Chapter Eleven
So they’d just take everything?”
“Pretty much.”
I paused, my hand on the door. It was my mom and Liz talking, on the porch.
“It’s not ideal. But we are dealing with a time issue.”
A pause. “And this would be faster.”
“Exactly. One day, in and out.”
It occurred to me that maybe I didn’t want to overhear this, so I opened the door, formally announcing my arrival. “Hello?” Liz called out.
“It’s me,” I said. “Finley.”
A chair scraped as I came into the kitchen. My mom, getting to her feet. “Hey,” she said. “I was worried about you.”
Same, I thought. “It was just crazy busy so I pitched in.”
Liz, who was seated at the table in another flowy top, this one with diamond-shaped sequin patterns on the sleeves, smiled at me. “Well, bless you. I’m sure Kasey appreciated it.”
I held the bag out to my mom. “Breakfast sandwiches.”
“Yum.” She took it, opening the flap and glancing in before nodding at Liz. “You want one?”
“Oh no,” Liz immediately protested. “Wedding is just around the corner. I’m basically on a cleanse until then.”
“That’s ridiculous.” My mom reached up to a cabinet, pulling out two plates and putting the sandwiches on them. “You look great. And you need to eat for what we have ahead.”
She sounded so… motherly. Weird, but then the entire day had been. And I still hadn’t gotten any answers about the papers I’d seen.
My mom headed back to the porch, putting one of the plates in front of Liz. As she sat herself, I heard the door again.
“Hello?” Liz called out.
I heard footsteps coming down the hallway: quick, urgent. A moment later, a girl with white-blond hair wearing a blue sundress appeared. She was holding a drooping plant.
“This,” she said, dropping it with a dramatic thud onto the table, “is my marriage. Apparently.”
Liz looked up. “Anne! Honey. What are you talking about?”
Anne. The bride. Looking at her, I had a flash of my grandmother’s funeral. She’d been one of the only other kids there, a couple of years older than me.
“Jonathan’s grandmother picks a plant before every family wedding to symbolize the nuptials.” She flopped into a chair next to her mom. “It’s tradition. She gave his older sister a gorgeous rosebush. And I got… this.”
We all looked at the plant again, which was comprised of a couple of wrinkled stalks. Forget beginnings: It looked like it was already done.
“This is your cousin Finley, by the way,” Liz said. Anne gave me a tepid wave. I did not take it personally.
Again the door sounded. Liz cleared her throat. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Kasey replied. “Did we assign jobs yet?”
“We were just about to,” my mom told her as she appeared. “Anne was—”
“Having a bit of a crisis,” Liz finished for her as her daughter grabbed a napkin from a nearby stack and blew her nose. “Anne. Eat some of this sandwich.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“What’s with the moonakis plant?” Kasey asked.
Liz gave her a quizzical look. “The what?”
Kasey nodded at the pot. “That.”
“It’s my marriage,” Anne said. She blew her nose again with a honk.
“What?”
“Gift from the groom’s grandmother,” my mom explained.
“What did you say it was called?” Liz asked.
Kasey reached over, pulling the pot closer. “Moonakis plant. They’re pretty rare. Only bloom once a year, but you never know exactly when. It’s a weather-slash-germination thing.”
Liz furrowed her brow. “So they’re unpredictable?”
“More like a mystery,” Kasey squinted, twisting the pot. “Can’t plan on them at all.”
Anne made a small squeaking noise and got to her feet. Her chair banged against the window as she left it and went to the bathroom.
“Really?” Liz said. “They couldn’t just give her a fern?”
“Who wants a fern?” Kasey said. “This is much cooler, in my opinion.”
Liz sighed, then reached down into a bag at her feet, pulling out a few pads of paper and a sheaf of the same stickers that already dotted the cabinets in the kitchen.
“Okay. So I figure we just divide the house up by rooms. List everything on a pad for the record and do stickers for anything not already marked. Green, we sell; blue, we keep; yellow is the dump run.”
“I saw a lot of blue in the living room,” my mom observed. “Where are you going to put all this stuff?”
“Not your concern, is it?” Kasey asked as Anne returned, sniffling.
“It was just a question,” my mom said.
Hurriedly, Liz began handing out pads and stickers. One for my mom, one for Kasey, herself, and then Anne, who was morosely regarding the moonakis plant. Then, despite the fact I was in the doorway still, watching from a distance, she extended one to me as well.
I thought of the day before, when I’d seen that girl in my spot beside Colin. So jarring, still. Maybe, though, having a place here would help. Even if I was only just now finding out what it was.
“Hold up. Is that a bat?”
I froze.
“Nope, just a wasp,” Clark said. Slap! “All clear. Come on up.”
