But I don't want to put Grandpa in a home—”

“I
am
home,” Grandpa said, proving that he didn't always miss it when they talked about him.

“Of course you are,” Addie agreed. “And once the rest of that mess is cleared out of your room, there'd be room for another bed in there.”

Grandpa put down his spoon. “What would I want with another bed?” he asked.

“I was thinking that you might be willing to share your room with poor Don Boardman. He's got
a broken hip, and when he gets out of the hospital in a few days, he can't come home because his bedroom's on the second floor, and there's no one home to take care of him while June works.”

Cassie's mouth dropped open. “But you keep saying it's too much work to look after one old man, so how do we look after two?”

“We hire someone to come in and look after both of them. Two someones, probably. A night-shift person so the rest of us can sleep, and then someone in the daytime to spell you so you can shop and go to church meetings, things like that. Remember how we used to sleep out on the screened porch when we were kids? It wouldn't take much to fully enclose the back porch: windows instead of only screens, and put some sort of heating system out there. Make a place for a live-in worker, maybe. Don may never be able to navigate stairs again, and since his son and daughter-in-law live right next door, they could all visit back and forth as often as they wanted to. It wouldn't cost much to put in a ramp so he wouldn't have to use stairs.”

“
Easy to put in a ramp,” Gus said unexpectedly. When they all looked at him, he added defensively, “I don't mean
me.
Not with my bad back. But I could tell Max how to build it. Or with all that money you came up with, we could hire somebody to do it.”

“What a terrific idea.” Cassie glanced at her watch, then jumped to her feet. “Hurry up, everybody. We need to leave for church in half an hour. Leave the dishes, just move!”

They scattered in all directions; Max to pour milk into a bowl for Scamp.

“You think they'll make us finish cleaning up the mess this afternoon? On Sunday?” Amy Kate asked.

Max looked at her with a grin. “Maybe, now that everybody's rich, we can talk them into hiring someone to do that, too.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “Uh, listen, Max—”

“What?” He gave her his full attention now.

“I've decided I want to be called by my real name, Amy Kate. I'm not going to be
Buddy
anymore.”

“Good deal. I always thought you were too pretty to be called such a stupid name,” Max
said, and headed for the stairs, leaving Amy Kate staring after him in total astonishment.

And then, smiling, she went to join the others to go to church.