- My husband had signed as my witness.
There was his name, underneath the one somebody had written for me. The tail of the B came back through the rest of it, same as it did on the withdrawal slip.
I’d spent three years missing that handwriting. I used to buy the same brand of coffee he bought just to see how long I could make his last grocery list last. Now I had two fresh pieces of paper with his name on them, and I wished there was some way to give one back.
“What did he witness, Hugh?”
My son looked at the form.
“Me signing your name,” he said.
Denise had been holding the papers flat with her fingertips. She took her hand off them.
I asked her to give us a minute. She stepped out and closed the door.
“Tell me the whole Thursday,” I said. - Hugh took a breath that caught halfway in.
“He was going to give me eight thousand dollars. I’d gone over that Saturday while you were working. I told him we were going to lose the house.”
I remembered the two of them on the porch. My husband had carried both coffee mugs inside when I came home. I’d asked whether he wanted me to heat his up, and he’d said he’d had enough.
“Did you tell him you’d asked me?”
“I told him I couldn’t ask you. He said he knew what you’d say about giving away that much with his surgery coming up.”
“He did know,” I said. “I would’ve asked to see what you owed.”
Hugh rubbed the edge of his folder with his thumb.
“Dad took out the money. Then I told him I could keep track of the account while he was in the hospital if the statements came to my house. I filled out the form in the truck. He asked if I’d talked to you. I said you wanted me to handle the mail for a little while.”
“Did he see you sign?”
“Yes.”
“And he put his name under mine.”
Hugh nodded. - I waited for him to tell me his daddy had been tired or frightened about his procedure. My husband had been both those things. I’d sat up with him the night before, listening to him ask the same question about anesthesia in four different ways. He’d still remembered to tell me there was a load of towels in the dryer.
“Did he know I didn’t have any idea there was an account?” I asked.
“Yes,” Hugh said. “He was saving it as a surprise. He was going to tell you when he got home.”
I looked back at the two signatures.
“Then when you told him I said to handle it, he knew you were lying.”
Hugh didn’t answer right away.
“He said, ‘Your mama will have something to say about this when she finds out.’ And then he signed.”
I put both hands in my lap. I could understand my husband so well at that moment that it made me angry all over again. He’d seen his son sitting beside him afraid of losing his house. He’d had an appointment to get to and a wife he hoped to explain things to later. For one afternoon it had been easier to hand Hugh the pen.
“Did he ever ask you to give me the papers?”
“After he came home, he asked twice. The second time he said he wanted to see the balance before he told you. I’d already taken more. I said the next statement hadn’t come yet.”
“And after he died?”
Hugh’s mouth moved. Nothing came out.
I let him take his time. I’d spent years finishing his sentences when I could see the words were going to embarrass him.
“After he died,” he said at last, “I let you think there was nothing.”
I asked Denise to come back in.
She sat down with a fresh sheet of paper and asked if I wanted to make a written dispute about the address change and the withdrawals I hadn’t authorized. She’d have the bank review the records, she said. She needed me to be as specific as I could. - Hugh leaned forward.
“Mama, before you do that, can I show you what I brought?”
He opened the folder. On top was a quote from a used truck dealer. Under that was a printout of what he still owed. He’d written the difference in pencil at the bottom.
“I’d get about eleven hundred if I sold it today,” he said. “Marlee says she can do extra shifts if I change mine. We can get the rest of Leonard’s money back to you first.”
I looked at his subtraction. It was right.
“Go ahead and do that,” I said.
He looked up. “So you’ll give me a little time?”
“I’ll give you time to pay. I’m signing this today.”
His eyes went to the pen in Denise’s hand.
“What if this costs me my job?”
“I don’t know what it’ll cost you,” I said. “I know what keeping quiet has cost me.”
Denise slid the paper over. At the top she’d written the date. I told her my husband’s signature on the eight-thousand-dollar slip was his. I told her the signature on the address form was mine in spelling only. I told her what Hugh had just said and asked her to record his words as well.
Then I signed.
I didn’t make the letters prettier for anybody.
Outside, Hugh walked me to the Chevy.
“Dad told me you’d never have to ask me for it,” he said.
“You told me that Saturday.”
“What he actually said was, ‘Don’t make your mama come to you with her hand out. Give her what belongs to her.’”
- ⬇️
-
A delivery van rolled past us and turned into the lot. Hugh waited until it was gone.
“I used to remember it the other way,” he said. “It sounded better that way.”
I unlocked my car.
“Remember it right from now on.”
