South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [72]
“Oh. Ouch.”
He shrugged. “We got married too young. My parents tried to tell Us, but we wouldn’t listen. The whole thing was probably doomed from the start.”
“Still—ouch.”
“Yeah.” He told her a little more about the trip, the breakdown, the loaner car.
“Where were you going to go, before you got stranded?”
“Nova Scotia.”
“Really. Why?”
He grinned, hoping he looked dashing. “Family history. I’m a Garceau, right? An Acadian. My great-great-grandparents came from France and settled there, at Port Royal, and then during the French and Indian wars, they got deported. They wouldn’t swear an oath to the British crown. They ended Up in Upstate Maine. Over the years the family wandered out from there. I was going to swing through Canada on the way there, and down through all the places I could trace them on the way back.”
“You’re a romantic, then.”
Was he a romantic? “Kind of a dumb idea,” he said.
“Why? I think it sounds great. An adventure. What else is life for, anyway?” She smiled over her shoulder at him. He was going to tell her about Manny then. He suddenly wanted to. But the phone rang and she pulled her hands from the dishwater to answer it, then held it out to him.
Randi said, “Hey, Paul, are you busy? Do you think you could help me out with Greyson tonight? He’d just be sleeping, I’d have him in his pajamas.”
Madeline had finished Up and left while he was talking.
And now here he was, here they were, he and Randi. If you’d told him that night they’d end Up together, he wouldn’t have believed it. Paul felt bad now for firing Madeline so fast. The thing with the truck had been an accident. Anyone could have an accident, and the truck was just a thing. Wasn’t that his goal in life, to live in the moment and not get too attached to things? But damn it, she’d done exactly what he asked her not to: shown Up late and wrecked the truck. He had been tired and stressed to the bottom of his soul, coping with the busiest day—week, month—of the year. He hadn’t had the time or energy to be Understanding.
When Madeline got to Arbutus’s room one afternoon there was a stout, fiftyish man with thinning hair dressed in rumpled khakis and an oxford shirt standing at her bedside. Nathan. He’d been a couple of times before but he never stayed long and Madeline had always missed him, which she didn’t mind because she had a feeling he blamed her for his mother’s being here, and pretty much he was right. Arbutus was beaming Upon him and Gladys was scowling and he looked weary, more than anything.
“Madeline, Nathan’s here!” Arbutus put a hand on his arm. “And Nathan, you remember Madeline, from Chicago. Remember she came over to the apartment?”
“Yes,” Nathan said in a neutral tone. He went back to the conversation her arrival had interrupted. “Mother, you have to take this offer. Think how much easier it would make everything.”
“But I don’t need all that money all at once right now. I’m going to sell my house.”
“Mother,” Nathan said tiredly as Gladys cried, “Butte.”
“Well I am. And I don’t think it’s right, to sell the hotel to the Bensons. I don’t mind selling it, but not to them. Couldn’t we put something in there, a stipulation that it can’t be torn down? That’s our history, Glad’s and mine, and yours too.”
“History doesn’t pay the bills, I’m sorry to say, Mother.”
“I thought we had this all decided,” Gladys said, irritated. “We agreed.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind. If the hotel is so valuable, why can’t we take a loan out on it?”
“A mortgage?! At our ages?” Madeline was sure Gladys would never admit she’d already looked into this. “What has gotten into you? We decided. Let’s just do it and get it over with. I can’t stand this shilly-shallying.”
“And even if you could get the loan, who would pay it back, and how? And take care of the Upkeep, and the insurance, and a thousand other things?” Nathan asked.
But Arbutus seemed immovable.
“Well, we’re just at a complete standstill,