Chapter 6

Chapter 6

William hadn't wanted to bring his kids with them to his home, that had been stolen from him. That's what he'd been calling it since his mother had left him high and dry. In fact, he didn't care if they didn't go anywhere that he was going. They were just too whiny and loud.

It also bothered him that there were people there that he'd not wanted. The family of Locke had shown up about the time that he and his wife, Gilda, had arrived. When the car backfired, he was disappointed that none of the men had reacted. He'd seen people drop to the ground when that happened. They just walked up to the house as if nothing had gone on. William was about as disappointed as he was of his kids.

"Mr. and Mrs. Grable, welcome to mine and my wife's home." He said not to get too comfy. That's what he wanted to talk to him about. "I've been living in this house for the last eleven years. I've very comfy here, as you call it."

"Well, you won't be living here any longer if I have anything to say about it. I don't know why you were given the house when I'm her son." They were in the living room now, and he hated that it looked like someone had really done the place up. "What did you do with the couch that was in here? I'd like for all the stuff that was here before to be put back. If you don't mind."

He was trying his best not to be angry with the man. He was going to butter him up and see if he'd just move out and let him have what should have been his in the first place. However, all the man did was smile and ask him if he wanted some tea.

"Tea? No, I don't want no tea. That's a lady's drink. I suppose you use dandy little cups too that felt like they were going to shatter the first time you used them." He corrected what he'd said. "Dandy? Danity? Who cares. Now, if you have some beer in there, that would hit the spot. Just so long as it's not that girly kind that has low calories. I want a man's drink." He was told they had domestic beer. Not that he knew what that meant, but he said that he'd settle for that. "Are you one of them fancy pants kind of men? I know that you say that you're married to that there girl, but that don't mean a hill of beans to someone like you."

"He's married to me. We got married yesterday at the courthouse. And just so you know, we've decided that we're going to be changing the name of this house from Grable to Erikson Mansion." He asked her why she'd do something like that when he was just going to have to change it back when he moved in. "What makes you so sure that you're ever going to be stepping foot in this house again?"

"Oh, come on now. Be a decadent person and give me what is rightfully mine. Damn it to hell and back, I should be living here, but you stepped in and made sure that my mom liked you more than she did me. That's not fair." Locke, a stupid name if you asked him, corrected him again. "Damn it all to fuck and back, I know what the word is. You told me that I was going to get what I had coming to me. That would be this house and all the money that goes with it."

"Actually, that's not what I meant at all. Yes, you are going to get what you have coming to you, but it has nothing to do with your mother's estate. I meant that you are going to be arrested for nonpayment of child support as well as a great many other things that you've done. Some of which is going to land you in prison for a very long time." He asked what he was talking about. "I'm talking about the fact that you knew you had a lot of offspring. You claimed them on your taxes. Which tells me that you committed fraud. The insurance scam that you're doing by leaping in front of moving cars in order to be paid a heavy amount of money that you have used up almost as soon as it was cleared by your bank. Then there is the fact that you've been caught on video stealing cars from the local dealer here and other places around the city."

"Yeah, I was making a pretty good living at that until I just got too old to manage it well." He laughed. "I thought about training my kids to do that, but they're just too delicate or something. Screamed and hollowed about hurting too much. All I can tell you about that is don't have no kids. They're the ruination of the world if you asked me."

"No one did." He nodded, then asked Locke what him running scams had to do with this house being his. "I don't think you understand. You're going to jail. And thankfully, we don't have to have a long and drawn-out trial since you admitted to doing just what we thought. Dinner is ready."

He didn't know what he was expecting when he was told that they were eating in the dining room. There were pretty colorful paper plates as well as plastic stuff to use. William was hoping for a nice thick steak and some Frenchie fries, but all he got was some tater salad and some mushy noodles that he hated to even look at. William asked if they were broke, too.

"No. We're fine. I just didn't want you touching my nice things. So, if you'd not mind, eat your dinner and get out of our home." He asked when they were planning to move out. "We're not. You are as soon as you eat. Then we're going to throw away the things that you touched and never think of either of you again."

