South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [81]
“And you’re just as bad,” Terry went on. “You’ve got assets, why should I have to carry your bill?”
Assets! Two decrepit old houses and one family heirloom hotel that they’d been pressuring her to sell. Assets. “Be that as it may. Randi is a child and she has a child. She was born and raised here and so were her parents and grandparents, she’s not some fly-by-night passing through.” Like you, she meant, and Terry saw that she meant it, and Gladys was glad. “We have a responsibility. I guess that makes me old-fashioned but that’s what I think.”
Terry snorted. “That’s a bunch of—”
“Ladies.”
Gladys looked over at the judge and nodded, to agree with him that things were getting out of hand. “Mabel told me they’d cut off Emil Sainio too—”
Alex Benson said, “He’s an old drunk.”
Gladys gazed at them with contempt and severity. “Emil Sainio’s personal life is not your business.”
“He buys enough liquor to pickle a horse every week!” Terry cried.
Gladys lifted her chin. “Emil is Emil. He is what he is, it’s no business of yours.”
“Well I don’t have to pay for his habit, and I won’t!”
“How much does Emil owe right now?” Gladys asked, narrowing her eyes.
“That’s not the point—”
“How much?” the judge asked.
“Nothing.” Terry flashed a sour look at Gladys.
“Nothing?” the judge asked with lifted brows.
“Someone sent in a payment, cleared out his bill the other day.”
“And how often does that happen?” Gladys asked, forgetting for a moment that she was not in charge of these proceedings.
Terry didn’t answer.
“How often?” the judge said.
“Every few months, if he hasn’t paid it himself,” Terry admitted, as sullen as a teenager. Which is all she was, really. An overgrown, spoiled child who never put herself in someone else’s shoes, not even for a moment.
“That’s right,” Gladys said. “Every so often somebody pays off Emil’s bill, that’s just how things are done, that’s how things have always been done, and there was nothing wrong with it, no need to bring it all out into the light. You can afford to wait those few months, don’t tell me you can’t, and if you can’t it’s your own fault. Overextended, that’s what you are. I’ve seen that new truck you’re driving, those fancy bikes you bought your kids, the clothes you wear. You took a vacation over Christmas to Colorado. Ski-ing.” The Bensons’ faces flushed with outrage. Well, too bad.
“My kids’ bikes are none of your business,” Alex said.
“And if Emil has pickled his liver, that’s his business, not yours. He’s got a lot of friends. Somebody always pays.”
“That’s not the point,” Terry said.
Gladys ignored this piece of nonsense. “And Mary Feather. Cutting her off, I never heard the like.”
“Old Mary Feather, she’s still kicking?” the judge asked with a kind of wondering delight. “She’s got to be older than God.”
“Well, not as old as that. She’s not so much older than me, really. I guess she must be ninety, maybe a little more, I recall when she moved Up to McAllaster—”
The judge closed his eyes, clearly losing interest, and Gladys hurried on.
“Mary helped me out when times were hard, just like she’s helped a lot of people. Lots of people found fish on their doorstep when they needed it. She never made any fuss about it. Fish, berries, syrup, whatever she had she gave it. Maybe that’s why she’s got almost nothing today.”
“How much did Mary owe?” the judge asked Terry Benson.
“Over a thousand dollars. We let it go and go.”
“It was over the winter!” Gladys cried. “You know she can’t make any money in the winter, about everything she has comes in the summer, off the syrup and the berries and the fish she sells, and since you won’t buy that now, she’s got to try and peddle it herself, and she couldn’t half of last summer. She was in the hospital with the bronchitis, you know that! And you know very well she’d have paid as soon as she could. Mary’s