Michelle had her elbow propped on the table and was twirling a lock of hair around her finger in an absentminded fashion while she thought about the windfall. The money was a godsend. There was more than enough to fix up the clinic and hire a nurse.
Her father was smiling as he watched her. 'There you go again, twisting your hair.' Turning to Theo, he said, 'When she was a little tiny thing, she'd wrap her hair around her fingers and suck her thumb until she fell asleep. I can't remember the number of times Remy or I had to untangle the knots she made.'
Michelle let go of her hair and folded her hands.
'I'm feeling guilty,' she said, 'because I can't think of one nice thing to say about Catherine, and I've already figured out how I'm going to spend some of her money.'
Her father pushed the thick family album with a black-and-red-checked cover toward Theo. Theo opened it and began to look
at the photos while Jake pointed out who was who. Michelle excused herself to get a Diet Coke and carried one back to the table
or Theo. He'd put his glasses on and looked quite scholarly.
Putting her hand on his shoulder, she asked, 'Are you hungry?'
'Yeah, sure,' he answered as he turned another page.
'Daddy, Theo doesn't want to look at our family photos.'
'Yes, I do.'
She reached over Theo's shoulder, put her can of Diet Coke on a coaster next to Theo's, then straightened and turned to her brother. 'John Paul, fix Theo and me something to eat.'
'like that's gonna happen,' he chuckled.
She walked over to the sofa and sat down on his stomach. He knew what she was going to do and braced himself.
'I'm sleeping,' he snapped. 'Leave me the hell alone.'
She ignored his grumbling and pulled on his hair as she leaned back against the cushions. 'Can you believe Catherine left us so much money?'
'No.'
'It's mind-boggling.'
'Uh-huh.'
'Open your eyes,' she demanded.
He sighed loudly, then did as she asked. 'What?'
'Can you think of anything nice to say about her?'
'Sure I can. She was a selfish, obsessive, compulsive, greedy-'
Michelle pinched him. 'Say something nice about her.'
'She's dead. That's kind of nice.'
'Shame on you. Are you hungry?'
'No.'
'Yes, you are. You're always hungry. Come help me.'
He grabbed her arm when she tried to stand. 'When is Theo leaving?'
The question came out of nowhere, catching her off guard. 'Monday,' she whispered. 'He leaves with his friend, Noah,
Monday morning.'
Even she could hear the sadness in her voice. She didn't try to be cavalier or pretend she didn't care, because she couldn't fool
her brother. John Paul knew her better than anyone in the whole world, and he had always been able to see through her defenses. She never lied or played games with him.
'You were stupid,' he whispered.
She nodded. 'Yes.'
'You shouldn't have allowed yourself to become so vulnerable.'
'I know.'
'Then why didn't you protect yourself? He's an outsider.'
'I didn't see it coming. What can I say? It just… happened.'
'So?'
'So what?'
'So are you gonna fall apart when he leaves?'
'No,' she whispered. Then she said it again more forcefully. 'No.'
'We'll see.'
Theo wasn't paying any attention to Michelle or John Paul. He had just turned a page in the album and was looking at a faded photo of a beautiful young woman. She was posed standing under a tree, holding a bouquet of daisies in her hand. The woman wore an ankle-length, light-colored organza dress with a ribbon streaming down from her waist. Her short, curly hair framed an angelic face. The photo was black-and-white, but Theo guessed her hair was red and her eyes were blue. If the clothes and the haircut had been more contemporary, he would have thought he was looking at Michelle.
'That's my Ellie,' Jake said. 'She's pretty, isn't she?'
'Yes, sir, she is.'
'I look at my three, and I see Ellie in all of them. Remy got her laugh, John Paul got her love of the outdoors and Michelle got
her heart.'
Theo nodded. John Paul was following Michelle into the kitchen, but when he heard his father mention his mother, he paused to look over Theo's shoulder. Then Theo turned the page, and John Paul moved on. There was a photo of Remy and John Paul
when they were little boys and a girl standing between them. The boys looked as though they'd been rolling around in mud and were happy about it. Their grins were ornery. The girl wasn't smiling and had outgrown the dress she was wearing.
'That's Catherine,' Jake told him. 'She always had to wear a dress, no matter what the occasion. That one was one of her favorites because it had lace on it. I remember she would nag her mama to stitch this or that seam back together. Catherine
had a healthy appetite.'
Theo kept turning the pages. Catherine's mother must have sent photos after she'd moved, because there were at least twenty
f her daughter. In each photo the girl was wearing a dress, but the quality had improved. In one, the child stood in front of a Christmas tree holding two identical dolls in her arms. He turned another page and saw Catherine in a different dress holding
two stuffed bears.
Jake chuckled when he saw the photo. 'Catherine always had to have two of everything,' he explained. 'Some folks, once
they've been poor, when they come into money, no matter how young or old they are, well, they just can't have enough. Do you know what I'm talking about?'
'Yes,' Theo answered. 'People who lived through the Depression were always storing up for the next one.'
'That's right. Catherine was just like that. The Depression was just a history lesson to her, but she acted like she'd lived through one. She was worried she'd run out, I suppose, so if she liked a doll or a bear, she made her mama buy her another one just like
it in case something happened to the first one. She did the same thing with clothes. Once Junie had money to spend, she made sure her daughter had the finest of everything and she catered to her every whim. Ellie thought Junie was spoiling her out of guilt because she wasn't married when she had her.
'I thought she'd outgrow the need to hoard things, but she didn't. Come to find out, it got worse. She started doing some mighty strange things. She even put in a second phone line. When I asked her why, she said it was in case the first line broke. Said she didn't want to have to wait on the phone repair people.'
