South of Superior by Ellen Airgood Read Free Book Online

car. The front door opened and a lumpy woman with an aura of rage leaned out and screamed at the dog to shut Up.
    After an Uneasy moment Madeline put the car in drive and headed back to McAllaster.
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    Gladys helped pack up Madeline’s car with casserole dishes and plates of cookies and loaves of bread wrapped in tinfoil late that afternoon, and then gave her directions.
    â€œYou’d better hurry, it looks like rain, those clouds came out of nowhere. Go to Randi Hopkins’s place first, she’s right in town, I made you a map.” Gladys produced a sheet of paper she’d worked on while Madeline was gone and laid it out on the hood of the Buick. She pointed at an x that marked the first place she wanted Madeline to stop. “Then after that, go to Emil’s, you can’t miss his place. See?” Madeline nodded, Uncertainly it seemed to Gladys, but nothing could be simpler than this, there were only so many roads to choose from, surely she could figure it out. “Mary’s place is a little trickier but you’ll be all right. The road’ll get bad in a downpour, though.”
    â€œWait a minute, you’re not sending me off on my own to do this.”
    â€œPiffle. You’ll be fine. Just remember, for Mary’s, you’ve got to look for a big boulder and then the old Studebaker sitting in the woods—that was Jim Dollar’s truck, it quit out there one day back in 1962 and he just left it. I put it all on the map. Take the first left after that and go about two more miles.”
    â€œNo way. I don’t know these people, I’ve never even met them. I’ll drive but I’m not going to deliver.”
    â€œNonsense.”
    â€œGladys—”
    â€œI can’t go. It’d seem like charity and that’s not what this is. This is just a case of I made too much meat loaf and we can’t eat it all, so you’re dropping some by and they’re helping me out, taking it off my hands. If I’m there it’ll be awkward. Plus it’ll take forever. Introductions, chitchat, gossip. Coffee. Or in Emil’s case, whiskey.” Gladys grinned as Madeline frowned even more stubbornly.
    â€œI’m really not comfortable with this,” she said in such a stodgy way that Gladys wanted to pinch her.
    â€œOh, fiddle. You waited on tables at a busy place in Chicago for how many years, and you can’t drop off a few casseroles in McAllaster? Get going, you’ll be fine.”
    Just then Arbutus called, “Glad,” from the kitchen door, her voice a little feeble, and Gladys seized Upon this. “Arbutus needs me. Don’t get lost.” With that, she strode Up the walk. She knew that Madeline was glaring, but she didn’t hesitate. She was counting on having known Joe well enough to know what his granddaughter would do. Blood would tell. Maybe. Pretty soon she heard the car start Up and pull away and Gladys smiled, pleased for reasons she didn’t articulate to herself.
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    No one was home at Randi Hopkins’s house, and Madeline was certain she had the right place. It was a shabby house painted mustard yellow, with colorful plastic toys strewn around the yard, and Gladys had said Randi had a child. Plus she had written “Ugly yellow house” on the map. Madeline left the box of food inside the front door after she found it Unlocked and hurried back down the walk feeling guilty, of what she didn’t know. Emil Sainio’s trailer seemed empty too. She knocked several times without getting an answer, but she couldn’t work Up the nerve to try the door—it would open so instantly into the man’s entire life—so she left his box on the step, hoping for the best. She got back in the car feeling more carefree. Maybe no one would be home at all and she’d be back at 26 Bessel drinking coffee with Arbutus within the half hour.
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    Mary Feather opened her door when