He put his hand on the roof of the Chevy. I thought he might ask me for a ride home. Instead he said, “Will you tell Augie I’m sorry about the room?”
“You can tell him you’re sorry,” I said. “I’ve already told him he can come see me.”
That Saturday, Augie knocked on my door with a library book in one hand and a peppermint stuck to the other.
“Mr. Crenshaw said it was okay to take one,” he said.
“Did he say anything about taking the wrapper off before you climbed the stairs?”
Augie looked at his hand as though the peppermint had made a decision without him. I got him a damp cloth.
We sat on the floor by the rocker and read the last chapter together. I’d already finished it, but I let him show me the picture on the last page. The boy had built his tree house low enough that his little sister could climb up too.
“Could we build one?” Augie asked.
“Where would we put it?”
He looked out the window. Across the street there was a telephone pole and a parking meter.
“We’d need a tree first,” he said.
“I expect we would.”
Marlee came for him at noon. She stayed on the landing until I asked her in. She had the two girls with her, and the younger one had fallen asleep against her shoulder.
“The after-school program could take the girls back on Wednesdays and Fridays,” she said. “My mother offered Tuesdays. Hugh and I are trading off the other days till a spot opens.”
It took me a moment to realize she was simply telling me what they’d worked out. Her eyes stayed on her little girl’s face while she said it.
“Do you want me to carry her down?” I asked.
Marlee shifted the girl’s weight so I could get an arm under her.
“Would you?”
I said yes. The little one woke halfway down and asked where her shoes were. She was wearing them. I told her to look down.
In December, Hugh brought me the last of Leonard’s twenty-four hundred dollars. He came on foot from a bus stop three blocks away. He’d sold the truck. The first payment had been eleven hundred and change, right down to the coins. He’d counted it out on the counter at the hardware store with Mr. Crenshaw standing there, because I’d asked him to meet me downstairs.
The rest of it took longer.
I gave the bank the records I had and answered every call about them. The review uncovered withdrawals Hugh hadn’t included in his folder. It also showed deposits he’d made in the early months, back when he was still telling himself he was borrowing. We went through the dates one at a time. The eight thousand my husband had taken out himself stayed separate.
Hugh eventually sat down with me and a lawyer and signed an agreement for what he owed from the account. I kept a copy in a blue folder beside the kettle. The first month he was short, he called before the payment was due and told me by how much. I wrote the number down. A year later there was still a balance in that folder. There was also a year’s worth of receipts.
Some Sundays Hugh came by with bread. Some Sundays I said I’d see him another time. By spring he’d learned to phone from home and give me a chance to answer before he started walking.
One afternoon I asked him to stay for coffee. He took the chair by the window. We talked about Augie’s spelling test for ten whole minutes before my husband’s name came up.
“Do you ever get mad at Dad?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Hugh looked down at his cup.
“I miss him too,” I said. - He sat there a while after that. I did too. The coffee went cold. Neither of us felt obliged to say something that would make the other feel better.
A few weeks later Mr. Crenshaw told me the little office behind his store had come empty. It had its own door off the alley, with a step low enough for me to get over without taking the rail. He’d been thinking about making it into a small apartment. Would I come look before he decided where the kitchen ought to go?
I went down and looked. There was space for my rocker by the window. The man who’d rented the office had kept a flower box by the door. All that was left in it was a bent plant marker and some dry dirt.
“Could I put a tomato there?” I asked.
“Gets sun after two,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “I reckon you could.”
He showed me the rent on a sheet of paper. I took it upstairs to think about it. The next morning I came back down with two questions about the lease and a third about whether I could paint the door blue.
By the time the paint dried, Augie was tall enough to carry one end of the rocker. Hugh carried the other. I held the door.
“Where do you want it, Mama?” Hugh asked.
“By the window,” I said. “Turn it a little so I can see the plant.”
He turned it. Then he put the felt pads on the rockers like I’d asked him to. I made sandwiches and set three places. After we ate, Hugh washed the plates while Augie and I pressed a stake into the flower box.
The next Saturday I heard a knock. Through the glass I could see Augie holding a new library book tight against his chest. Marlee and the girls were waiting at the end of the walk. She’d let him come to the door by himself.
“Grandma,” he said when I opened it, “can I stay till we finish the first chapter?”
I reached for my key, still on the little hammer ring, and slipped it into my pocket. Then I carried two chairs outside.
“Bring your book,” I said. “We’ve got all afternoon.”
END OF PART 5 — THE END
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