South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [27]
All those ideas had been nothing but Unformed, youthful dreams.
Still, she could do something new and different now, if she wanted to. Wasn’t that why she was here in the first place? She shouldn’t forget that. She should find a way—a reasonable way of course—to keep those old dreams alive. She should keep drawing, for sure. After one last look out the window, Madeline headed back to the car.
A few mornings later the burner on the gas stove didn’t light when Gladys turned the knob. After peering into the oven to check the pilot, she sent Madeline out to check the tank.
Madeline came back in. “It says it’s empty.”
“That can’t be.”
“That’s what it says.”
Gladys glanced over her shoulder, thinking of Arbutus, not wanting her to hear from where she sat in the parlor watching the television. “Let me see.”
She went outside and peered at the gauge and tapped it, hard, but the reading didn’t change. She picked Up a branch and whacked at the belly of the tank and sure enough, it sounded hollow. She dropped the branch. “Damn it, I just filled the thing.” She bit her lip, chagrined at herself for cursing.
Madeline came Up behind her. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” But even as she said it she knew she was wrong. When she let herself think about it, Gladys knew that the tank hadn’t been filled in months. Time just went so fast, was all, and money went almost nowhere. She took a deep breath, exhaled in a gust. “We’ll have to get more, that’s all.”
Of course it wasn’t that easy and Madeline would know it. She’d snooped at the bills and probably had seen the one from the gas company stamped “Delinquent.” The stamp went on to say, “Please note that we can no longer refill any tanks for delinquent accounts.” One good thing, if they’d had a rubber stamp made Up to say all that, she couldn’t be the only one with money troubles. Which wasn’t much consolation.
Gladys felt like flinging herself on the ground and having a good old-fashioned tantrum. It was a shame and a waste, but she was going to have to sell the kicksled, Grandma’s potkukelkka she brought all the way from Finland, to raise the money to pay the bill. She’d find some way to explain it to Arbutus later. It was just a thing, after all. A thing that had been sitting in the front hall of the hotel for years, not doing anybody any good. And the antiques man from over in the Soo had offered her a big price for it a decade ago, before she’d closed the place Up for good. She’d scoffed at him, told him she was poor but not so poor she’d go selling off family heirlooms. Well. How the mighty had fallen.
She’d just about made Up her mind to sell it even before the gas tank turned Up empty. The jolt of fury she’d felt when she caught Madeline inspecting her bills finally gave her the courage—or foolhardiness?—to take the first step in doing this terrible, terrible thing. Only it wasn’t so terrible. It was just necessary. Now that first step was taken, it wouldn’t be so hard to take the next one. That was the way of life. She’d call the man if she could get a minute alone. She knew he was still in business at the same place. She allowed herself to wonder if it had been a mistake, after all, to close. It would have been a trickle of money coming in, at least. But the expense of it all—the heat, the electric, fixing the roof, a hundred other things the old behemoth needed.
“What are we going to do?” Madeline asked.
That startled Gladys back to the present. Of course Madeline wouldn’t know anything about trouble like this. She’d grown Up coddled and modern in Chicago, a world away from the life Gladys led, or Joe Stone, or even Jackie, come to that, though it was not Gladys’s habit to give Jackie the benefit of any doubt.
“We’re not going to do anything. I’ll take care of the gas company. You go bring in some wood for the cookstove, I can’t think why you let it get so low by the door.”
Madeline gave her an exasperated look but headed for the woodpile beside the shed