A dark bar ran along much of the front side of the room with more stools upside down on top of it and two narrow windows high on the wall behind it, with shelves holding murky bottles between them. Four tables hugged the back wall, similarly decorated by upside down chairs of varied design.
Pauline put Dan to work searching out more places needing lightbulbs, with his sister, Lizzie, as his bulb-holding assistant. Pauline began sorting items from behind the bar into a garbage bin.
Gramps took a chair down from a table and planted himself in it, silently refusing to help.
Molly settled the shopkeeper’s hash by plunking her little brother into his lap and refusing to heed his calls for her to come back and take the kid, who appeared fascinated with his beard. Instead, Molly took up the nearly dry mop and started on the cobwebs she could reach.
“All done, Pauline,” Eric reported, emerging from the men’s room, followed by Kiernan. “Hey, be careful up there, Becky.”
He hurried to where she stood on the bar stool, now batting down cobwebs from around the light fixture with a broom. They weren’t nearly as thick here, but still had a tendency to droop down to the level of unsuspecting heads.
“Thanks, I’m fine. Tested all the stools and took the steadiest. But it’s Bexley — B-e-x-l-e-y. Not Becky.”
“Sorry. Bexley. Want me to take over up there?”
She smiled down at him. “Everybody does it. No worries.”
He smiled back.
He had a nice smile. Warm without being over the top. A little sad.
Her gaze slid toward Kiernan. His smile wasn’t so much sad as closed off. Except for…
She refocused on Eric, picking up their exchange. “You have good timing. I just finished.”
“So there’s nothing left for us to do.” Eric winked at her. A wait-for-it wink, predicting what was about to happen.
“There’s plenty still to be done,” Pauline immediately contradicted.
Eric grinned at his prediction coming true.
These two clearly knew each other well — to predict the older woman’s behavior, but to tease about it.
Bexley returned his grin. “You and Kiernan can use the mop and this broom to get the cobwebs high up on the walls and ceiling where Molly and I didn’t reach. She and I will start washing up the area of the bar Pauline’s cleared.”
Pauline had discovered a working faucet and small sink behind the bar, which would make that easier.
“What is this place?” Molly asked.
“Used to be a bar.” Dan screwed in a bulb in one of two sconces flanking the doorway to the shop.
“Still is a bar,” Gramps snapped. “A closed bar. Where nobody’s supposed to be.”
Pauline didn’t let that pass. “If you cleaned it, you wouldn’t need to be ashamed of it. Bring me the glass from those sconces, Dan, so I can wash them and the light can show through.”
“I’m not ashamed of it.”
She retorted, “Well, you should be.”
Bexley sputtered, covering her laughter with a cough. Accidentally — she was sure it was accidentally — her gaze met Kiernan’s and saw the same amusement in his green eyes.
“Why’d you close the bar?” Molly asked.
“Tired of people asking me nosy questions.”
Pursuing that response logically, she asked, “They can ask nosy questions in the store, too, so why do you still have that open?”
“Eating’s a habit I can’t break.”
“You mean you need money,” the girl said wisely. “But you could make more money with the bar open. And then you could eat better.” She regarded him for an extra beat. “Clothes, too.”
Before Gramps could respond to his tormentor, he had to snap his head around for a gentle-voiced attack from a new direction.
“Mommy said everybody used to like to come to your bar because there was lots of laughing. And people would play instruments and some would sing and others would dance. It used to be exciting.” Lizzie looked over at him.
“Big excitement.” Dan’s disdainful sarcasm swamped his sister’s sweetness.
“We get excitement. Had a vehicle practically running over the pump and crashing into the store last summer.”
Dan rolled his eyes — again. “More like a lady fainting and coasting over the curb. Excitement. Too bad it didn’t knock down the place.”
Lizzie ignored her brother. “But why did you close someplace so wonderful? Mommy said it was really wonderful.”
Bexley’s mind buzzed with questions.
Where was their mother?
