The Old House

by Willo Davis Roberts

  “No trouble at all,” Buddy said, deciding not to mention the altered thermostat and the answers Grandpa had given to her questions. She wanted to press the issue of Mama’s stealing Grandpa’s money, but didn’t quite dare. Maybe when Bart and Dad showed up, and they were ready to leave, she would be brave enough to confront her aunts about it, but not now. Not while she still had to live here, under their supervision.

  She wondered if her father had any idea what they thought, and could not believe that he did. Oh, Daddy, please come back! Please be safe, she begged silently. Please let us be a normal family again.

  She could hardly believe that it would ever happen, yet she refused to give up hope. Soon, soon there will be another phone call from my brother, and it will be all right. She had to believe that, or her heart would truly break.

  Chapter Ten

  Buddy’s second night in the old house wasn’t nearly as disrupted as the first one. She kept hearing Grandpa’s talking clock, but somehow it didn’t bother her as much as it had the previous night. It helped to know that it was his way of orienting himself in a world where so much was beyond his ability to see or understand or remember.

  And he did remember her mother with fondness. He didn’t think EllaBelle had stolen his money.

  There were no explosions, no late-night overheard conversations, nothing further to upset her.

  The only thing making her uneasy on Sunday morning, except for worrying about Dad and Bart, was the idea of going to church in a town where everyone had known her entire family all their lives. Probably some of them thought her mother had stolen money from Grandpa, though Max said he didn’t think Addie and Cassie had talked about it. Still, Buddy had lived in a number of small towns like this, and it always seemed that if you so much as spit on the sidewalk, the word got back to your folks before you had time to get home.

  The phone didn’t ring. No report from her brother. Grandpa had to be bullied into taking a shower, which he insisted he didn’t need, and there was a brief interlude during which the old man thought Blackie was back.

  “No, Grandpa,” Max said firmly. “This isn’t Blackie. Blackie got hit by a car a long time ago. This is Scamp. See, he’s a different color. And he’s my cat.”

  Gus, it became apparent, did not join the family at church. They didn’t take the car; they walked. It was only three blocks. And just as Buddy had feared, it seemed that the entire town was there.

  Cassie had allowed plenty of time to get there and greet all their neighbors before the service began.

  The ladies all approached, smiling, or, in a few cases, not smiling. “EllaBelle’s girl,” they said. “Looks just like her.” “How do you like it here in Haysville, dear?” Or, “Buddy? They call you Buddy?”

  Buddy had begun to wonder how she could manage to get rid of that nickname. She didn’t like the way people reacted to it, when their eyebrows and their voices went up upon hearing it.

  It was a relief when the organ began to play, and they went inside the old white frame church with the steeple atop it, and found places in one of the long pews. Max, along under pressure, escaped to sit with some friends up in the balcony. Buddy found herself sandwiched between Addie and Grandpa, with Cassie beyond him.

  “If he sings too loud,” Addie whispered, “stick your elbow in his ribs.”

  He did sing very loudly, but he sang on-key, and he knew the words to all the hymns without having to be able to read them in the book. Buddy didn’t poke him. She rather enjoyed it when he belted out, “‘When the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.’”

  On the way out after the sermon, the pastor shook Grandpa’s hand and said with a smile, “You were in fine voice this morning, Harry.”

  “Cassie says the Lord’s not deaf, so I don’t need to shout. But I want to be sure He hears me.”

  The pastor laughed and reached for Buddy’s hand. “Good to have you with us, young lady. I hope you’re enjoying your visit.”

  She couldn’t quite bring herself to murmur just how much she was enjoying it, but she thanked him and walked gratefully out into the sunshine.

  The school principal, Herbert Faulkner, spoke to her, too. “Be looking forward to seeing you tomorrow morning, Amy Kate,” he said.

  She couldn’t come up with an appropriate response to that, either. She was praying that before then Bart would call and say he and Dad were on their way here, and there’d be no need for her to start school in Haysville.