"You're not at all nice, are you? While you don't look like my wife, you sure do have her temper. Christ, oh mighty, you're the spitting image of her temper." The woman asked him why he thought that she should look like his wife. "The guy said that to me the other day. Because she's my wife. Why can't you guys get that through your head? You don't look like her or me one bit. What is there to understand?"

"I've changed my mind about you." He grinned, waiting on what Alex or whatever her name was had to say. "You're not dumb at all but a moron. I'm not even going to waste my breath on explaining to you how I don't look like your wife. Suffice it to say, I'm glad that I don't look like either of you. Nor act like you. You two deserve each other."

"I don't know what you're so upset about? I just want to raise my family in the house that I grew up in." He turned and winked at Glida. That had been what she'd told him to say to get sympathy from them. William thought that it had turned out better than he could have hoped. Until his damned daughter said that she wanted to go home. He smacked his kid upside the head enough to knock her to the floor. "You are home, dumbass. And as soon as I can get these people out of here, we'll set you up in a room, and I won't have to look at you no more."

When he turned to look at the others, he thought that something had happened to make their faces all pinched up. He looked around behind him and saw nothing that would warrant them looking at him like that. William finally asked them what had happened.

"You hurt that little girl." He glanced at his daughter, unsure what that was all about to them, and said he did it all the time. It only made her stupider. "Get out of here. And leave the children."

"You taking my kids from me? Nah, I don't think so. Not without some competition from you. How much will you give me if I sell them both to you?" Gilda agreed that they'd have to come to some kind of payment plan to take them. She said it was going to cost them big time. He liked this woman at times, he surely did. "Christ, you'll have to have no giving-backs either. Once you give me the money, I don't want to hear from you that you changed up your mind. What do you say?"

Before he could show off the girls, one of them still laying on the floor with a bloodied nose, he was being read his rights and handcuffed. There wasn't a single reason that he could think of that would have him being arrested. He finally got an answer from one of the cops. By then, his wife was being arrested, too.

"It's against the law to sell your children. Or even give them away. We're arresting you on that charge in addition to other things that you've told us about. The car theft ring being just one of many things that you've confessed to." The police officer asked Locke if they could leave the girls there until the county got someone to come and get them. "I know that they're going to be in good hands while here."

When they told the officer that they would be in good hands, he started to tell them that they were off-limitations for them to have his kids. Then it came to him that they'd be out of his hair for a while, and he kept his pie hole shut. He noticed, too, that Gilda wasn't saying anything either. Hating to be around anything smaller than he was, William decided that he might just forget to go and pick them up when he came to get his house in order. Yeah, he told himself, that's the ticket to getting rid of them.

He didn't get to ride to the station house with Gilda. So, as soon as the door was closed, William laid his head back and smiled. Air conditioning and quiet time. It was his two favorite things. Besides having a good cold one when he—

"Hey, I got me an idea. Why don't we run by the convenience store and one of you fellas go in and get me some beer. I promise you that I'll drink it all up before we get to the station. And if not, then you can sneak it into me later." He looked at the man driving in the rearview mirror. "I'll pay you whatever you want if you were to do that for me. I've had a rough few weeks here trying to get my house back from them fancy pants men. If you could see your way to doing that for me, it sure would give me a nice little buzz while we way on getting shit done."

"You know that you've just tried to bribe an officer of the law, don't you? That's just one more thing to add to your sentencing." He told him it was only a beer that he'd not be able to pay them back until he got his house from the Eskimo people. "Who are you talking about?"

"We just left their house, dummy. Don't you know who you were talking to? And they called me a moron. See, you can't even remember the name of the people that had me arrested. And I'm going to get out of that, too. See that I don't. You release me now, and I won't tell that you took me under false pretentious." He told him that their name was Erikson. "Oh. Well, that's something that I'll have taken care of too. Did you know that they kept my mother alive when all I wanted was for her to die? There has to be a name for that someplace."

