Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [101]
“He didn’t have a true calling,” I say out loud, not meaning to.
“No, he certainly didn’t.” Mr. Gary doesn’t seem surprised that I know that, but Troo’s mouth has turned down on the corners. I’m supposed to tell her when I hear gossip that I think she’d be interested in hearing, too, but I never told her what Aunt Betty told me up at the Five and Dime that afternoon. I knew she’d get mad if I did. That was back when she was still playing Scarlett to Father’s Rhett. “Do you know the whole story, Sally? Why Mickey became a priest?” Mr. Gary asks. His words are getting a bit fuzzy around the edges. He’s had three of those whiskey drinks.
Troo sticks her tongue out at me ever so slightly and says, “I know! Aunt Betty told me that in the old days Father got caught bettin’ for a third time by the police and was supposed to go to jail, but then he got told by the judge that if he became a priest he wouldn’t have to do time.”
I cannot believe she didn’t tell me the minute she found that out! She can be so, so secretive.
Mr. Gary says, “That’s not all there was to it, but close enough.”
The three of us sit for a while listening to Mr. Moriarity’s dog bark down the block. Troo is twirling her hair and Mr. Gary looks like he’s trying not to break out in tears. “I always forget how the smell of the chocolate chip cookies hangs over the neighborhood,” he says. “When we were kids, we could go up to the factory and stand in line. You could get a bag of the broken ones for a nickel. They still do that?”
“Ethel goes up there every Friday afternoon because your mom loves dunkin’ them in a glass of milk before bed,” I say, reminding him one more time how hardworking and sacrificing Ethel is. How tender and caring. That she’s thriftier even than Mrs. McDougal.
Troo says to Mr. Gary, “Your turn.” She has the Old Maid. The first day we got the deck, she folded over one of the corners so she could spot it easier. She tugs it up a little higher than the rest of the cards to make it more tempting.
Falling into her trap, Mr. Gary plucks the card out of my sister’s fanned-out hand and asks, “Do you girls remember when I told you last summer that Mom had left Ethel something to remember her by in her will?”
After he had too many cocktails on this very same porch, he sloshed out that secret and made Troo and me promise not to tell anybody. I kept my word. I’m not sure if my sister did.
“Yup, we remember when you told us about all that money,” Troo says, pleased as all get out that she pulled a fast one on him.
“Well . . . Mom’s lawyer, Mr. Cooper?” Mr. Gary says. “He called to inform me that . . . if she should . . .” He reaches for his glass on the table and gulps the rest of it down. “In the event of her passing, Mother of Good Hope will be receiving quite a tidy bundle. Mom cut Ethel out of her will.”
“No! No! She can’t do that! Ethel . . . she deserves . . . her dreams . . . we gotta get up to the hospital and pour cold water over your mother’s head. Right away,” I say, throwing down my cards. “When she comes to, we’ll set her straight. Tell her that Ethel would never mix up her medicines or steal her jewelry or anything else bad.”
Mr. Gary snuffles and says, “I’m sorry, Sally. I feel as bad about this as you do. But other than a few gifts for the orphanage and St. Joe’s, the bulk of Mom’s estate will be going to the church. Mickey has been named executor of her will and unless Doc Keller agrees that Mom’s not of sound mind, which he doesn’t seem willing to do, there’s not a thing I can change about that.”
“But Father Mickey, he’s . . .” It’s my duty to mention the godforsaken things we know about him. I’m sure of it. “You should know that Father Mickey—ow!” Troo gives me the hardest pinch on the back of my hand.
“I’m sure Mom had her reasons, I . . . I just can’t figure out what they could be,” Mr. Gary says, looking toward the alley again. “Doesn’t she remember how Mick beat me over