She's Up to No Good(108)

She picked at the deli plate on her lap, uninterested, looking around the room with the watchful eyes of a cat.

Then Louise entered.

And Evelyn pounced.

“Darling,” she said, kissing her sister-in-law on the cheek. “How are you?”

The question was a formality. She looked terrible even before Sam died, and his recent death had not helped.

“Not so good.” Louise dabbed at her eyes. “This feels like Sam’s all over again.”

“Well, it’s the same people, after all.” Evelyn took her by the arm and led her to a chair. She let her get settled and brought her a drink of water before sitting next to her. “Now, be honest with me—are you renting out the cottage?”

Louise twitched guiltily.

“I figured out your little secret. I understand, of course, but you still should have told us. I don’t mind paying you to use it when we want to, but I do expect you’ll make it available for us.”

“I—”

“I understand it’s legally yours, but it’s all of ours still. You know that.”

“Evelyn, I sold it.”

Evelyn stared at her sister-in-law.

“It wasn’t fair; you all expected it to be yours whenever you needed, and Lord knows Sam didn’t leave so much money, and I—”

“You sold my cottage?” Evelyn’s voice was loud, and everyone looked over.

“It wasn’t yours. It was Sam’s.”

“It was ours! It wasn’t yours to sell!”

Bernie appeared at Evelyn’s side, Fred following quickly, Jenna peeking around the door frame, having followed her grandfather. “Outside, now,” Bernie ordered his sister, but Evelyn wasn’t budging.

“Is it done? Or still happening?” Evelyn’s eyes were flashing. Margaret came into the room and crossed her arms.

“I—it’s not final, but it will be next week.”

“Over my dead body it will.” She gestured to Bernie and Margaret. “We’ll buy it instead.”

“Evelyn,” Bernie said calmly. “Outside.”

She looked at her brother. “Don’t you talk to me like I’m a child.”

“Evelyn,” Margaret said, putting a gentle hand on her sister’s arm. “Come out on the porch.”

“I already talked to them,” Louise said shrilly.

Evelyn turned to her siblings, looking carefully at their faces, then marched out the front door, Bernie and Margaret following.

“What did you do?”

“We let her do what was right for her.”

“And what about what was right for us?”

Bernie sat in a chair on the porch. “I live here. Most of my kids are here. I don’t need a cottage at the beach. And when’s the last time you came for the whole summer? Ten years ago? More?”

“I was here last year!”

“For a week,” Margaret said gently. “It wasn’t fair to ask her to keep a house so you could spend a week here and there. And I don’t want it anymore.”

“If it was fifteen years ago, I would have bought it with you,” Bernie said. “And we could have kept living out the old days. But it’s not. And I don’t want to burden my kids with that when I go.”

“Why didn’t you ask me? I could have pulled the money together.”

“Because we knew you would hound her, and she needed to sell it. She’s had a rough go since Sam died.”

Evelyn looked at her brother sitting in a wooden rocking chair and realized the next time she came to Hereford could be for his funeral. That might be the last time too, with only the few nieces and nephews who remained and the cottage gone. And while she could and would bear a grudge against Louise, she decided not to hold one against her only remaining siblings.

“Okay.”

Bernie looked at her askance. “What are you planning now?”

“Nothing. You win.”

Margaret placed the back of her hand against her sister’s forehead, and Evelyn swatted it away. “She’s not warm. She’s up to something.”

“I’ve mellowed in my old age.”

As her siblings disputed that assertion, a car parked across the street. The door opened, and out stepped a man with graying hair.

Bernie saw him first and began to laugh, a big belly laugh that ended in a fit of wheezing, the souvenir of a lifetime of smoking. “Chief Delgado,” he said as the man walked up the steps. “Perfect timing.”

Tony stopped in front of the three on the porch. “Bernie. Margaret. Evelyn. My deepest sympathies.”

“Go on in,” Bernie said. “Half the town is already here. We’ll be in directly.”

Tony paused a moment, meeting Evelyn’s eye. She offered a half smile, which he returned with a nod before entering the house.

“Mellowed, my foot,” Bernie said.

“Hush.” Evelyn ruffled the little bit of hair he had left, then went in the house.





CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO





My mother wanted to know everything about the trip, but by the time I got back from bringing my grandmother home, carrying her bags in, and helping her to unpack, I was exhausted. I mumbled something about it being great and started up the stairs.