"There is. It's called compassion and kindheartedness." He told the man he wasn't too compassion about living on the streets because of the Eskimo people. "Just don't speak anymore. Please. I have a headache that you are to blame for, and I don't have time to try and decipher whatever the hell you're talking about all the time. Just shut your trap."

He knew what a pain a headache could be. William used to have them all the time when he was a kid. Then his dad told him that a beer or two would take care of them, and he began drinking that very afternoon. Now he didn't have headaches all the time, and his nose bleeds had stopped. Win-winner for him, he thought.

They were pulling up to the station house when he realized that they'd not gotten him any beer. Someone was going to have to take care of that. Or he'd be tossing up his cookies. Or brats. William thought that was just a fancy pants way to call a wiener on a bun. Whatever. He was looking forward to getting a nicer meal from the station than he was getting at home. Then he remembered Gilda when he saw her there in cuffs too.

"How the hell am I supposed to get money from having kids?" He asked his wife what she was talking about. "When I was willing to turn them over, I never thought about the checks we get every month and the food card. That's been all I've been using since I signed up for it when Rita was born."

"Who's Rita?" She told him it was their oldest child. "Why the hell did you name her that? That sounds like an old lady's name. Rita. What's the other one called? I'm betting something really stupid, too. If we have any more kids, you're not to name them. Rita? What a dumbass name."

"Her name is Rebecca." He thought that it wasn't as bad as Rita and told her that while they were waiting to be processed. "And I'll have you know that Rita was my mother's name. I thought that if I named a kid after her, she'd be more generous about watching her. But after that first time, she wouldn't do it no more. She was only there for a week. I have to be with them all the rest of the time. Aren't grandmothers supposed to want to take care of their grandbabies? My mom has always been the odd duck out."

"Yeah, mine too. You know what she did about me and my house. I was going to move in with you and that was taken from me. Why on earth did she keep records of what I took from her? For that matter, how did she figure it out? One of those Eskimos told her. I just know it."

Once they were in their separate cells, he laid down and closed his eyes. He'd been in so many jails that they all looked the same to him. This one was a little bit different in that it had a quilt at the end of the bed when usually you didn't get crap when you needed something warm to snuggle up under.

Tomorrow, they were supposed to see a court-appointed lawyer. He was going to get his house back, or he'd know what for. Hoping that someone would wake him when food was being served, Willaim started plotting. If he could just get in the house, he knew that they'd have to let him have it. And they were not going to name his home Eskimo by golly, or he'd have to take care of that, too.

~*~

Locke decided that he didn't like the bedroom that they were in. It had been his when Martha was alive, and he'd not figured out any reason to change it. But he needed a bigger bed, and he knew that the bathroom in the master suite was big. He'd helped install it, and it had heated towels to wrap up in, too.

"Have you ever been in that room? Other than to help with Martha for something?" He told Alex that he'd been in there once to get her funeral clothes to take to the funeral home. "I doubt that you saw much of it then. You would have been preoccupied."

"You could say that. I miss her every day, you know." She told him that she wished that she'd gotten to know her too. "She would have loved you. I can almost bet you that she'd be standing beside you and egging you on about things. Oh, before I forget. This is for you."

He got up off the bed and made his way down to the master bedroom. It was plenty huge and he loved the way that the window on both sides of the room seemed to catch the best light. He was still standing there, admiring the view, when Alex joined him.

"I'm not taking this check. And the county came to get the girls just now. I was trying very hard not to get attached to them. The nurse that came with the county said she'd keep us in the loop as to what was done for the children." He asked her why not about the check. "Because you're my family, and I don't want it. I enjoyed every minute of it. Maybe a little too much."

"It shows. Did you know how much we were paying out before you took on the lists? Which is what we're calling what you did. The list. Anway, did you have a ballpark figure for what was there?" She told him all she'd known was that it was going to be a great deal of money. Especially after looking at how much he was paying for his suits to be pressed for no reason. "Was my account the worst? Please tell me they weren't, even if you have to fib to me a little."

