Her Own Place (23 page)

Taylor looked at his watch. “We hate to rush away, Cousin Warren, but we have to get back home,” he said.

Taylor was locked on target now. Dallace almost had to run to keep up with Taylor as he hurried to the car. “We've got to get to the bank.”

At the bank the manager, Jackson Rowe, was ready to lock the door when Dallace and Taylor rushed up, but he let them inside. Taylor checked the joint account. There had been no withdrawals for some months, since well before Fletcher Owens came to town. So, they were back where they started.

“I still think Fletcher Owens might be involved in this,” Taylor declared. “I wonder where he's gone?”

“Ellabelle said he didn't tell them,” Dallace said.

“I wish we knew more about him,” Taylor said.

After supper Mae Lee's children made the decision that Annie Ruth was right; her mama should stay with her in Greensboro, but first she should be taken to the Duke University Hospital for testing. Annie Ruth's sister-in-law, a registered nurse at Duke Hospital, would be asked to arrange to get her admitted for a checkup there. The only trouble now was, who would tell their mama about the plans?

All day and the next the children stayed close to their mother, taking turns at Mae Lee's bedside. Mae Lee had nothing to say to them. They worried about her. She had always been overjoyed when they were home again; now it seemed to make no difference to her. Obviously something was very
wrong. What was going through her mind, they wondered. She seemed to be off somewhere in a world of her own. Or was
anything
going through her mind? Did she even know that they were there, all of them? Did she understand that? Did she realize that there was anything unusual about their all being there at home with her? They couldn't tell. All they could do was to stay with her, looking after her wants, making sure that somebody was at the bedside at all times.

What her children could not know, of course, was that not only was Mae Lee perfectly aware of their presence in the house, but the one thing she wanted was for them
not
to be there—to leave her alone, so that she could continue to look for the money. She was sure it was somewhere in the house, but where? Where had she hidden it? She couldn't believe that Mr. Fletcher had taken her $5,240.22. But where had Mr. Fletcher gone off to, so suddenly and with no explanation? If Mr. Fletcher
had
taken her money—the very thought made her groan inwardly. Had she made a fool of herself, fallen for the man, been taken in by him, when all that he had been after was her money?

After all these years, had she once again allowed herself to be fooled by a man?

She needed to tell someone that the money was gone. Later, alone with Ellabelle, she had almost summoned up enough courage to do it. “Ellabelle,” she began timidly, “have you ever
done anything so dumb and stupid that you couldn't bring yourself to tell anyone about it?”

The very question seemed to open up the floodgates for Ellabelle. She poured out so many stories she had wanted to tell someone that by the time she finished, Mae Lee had lost her nerve.

She needed to find her money, and the only way she would be able to look for the missing money was to get everybody out of the house somehow.

She lay in silence, listening. Suddenly she had an idea; it might be that she had left the bag with the money in it up on the very top shelf of the pantry. That was one place she had not looked. She listened, and thought about it. The children were apparently all outside on the front porch. If only Ellabelle would go out and join them.

She closed her eyes, pretended to be asleep, occasionally opening one eyelid just a crack to see if Ellabelle were seated there by the bed. After a while she heard a noise, and peeked out to see Ellabelle tiptoeing out of the room. She heard her walk down the hall, and then the sound of the front porch door opening and shutting. Quickly she got up, hurried into the kitchen, set a chair next to the pantry shelf, and climbed up on it. She pushed aside jars of preserved peaches and plums lining the shelf, groped with her hand along the back wall. The bag was not there.

“Mama!” It was Dallace's voice. “What are you doing on that chair? Taylor!” she shrieked. “Come here!”

Taylor and Nellie Grace came hurrying into the room. Taylor stepped over to Mae Lee and helped her down to the floor. “Mama, what's going on?” he asked.

