Good-bye and Amen by Beth Gutcheon Read Free Book Online Page B

forth?” Of course, a wooden boat is a lot of work.
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    Monica Faithful My idea was that maybe Sam and Charlesie could own the boat together. I thought it would be a bonding thing. And I worried about Charlesie letting the boat go to seed; I’d rather see it sold out of the family than that. It took Charlesie a week flat driving Daddy’s beloved old Nashcan before he’d broken an axle hot-rodding down the French Camp Road.
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    Eleanor Applegate The situation was a little tense. I know Monica hadn’t forgotten the time Papa gave Charlesie his Nash. Not that the car was worth anything at that point; you could total it by losing the key. But I don’t think she realized that that was years ago, Charlesie has grown up a lot. And I don’t believe Edie cares about the boat. If Monica wants it for Sam and Sylvie—well, they’re not Papa’s blood. You know? It doesn’t seem exactly right to me.
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    Jimmy Moss They were trying so hard not to say offensive things out loud about each other’s children that I thought we might sit there staring at each other all afternoon. So Isaid, “Why doesn’t Charlesie take care of the starboard side and Monica’s children take the port side?” Nobody laughed. Then Eleanor said, “All right. I’ll take the chandelier.” We all looked up at it and I could imagine Josslyn swearing because she hadn’t put the chandelier on her list.
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    Nora Applegate I became the family archivist. Mother said she’d pay me to set up a system and sort all the mystery photographs, the old letters (there were trunkfuls in the attic), the scrapbooks, all that. Charlesie and I spent the afternoon of the lottery in the playroom; he was taking photographs of great-great-uncle so-and-so out of crumbly old frames nobody wanted. Aunt Josslyn was with us for a while. She came up with a picture of a family on a porch in what looked like Maine. Summer, anyway. I didn’t recognize anybody. Granny Syd would have known in a minute all about it…there was so much I wish we’d asked her when we could have.
    In this picture there’s a man with big mustaches standing with a violin in his hand, his wife (I’m guessing) sitting in front of him and a girl of about eighteen and a boy who’s maybe ten. They’re all in their Sunday best and looking grim, the way they do in old pictures where they had to hold still a really long time. It was Josslyn who noticed that the mother is wearing Granny Syd’s topaz ring. But who were they? Why do we have their picture?
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    Eleanor Applegate Of course, in retrospect I understand why Monica was such a mess that weekend. I don’t know how much she knew about Norman at the time, but certainly she knew something. Even if she didn’t know she knew. We did get through the lottery afternoon, but therewas still one big elephant in the living room. What were we going to do about the summerhouse? Bobby and I have our own house in Dundee. If it were up to us, we’d sell Leeway Cottage and use our share of the money to build a guesthouse, for when our children get married and have children of their own. But selling Leeway would leave Monica no place in Dundee, and it’s important to all of us that we’re all three there. Meanwhile Josslyn’s started referring to Leeway as “the family homestead.” Her way of saying it’s her children’s mess of potage more than Monica’s stepchildren’s. And probably that she’d like it all for herself, if she had her druthers.
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    Monica Faithful I was terrified Eleanor would force the issue. But Jimmy came to the rescue. He said, “Let’s just try to share Leeway this summer as if Mother and Papa were still alive. It’s big enough. If it doesn’t work, we’ll rethink it after Labor Day.”
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    Bobby Applegate A recipe for total disaster if you ask me. But nobody