I was on the second floor, which was much like the first: same woodwork, rooms filled with sheet-draped or stickered furniture.
Next to the bathroom—which had a real claw-foot tub—was a door that led to a staircase.
Clark, whom I’d accompanied, had gone right up, but I was a bit unnerved by the weird chemical-like smell and the cobwebs hanging overhead.
Talk of wasps and bats didn’t exactly help.
Just then, I heard someone on the landing.
It was Ben, carrying a box of trash bags and a wide flashlight.
His ringer tee read SOUTHPORT SAILORS, anchors hanging from both the S’s.
It seemed to be a theme, these shirts. “Hey,” he said when he saw me.
“Liz said we should use these for anything, and I quote, ‘disgusting or that needs investigating,’ unquote.”
“Are we expecting that?”
“It’s an attic of an old house. No telling what could be up there.”
“Damn!” There was another slap from above us. “I hate wasps.”
Yikes. Ben nodded at the open door. “Go ahead,” he told me. “I’m right behind you.”
I stepped back, waving. “Please. You first.”
“Gee, thanks.” He ducked in, waving some cobwebs away, wincing. As he started up the stairs, he added, “Hopefully right now you’re really impressed by my bravery.”
“Totally,” I replied. “I’d be even more so, except you tried to get me to go ahead of you.”
He laughed out loud, and then suddenly I was smiling. I’d never considered myself to be a particularly funny person. That was Colin’s thing. But I realized I didn’t mind being mistaken for one.
Anne appeared on the landing, carrying her pad. “Did I hear something about wasps?” she said. “Should I get the Raid?”
“Get the Raid!” Clark yelled from above us.
She turned and headed back down to the first floor. Meanwhile, Ben climbed up. I waited in the middle.
“Get behind me,” Anne instructed once she returned, the can of Raid in her hand. She took off the cap, readying it, then took a breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The stairs, while narrow and dark, were uneventful. At the top, the attic was immense. Shapes of boxes and more furniture stretched all the way from where I stood to a single small window on the other end, where Clark was.
“Looks like some raccoons or squirrels got in at some point,” he said, grunting as he pushed it open. “If they’re in the walls, we have a problem.”
“You’d know,” Ben said. “They are not quiet.”
“Oh my God! Is that the dollhouse?” Anne said, walking over to a pile of boxes. “Clark! Remember all our little princess tea parties we had?”
Clark said nothing as Ben and I both looked at him, then at each other. The thought of him doing anything dainty was a bit hard to process. Ben said, “Princess tea parties?”
“We had so many,” Anne said. “Clark’s favorite was the little pastries. I wonder if… oh my God! Here they are!”
There was a slap as Clark whacked at another wasp. “Where’s that Raid?”
Anne tossed it: He caught it with one hand.
As she bent over the dollhouse again, I walked over to join her.
It took a minute before I realized it was a replica of the Woods itself, all the way down to the long back porch and placement of the front door, just off-center.
“Wow,” I said, as Anne took a miniature cake, perfectly frosted, from a nearby box. “This was yours?”
“We got to play with it,” she replied. “But it was originally your mom’s. See?”
I followed her finger to the front porch. On each of the three small steps was carved a name: CATHERINE FINLEY WOODS. “Who made it?”
“Our grandfather,” she told me, putting in a table, then the cake on top of it. “The Honorable Judge Woods.”
“That’s a mouthful,” I said.
“Most everyone just called him the Judge,” she told me. “Which fit, I guess. From what Mom says, he was always pretty quick to give his opinion. Whether he was at work or not.”
There was a hiss as Clark aimed the Raid at something. Ben stepped closer to the window, waving a hand in front of his face. “Okay. Let’s do this. Before we all die from the lack of air up here.”
A pause as we all looked around the large, dim space packed with boxes. Meanwhile, a boat chugged by distantly, trailed by people laughing. Summer was always going on, somewhere.
“All right.” Clark cleared his throat. “Ben and I will do this side. You guys take that one.”
“Um,” I said, as Anne found her pad, “I don’t think I’m exactly qualified to know what stays or goes.”
“Just list stuff, then,” Anne said. “I’ll do the rest.”
All right, then, I thought. Metal wardrobe, empty. Kids’ bike missing handle bars. Several buckets I chose not to examine too closely. And, in the corner, a guitar. When I pulled it out, several moths followed.
“Whoa. What is this?” I heard Ben say.
Turning, I saw he was holding a huge metal contraption with a handle. It looked like some kind of medieval torture device.
“Waffle iron,” Anne told him.
“Seriously?” He scrutinized it. “You had to have some serious upper-arm strength.”
“We’re a hearty people.” She came over, lifting the top up. “I actually remember Grandma using this, once or twice.”