The Old House

by Willo Davis Roberts

  “Something’s very wrong,” Buddy said, near tears. “Didn’t you ever ask her about it? You couldn’t have simply let her go off with a bag holding thousands of dollars and not asked about it when you realized it was missing!”

  Addie had pulled the contents out of the envelope and was staring at the manuscript in her hand, her jaw going slack. Buddy didn’t think her aunt had even heard what she’d said, and after a few seconds, Addie swallowed hard. “I don’t believe this.”

  “What?” It was Max, still carrying the kitten, rubbing him against his cheek, who had come to the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

  Addie swallowed again and sank down on the edge of her bed. “Not . . . wrong. Read this.” She reached out with the letter to hand it to him, letting the pages of the manuscript scatter across her quilted covering.

  Max let the kitten slide to the bed, too, frowning over what he was reading. “We already knew this, didn’t we? They want to publish your book, only they want some revisions. What’s upsetting about it? I mean, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “No,” Addie said, pressing a hand to her chest as if to quiet the tumult she was experiencing. “It’s not the same book. This is the one that was returned several days ago. I just took it for granted that they’d rejected it, and I didn’t open it, waiting until I figured out where to send it next. And it’s a different publisher.”

  The kitten wandered across the bed, winding up in Addie’s lap, where she absently rubbed his ears. Max had forgotten his new pet.

  “You mean you’ve sold two books, in just a couple of days? To two different publishers?”

  “I’ve been trying for years,” Addie said, sounding as if she was going to cry. “I have six more books completely written, in that drawer. Two of them I’ve never even sent out except for the first time. Neither of these publishers has seen any of the others.”

  Max’s eyes widened. “You mean they might be interested in those, too? Holy cow, Aunt Addie. You could wind up a millionaire!”

  Addie gave a little coughing laugh. “Well, probably not. But even these two sales will take care of a lot of problems. And if the others are worth something, too . . .”

  She looked straight at Buddy, but Buddy knew her aunt wasn’t really seeing her. And her own frustrations rose like bile in her throat, because she’d finally asked some pointed questions, and Addie had been too engrossed in her own thoughts even to realize what Buddy had said.

  Should she repeat her words? Would it matter if she did? Addie was so convinced that Buddy’s mother was a villain—a thief—that she wouldn’t even consider the possibility that she’d made a horrible misjudgment.

  Max was grinning as he handed the letter back to Addie. “My old man will sure have to eat his words now, won’t he? If you get rich and famous, will you still stay here in Hayseed? Or go to the big city somewhere?”

  Addie made a snorting sound. “I never lived in a city in my life, or ever wanted to. I don’t know a soul in a city, not even Kalispell or Missoula. And the sale of two books, at this kind of price, wouldn’t support me very long in New York or San Francisco, or even in Los Angeles, with Gordon. But in Haysville I should be able to do quite a bit with it.”

  “The way Grandpa’s money from the sale of the store should have taken care of him, if it hadn’t disappeared,” Buddy blurted out. She didn’t know where the courage to speak had come from.

  This time Addie saw her. “Yes, it would have helped a lot,” she agreed. But there was no sign she was admitting that something else must have happened to the money other than its being stolen by her younger sister.

  “Did you ask Mama about it?” Buddy persisted, gaining the nerve to pursue it further.

  Addie was now looking straight into her face. “You don’t give up, do you, Buddy? She’d been home for a visit, and she’d talked about how difficult things were at home, financially. Dan had been off work for several months and only just gone back on the job. She was worried about paying the bills, about affording braces the orthodontist said Bart needed. Thousands of dollars’ worth of braces. And Cassie had a fit at the idea of demanding the money back, saying we’d make out all right with Grandpa without it. No, I never asked her. I never had a chance. By the time I’d decided that regardless of what Cassie thought, I would confront EllaBelle, she went and got herself killed in that car crash, and it was too late.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Buddy was reeling, literally. She backed into Addie’s desk chair and sank onto it, not sure her legs would hold her up. “But Mama never brought home any money. They paid for Bart’s braces in monthly payments, I remember.”