"No. Dusty's was the worst. When I called the cable company for him, they asked in what name the account was in because it was the same name on each of the apartments, she told me. Then she told me that they had Dusty Erikson, A D. Erikson as well as two more names that sounded a little like Dusty. One of them was even for a business account to a business in town. She said that she thought it was a bar because they were forever buying all the special sports things like hockey, Football, and fights." He asked what she'd done about the business. "Oh, that was a good deal more fun than it should have been. Do you watch fights on the television? There was a hugely publicized fight on the cable that night. I had it turned off right in the middle of it. I laughed too long and too hard for that one."

"Remind me to never piss you off." They both laughed. "What do you think of this room? I don't know if I really like it or not. There is another suite up one level that we can look at before we decide."

"How do you think all these windows will look once it wakes you at a god-awful hour some mornings." He said he'd not thought of that. "Yeah. Okay, let's go to the other room. How many bedrooms are up there?"

"One bedroom that consists of a sitting room as well as a walk-in shower on one end of the room and then a bathtub on the other. Also, the closets are huge if I remember correctly." The room was just as he described it. Not only were there two bathrooms, but there was a nursery next to it. "I don't remember that it was up here. Want to take a look?"

The door didn't open easily but Locke was able to get it pushed in. As soon as they walked in, he knew that this room hadn't been touched since well before William was born. The room was decorated in pink and yellow. There were toys on the shelves, too, that he'd bet no one had touched in a very long time.

"It says Emily. I didn't know that there had been a daughter somewhere down the line?" Alex unearthed a book that had been handmade. "Look, Locke. It's a baby book. She was born in 1925 and died in the same year. Oh look, someone put a lock of her hair in here too."

"I don't think that would have been Martha's child. She was born in the early nineteen hundreds. That year, if I remember correctly. They would have been about the same age." Alex flipped through the book while he looked at the amount of dust and cobwebs that were everywhere.

"They were twins. Martha had a twin sister that died three days after she was born." He sat down with Alex in the oversized rocking chair. "It says here that she had died in her sleep one night, and it wasn't until morning that they found her. It has here who Martha's parents' names were, too. I wonder if Martha knew she had a twin?"

"I would say not. I don't know why, but I have a feeling that someone locked up this room when Emily died and didn't mention it again. That could be why Martha and the rest of her family never wandered up there. They'd been told something or said something that kept the room locked up after all this time." He asked her what she wanted to do about the rooms. "We can have the toys fixed. Some of them are as old as this room is. There isn't a bathroom in this part of the house either. We can easily fix that as well. Do you like having a nursery next to our bedroom?"

He didn't mention that it was a room that had seen death but waited for Alex to think about it. When she smiled at him, he knew they were going to be having some renovations done to this part of the house. And he didn't mind one bit. Locke asked what she wanted done with the toys.

"Display them after we get them in working order. Bring them out on special occasions. I know that we've never talked about this before, but do you want to have children?" He told her that he really would, but only with her. "Thank you for that. I was just sitting here thinking about if William had known that his mother was one of twins? But she'd not tell him that. He'd hurt her with the knowledge of her being the wrong one to live or something like that."

"He hurt her enough over the years. I think you're right." They looked at all the things in the room. There were books that he decided were worth some money. A first edition Beatrix Potter book, his favorite as a child after learning how to read. There were other things, too, some of which he didn't have a name for.

Once they entered the bedroom again, he was happy that Alex decided that the room would hold too much sadness and asked if they could change the two rooms into something other than a bedroom and nursery. He told her that he thought that was a wonderful idea, and they started naming off things that the rooms could be. His favorite was an artist's room. He wasn't artistic, but Alex said that she used to dabble in it, so he was going to have it set up for her. Just her and a playroom in the next room so that the kids, if they had any, could come and visit Mommy while she worked.

He did ask about the bed that was in the room. It was about seven feet by seven, and he thought that it would need a custom mattress. Looking forward to having a bed that fit, he walked with her to the turret that he'd never noticed before. It was off the bedroom near the nursery.

"The glass is beautiful. I love the way that it's wavy and bubbled." The turret was about six feet round, and there were windows all around it. And they all opened. Locke thought that was somewhat dangerous and asked her if she would mind if he put locks on the windows high up so that a child couldn't get to them. She agreed and shivered at the thought of someone falling to their death from so high up.