  They walked home slowly, Cassie and Addie ahead, Buddy and Grandpa behind. Max had gone on ahead. The old man leaned on his cane, but he was otherwise quite sprightly. “Good sermon,” he said. “I always enjoy a good sermon.”

  “Especially when it’s not aimed at you,” Addie said.

  “It was aimed at Gus, I think. But he wasn’t there, was he? I’ll have to tell him about it,” Grandpa offered.

  Startled, Buddy wondered if he’d remember until they got home, and what Gus would think of being listed among the sinners. It probably wouldn’t improve Gus’s disposition, though it rather tickled her that Grandpa was sharp enough to grasp the point of the sermon.

  “Saw Jack Cline,” Grandpa went on. “Told him I thought he was dead. But he said, No, he was quite alive. Just been on a trip to Florida. Tampa, I believe.”

  Max met them at the door when they got home. “There was a phone call for Buddy, I think. The Caller ID didn’t give his name, or hers, but it came from a pay phone in Willits, California. I figured your brother was maybe there, looking for your dad.”

  Anguish rushed through Buddy’s chest. Bart had called, and she’d missed him! Oh, why hadn’t she insisted on staying at home, just in case? Now she didn’t know if he had news or not, if it was good or bad—

  “He’ll call back,” Addie said, seeing her face.

  But it was Addie who thought her father was unreliable, that he couldn’t be trusted to keep his promise to come back for his children.

  It was all Buddy could do to keep from crying in disappointment.

  “I can smell dinner cooking,” Cassie said. “I’d better check the oven before I go up and change my clothes.”

  “Do I have to change my clothes?” Grandpa wanted to know as he and Addie followed Cassie toward the back of the house. “I remember my mother always made me change my clothes the minute I got home from school so I wouldn’t get my good ones dirty.”

  “Most people don’t bother with that anymore,” Addie was telling him as they walked out of sight. “They just wash load after load in their automatic washers.”

  “I used to sell automatic washing machines. Didn’t I?”

  Buddy wasn’t listening. She stared at the telephone, willing it to ring again with Bart calling back, but it didn’t.

  “Uh . . . ,” Max said, clearing his throat.

  Buddy looked at him.

  “Uh, Pa’s in kind of a bad mood today. Worse than usual,” he said. “He, uh, he said it was a good thing I did the chores he told me to do yesterday. You know, cutting the grass. And taking the newspapers to be recycled. And I”—he cleared his throat again, and blushed—“I didn’t tell him you did it. I let him think—”

  “That’s okay.” Buddy shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He hesitated, then said, “Thanks. I guess I’m a coward, but when he’s off his feed, he’s . . . hard to deal with. When we lived with my mom, she wouldn’t let him pick on me, but that meant they were always fighting. Cassie never fights with him, but she doesn’t always take my side in an argument, either, except to make sure I get the benefit of the money my mom sends. Did your folks fight?”

  “Not very often. Hardly ever. Cassie seems nice, though. It seems funny that she’s your stepmother. You like her, don’t you?”

  “Cassie?” He made a face that she couldn’t quite interpret. “Yeah, I guess. It’s better living with her than with only Pa. And she cooks good. But she’s what my mom calls an enabler.”

  Buddy allowed herself to be d
istracted from her disappointment about missing Bart’s call. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means she doesn’t do anything wrong herself—like drink too much and fall down, or be mean to other people—but she makes it possible for Pa to keep on doing those things. My mom couldn’t make him stop, so she left, see? She wouldn’t let him keep his beer in the house. She tried to insist that he take the responsibility for paying the rent and buying the groceries. She didn’t try to find other ways to take care of those things so Pa could just coast, the way he does here. She didn’t make excuses for him. She didn’t make it easier for him to skip the responsibility part of marriage, the way Cassie does.”

  “An enabler,” Buddy repeated. “Someone who . . . who enables someone else to do something he shouldn’t be allowed to do.”

  “Right. Mom said she felt guilty leaving me behind, but without money or a job or a place to stay, she couldn’t take me along. She couldn’t even guarantee that we’d both have enough to eat. But she promised that someday she’d get me back, when she could take care of me.” Max bit his lip. “Do you believe in someday?”

