The Cancellation Form Had Only One Person's Signature On It

I printed the cancellation and put it beside Ada's contract.

Doreen had signed as billing agent. In the space for the customer's signature, she had written, Approved by telephone.

Ada answered my call on the first ring.

"I never canceled. We asked for a finish date."

"Did anyone else on your board call her?"

"I'll check before I answer that."

An hour later, she called back with the board chair beside her. Neither had canceled. They sent Ruth a signed statement and their meeting minutes approving the repair.

Ruth called me that evening.

"Your aunt could report a cancellation," she said. "That doesn't mean she had power to cancel on the customer's behalf. We have their denial and the contract."

"Can I keep working?"

"The owner wants the work done. Get fresh written permission naming you, along with a clear acceptance plan. We can't promise how the court will read every clause, but we can make the facts clear."

I read the codicil again on my motel bed.

If I failed to finish within ninety days, the patterns went to Doreen under the old will. Granddad had left me a task he knew I could do. My aunt was trying to make the task disappear.

I called Ada back.

"This has become a family fight. You didn't sign up for that."

"We signed up for a working bell. Can you give us one?"

"Yes."

"Then send the form."

The next morning, she brought the fresh permission to my rented bench. She also brought a folder of payment records.

"There's something else you should read."

After the $4,800 deposit, Doreen had sent Marshlight House a new demand for $8,400. It called for a replacement bell and treated the deposit as a separate consultation fee.

The original contract called that deposit part payment. There was no signed change order.

"She said the old bronze was unsafe," Ada told me. "We asked for the test report. She stopped answering."

"Did Granddad ever see this?"

"We couldn't reach him that last week."

I remembered his voice growing weak on the phone. I had thought I was giving him rest by keeping my calls short.

Now I wondered who had used that quiet.

Ada opened her check copy. Doreen had handled the deposit through the shop account. The bank's mark showed it had cleared.

"We aren't asking you to do unpaid work," she said. "The remaining $3,200 is ready. We just won't pay twice."

I sent the records to Ruth. She added a request for a full account of Doreen's handling of Granddad's money to the issues we were raising in probate.

"A request isn't proof of theft," she warned me.

"I know. I want the records."

That afternoon, Doreen sent me an offer.

Twelve thousand dollars. I would withdraw the codicil, give up any claim to the patterns, and agree not to seek records from her time paying Granddad's bills.

The last part covered more than the patterns. I read it twice before sending it to Ruth.

Doreen called before Ruth could reply.

"Take it," she said. "You could buy a reliable car."

"My car runs."

"For now. You can't live on old wood."

"Why does the offer stop me from seeing his bills?"

"Because I won't have you digging through my private life."

"His account wasn't your private life."

She breathed sharply into the phone.

"I stayed. You left."

There it was, the one fact she could still press against my ribs.

"I worked," I said. "I sent money. I came home."

"Money isn't care."

"Then stop using a bed receipt to prove you loved him."

I had not meant to say it that hard. But I did not take it back.

After she hung up, I sat beside the bell until my hands stopped shaking. Then I checked the crown under a bright lamp and drew each old mark on my condition sheet.

I paid $64 for pin stock, $310 for machine work, $92 for a clapper ball, and $18 for leather washers. With the bench rent, my costs reached $664.

Every receipt went in one envelope.

I kept the worn pieces in labeled bags. The old suspension pin had a deep groove through one side. Granddad had stopped work before it could fail. His pencil marks still showed where the new pin needed its shoulder.

For the first time since the funeral, I followed his hand without having to defend mine.

Near closing time, Ruth forwarded a letter from Doreen's lawyer.

My aunt claimed I had taken the wrong bell from the warehouse. She demanded that the auction proceed while the court decided whether my work counted.