Chapter 3
Marc slid into the front seat and waited impatiently for Donna to get in. Even as she turned to him, the words came spilling out. “Look, I think we’ve got to try. Grammom had all that junk in the house—there’s got to be something in there that will work so we can stay.”
Donna’s face went from dejected to elated as he finished speaking. “I was about to say ‘Let’s just send in that paperwork,’ but if you’re willing to try, I am too.” She smiled as she clicked her seatbelt together.
“We’ll never know if we don’t try, right?” He started the car and turned them toward home. “Where should we look first?”
“No idea,” Donna admitted. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure the house is just filled with junk she bought at yard sales and stored in Cool Whip containers.”
“Then let’s hold on to that one percent where you’re not sure, okay?” Marc was surprised at how energized he felt. “I mean, people win the lottery with smaller chances than that, right?”
Donna laughed and sat back to enjoy the drive. “I suppose.”
She fell silent until they were on the highway, but Marc sensed more was coming. He knew his sister’s tells. She was bouncing her leg, and she kept glancing at him.
Sure enough, she couldn’t hold it in. As they zipped past the dim shapes of trees in the darkness, she turned to face him. “Mr. Adams was quite a looker. It was nice seeing you standing close to an attractive man.”
Marc barked a laugh and coughed to hide it, swerving slightly on the road. He took a quick look at his sister. “A lot more goes into a relationship than standing beside each other talking about trying to save a property, Donna.”
“I know, but he’s cute. You’ve got to admit that much.” She winked.
Marc sighed, then grinned. “He’s very attractive, yes. And on so many levels—the number one being a stable job. But there’s the whole ‘he’s got to be into guys to be with me’ thing.”
“You’ll never know if you don’t ask, plus he’s the same height as you. He’s cute. He’s smart. He plays the violin, and he’s fascinated with the Civil War. He’s perfect.”
“Hey, now! You’ve made him out to be some kind of nerd? Not all nerds are gay.” He dropped the teasing tone and got more serious. “Besides, Jed’s only been in the grave two years. Why would you do this to me?”
At the thought of Jed, Marc got quiet.
“Jed would have wanted you to move on,” Donna said. “He wouldn’t want you to be sad forever. Don’t you remember Mom after Dad left?”
“I do, Donna. But Jed’s leaving me is different from Dad leaving Mom.”
Donna puffed out an exasperated sigh. “I know, Marc. But Mom never gave up hope that he’d come back. Even after he’d married that Julie woman and moved out to Florida.” Donna shook her head and chuckled. “Julie McNamara. She was in my high school graduating class.”
“Well, at least he waited till she was out of high school, and at least she was in your class and not mine. Julie just wanted to get out of Oakville, using Dad as her ticket. They lasted a few years longer than I’d expected.”
“I know, but that’s not the point, Marc.”
“Then what is the point?” Marc gripped the wheel and stared out at the road.
“The point is that Mom still hoped he’d leave Julie and go back to her. She pined for that asshole for years.”
“Jed wasn’t an asshole. Besides, I’m not desperate. I like living alone.”
“That’s a lie, Marc. I noticed the blush on your cheeks when Benjamin said he remembered you from the woods. You can’t lie to your big sister. Ralphie has tried that shit with me too, and I figure it out every time.”
“Okay, it was nice that he remembered me. But I think you’re reading too much into it.”
Donna shrugged. “Maybe I am, but you’ll never know if you don’t ask Benjamin.”
They drove in silence the thirty minutes it took to get home. Donna played a game on her phone, and Marc’s thoughts were of sitting in Benjamin’s backyard listening to him play while sitting at the table across from him, not on the other side of the fence like a stalker.
Marc pulled into the driveway and broke the silence as he got out of the car. “Look, I’ll ask Jed tonight.”
Donna laughed. “Did I hear that right?” She slammed the door, went around the front of the car to stand beside him, and tapped his forehead. “Is my brother losing it?”
He was too late in holding up his hand to stop her. “No, not yet. I know how odd that sounds. But Donna, I can feel him still. I can hear him sometimes. Look, you’re the first person I’ve ever told. I’ve been alone for a very long time, and it’s odd having people in the car with me who aren’t my departed husband.”
