Previously Loved Treasures (Serendipity #2)(34)

The way Max saw it, Caroline had Wilbur and Louie; he had Payne and Harriet. And after Louie’s comment about the black cake, it looked like Laricka might swing to his side. She would probably be the deciding vote.

“All in favor of Max taking over management of the house,” Wilbur said.

Doctor Payne and Max raised their hand. Max looked at Harriet and nodded.

Nothing. If she noticed, she gave no indication of it.

“Anyone else?” Wilbur asked.

Still nothing. Neither Harriet nor Laricka moved.

“Okay,” Wilbur said. “That’s two for Max.”

“All in favor of having Caroline manage the house,” Wilbur said.

Louie, Laricka, and Harriet’s hands shot up, then Wilbur and Caroline followed suit.

“Okay,” Wilbur said, “that’s five for Caroline. Looks like she wins.”

Although there was little Max could do about it, he sputtered and spat for a while, then stomped off toward his own room. As he passed by Harriet, he snarled, “Don’t expect me to be stopping by this evening.”

~

The next morning Caroline rose before the sun crossed the horizon. She went down to the kitchen, set a pot of coffee on to perk, and pulled the iron skillet from the cupboard. That morning when the residents came to breakfast there was a platter of fried eggs with broken yolks and half-cooked bacon. The basket previously used for biscuits was filled with slices of Wonder Bread, and Caroline had a bandage wrapped around the palm of her left hand.





Caroline





Last night Wilbur came to my room. I suppose he did it because he heard me crying. His room is just across the hall from mine, and it’s easy enough to hear what’s going on. If it was anybody else I might’ve said go away and leave me alone, but talking to Wilbur is like talking to Grandma. He doesn’t ask anything of me, he just listens like he really cares.

He told me he was telling the truth about Grandma’s will and said it was just a matter of time until we come across it. I hope he’s right, because living here feels like I’ve still got a piece of Grandma with me. This morning when I went down to the kitchen I could almost see her standing behind me, telling me what to do. If I leave here she’ll be like Daddy, stuck in my mind for a while then growing fuzzier with every day that passes.

When I first came to Rose Hill I figured Clarence was my best friend and maybe even the only friend I’d have here. Then I met Grandma. It seems impossible I could come to love her so much in such a short time, but if you knew Grandma you’d understand. She had a way of making you feel good about yourself even if you did something stupid. One time I was supposed to be keeping an eye on the biscuits and got to thinking about my story; next thing I knew smoke was coming from the oven. Grandma had to mix up a whole new tray of biscuits, but instead of yelling at me she laughed and said she’d done the very same thing a number of times. Knowing what a good cook Grandma was I doubted that was true, but hearing her say it made me feel a whole lot less stupid.

I sure hope we can find that will, because if we don’t I doubt Max will let me stay here. He might tolerate me for a short while, but he’d be looking for a way to get rid of me. Probably he’d say my cooking is no good, which is true. But I’m trying to get better.

If I do have to leave, Clarence will go with me. That’s the good thing about having a dog. No matter where you go or how worthless you are to other people, the dog still loves you.

Sad. I never realized that before.





The Search





At the breakfast table Max announced he was going to Jack Muller’s office to check on the existence of a will. He’d planned to go alone, but Doctor Payne suggested he go along. “As a witness,” he said.

“Some witness,” Harriet grumbled. “You’re on his side. He’d lie and you’d swear to it.”

“There is no lying about the existence of a will,” Wilbur said. “It’s a legal document that either exists or doesn’t.”

“Yeah, well, what if he goes there, snags the will, then says there ain’t none?”

Laricka nodded. “Harriet has a point.”

After fifteen minutes of discussion, it was decided that Laricka, who claimed to be reasonably neutral, would tag along as an unbiased observer. The three of them left the house at five minutes before nine.

At four minutes before nine Wilbur, Harriet, Louie, and Caroline began searching the house for the will. “A copy has got to be here somewhere,” Wilbur said. Throughout the night he had racked his brain and run through the letters of the alphabet a dozen or more times trying to recall the name of the lawyer Ida mentioned, but nothing came. The name had disappeared from memory, so it was imperative they find the will.

“Caroline, you and Harriet go through Ida’s room,” Wilbur said. As much as he wanted to be there and touch the remainders of a woman he’d loved, he felt it unseemly to go through things of such an intimate nature. Louie took the kitchen, and Wilbur searched the rest of the house.

In the kitchen Louie flipped through the pages of every cookbook, searched the vegetable bins, and rummaged through the freezer. He checked beneath the trays of silverware, removed the dishes from the closet, then replaced them. When he came to the drawer containing a stack of dishtowels and potholders, he lifted the stack from the drawer and checked beneath them. Nothing. He lifted the corner of a few towels, peeked beneath them, then set the stack back into place.