South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [109]
“Always—”
“He almost froze to death out back of our place one night. He fell down in the alley going home from the bar and would’ve lain there all night and froze if Tom hadn’t gone out back for more stove wood. I was always nagging him to keep the woodbox filled and he never did. Fred was just about a goner when Tom found him.”
“He was a sweet man when he was sober.”
“Remember that elixir he Used to make and peddle around to the taverns—”
“Sweet White Birch Vitamins and Minerals!”
“Yes. Lord. I wonder what was in it.”
“Birch ashes, I know that. I don’t know what else. He Used to go around and get the empty wine bottles to put it in, big green bottles with the raised design—”
“They’d never let you do that today.”
“He wouldn’t let it freeze, remember?”
“Yes! He had that old Chevy, put a little stove in the backseat where he carried the stuff, ran a stovepipe out the window.”
“I can see it now, that stovepipe puffing smoke out the car window and Fred inside the tavern, drunker than a skunk.”
“He had a good time.”
“I guess he was happy.”
“I don’t know how Celia put Up with him.”
“She was a saint—”
Madeline let their stories wash over her as she worked. And then Mabel said, “Well, your great-grandma was a camp cook too, didn’t you tell her, Gladys?”
There was an awkward silence. Gladys cleared her throat. “I guess I never did.”
“Mary told me,” Madeline said.
Mabel nodded, intent on finding a stitch she’d dropped. She seemed oblivious to the tension in the room.
“Did you know her?” Madeline asked. “Did you know Ada?”
“Not really. She kept to herself pretty much back there on Stone Lake, and when they left there, they went to Crosscut. I never had much cause to know her.”
Madeline nodded.
“I didn’t know her, either,” Gladys said abruptly. “If I had, I’d tell you. Joe never talked about her much. Well, Joe. He just plain never talked about anything much. What he had to say, he said it with the fiddle.”
Madeline and Gladys gazed at each other. “I would tell you,” Gladys said softly.
After a moment Madeline said, “I believe you.”
In the wink of an eye it was the middle of October. Gladys still had her Rolodex filled with the phone numbers of customers who Used to stay, and she was calling. Madeline had better be ready by the middle of November like she’d planned because Gladys had already lined Up three deer hunters who were delighted to hear the old place was reopening.
Gladys leafed through the Rolodex again to see if she’d missed anyone. She lingered at the card with the number of the antiques man over in the Soo. She wondered how much he’d want for Grandmother’s kicksled. It went against her grain to even think of such a thing, it showed a lack of backbone. But she wanted it back. And now, more or less, she could afford it. Maybe best to let sleeping dogs lie, however. She sighed and flipped to the next card.
She knew Madeline felt a great sense of Urgency to have things perfect even though Gladys had told her the hunters wouldn’t mind a little clutter. But Madeline worked every possible minute. She could hardly be bothered to quit for dinner; only Greyson tempered her burning fire to work, work, work every moment.
Gladys hoped she would not burn herself out. As angry—or perhaps not angry, but cautious and hurt—as she still was, she did hope that. And she hoped Madeline wouldn’t get her heart broken over Greyson, either, because the lay of that land was treacherous, looking after another woman’s child. She admired Madeline for having the guts to do it. She couldn’t say it to Madeline, but she did feel it. She could want the best for her without quite being able to forgive her, couldn’t she?
Madeline kept takingGreyson to see Randi three times a week, somewhat against her judgment. Randi’d grown morose. Her braids had been cut in the hospital and she dwelt on this endlessly. It wasn’t fair, nobody’d asked her, she hated her hair this way, she was going to make a complaint, it was an infringement of her rights. In the meantime she resisted