“I think I understand,” Donna said. “Maybe being around people will help you speak to them, and Jed can leave with your blessing?” She tilted her head. “If I try hard enough, I think I can figure out what I just said. Come on. I’ll get dinner started. We can plan cleaning out the house and searching for things before we head for bed.”
“Sounds great, sis. I’ll be right in.” He leaned back against the car.
Is it time for me to let go of you? I don’t want to. I know you miss me too.
* * *
When he came in through the kitchen door, Donna was heating tomato soup in a pan and placing pats of butter on the griddle. Ralphie was setting the table. Marc pulled out a chair and sat down. He’d stopped in his room to get his bullet journal and some pens before heading to the kitchen.
“Smells great, sis.”
Donna gestured grandly. “I am the queen of twisting off a lid and pouring in tomato soup. I hope you like grilled cheese too.”
“Well, I used to make the best gouda and gruyere cheese sandwiches myself.”
Donna put slices of bread down on the griddle where they sizzled slightly. “I don’t know what you just said, but Ralphie and I love them with sharp cheddar cheese, so if you want some Frenchy foods, you’ll have to find them up in Missouri. It’s only like an hour away though.”
“Geez, you are such a smart aleck,” Marc said.
“I blame Ralphie.” Donna added cheese slices and additional slices of bread to the griddle, forming sandwiches.
“What the hell did I do now?” Ralphie pulled out the chair next to Marc.
“Language, young man.”
“Then stop blaming me for everything. Sheesh, Mom, I thought that with Marc here you could blame him for all the shit that happens.” Ralphie had a big smile on his face.
She turned around. “Young man, what are you smiling at?”
“You. Sheesh, Mom, I don’t cuss every day, only when I’m with you—because it makes me laugh.”
She went back to flipping the sandwiches, shaking her head. “It used to always be Marc’s fault.” She placed the sandwiches on the table, then went on to ladle soup into bowls. “Ralphie, take this one to Marc.”
“This is the last meal you serve me, guys,” Marc said. “I’m here for a while—for good, if possible. If not, I’ll be here to help us all get settled. Sound good?”
They both nodded.
“Uncle Marc, do you want shaved cheese or butter in your soup?”
“I’m good. Butter?”
“Makes it silkier,” Ralphie said as he plopped a sliver of butter in his own soup.
Donna took a seat across from them. “Okay, what are your plans? Have you come up with anything?”
“I have.” Marc opened his bullet journal and ran the tip of a pen down to draw a hasty list. “We need to take care of the house in stages. You said most of the stuff is in the living room, right?”
“Well, on the bottom floor. The back bedroom is full of fabric and sewing machines, there’s odd crap in the living room, and the upstairs bedrooms have lots of clothes,” Donna said.
“And don’t forget about the garage, Mom. It has so much stuff in it, we couldn’t park our car in there,” Ralphie said between bites.
“I didn’t see a car when I pulled up,” Marc said.
“Well, we didn’t have the garage, so…” Ralphie shrugged.
Marc looked at his sister. “Donna, what happened to your car?”
“That piece-of-shit ex-husband of mine decided since we didn’t have a garage, we didn’t need the car to get ruined, so he took it.”
“Mom, language,” Ralphie said.
Donna looked at him a moment and then chuckled. “Okay, I suppose I deserved that.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Ralphie said and went back to his soup.
“Okay, let’s all agree that the ex-husband is a piece of shit. There, we’ve all said it.” Marc snorted and sipped his soup. “So, who knows what’s in that garage?”
Ralphie shook his head. “It looks like mostly old yard tools and stuff.”
“I was thinking perhaps we should get the landscaping done,” Marc said. “You know, to save the house and make a good impression.”
“I don’t think our lawn would impress that Upshaw ass or save the property. He looked like he wanted to kill Mr. Adams for bringing up the ages of the homes.” Donna drained her bowl of soup.
They finished the meal in silence. Marc pushed his plate to the middle of the table and drew a diagram of the lower level of the house on one page of his journal. On the opposite page, he created a key: living room, the two downstairs bedrooms, and the garage on the outside of the building.
On the next two pages, he drew diagrams of the second floor, with the three bedrooms upstairs and a key for those as well.
“You going to add the attic to your diagram?” Ralphie asked as he got up to take the dishes to the sink.
“What attic?” Marc put down his journal and stretched his writing hand, wincing.
