least bit interested in admiring my growth or my natural beauty. She regarded me with the fisheye, as if some frightening life-form had invaded the casserole circle. âMy word, you got on the bus with a . . . a man you met on the plane ? Itâs a wonder he wasnât after more than your purse.â
I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. âHe was a dentist .â As if that explained everything. âAnyway, I was never in any danger. I just forgot my purse.â
âWhat sort of purse?â one of the ladies asked. âNothing expensive, I hope?â
âLand sakes, whatâs that matter?â Mama B snapped, then turned and hobbled toward the car. âLetâs leave these folks to their reunitinâ. We got more deliveries to make.â
Even the members of the Moses Lake human telegraph knew better than to refuse a direct order from Mama B. Reluctantly, they backed away, having ferreted out enough details to successfully add their own and come up with an account of my arrival in town. In closing, they offered a few sympathetic, but pointed, comments about the burden of my two widowed uncles being forced to provide for all this company . Then they handed over more food before following Mama B. Clayâs apparent girlfriend kissed him on the cheek and whispered, âWe gotta drop off a meal for a funeral.â Adding a meaningful look, she told Clay sheâd see him later.
An uncomfortable silence descended on us as the crowd departed. I was conscious of everyone surreptitiously watching me and maintaining their positions, in the way members of the bomb squad might gather around a suspicious package.
My mother broke the stalemate by peeking under the foil on the CorningWare pan. âStill hot,â she said, her tone overly light and falsely cheerful. âLetâs go around back and eat on the sun porch. Clay, maybe you can give Heather a ride over to Catfish Cabins after that.â
âThe cabins?â I glanced at the house. Despite the presence of the funeral office, parlors, and workrooms, as well as the chapel in what had once been a grand ballroom, Harmony House was still quite large, the entire second floor and both ends of the main floor remaining in use as personal residence space. There was also the small gardenerâs cottage out back, which meant there was plenty of space for me to stay here. So why was Mom trying to ship me off to the rental cabins, halfway around the lake by Uncle Charleyâs restaurant? With no car to drive, Iâd be stranded there.
Maybe that was their plan. Maybe I was being given the bumâs rushâwhile they were happy not to have to report me as a missing person, they didnât want me around, either. âI thought Iâd stay here.â
âOh . . . Well, itâs sort of . . . crowded. . . .â Mom hedged as furtive glances darted between the relatives. âUncle Charley has been living here for a while now, since Uncle Herb shouldnât be alone. Itâs somewhat crowded with Clay and me in the house, too, and now the mess of getting ready for the estate sale. The place really is a disasââ
âI can bunk out back in the gardenerâs cottage.â I didnât wait for her to finish. I wasnât about to let them warehouse me off-site while they continued with whatever they were doing. Iâd never seen a group of people looking so culpable. I was going to be on them like fleas on a back-porch hound , as Uncle Herbâs Mennonite housekeeper, Ruth, used to say.
Glancing at the house momentarily, I wondered what had happened to Ruth. During those terrible months of my senior year, she was the one whoâd saved me. She hadnât tried to convince me to snap out of it, or stop skulking around in black T-shirts and too much makeup, or keep a stiff upper lip, like Uncle Herb and Aunt Esther had. Nor had she echoed the
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