The old woman’s features twitched with irritation. “That’s not what he told me! He said he wanted a lemon cookie.”
And with no further words, Mrs. Brennan and Teddy about-faced and headed off, presumably in search of a snack.
“Wow. I’m impressed. You’re really good at that.”
Allison shrugged. Dealing with Mrs. Brennan had apparently drained her of her earlier hostility. “Comes from years working in an ER. You just have to know what’s important to people.”
He cleared his throat to fill the sudden and awkward silence that had sprung up between them, punctuated only by the squeak of rubber-soled shoes and shuffles of residents along the facility’s halls. “So your grandmother...she’s been here how long?”
Allison closed her eyes. Was that guilt on her face? Did she blame herself? “Too long,” she answered. “She was supposed to be here for three weeks after her surgery...and then she got an infection that delayed her therapy. If I’d only come home... But no. I let her talk me into checking her into a rehab facility, instead of taking a leave of absence and coming here to take care of her myself.”
“You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”
Kyle’s words, delivered with a calm purposefulness he hadn’t even known he’d felt, seemed to reassure her. She gave a decided nod of her head. “Yes. Yes, I am. And I intend to get her home as quickly as possible.”
Allison strode off down one of the halls, the printed skirt she was wearing billowing in her wake. Kyle hurried to catch up with her. The determined tilt of her chin told him not to bother talking for now.
Besides, he needed to plan his words with Allison’s grandmother. His palms broke out in a sweat at the thought of Allison listening intently to the conversation, and he realized he hadn’t thought out a script.
And based on his other disastrous encounters with the woman, Lillian Shepherd Bell Thomas was not someone with whom you just sashayed in and tried to wing it.
Allison came to a stop in front of a door. Her eyes glittered with almost malicious amusement and challenge. “Any last words?” she quipped.
As unobtrusively as he could, Kyle swiped his palms against his pants. “You’re enjoying the prospect of this, aren’t you?”
Her smile widened. “Immensely. But you asked for it. So I see it as self-inflicted agony.”
From inside the door came a thin, high voice that still exuded a tone of peremptory command.
“Are you two going to stand out there yammering all day or come in like well-mannered, decent folk?”
Kyle took in a deep breath and swept his hand toward the door. “After you.”
Allison’s eyes glittered some more. They really were the color of a raging ocean. “Right. Hope you’re ready for her.”
And she pushed the door open and walked on ahead of him, leaving him standing in the doorway with a decided compulsion to run in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER NINE
THE ROOM WAS brightly lit from a huge window with drapes drawn wide. For a moment, the transition from the artificial light in the hall to the afternoon sunlight almost blinded Kyle. He blinked. Then he spotted Allison bending low over a wing chair in the corner.
She straightened to reveal a tiny old lady with a back so ramrod erect she could have been a statue. Kyle recognized the woman at once and was surprised to see that, despite surgery and a stay in the rehab facility, Lillian Shepherd Bell Thomas was still in fighting form.
“Gran, this is Dr. Kyle Mitchell—”
“Not another doctor, Allison! I’ve had my fill of ’em!” the woman snapped. “Unless he’s signing my discharge orders, he can go.” She made a shooing gesture toward the door.
“Er, I’m not that kind of doctor, ma’am,” Kyle said. He crossed the room and stretched out a hand. “I’m a professor. Of history.”
She took his hand, but didn’t shake it. No, she used the gesture as a way to keep him close and peer up at him. “You! You’re that man from the historic preservation committee, the busybodies who gad about, telling people how they have to paint their houses.”
“I am on the historic preservation committee, yes, ma’am.” He glanced over at Allison, to find her lips twitching with barely concealed amusement.
The old woman harrumphed. “Well, best I recollect, you’re a little long-winded. Why don’t you pull up a chair so I won’t get a crick in my neck?”
It wasn’t a request. It was an order. Kyle reached for the closest chair he could find, remembered his manners and offered it to Allison.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lillian smile. It was a tiny hint of a smile, but a definite mark in the plus column.
A minute later he was perched on the only other piece of furniture for seating in the room—a tiny, undersized stool from the little vanity table. On it, he felt clumsy and oaflike, but the one remaining spot to sit was on her bed, and somehow that didn’t seem proper.
“So you’ve been annoying my granddaughter,” she announced.
“Uh, no, Mrs. Thomas—”
“Call me Gran. All of Allison’s friends do—well, did, before she moved out. Not, of course, that you and Allison are friends. Or are you?”
Gran’s eyes, clear and blue in a crazy-quilt of wrinkles and crow’s feet, assessed him. He pulled his gaze from hers to Allison’s, who regarded him with a fair amount of trepidation. It was as if she was beginning to rethink the wisdom of bringing him to beard the lioness in her den.
“So? Are you or aren’t you friends?” Gran prompted.
“I don’t know,” he confessed finally.
“Honesty. I like that. Too many young men would have tried to bamboozle me with a ‘we don’t know each other very well’ bit of moonshine.”
Kyle was shocked by the breath of relief that he expelled at her approving smile. “Thank you,” he responded.
“And what brings you here to see me?”