Mae Lee offered no explanation, and let herself be guided back into her room. As they helped her into bed, she tried to think of some way to tell her children about the money. Holding so much inside was painful for her. She started to speak, but the anxious lump in her chest tightened. She had difficulty breathing. She stared speechlessly at her children. She pulled her thoughts in even tighter. She felt as if she was having a terrible nightmare. She seemed unable to pinpoint a place for herself—a presence. It was almost as if her children were there, but she was somewhere else. She felt the tension and anxiety pound at her heart. In a futile attempt to fight back, she tightened the corners of her mouth, pulled her face into a mosaic of frowns, and closed her eyes.

She listened to Dallace phone Dr. Bell. She knew he would come even if it wasn't convenient for him. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked at her daughters. Not only did they believe she was very ill, they thought she'd lost her mind. But then, how could they think otherwise? It tore so at her heart. How could she tell them that it wasn't her mind that was lost, but
five thousand two hundred and forty dollars and twenty-two cents?

It was Sunday afternoon. Mae Lee and her children had already eaten. Ellabelle had cooked, as was her custom, parts of Saturday and early Sunday morning. Anxious to get her work behind her, she'd urged the family to eat as soon as she finished baking her hot rolls. “It's double work for a cook to have to wait, then turn around and heat up,” she complained.

Mae Lee didn't get back into bed after dinner. She sat in the living room with her children and Ellabelle. For a while, the group kept up the chatter they'd started at dinner. Mae Lee looked on, knowing that her children were not cheerful and that they also knew it. She certainly wasn't cheerful, and she made no effort to pretend. She had abandoned all plans to tell about the missing money. She knew that she would never get up enough courage to do that, much less tell about her fear that Fletcher Owens had gone off with it. She would take the secret with her to her grave, she decided. She had been
tricked, fooled by a con man, who had obviously seen her hiding the money, waited for the right moment, then arranged for someone to telephone him, so that he could make a hurried departure. There's no fool like an old fool, all right, she thought.

She was also worried because she couldn't remember where it was that she had last placed the money, so that Fletcher Owens had seen her hiding it there. Perhaps she
was
losing her mind, or at least her memory. She worked to convince herself that she could still remember something. She went over the names of the volunteers down at the hospital, and even the names of the relatives of her deceased former husband, Jeff Barnes, counting them off on her fingers as she named them silently to herself.

A hushed quiet settled in. Mae Lee's children wished they hadn't told everyone who called, and had the pastor to announce at services, that Mae Lee had been ordered by the doctors to rest and not have visitors. A house full of company might have been nice on a quiet Sunday afternoon. At least it would have been more cheerful, perhaps. Maybe Mae Lee's friends from the hospital would have visited and cheered her up.

Lost in thought, Mae Lee's children looked to each other for answers to unspoken questions. How would they approach their mama about going to the hospital in Durham, North Carolina? Annie Ruth worried that her husband might complain that he would end up getting stuck with the bills if her mama ended up with them for a while. She refused to let her thinking go beyond that, however. She watched her older
sister's face. There was a slight twitch; Dallace was nervous. Annie Ruth wondered what she was thinking about.

Dallace was thinking about the hospital in Durham, too, but she entertained little hope that her mother would benefit from a stay there. After she and Taylor visited Warren, she'd concluded that, like him, her mama was probably in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Amberlee sidled up to her mama and pressed her cheek against her hair. “I took down that old man's portrait in my apartment, Mama,” she said. “I don't need a grandfather half as much as I need you, Mama.”

Mae Lee nodded, but her face didn't register happiness. She was watching Nellie Grace pretend to read a magazine. She hadn't turned a page since she opened it.

Nellie Grace's thoughts were fastened on the note they'd found that Mae Lee had written to them, begging them not to put her into a nursing home. Perhaps her mama knew that she was saddled with something incurable. Maybe Dr. Bell knew too. They had all read and reread the note, and had mentally penciled in their own thoughts and meanings. Nellie Grace thought of her mama climbing up on the chair in the pantry for no reason whatever. Mama's really sick, she thought, and it's not all in her mind.