Mommy said. So their mother, as well as their father, knew this man. Gramps. Did that mean…?
“None of your business,” the man snapped.
But not at her unvoiced question.
Lizzie jerked back as if struck.
Dan stepped in front of her. “Mom said you were a bitter, sour old man. The kind who’d pick on a little kid. That’s why she’d never bring us here to see you.”
“Well, you’re here now, whether I want you or not and I sure as hell don’t—”
“Yes, we are here, thanks to this blizzard,” Pauline said briskly. “No use crying over spilled milk. We shall make the best of the situation. All of us.”
Gramps showed no sign of recognizing the severe look she directed at him, but neither did he say more.
That would have to do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Trying to ease the tension, Bexley asked the first thing into her mind, “Do you have more?”
“More what?
“More grandchildren.”
“Nah.” Did that constitute confirmation they were his grandchildren?
“Our aunt doesn’t have kids.” Molly sighed, then kindly explained to Bexley, “We don’t have any cousins.”
She nodded solemnly, sucking in her cheeks to mask amusement.
“So, one of you gave him the name Gramps?”
Under her breath, Pauline suggested again, “Unless they meant Grump.”
“That was Dan. Mommy told us. Remember, Lizzie?” Backed by her sister’s nod, Molly continued, “Mommy used to bring Dan here when he was little. Lots littler ’n us. When he let people call him Danny. Like as little as Bobby.” That concept appeared to stretch the bounds of her imagination. “Then she stopped.”
“Aunt Trudi said Gramps is a mean old man with no manners or style and no one in their right mind would want anything to do with him. Mommy should’ve broken off with him completely like she and Mother — that’s what Aunt Trudi calls our Grandma — did.”
Lizzie’s shift between an entirely different tone and her usual sweetness gave Bexley confidence in the girl’s reporting, a fair idea of their Aunt Trudi’s voice, and a disinclination to make the woman’s acquaintance.
Back to her own voice, Lizzie said, “Mommy made a funny sound like she’d tried to laugh but then she had to cough. Then she looked at us and they stopped talking. Remember, Molly?”
“Course I remember. I also remember when Daddy said Mommy should take us to see her father because family’s family and Mommy got real angry and told him to leave the children to her and she’d leave the cows to him. And you weren’t even there then.”
Molly turned to Bexley. “Mommy never brought us to see him. We met him when Mommy died. He was sitting way in back at the funeral and Daddy led all of us to where he was and said to say hello to our grandfather. So we did. But he didn’t say much and we didn’t see him again until now.”
Her matter-of-fact tone didn’t change when she added, “I’m warm enough now to take off my jacket. Cleaning’s hard work, isn’t it?”
*
They all set back to work, while Lizzie took Bobby to the newly cleaned women’s room.
“I potty like Dan,” the little boy bragged. His older brother turned bright red.
Bexley hid a grin and said an internal thank you to not have that issue to deal with.
Dan finished the light bulbs as Kie
rnan and Eric completed cobweb duty. Without being asked, the three males started on the floor in the open middle area, while Lizzie joined her sister, washing and drying glasses in the sink, while Bexley dusted, washed, and dried the unimpressive assortment of liquor bottles.
“How in heaven’s name did you let this get to such a state?” Pauline demanded of Gramps, now that her toils took her — and her trash bin — to the bar’s end closer to him. “It must have been a functioning establishment at some point.”
“Wasn’t no establishment, it was a bar. Plain and simple. Folks came in, had a drink—”
“Played some pool.” In response to several curious looks, Kiernan added, “Marks on the floor. Size of a pool table. Light would have been directly over the table.”
“Yeah, plenty of pool played here,” Gramps said.
“What happened to the table?” Kiernan asked.
“Broke down a while back. Eventually, I burned it.”
“Burned it?” Kiernan repeated. “In that stove? It works? Burns wood?”
“What else would it burn?”
“This whole place if it doesn’t work right,” Kiernan replied promptly.