“Well, first of all, an apology.”
She drew back to stare at him intently, gripping the head of her walking stick with long slender fingers. “My goodness. What have you done that you require absolution and forgiveness? And from me of all people?”
He cleared his throat. “Allison seems to think...” He stopped, feeling Allison’s annoyance with him roil off her in waves. “She believes that part of the reason you landed here is because the ordinances the city has passed made it overwhelming for you to tackle some needed renovations.”
“Did she now.” Gran’s dry chuckle and acerbic glance toward her granddaughter told him he wouldn’t be making any brownie points with Allison with his previous remark. “Let me put your mind at ease, then. I blame no one but myself for being here, young man. I knew that carpet was raveling, and I didn’t have it fixed. True, to have that white elephant of a house painted in ‘historically accurate colors’—” she laid a heavy, sarcastic emphasis on the words “—would require a small fortune that I don’t have. But the last I heard, you and your fellow busybodies weren’t inspecting the interiors of houses, isn’t that correct?”
“That’s true. Unless someone asks—”
“And no one in her right mind would.” Gran’s interruption dripped with finality. “Because?” Now she turned to Allison.
It was her turn to squirm. “Gran?”
Her grandmother tsked. “I would have supposed you’d have learned your lesson by now, Allison. Maybe it’s because I was a teacher for so long. No, the reason you don’t invite busybodies in where they’re not required is of the ‘if you give a mouse a cookie’ school of thought.”
“Oh! Right. You have no idea how right you are about that, Gran,” Allison muttered darkly.
Gran gave a crisp little nod of satisfaction and touched her hand to her hair, silver but impeccably coiffed. Her fingers slid down to finger her
necklace, an ivory double strand of pearls at her neck. Kyle was no expert when it came to jewelry, but he could tell heirlooms when he saw them, and knew she had been wearing those pearls for decades.
“And?” Gran prompted.
“And?” he repeated, thoroughly confused. Had she said something he had missed?
“You said, ‘first of all,’ when you sat down. Unless you are careless with your words—and for all your foibles, I don’t think that is the case—you had something else on your mind,” she stated.
“You’re...you’re very observant.”
“When you get to be my age, Dr. Mitchell, it’s pretty much all the fun one is allowed.” She settled back against the wing chair and crossed her legs primly at the ankles. “Besides, the last time we talked, you were much more long-winded and beat around a bush or two.”
The last time...that was when he’d approached her in her own front yard, an impulsive stop to follow up her visit to the historical society office for a variance on paint schemes. It had not gone well.
“Yes. Fine, I’ll try to be more concise, then. As I understand it, you and Allison are concerned with the amount of money that it will take to repair Belle Paix—”
Gran’s face lit up with a broad smile. “Do you know, so few people call the house by its proper name these days? They haven’t for years. I expect they don’t even know it has a name. Belle Paix. Ambrose called it that, you know, before he even dug the foundation. He stood on that property and looked around and thought that such a vantage point was worthy of the name Beautiful Peace. He was fool enough to think that a fancy French title would give his nouveaux riche money a touch of class.”
“I take it that it didn’t?” Kyle ignored Allison’s restless stirring in her far more comfy chair. If the old lady wanted to talk, he could bear this uncomfortable perch.
“I should say not! His first mistake was rebuilding on a lot in the moneyed section of town, where a favorite pillar of the community had had the misfortune to lose a house to a fire. It wasn’t Ambrose’s last mistake, but he was too much of a Yankee to understand Southern ways. My great-grandmother Davinia never could set him straight on that account,” Gran said.
“He built a fine house, though.”
“Nothing much wrong with Belle Paix even after a century and a quarter,” Gran agreed. “So you tell me—why can’t I go home yet? I want to sleep in my own bed and in my own bedroom.”
Beside him, Allison groaned. She put a hand to her forehead. “Gran...”
“There’s nothing wrong with a woman wanting to die in her own bed, Allison! You wait until you’re eighty-nine and see how you feel. Of course, if you don’t get busy getting married and starting a family, you might not have a granddaughter to come and visit you.” Gran reached over and patted Allison’s knee.
“I think...” Kyle decided he might as well pay his dues to Allison. “Mrs. Thom—” When he saw Gran frown, he corrected himself. “Gran. There’s a slight delay in getting you back home. When we started painting your bedroom, some of the plaster began crumbling.”
“Oh, never mind that.” Gran waved airily. “Just stick it back in the hole and put a dab of automotive Bondo over it. It does that all the time. If you were a hundred and twenty-six years old, you’d feel entitled to fall apart a little yourself.”
“No, Gran. He’s right...it’s, uh, more serious than a patch job. I think...” Allison sucked in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I think it will need all of the plaster taken down and maybe drywall put up.”
Kyle whipped his head around in shock. “Oh, no! You can’t take all the plaster down—you’d lose out on some of the tax credits you might get if you apply for some funds available to home owners of historic properties,” he told her. “What Jerry meant was that you’ll have to take out all the damaged sections—”
Allison’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “But that’s crazy! It would be so much simpler to rip everything out and put in new drywall. I thought it through last night, and that’s the easiest—”
“No, no. See, you have to leave as much of the structure intact as possible if you’re going to be eligible for—”
Suddenly a loud whistle pierced the air. Both Kyle and Allison jerked around to stare at the unlikely source of such a brash noise: Gran.