Everyone was trying not only to be cheerful, but also to say the right thing. Ellabelle, however, failed to notice that. Out of the still afternoon quiet, she abruptly announced that she'd heard in broad daylight the voice of the rarely heard evening whippoorwill. She pressed a finger against her lips and signaled quietness for the already quiet group. She was clearly
disturbed. “I don't like this one single bit,” she said, peering through the window at the sunlit sky. “That whippoorwill usually calls just as darkness is descending and shortly before dawn. Often, if the moon is out, you can hear its voice during the night but almost never in daylight. It's a bad omen,” she said, and without thinking, turned to Mae Lee. “It's a death warning when you hear the voice of a whippoorwill in broad daylight. Did you hear it, Mae Lee?” Mae Lee shook her head.

“You had to hear it,” Ellabelle insisted. “I know I'm not hearing things. The loud sound is unmistakable. It rings out the three sounds of its name over and over so fast it doesn't catch its breath.” Her eyes searched faces. No one else had heard the whippoorwill, but what Ellabelle had said cast a pall over the room.

Ellabelle grew quiet. She clenched her fists and dropped her head. She sat thinking about what she'd said. How could she have even spoken about death to Mae Lee?

The stillness disturbed Taylor. It was only five o'clock; the afternoon had seemed to stretch out for hours. He stole furtive looks at his mama. The blank stare on her face was puzzling, almost frightening. It was as if she were a stranger. She seemed to have aged so quickly. Maybe she'd looked that way for some time and he hadn't paid any attention. He could only mull over “if only”—if only they had done this, or that. He needed to call his wife to tell her that he and his sisters would be staying on for another night until they could get Mae Lee to agree to go to a bigger hospital.

The television had been turned on but no one really watched. Their efforts to appear cheerful were failing miserably.
They tried to talk normally, yet they spoke in whispers, and almost tiptoed when they moved about. Conversations started but quickly ended.

A light knock at the front door went unnoticed, as though it were just another TV sound. The second time, the clang of the heavy virgin brass knocker on the front door was louder and clearer. Taylor opened the front door.

A tall, thin, gray-haired man stood outside the door, a suitcase in one hand and another one on the porch floor beside him.

“Mr. Owens!” It was Taylor who spoke first. Fletcher Owens was clearly taken aback by the circle of people seated in the room. He recognized Ellabelle, and nodded to her and then to Mae Lee. There was a moment of embarrassed silence, then Taylor picked up the other suitcase from the porch and brought it inside.

“I'm afraid you weren't expecting me, Mrs. Barnes,” Fletcher Owens said to Mae Lee. “I wasn't coming until later in the week, but I was able to get a ride from High Point, so I decided to come on today.”

Mae Lee stared at him. Taylor hurriedly introduced the other members of the family. There was a long pause. Then Mae Lee half rose from her chair.

“Mr. Fletcher, where's my money?” she demanded.

“Your money?” Fletcher Owens seemed puzzled. “I don't owe you any rent money, do I?”

“I'm talking about my five thousand two hundred and forty dollars and twenty-two cents!”

“Mama, what are you talking about?” several of the daughters chorused.

“This is between Mr. Fletcher and me,” Mae Lee said firmly.

“I don't understand what you mean,” Fletcher Owens told her. “Do you mean you've lost some money?”

Nobody spoke.

“Mama, what's going on?” Taylor finally said. “Is there some money missing?” He looked at her, then at Fletcher Owens, who appeared to be baffled.

Fletcher Owens frowned. “I think I understand now.” He looked across the room. “The last time I saw you move it, I believe you put it here. Not that it means anything. It seems like you moved it every day.” He walked over to the earthenware umbrella stand, paused, and lifted out several umbrellas. “No,” he said, speaking half to himself. He thought for a moment, then walked over to where Amberlee was sitting. “Would you mind getting up for a minute, Miss?” he asked.

Amberlee stood up and moved out of the way. He reached down into the torn upholstery of Mae Lee's old overstuffed chair. “Here it is,” he said. He pulled out a cotton drawstring bag, and handed it to Mae Lee. “Is this what you have in mind?”

“What's all this about, Mr. Owens?” Taylor asked. “What's in the bag?”