  Buddy didn’t have to think about that for very long. “Yes. Someday she’ll come back for you, and someday—soon—my dad will come back for my brother and me.”

  This wasn’t the time to admit how scared she was that something terrible had happened to her father, that he might not be able to return.

  “I’m twelve,” Max said. “When I’m eighteen, and out of school, I’ll get a job and take care of her, if I need to.”

  Six years, Buddy thought. That was a long time.

  Yet not as long as it would be for her if Bart didn’t find Dad, if the two of them didn’t come back together.

  Beside them, the phone rang.

  Max grabbed it. “Yeah? I mean, hello? Yes, she’s right here.”

  “Bart?” Buddy asked eagerly, taking the phone from Max.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Listen, I found somebody who saw Dad. Four days ago. She’s a waitress in a little restaurant on Highway 101. She even remembered what he had to eat. Two hamburgers with everything, fries, and an order of onion rings. And she filled his Thermos with coffee. She didn’t see Rich, but she said Dad told her his partner was in the sleeper, and he took him a ham sandwich and a piece of cherry pie. Remember how Rich always liked cherry pie?”

  “Yes. So she was sure it really was Dad? Does she know what happened to him?” Buddy’s chest was tight again, barely allowing her to breathe. “Was he all right then?”

  “He was fine. She said he was cheerful, mentioned that he had a new job and that he had two kids at home, and that they’d probably have to move as soon as he got a couple of paychecks so that he could afford it.”

  “Then where is he?” Buddy begged. “How could he just disappear with an eighteen-wheeler?”

  “I don’t know yet. She said he kept trying to use the phone, but some guy was hogging it and he finally gave up and said he’d try farther down the line. But I know he got this far, heading south. I thought you’d want to know that I had some definite word, and a time when he was here. So I’m taking it slow, driving in the direction he was going. I’m stopping everywhere I think he could have stopped. For fuel, for food. I’ve got his picture with me, that one of him we took last summer at the beach, and this waitress recognized it right away. Maybe somebody else will, too.” Bart hesitated. “You doing okay, Buddy?”

  She thought of the way Addie had spoken about their father, and what it was like being in the middle of a dysfunctional family, and having to go to school in Haysville tomorrow with a bunch of strangers, and of Grandpa blowing up the microwave and the remote control, and knew this wasn’t the time to tell Bart about any of that. “I’m okay,” she said. “Call me again the minute you learn anything else, will you? Promise?”

  “Promise,” Bart assured her. “I miss you, Buddy.”

  “I miss you, too,” she said, feeling the sting of tears. “Good luck, Bart. Keeping looking until you find him.”

  “I will,” he said, and then he was gone.

  “He didn’t find your dad yet,” Max said as she slowly replaced the receiver.

  “No, but he found a waitress who remembered seeing him. He’s getting closer.”

  “He’ll probably find him tomorrow, maybe, then.”

  She didn’t know if that was true or not, but she was grateful to Max for helping her hang on to the hope.

  Max inhaled deeply. “Smells like the chicken must be close to done. Cassie makes great dressing to stuff a chicken. At least Pa married somebody who keeps us fed, even if he doesn’t pay for much of it.”

  They heard Grandpa’s voice raised querulously in the kitchen. “Somebody must have taken them. I know I left them on my dresser, where I always kept them.”

  As they walked into the room, Cassie was dishing up mashed potatoes. There were two golden brown roasting hens resting on twin platters on the counter. “Max, would you call Gus, please? It’s all ready to eat right now.”

  “Why did somebody take my pills?” Grandpa demanded, paying no attention to what Cassie was saying. “My hip is hurting, and I need the pills.”

  “I’ll get you the pills, Grandpa,” Addie assured him. “I put them away so you wouldn’t take too many of them like you did the last time your arthritis kicked up.”

  “It always hurts when it’s going to rain. I want the pills where I can take them when I need them.”