“Nah. Outer walls and foundation’s rock.”
“Great,” Dan said sarcastically. “Foundation and outer walls will survive, inside’ll go up with us in it.”
“Listen you—”
Kiernan spoke over Gramps. “Both of the restrooms are short on lightbulbs. How about taking care of that next, Dan.”
“Sure. Glad to get away from my lowlife grandfather.”
“I’ll lowlife you, you—”
“Go,” Kiernan ordered Dan.
Eric stepped into the line of sight between the boy and the grandfather. Pauline did more. She squared off to Gramps.
“Quiet.”
They all obeyed and resumed their work. Except Gramps, who got out of his chair, deposited sleeping Bobby in a nest of the bags by the doorway, and clumped out of the bar area.
*
Bexley stood on her favorite stool again to clean the inside of the windows. It was hard to tell how much good it did. The outside of the windows was thickly encrusted and the little visible past the dirt consisted of dense movement.
She climbed down and took glasses the girls had washed and dried and began returning them to the lowest of the cleaned shelves between the windows.
After a few minutes, Bexley said quietly to the girls, “Gramps is your grandfather?”
“Uh-huh. Daddy said he was Mommy’s daddy.”
Bexley’s lips parted.
A small motion caught her attention. She shifted her gaze slightly. To Kiernan. He and Eric had shifted to cleaning the tables and chairs and they set them up in the open area. He looked back at her and shook his head almost imperceptibly.
Don’t ask her.
It came as clearly as if he’d spoken.
Bexley licked her parted lips, an instinctive delaying tactic. Except Kiernan’s gaze followed the motion and another instinct threatened to kick in.
She cut it off, replaying Lizzie’s words in her mind. Reacting to the uncertainty in the girl’s voice, Bexley said, “Then he is your grandfather. You have two grandfathers — your mom’s father and your dad’s father.”
“Oh, Daddy’s father died a long, long, long time ago,” Molly said. “Even before we were born. And his mother, too. So we never met them. We didn’t meet this grandfather for a long time, either. But we’ve met Mommy’s mother.”
Not an experience of unalloyed joy, judging from her tone.
Handing glasses to Bexley, Molly went on.
“She said she’d met us when we were little babies, just born. She said that a lot, about how she held us. But we only remember her coming a couple times, and then when Mommy died.”
Bexley felt a burning under her collarbone, as if she’d run a longer distance than she ever had before. But she kept all her focus on the little girl whose mother was dead.
Molly wrinkled her nose. Fighting tears?
“She smelled. Just like Aunt Trudi, except even worse. Daddy says she takes a bath in something that makes her smell that way, while Aunt Trudi takes a shower in it.”
Not tears, but remembrance of an over-scented woman.
“We wouldn’t be here now, if Daddy had any other choice.” That echo of her father’s words might or might not mean she understood the implications for their finances. “Because Mommy isn’t here to look after us anymore. She’s in heaven.”
Molly looked into Bexley’s face, gauging. “That’s what we’re supposed to say. Grandma told us we’re not supposed to say she’s dead. We’re not supposed to call her Grandma, either. We’re supposed to call her Mimi, even though it’s not her name. And Mommy is dead.”
“I’m so sorry, Molly and Lizzie.”
Molly’s thin shoulders relaxed slightly, possibly because she hadn’t been called to account for deviating from Mimi’s script.
Bexley would be tempted to call the woman Grandma, or maybe Granny, as often and loudly as she could.
“I miss her.”
“We miss her,” Lizzie said softly.
“Of course you do. Both of you. All of you.”
From the other side of the bar, Pauline said loudly, “We appear to be done with the cleaning at last. I believe it’s time for lunch.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
They all headed for the store.
When Bexley would have passed Kiernan in the doorway, he turned, then stepped sideways, partly into her path, taking hold of her elbow so they were side by side, headed opposite directions.