  “All I know is that’s what she said she needed cash for. Braces. If she didn’t use it for that, I don’t know what she did with it. But the money was put into that bag, and she took it with her when she left after that last visit. I thought maybe she told Dan she’d borrowed it from us. But he never said anything about owing us any money after she died. Cassie insisted we forget about it. So we did.”

  Except you didn’t, Buddy thought numbly. You still resent Mama because you think she’s a thief. And to begin with you didn’t even like me because I was EllaBelle’s daughter.

  “Addie!” Cassie’s voice floated up the stairway. “Mrs. Ballinger’s here! She wants to talk to you about that job at the market. Are you still interested?”

  “Coming,” Addie called, and Buddy and Max stood there looking at each other as their aunt left the room and clattered down the stairs.

  Buddy heard the tears in her own voice. “She won’t listen. She won’t believe me, that Mama couldn’t have done what she said. I know it isn’t true.”

  “I guess there’s no way to prove anything now,” Max said lamely, rescuing his pet as the kitten began batting the pages of Addie’s manuscript around. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m going to tell Dad when he gets here,” Buddy said. “Maybe he’ll have an explanation. But I’m sure he doesn’t know where the money went. If we’d had it, if we’d spent it, we’d have something to show for it. It was a lot, and my parents didn’t buy anything with it. We’ve still got our old car. We were living in a rented house, and Dad had to keep fixing things that broke down. He never bought anything new that we didn’t absolutely have to have.”

  Max shifted his weight uncomfortably. Then his expression changed, as if he’d shifted gears to his own concerns. “If I tell you something, will you keep it a secret until I’m ready to share it? I don’t want my old man to hear about it until I know exactly what’s going to happen.”

  Reluctantly, Buddy let the matter of the missing money and the suspicion of her mother seep out of her consciousness. “I won’t give away any secrets.”

  “The letter from my mom.” Max started to grin as if he couldn’t help it. “She’s met this man she really likes, and they’re going to get married. And she says probably I can come and visit them in Texas when school’s out.”

  It took a few seconds for Buddy to work out the importance of that. “Does that mean you might be able to go live with her there?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say that, but if I like this guy and he likes me, who knows?”

  She could see that this was very exciting, and she tried to forget her own anxiety and be glad for him. “That’s great, Max. Will your dad let you go? Doesn’t he have custody of you?”

  “Yeah. But only by default. I mean, he didn’t want me, especially. It was just that when Mom left, she didn’t have a job or any money to take care of me. Now when she marries Chuck—that’s his name—she won’t have to work unless she wants to. Chuck wants to meet me. I’ll have to tell her about Scamp. I hope it’ll be okay if he goes with me. You think Grandpa will forget about him if I take him?”

  “He seems to forget about everything else,” Buddy conceded sadly. Obviously he had no idea what had happened to his money, or even that it was missing.

  Max swept a glance over the scattered papers on the bed. “Imagine
, Addie’s going to be a published author! Who knows, it may make her so happy, her whole personality will change.”

  “Maybe,” Buddy said. But it wouldn’t make Addie realize how mistaken she was about EllaBelle.

  Much later, after they’d had a celebratory supper of Addie’s favorite pork chops, baked with sage, onion, and corn bread dressing, Buddy went to bed in her little improvised bedroom. She said her prayers, thanking God for Addie’s good luck, and Max’s prospect of rejoining his mother, and for the rescue of her father. And in the darkness the thought came to her.

  The only way Addie would ever forgive Mama for something she hadn’t done was to find out the truth.

  Could she do that? She wasn’t a detective, and the bag of cash had vanished such a long time ago. Yet if her mother wasn’t responsible for its disappearance, where had it gone? Was it possible that it was still retrievable, somewhere, maybe, still in this house?

  Her heartbeat quickened, and she added a final request to her prayer. God, please help me find it! Please help me clear Mama’s name.

