South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [129]
Gladys went to the sink, Edmund tagging behind, and ran water in the kettle. “John Fitzgerald found him down in Crosscut at the pound. He brought him home but Ruth claims she’s allergic. So John brought him over and asked if I could take him in, though what he thinks I want with a cat I don’t know.” Gladys sat down and Edmund leapt into her lap. She began petting him and Madeline could hear his purr from across the room. Madeline tried—not very hard—to hide a grin.
“Gosh, I don’t know either, everybody knows how you feel about cats.”
“I couldn’t tell John no, he’s always been good to Us.” Gladys turned Edmund belly-up to cradle him in the crook of one arm and he continued to purr. She stroked his throat with a bony finger before setting him back down. “So now I have a cat.”
“So you do.” Madeline pulled mugs down from the cupboard. She got milk from the icebox and adjusted the flame Under the kettle. Gladys still did all her baking with the woodstove, claiming everything turned out better in it, but she would Use the gas stove for simple things like boiling water now. “What are you Up to on a ladder, anyway?” she asked when the coffee was perking.
“Making Butte’s room over. John had a table he didn’t want any longer, so he brought it over and moved the bed for me. I’m just putting shelves Up.”
“Really. What’re you going to do in there?”
Gladys blushed, to Madeline’s astonishment. Then she cleared her throat and said, “I’m going to write down my memories. My life story, I guess you’d say.”
“You’re kidding, that’s great.”
“Do you think so?”
“It’s a great idea, haven’t I been telling you that for months? I can’t wait to read it. I mean, if you’ll let me.”
“We’ll see.” Then Gladys made another admission. “I’ve bought a computer. One like Mabel’s.”
“A computer! Gladys, you’re amazing.”
“I went ahead and got that high-speed Internet connection, I thought I might go on eBay. I’m looking for alarm clocks for you, if you want to know the truth. I wish I never would have sold them. You wouldn’t believe the price I’m going to have to pay.”
Madeline laughed and then—probably to Gladys’s astonishment, and to her own as well—she got Up and gave Gladys a hug.
Gladys went back to work when Madeline left. There was the still the closet to go through. Arbutus had insisted she didn’t need more than a few inches of space while she was there, and shame on herself, Gladys had acquiesced. She was going to have a devil of a time now.
First there were the hangers to empty, clothes of Frank’s she hadn’t been able to part with when he died. Now was the time. That red-and-black plaid hunting jacket might fit Madeline. She tsked at herself over the shirts and pants. Frank had been buried in his one good suit, no one was going to Use what was left here Unless Madeline ever got around to getting that old rug loom Up and running. She came to Frank Junior’s dress Uniform and gazed at it for a long time. She left it hanging.
She began pulling boxes from the recesses of the deep closet: old receipts, letters, bills, photograph albums. She leafed through one. There was Frank Junior with Henry out on the docks with a big steelhead they’d caught, grinning to beat the band. Oh, it was too much. Gladys closed the album and reached for the next box.
More photos, she wasn’t going to look at those, and more odds and ends. She lifted Up a pair of suspenders and then she knew—these were Joe’s things. Oh, dear heavens. She did not know that she was Up to this. But well started was half done. They were modest things—the suspenders, some tarnished cuff links, a pipe, a shaving mug, some road maps, a few photographs. Gladys stopped short at the photos. She should have remembered these long ago. What had she been thinking?
She hadn’t been thinking, that was the truth. She didn’t like to think of any of it. She’d loved Joe, more than she ever would’ve wanted anyone to know, and she still missed him. At the same time she hated how obstinate he was over Madeline, a little child left to be brought