South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [52]
Madeline was annoyed when Gladys left after breakfast, backing down the drive with an impassive expression plastered on her face. She’d thought they were United on this issue of Emil. But Gladys had been edgy all morning, cranky and uncommunicative.
“What’s her problem?” Madeline asked Arbutus after the car had disappeared.
Arbutus shook her head.
“I thought we’d talk about Emil some more, come Up with something.”
Arbutus sighed. “I admire your spirit, dear. I just can’t think what there would be for Us to do. You know this is all about money.”
“Which we don’t have.”
Arbutus lifted a shoulder. “I hate to see Emil thrown out of his home. But I do think that if people with money want it to happen it’ll be awfully hard to stop it.”
Madeline frowned, then sighed, and thought, So much for talking. Gladys had the right attitude: just do something, even if it’s wrong. When Arbutus was settled in the parlor with her library book, Madeline told her she had some errands to run. “I’ll be back to check on you before I head off to work,” she promised. “Unless you want me to wait Until Gladys gets back—”
“I’m fine, dear, you go on ahead.”
Emil met Madeline at his door and she made her way into the gloom. He pulled a cola from the cooler he kept on the floor and then sat with his right leg crossed over the left in the dainty way he had, nodding his foot, waiting for her to announce her purpose.
“Look, Emil. Gladys told me what they’re trying to do, and we want to help.”
“That ain’t necessary.”
“It’s not right that they try and condemn your place. I think if you fought it—”
“It ain’t necessary,” he repeated.
“But why?”
“I give it some thought. I’m moving. Gonna take a place in the senior citizen apartments in town, gonna sell this place. It ain’t even three acres but I ought to get a fair price for it. Might end Up with enough to buy a new truck.”
Madeline was shocked that he’d given Up and made other plans almost overnight. After a startled moment she said, “Is that what you want? Really?”
He gave her an enigmatic smile, his eyes as amused as ever.
“Emil—”
“Times is changing. Gotta change with ’em. Plus I’m getting old. Be easier in town.”
“But what about—” She gestured around the trailer: boxes, skins, chain saws, parts, Sal’s blanket in a wad on the floor.
He looked around. “What, and leave all this, that what you’re saying?”
“It’s your home, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “It ain’t much.”
She couldn’t tell if Emil meant what he said any more than she’d known if it bothered Gladys to sell her wedding silver. “Won’t you hate it in the apartments? And what about Sal?”
“Beats getting stuck in the home for the retarded down in Crosscut.”
Madeline blinked, surprised that he knew this part of the plan too.
“And as for Sal, I’m taking her with me. Ain’t that right, Sal?” He nudged her with his boot and she looked Up at him with that fond, aggravated glance. “Who’d make an old geezer give Up his most faithful friend?” Emil’s laugh here was delighted, a sing-songing tee hee, and for a moment Madeline wondered what he had Up his sleeve. “I asked my pal Don about it. You can have a pet, long as it ain’t too big, and Sally ain’t very big at all.”
“But Emil, it’s so—different there.”
“I’ll probably like it all right. I got some friends there. Coupla old farts I grew Up with. We’ll get along.”
Oh, this seemed a desolate capitulation for an independent, characterful old man. She could not picture Emil in a one-bedroom apartment with beige Utility carpet and ivory-painted walls, a low-rimmed tub and toilet with handrails, a convenient, modern kitchenette. An image of a coonskin draped over the shower bar and a chain saw in parts on the rug rose in her mind and she did smile a little, but sadly. It was cold comfort to think of him that way. Tamed, reined in. And what about the board’s plan to get him committed? “Please let Us try to help, we can fight this.”
“I’ll be all right. Might be nice to turn a tap for running water, spin a dial for heat. And the rent’s cheap. Based on income, howdya like that? I oughta get a real