  “I have to keep them, because when they’re on your dresser, you take too many of them all at once. That’s not safe. Just tell me when you need them,” Addie said, and disappeared into the hallway to the ground-floor bathroom. She returned with a small bottle and dumped several pills into his outstretched hand.

  Grandpa was not mollified. He was still angry that Addie had taken them. “I’ve been taking my own pills all my life—over ninety years, isn’t it?—and I don’t need somebody else to tell me when I need them.”

  “You need someone to keep you from overdosing,” Addie said calmly. “The last time you had a bad spell, you took thirty capsules in one day. That could make you very sick, or even kill you.”

  “You’re treating me as if I were a child,” Grandpa said. “This is still my house, and I’m old enough to know when I need a pain pill.”

  “It’s just that you forget how many you’ve taken, honey,” Cassie soothed. “Take those, and you’ll feel better soon. Max, haven’t you gone after your father yet? The food’s going to get cold. Sit down, Grandpa. Buddy, would you dish up those green beans in that blue bowl, please?”

  Five minutes after they’d said grace and commenced to eat, Grandpa suddenly blurted into the middle of a conversation about who they’d talked to at church, “You should have been at services, Gus. The pastor gave an excellent sermon about the evils of drink.”

  Gus glared at him. “Don’t bother telling me about it. I’ve already heard it. Pass the butter, Max.”

  “I’ll have some, too,” Cassie requested.

  That was enough to get them off the subject for a few minutes, and then Grandpa said, “My hip aches. I need a pain pill. Those red and yellow ones.”

  “You just took two of them ten minutes ago,” Addie said. “Wait a little longer, and they’ll start to work.”

  Buddy, savoring roasted chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and biscuits, thought of how much more fun it was to eat with Dad and Bart, even if they weren’t eating such a delicious meal. Everybody would be laughing, not squabbling. But she felt sorry for Grandpa. It must be awful not to remember things any longer than he did. She could see how he’d make a mistake and take too many pills, when he couldn’t remember that he’d already taken some, and she understood why Addie had taken them away and hidden them. But she longed for a more normal household, with no grumpy Gus eating in his undershirt, no Max sunk in silence after his father had chewed him out for not remembering to bring in the Sunday paper before he went off to church.

  After dinner, which w
as capped off by apple crisp and ice cream, the adults all decided they were in need of naps. It was hard to understand how Gus could need one, since he hadn’t even gotten out of bed until the others got home, but as long as he went away, Buddy was happy to have him go back to sleep.

  She didn’t feel any need of a nap. She decided to finish the book about the family whose lives had been disrupted by a bear, and retired to the little sewing room.

  Later she was aware of the reawakening of the household; there were sounds, voices, the slamming of a door. Then Max stood in her own doorway. “Have you seen Grandpa?” he asked.

  Buddy set her book aside. “Not since we ate dinner.”

  “He seems to have disappeared,” Max said. “Nobody can find him. I think they want us all to look for him.”

  Chapter Eleven

  They began to look for Grandpa around four in the afternoon.

  They checked out the entire house first, of course, including the attic. Because her legs were younger, Buddy got to climb up there. The stairs were so narrow and so steep, she didn’t wonder they hadn’t tried to haul the stuff from the sewing room and Addie’s back bedroom office up there. It was so packed with junk, there wasn’t room for much more, anyway. The result, she decided, of the family’s having lived in one place for so long. There was no sign of Grandpa, and the search moved outside.

  At first nobody panicked. Since the old man saw so poorly, nobody thought he would have wandered far from the house. But after an hour, when there was still no clue as to his whereabouts, they broadened the base of their operations.

  “Max, you go toward town and ask, house to house, if anyone has seen him,” Addie directed, and her voice had become sharp with anxiety. “I’ll take the other end of the street. Cassie can take the car and head over toward the school, and then the church. Gus—”

  Gus grunted a denial. “Don’t assign anything to me. I’m not feeling well enough to go out and walk up and down for blocks. I’ll stay here in case there’s any news on the phone.”