Chương 8
When I got in, she looked at my face.
“Was it bad?”
“Yes.”
She waited for more.
I started the engine.
“Are they getting divorced?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are we losing the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Dad do something illegal?”
I gripped the steering wheel.
“I don’t know what will happen.”
She stared through the windshield.
“You really hate saying that.”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
We drove away.
Three blocks later, she reached for the radio.
A pop song filled the car.
She turned it down almost immediately.
“Grandpa?”
“Yes?”
“Did you know Mom had a business?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know it was failing?”
“No.”
She nodded slowly.
Then she said, “I did.”
I glanced at her.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s been selling stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Her jewelry.”
I looked back at the road.
“And some furniture.”
“What furniture?”
“The stuff from the storage unit.”
I slowed at a red light.
“What storage unit?”
Sophie frowned.
“The one with Grandma’s things.”
I missed the light turning green.
The driver behind me tapped his horn.
Sophie looked over.
“Grandpa?”
I drove through the intersection.
“What storage unit?”
She shifted in her seat.
“Mom said it was yours.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
Her voice sharpened, and I stopped myself before turning the conversation into an interrogation.
“All right.”
She stared out the window.
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
We drove another block.
Then she said, “I went with her once.”
“When?”
“Like two months ago.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere off Northwest Highway, I think.”
“Why did she take you?”
“She said she needed help carrying boxes.”
“What boxes?”
Sophie frowned.
“Old dishes, some lamps, picture frames.”
My chest tightened.
Margaret’s things had been boxed after I left my apartment.
I had kept only what fit inside Logan’s garage and the rest, I believed, had gone into a storage unit Logan arranged.
I had paid the monthly charge for the first year.
After that, he told me he had rolled it into the household expenses.
I never asked where the unit was.
That failure suddenly felt enormous.
“Did you see anything else?”
Sophie hesitated.
“A little table.”
“What kind?”
“Wood.”
“That describes most tables.”
She gave me a look.
“It had curved legs.”
I knew it immediately.
Margaret’s sewing table.
Cherrywood.
One drawer that stuck in summer.
She had bought it at an estate sale before Logan was born and spent three weekends sanding it on our back patio.
“What happened to it?”
“Mom sold it.”
The car felt too quiet.
“For how much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who bought it?”
“Some lady.”
“Where?”
“Facebook, I think.”
I swallowed.
I had told myself for years that possessions were only possessions.
Margaret was not inside the table.
She was not inside the blue serving dishes or the framed prints or the lamp she insisted made everyone look sickly.
But grief does not negotiate fairly with logic.
“What else did your mother sell?”
Sophie looked worried now.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
“There was a cabinet.”
“Which cabinet?”
“The little one with glass doors.”
My mother’s china cabinet.
I gripped the steering wheel harder.
“She sold that too?”
“I think so.”
“What do you mean you think so?”
“She took pictures of it and then later it wasn’t there.”
I took the next turn too fast.
Sophie grabbed the door handle.
“Grandpa.”
I slowed down immediately.
“Sorry.”
“You’re driving weird.”
“I know.”
She studied me.
“Were those things important?”
“Yes.”
Her face changed.
“I didn’t know.”
“You had no reason to.”
“Mom said nobody wanted them.”
I almost answered.
Then I stopped.
Sophie did not need to hear what I wanted to say about her mother.
Instead I asked, “Did Logan know?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think so.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Mom told me not to mention it.”
There it was.
Another small hidden account.
Not money this time.
Trust.
“Why did she tell you that?”
“She said Dad gets weird about family stuff.”
I let out a breath.
“What else did she say?”
“That the storage bill was stupid.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because I had paid nearly six years of household expenses while someone else decided the cost of keeping my dead wife’s belongings was excessive.
The anger came quickly this time.
I felt it in my jaw.
Sophie saw it.
“Grandpa, I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I helped carry the boxes.”
“You were helping your mother.”
“I should’ve told you.”
“You were fifteen.”
“I’m still fifteen.”
“That is my point.”
She folded her arms.
“You always say I’m old enough to know better.”
“Sometimes you are.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It is.”
She almost smiled.
That helped.
By the time we reached my rental, I had decided not to call Chelsea.
Fiona’s warning applied to the signature issue.
My own common sense applied to everything else.
I would not confront someone while Sophie was sleeping twenty feet away.
We climbed the stairs.
Sophie stopped at the door.
“You actually live here?”
“Yes.”
“This is depressing.”
“Your father said the same thing.”
“So he was here?”
“This afternoon.”
She looked at me sharply.
“He didn’t tell me.”
“He had other things on his mind.”
Inside, she inspected the room with the ruthless honesty of a teenager.
“Your couch looks like it came from a dentist’s waiting room.”
“It may have.”
“The flowers on the wall are bad.”
“Criminal, according to your grandmother.”
That made her smile.
I gave her the bed and took the couch.
She protested for almost thirty seconds before accepting.
Teenage courtesy has limits.
I found an extra toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet and a clean T-shirt she could sleep in.
It reached almost to her knees.
She looked down at herself.
“I look homeless.”
“You look like someone whose grandfather buys shirts in packs of three.”
“Worse.”
May you like
I made grilled cheese.
She ate two sandwiches and drank a glass of milk while sitting cross-legged on the couch.