The rest of the morning and into the afternoon he spent at his desk. He wasn't as good at investing as Dusty was but knew that it might be a while before he was back to feeling like sitting at his desk. He was going to visit him tonight and take him some dinner that he could eat without making too much of a mess.

He'd not played the lottery since they'd won that big jackpot. He, while waiting on his computer to get to the file he wanted, thought about buying one while they were out tonight. While the thought of winning more money made him nervous, he felt extremely lucky that he had been able to lay low all this time, twelve years, and no one figured out it was them who had won it. Locke thought that a great deal of that was because they were in a new city and state. It would have been harder, he thought, if they were suddenly flush in their hometown. Everyone knew that his family was about as dirt poor as anyone who had been living there. That got him to thinking about things that they could do for their hometown. Not that he thought of it as his hometown, but he did want to do something that would hopefully get the town on the right track. But without anyone knowing who had done it.

He was thinking that over when Alex told him that dinner was ready. He'd been sitting there so long that his computer had gone to sleep, and he'd not noticed. Needing to get his head in the game, he decided that he was going to make himself a schedule that he could follow about working at home, or he'd never get a thing done.

That made him smile. It was definitely worth it having a lovely wife around to be distracted with. He decided that she was worth more than anything that he'd ever had before. And was going to cherish her forever.

After putting things away, he was just leaving his office when his phone rang. Deciding to let it go to the service he switched it over just as the second ring was coming in. Going to the kitchen to have some dinner, Locke was happy that it was just the two of them eating. The Italian subs were the perfect thing to have for the end of the day that they'd had.

"Tomorrow, I have a meeting with the town council. I believe that they're going to try to talk me into joining it. I have no desire to be sitting around with a bunch of people bitching about how the town is falling down around their ears. If they would just okay a couple of projects that our family suggested to them, things would be better. Even with the tax increase, which they've turned down every time it comes up on the ballot, they'd have better schools, too. But they're upset that this house isn't coming to them like they'd hoped." Alex asked him why the house hadn't come to them. "They were going to tear it down. Twice, when they thought that Martha was on her deathbed, they sent crews out to demo the house the moment that she was gone. But she always bounced back, thankfully. When it was read in the will, they acted surprised when it wasn't theirs. They tried to sue us for getting it, but it was thrown out of court. The greedy bastard that is the mayor, is chomping at the bit to try to find any reason for us to have to hand it over. I think he has plans to put in some strip malls or something. It's a lot of acres that she…well, we rent out to other farmers to help with their farming. I'm not sure of the rent. It's been something that the attorneys have been working on. At least, that's what they keep saying to figure it out. Whatever it is, I'm sure that it's going to be very little, and they're behind. What would you do if it was you?"

"Nothing. I mean, farmers struggle a great deal as it is, and paying rent on some land that you don't really need the money for is helping them in the long run. However, I'd talk to them about it. Not tell them that they don't have to pay it but to gently remind them that they are late and see what they have to say. I'm sure you can work it out what to say. I would imagine if they're good people, that they're stressing about it a great deal." He said he'd not thought of that. "Yeah, that's why you love me."

"And I do. With all of my heart." After cleaning up the kitchen, they decided to walk into town and have an ice cream. One of the farmers just happened to be sitting with his family while they shared an ice cream. He thought that Alex was right. They were struggling more than he had ever imagined. Locke took a seat at the same table. "Hello, Mr. Granger. I don't think I've met your family before."

"We're going to pay you, Mr. Erikson. Things have been tough with all the trouble we have had with the weather. And my wife, she's been sick, you know." He told him that he knew that. And the longer he sat with them, the more he hated the fact that he'd not gone to talk to them sooner.

"Mr. Granger, how about we talk about that while my wife, Alex Erikson, takes the little ones to get them a sundae. My treat, of course." He nodded, and Locke could see that the man was struggling to keep his tears at bay. "I'm sorry, I should have gone and spoken to you earlier."