“Not exactly ladylike, but it was the only way I could ever get the attention of the rowdiest children on the playground back in my day,” Gran commented. “Now. Enough squabbling. What is this problem? You, Dr. Mitchell. Use those verbal skills you so obviously possess, and keep it brief, young man.”
So Kyle told her about the extent of the damage and Jerry’s recommendation.
He could have sworn she shrank a little. No, more than a little. She sagged against the chair, her age momentarily revealing itself. Her eyes fluttered shut and her fingers gripped the polished stone of the walking stick so hard that he could see her gnarled knuckles turn white underneath their age spots.
“Well.” Gran opened her eyes once again. “We can dispense with the tax-credit nonsense.”
“But why?” Kyle asked. “It’s a good way to offset some of the expense you and Allison would incur—”
“Good for some people. But not for me. No.” When Kyle would have protested further, she raised one finger, and suddenly he felt as though he were six years old and he’d been very naughty. “You’re an intelligent man. So think this through.”
“Gran...for once, can we just dispense with the Socratic method and you just tell Kyle what the issue is?”
But Gran didn’t let her gaze leave Kyle’s face, even during Allison’s aggravated outburst. “And what would be the benefit for him? Remember, caterpillars that don’t struggle don’t make it. Embrace the—”
“Struggle.” Allison banged her palm on her forehead. “I know. I know. Embrace the struggle. It’s kind of hard not to embrace the struggle, Gran. Right now, that old house feels like an anaconda, squeezing the very life out of me.”
“I can’t say I haven’t felt that way on occasion myself, my dear. But after all, we have Davinia Shepherd’s blood running through our veins. Now, Dr. Mitchell, my granddaughter’s bought you some time to contemplate the error of your logic. Have you spotted it yet?”
If he’d been a butterfly at the pointy end of a collector’s pin, Kyle could have felt no more desperate and trapped. “I haven’t, no. It’s a great program, designed to help home owners—”
“Ah, but not all home owners. First of all, I’m on social security and my pittance of a teacher’s pension. How much tax do you think I pay?”
Kyle considered this. “Not much, I’d guess, but the credit rolls over for several years—”
“Years?” Gran’s laugh pealed out. She reached over and patted Kyle’s knee this time. “Young man, only an optimist would give me years. I have months if I’m lucky, and I’d better not hope for more than weeks or days. No, no!” She waved off Allison’s protest. “I’m not saying I’ll die tonight. But probabilities are probable for a reason. I’m guessing that I certainly won’t be around to earn back a sizable tax credit. No, sir, Dr. Mitchell. Your tax credit is designed for much younger home owners, not a tough old bird like me. No, it’s made for spring chickens.”
“Oh, Gran! You shouldn’t be so fatalistic,” Allison said. “Why, didn’t your own mother live to be over a hundred?”
“That she did. Of course, she never broke her hip, but then she made it through childbirth without anesthesia and antibiotics, so I guess we’re tit for tat. Still, back to the subject at hand. If the plaster has to go, the plaster has to go. But let’s not pussyfoot around trying to save plaster that will just crumble in the next few years anyway, certainly not for a tax credit I won’t be around to use.”
Kyle thought about the craftsmanship in that 126-year-old plaster, how it had been lovin
gly applied all those decades ago by a man who understood the material in a way few workers in this day and age did. The thought of it being gone and no longer a part of the house wrenched at him. But...
“You have a valid point,” he said. It felt as though the concession had been torn out of him.
“I always do, young man. I always do. Allison will tell you that. Now, I’m not as young as I used to be, so that entitles me to a nap before that awful business they call supper. You two go on now.”
Kyle could recognize a dismissal when he heard it. He scrambled to his feet and placed the vanity stool back in its rightful place. “Yes, ma’am. If it would be all right, I’ll stop by and talk to you some more. I’d like to hear stories of the old days. It would help me in planning my lectures on local history.”
Gran shrugged. “As you please. But Allison will warn you that I tend to blather on once you get me started.”
Allison stood, too. “We’ll get you home soon, Gran. I promise. I’m working hard on the house.”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, Allison. Don’t let this fellow hornswoggle you into thinking it does. Just give it a good cleaning and call it enough. Oh! And one other thing. Are you working this weekend? No, no...not this weekend. Friday week, that’s the one.”
“Not that I know of, but my schedule could change.”
“Good! The man with the tomatoes will be coming that Saturday.”
“Gran! I don’t have time for tomatoes—”
“Tomatoes wait on nothing and no one, Allison. You know I always put up tomatoes, without fail, every year. The one concession I’ve made to my old bones is that I buy them instead of grow them. But maybe next year you can start the garden plot up again.”
“Gran...you didn’t order very many, did you?”
“About what I did last year. That should just do us...after all, there aren’t many jars of tomatoes left in the pantry, are there?”
Allison’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “No. I used the last one the other night for supper.”
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