In a low voice, he said, “Let her — them — come to you. Let them tell you what they want to tell you. Don’t press them with questions. Let it come from them.”
“I—” She’d intended to say I wasn’t going to. But she would have asked. If not for him shaking his head.
Without saying more, she nodded.
He gave a brusque nod back and released her elbow to enter the store.
Looking around to check on where the kids had gotten to, she saw Pauline had watched the exchange, though she was not close enough to have heard the words. A sheen of speculation crossed the older woman’s brown eyes.
Bexley could have told her she was barking up the entirely wrong tree.
But acknowledging the speculation might invite more. Better to ignore it.
She ducked her head and joined the girls in checking out the offerings in the cooler.
Lunch was not going to be a high nutrition affair.
“Bexley, can you help me heat this up?” Molly had a reheatable and pre-packaged hot dog.
Dan had nachos and dip. Lizzie held macaroni and cheese that matched the fluorescent orange of Dan’s choice. Bobby had a handful of bubblegum.
Taking this all in, Pauline said, “After this meal, you will not be free-ranging. And you, young man,” she added to Bobby, “are coming with me now to find something else.”
Bexley led the way to the microwave by the coffeemaker. Beyond them was a door with a “Private. Strictly private. Stay out.” sign. That must be where Gramps disappeared to, since he wasn’t in the store and he certainly hadn’t gone outside.
She’d heated the hot dog and bun for Molly, who added chips to her meal, and had almost finished Lizzie’s nuclear-glow mac and cheese when the “Private. Strictly Private. Stay Out.” door jerked open.
Bexley caught sight of a hallway before Gramps emerged and shut the door with enough emphasis to barely land this side of a slam.
“More raiding of my store, I suppose,” he said.
Before anyone else responded, Pauline called out, “Of course. How else are we going to eat?”
“You could pay for it, you know. Cash register still works.”
She scoffed with a sound, then returned her attention to the little boy. “Look at this nice apple, Bobby.”
Gramps clumped to behind the counter, looking out the window, and fiddling with something prod
ucing a lot of static sound.
Bexley helped the girls take their food back to a table set up under the wagon wheel light, then returned to the store for something for herself.
Kiernan and Eric were talking in low voices near the front of the store.
Bexley caught Pauline’s eye, raised an eyebrow toward them. Pauline shrugged slightly.
Dan finished at the microwave and headed for the bar room.
“We’re going to need to figure out better food choices for those kids,” Bexley said to Pauline.
“Yes. Along with a number of other logistics. Food, shelter, warmth, cleanliness—”
“—and distraction.”
“Indeed. Here, Bobby, you carry the apple, and I’ll bring your soup and milk.” In an aside to Bexley, she said, “The milk won’t last much longer.”
Bexley checked over the limited fresh produce — three more apples, a dozen oranges, wilting lettuce, two carrots, an onion, and eight bananas quickly going soft. She took one orange and a soup heatable in its container.
While she waited for the ancient microwave, she called home. “Mom, it’s Bexley.”
“Bexley! How are you? Wait— Don’t say anything yet. I’m putting you on speaker. Okay. Go ahead. We’re all here.”
A flurry of hellos followed before she could get back to her reason for the call. She explained the unexpected weather.
“Oh, we know. The Curricks called and told us about your text that you didn’t even get out of Wyoming,” Mom said.
Dad added, “We found it on the map.” He did love his maps. “You’re somewhere safe and warm?”
She thought of the restrooms, the chilly bar room, the propane, the dubious food choices. “I’m fine.”
“What about the people you’re with?” Mom asked with a certain pointedness. “Are they all … nice?”
Uh-oh. What had the Curricks said?
Quickly, Bexley enthused about the kids, even making Dan sound cherub-like, Pauline, and Eric.
“What about the guy—?” Her younger brother, Matt, broke off — likely under a maternal glare.
With a fair assumption of casualness, Bexley said, “Oh, Kiernan, the guy I was driving with is here, of course. And the store’s proprietor.”
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