  Somehow, with all the other rather miraculous things that had happened today, Buddy felt her spirits rise with the hope that perhaps it was a prayer that might be answered.

  Tuesday morning was a letdown. After all the excitement of yesterday, Buddy and Max still had to go to school. As Buddy was leaving, she heard Addie saying to Cassie, “If anyone else calls with a job offer, tell them I’m going to be busy. I have two books to revise, so I won’t have time to do anything else. But, listen, Cassie. Even with this money I’ll have coming—and it may be weeks or even months before I actually get it—we still have some decisions to make regarding Grandpa. We have to do something different. Getting some extra money isn’t going to make him any easier or safer to live with.”

  Max had gone on ahead with some of his friends. She knew he was feeling upbeat. After all, he had the prospect of rejoining his mother early next summer. Knowing that would make the rest of the school year go faster.

  And Addie would no doubt revise her manuscripts to the satisfaction of the publishing houses who were offering to pay for them, and go on to sell more stories that would relieve the financial pressures. And she’d keep on believing that EllaBelle had stolen Grandpa’s money.

  Aunt Cassie would keep on cooking and cleaning and taking care of everybody, covering up for Gus and Grandpa as best she could, even to the extent of enabling each of them to do things they’d be better off not doing.

  And Grandpa—what would become of him? Could they keep him here at home, even if he was likely to start fires or ruin appliances? Or would they have to put him into a rest home where nothing would be familiar, where he would grieve for his own room, his own belongings?

  If only Grandpa could remember, Buddy thought, slowing as she approached the school, where everyone else seemed to be walking in pairs or groups, laughing and talking. It was so strange. Sometimes he could remember minute details about the old days, and then at other times he didn’t even know whether or not he’d eaten lunch.

  School was both confusing and boring. The kids were studying different things than she’d been studying back home, except for math, and while she could keep up there, she felt awkward and reluctant to respond to Mrs. Hope’s questions. Worst of all, she had to write an essay to be turned in the following Monday, on the history of Kalispell and early Montana.

  Each assignment was different, handed out to individuals written on strips of paper. Buddy stared at hers in dismay. She didn’t know anything about the history of Montana. They hadn’t studied that in Washington schools.

  Across the aisle from her, the girl named Elinor was scowling over her slip, too. “Flathead County in the early days of Montana. Who cares?”

  Buddy found her voice. “How are we supposed to find out what to write?”

  “Take out books from the library, I guess.” Elinor sighed. “Encyclopedias, or history books. Ugh!”

  “History can be interesting,” Buddy admitted. “If you can find the right books. Well, Aunt Addie’s a librarian. Maybe she can help me.”

  But by the time she got home and asked, Addie said, “I think the whole school’s doing Montana history, and every other kid in town beat you to all the best books we’ve got in our little library. Most of them got the assignment last week. What about the books at school?”

  “They beat me to those, too,” Buddy said. “So what am I supposed to do now? Maybe I won’t have to go to school here very long, so it won’t make any difference what kind of mark I get on this stupid essay.”

  “That’s a poor attitude,” Addie informed her. “Do the best you can, no matter how short a time you’ll be here.”

  “You might try looking through Grandpa’s books,” Cassie suggested. “He was a history buff from years ago. The trouble is, a lot of his books are packed in boxes, stacked in his room. He’ll probably let you look through them if you want to. I’m sure some of them were on Montana history.”

  Grandpa, it proved, was quite amenable. He didn’t, however, have any recollection of what books he might have on the subject.

  “I’ll help you look,” Max offered unexpectedly. “I have to do some stuff, too. Maybe we’ll both find something worthwhile.”

  So that evening they began to haul cartons of books out onto the dining room table and search through them.

  It was dirty, dusty work. Max found several fiction books he was interested in, and set them aside. But there was nothing on Montana history.