“The attic above the landing in front of my bedroom. There’s a drop ladder.” Ralphie ran hot water on the dishes.
“How come I never remembered an attic? Donna, did you always know there was an attic?”
“No, Grammom didn’t tell us till Mom had died. She said she’d forgotten about it after all the men had left back in ’73 and there wasn’t anyone to take up any of the furniture anymore.”
“Who forgets they have an attic?” Marc stood in shock as he picked up a towel and dried the dishes.
“I guess the Shelby women do. I hope the ladder still works.” Donna scanned the diagrams.
“Me too. Something we find up there could be our ticket to saving the house.”
“When do we start the cleanup, Uncle Marc?” Ralphie asked
“We can start tonight, but I don’t want to get in too deep. It’s getting late, and I’d like to go slow.”
“But what about my weekend,” Ralphie said.
Marc patted him on the arm. “Your weekend belongs to us. Maybe we can go through the living room tonight, make piles and set areas for different items so we can start sorting. I’ll get an account set up on eBay and we can start selling stuff. I’ll also create a website we can direct people to if they want more information on each item.”
“Or we can find something to save the old place,” Ralphie encouraged as he handed over the last plate.
“Or find something, yes,” Marc agreed as he dried it.
* * *
Marc wasn’t as confident as his sister and nephew, but he hoped they’d find something to save the place. Ideally, it would be something more than the original recipe for some much-loved family food or the plans for how their great-granddad invented the lawnmower or a still. Whatever they found—if they found it—would have to be big: big enough to convince the state history recorder and that jackass Upshaw too.
They toured the house that night. It was a big job. Their Grammom had collected a lot of tchotchkes, perched on every available flat space. He found some china and silverware stacked on the cabinets against one wall and tied magazines against another.
The back bedroom had bolts and bolts of fabric, from cotton to wool, silk to polyester. Full bolts, as though she were a seamstress they’d never known about. And several sewing machines, dull with dust but otherwise brand-new, occupied a table that was piled with notions—spools of thread, boxes of bobbins, and bags of fat quarters for quilting. But it didn’t look like their Grammom had ever used any of it. Marc shook his head. “It’s like she bought all this stuff and never opened it, then forgot she had it.”
Another room he’d labeled as a bedroom turned out not to be one. It was off of the kitchen, and once Marc got in it, he realized it had originally been the pantry. Most of the boxes and jars of food stacked on the shelves were years out of date. “We’ll have to dump most of this in the garbage, but we’ll come back here in the morning,” Marc said. “The light up there needs to be replaced before we work here at night.”
After their tour, Marc called a halt. “We’ll look at the rest in the morning. It’s been a rough day, and we all need sleep.”
“You’ve got that right,” Donna said. “Okay, everyone—upstairs.”
The second floor was where they’d all been sleeping. Ralphie and Donna had pushed the odd items in their room to the walls, making space for their own suitcases.
“You’ve been here for years. Why are you still using your suitcases for your clothes?” Marc asked.
Donna opened the closet door in her room with trepidation. “Because of this.” As the door opened, a box that was half-on and half-off the upper shelf tumbled and fell. Clothes burst from its confines. More clothes crammed the closet rods.
“Oh. Lots of clothes. Was Grammom a compulsive shopper?”
“I don’t know if it was Mom or Grammom, but they forgot they had lots of things.” Donna sighed.
Ralphie’s room was just as bad as Donna’s. This closet had men’s clothes stuffed into it, choking the rod and bending the shelf above. “Are those Dad’s clothes?” Marc looked at the closet that wouldn’t close.
“No, I don’t think so. These have price tags on them. Maybe it was Mom after all, buying clothes for Dad to win him back.”
“What, she’d take pictures and send them to him? Why not just send the clothes?”
Donna shrugged. The three of them reached Marc’s room at the end of the hallway. “So I suppose everything piled in the corner of my room was from your rooms?”
Ralphie and Donna nodded. There wasn’t much else to say.
They ended up in the hallway at the middle of the landing. “We were looking for an attic entrance, right?” Marc said.
“It’s right there.” Ralphie pointed. “There’s a latch, like a D-ring. We just need a pole to pull it down.”
“We’ll get the ladder in the morning and check out the attic now that we know where it is.” Marc said.