We Opened The House Without Putting A Price On Anything

The contract had been dated three weeks after our mother's death.

The agent had refused to send it to a buyer because the signature did not match the ownership records she had requested. Wade had told her he would correct it.

Then Alma's notice arrived.

There had been no completed house sale. There was, however, another document for the investigators.

I stared at our mother's name.

"He couldn't even let her stop signing things when she died."

Alma put the contract in a folder.

"We're going to get you lawful access to the house. Then we're going to account for what belongs there."

The will was admitted after the required notices and review. Wade did not file a challenge. I was appointed executor, and the house and its contents would pass into the trust our mother had set up for Elsie.

I brought an inventory sheet when I went back.

The yellow sale sign was gone. So were the porch chairs. The living room had pale squares on the walls where pictures had hung.

Elsie stopped just inside the door.

"Do we have to buy it back?"

"The house wasn't his to sell."

"I meant my room."

I put down the inventory sheet.

"You don't have to buy your room."

We walked upstairs together. Her bed frame stood against the wall. The man who had tried to buy it, Leonard Pate, had received his sixty dollars back when he insisted the sale be undone.

He had left the bed behind.

Alma had tracked down several other buyers through their receipts. Some returned things and took refunds. Others had bought ordinary used goods in good faith and had already given them to someone else.

Our mother's small radio was gone. So was the kitchen table with the round burn mark near one leg.

I had expected to be angry about the table. Instead, I remembered the hot pan that had made the mark and our mother waving a dish towel at the smoke alarm.

I sat on the floor and cried.

Elsie sat a few feet away. She did not try to fix it.

After a while, she pushed a tissue box across the boards.

"We could get a different table," she said.

"We could."

"Maybe one without a burn."

I laughed before I could help it.

"We'll try."

Wade eventually turned over the sale records and $3,260 in net proceeds after the refunds. I deposited the money in the estate account. Alma kept those records apart from the missing insurance money.

Every dollar needed its own trail now.

A plumber repaired the kitchen tap. I bought a plain oak table for $280 and paid $1,320 from my own account for repairs the house needed before Elsie could move back.

I marked those payments as gifts. There would be no bill waiting for her when she grew up.

Dana visited us there before the move. She checked the bedroom, the locks, and the distance to school.

"June, how will work fit around caring for her?" she asked.

"The Ohio contract is done. I'm keeping my little workshop in Muncie, but another mechanic will run the daytime jobs. I'll take scheduled work nearby."

"Will that be enough for you?"

It was a fair question. I had built a life with hours of quiet and tools exactly where I left them.

"I'll miss some things," I said. "I won't ask her to repay me for that."

Dana nodded and wrote something down.

On moving day, Elsie carried her three bean plants. Their leaves shook above the rims of the pots.

She chose the kitchen window because it got morning sun.

That night, she unpacked every piece of clothing. Until then, she had kept half in her bag, even when I bought her a dresser for the apartment.

I stayed in the doorway while she folded her last pair of socks.

"Can I put the bag away?" she asked.

"Where would you like it?"

"Top shelf."

I lifted it up. She shut the closet.

I was washing dishes when she came down with her library book. A folded page lay between the last two chapters.

"This is for Dana," she said.

"I'll make sure she gets it."

"You can read it too."

I dried my hands before opening it.

The note was only four lines long.

"I want Daddy to know I still want a daddy. I don't want to live at his house. I want to stay here. Please don't make those the same question."