  Addie, passing through the room, commented, “They’re probably all together in one or two boxes. He used to have them pretty well organized, and we took them off the shelves just the way he had them arranged there. Keep looking.”

  At bedtime, they still hadn’t found the Montana books. They had repacked each box they carried out of Grandpa’s room and then replaced it in one corner as they took out another. Buddy stared around the cluttered room, where Scamp had followed them and was purring in Grandpa’s platform rocker.

  “I don’t see how he finds anything in here, there’s so much junk.”

  “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure,” Max said cheerfully, opening the top flap on another carton. “Hey, this one looks promising. It’s history books, anyway.”

  He carried the box away while Buddy stood in the middle of the room. Could the opposite be true, also? Could one man’s treasure be another man’s junk? She wasn’t sure that when he’d sold the store Grandpa had been in a sufficiently sound mind even to know that the cash was a treasure.

  “Did you find what you needed?” Grandpa asked from the doorway behind her.

  Buddy’s gaze swept over a cigar box, which she’d already discovered held a collection of marbles—from when he was a boy?—and a small carton labeled LOOSE SNAPSHOTS and a small, elegantly enameled container covered with dust. Absently, she reached out and cleaned off the top of it. “No, not yet. We’re still looking. This is really pretty. It rattles.”

  “Belonged to my wife,” Grandpa said unexpectedly. “One of the girls gave it to her for her birthday, many years ago. She kept trinkets in it, I think. I suppose I should give it to someone. I’ll never use it. You want it, Sister?”

  Startled, Buddy swung toward him. “Oh, I couldn’t take it, Grandpa!”

  “Why not? Old man like me, I won’t have any use for it. It’s time I was getting rid of some of this stuff, I suppose. Keep the girls from having to sort it all out after I’m gone.”

  “Gone?” Buddy echoed, uncomfortable with the idea of the old man’s mortality.

  “How old am I now? Ninety-something? Can’t figure on lasting much longer.”

  She didn’t know how to respond to that. She stood twisting the enameled box in her hands, noting the flowers and tiny animals inhabiting a beautiful garden on its cover. “Some people live much longer than ninety-two years,” she said finally.

  “Not me,” Grandpa said, perfectly cheerful about it. “One of these days I’ll just
go to sleep and not wake up, same way Mama did.” He chuckled. “Always got her dander up when I called her Mama. Said she wasn’t my mama, and I could call her by her name or sweetheart, but she wasn’t going to answer to mama when I said it. Here, open that thing up and see what’s in it.”

  He took it from her unresisting hands and lifted the lid. “Junk,” he proclaimed. “Don’t know why women have to save all this kind of stuff.” He handed it back to her. “Throw all that out and put your own junk in it, girl.”

  Buddy picked out a pair of earrings that didn’t look like junk to her. “They’re for pierced ears. Dad would never let me pierce mine. He said not until I was fifteen. And here’s a . . . I think it’s a hat pin.”

  “Sister wears hats to church sometimes,” Grandpa said. “You think your little brother would like a collection of butterflies? They’re under glass, so they’re not dusty.”

  “Hey, Buddy,” Max called, “aren’t you going to come help go through these? I think there’s things we can use here.”

  “Coming,” Buddy called, then closed the lid on the box to examine its contents later. “Do you really want to sort out your things, Grandpa? And get rid of some of them? Would you like me to help you?” What better way, Buddy thought, to look for the money that might still be resting in all this confusion? If Mama hadn’t taken it, as she was sure was the case, where else would it have gone except into a crevice in this mountain of objects?

  “Would you?” Grandpa sounded pleased. “Not much in here I really want to keep. Not since I can’t see it any longer.”

  On impulse, Buddy paused on her way out of the room. “Grandpa, do you remember a flowered bag, probably about so big,” she gestured with her hands, “that you put all the money in when you sold the store?”

  For a moment the old man’s face twisted in puzzlement, and then it cleared. “Oh. Sort of purplish, was it? No, Sister says lavender, not purple. Had pinkish flowers on it.”