South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [94]
“That’s a crock of beans. She made a mistake.”
“She got drunk and deliberately set the hotel on fire!”
“She got tipsy and forgot those candles were burning. It could happen to anyone.” Gladys could hear Arbutus counting beneath her breath between sentences.
“As if you ever took a drink in your life.”
“You know what I mean. Things happen.”
“You’re too forgiving. I’m not like you.”
“I know that,” Arbutus said, her voice laden with meaning. “Truer words were never spoken. Imagine how it would be if you were.”
Gladys glared down at the sauce she had simmering, powerless to make any retort. Arbutus’s forgiveness for selling Grandmother’s kicksled came with a price.
“It was a hard day for Madeline,” Arbutus said. “You weren’t there to hear Tracy, you were already outside. It affected her, it really did. It’s not been easy for her here, not since the start. She’s had a lot on her mind.”
“She was here to look after you, nothing else.”
Arbutus rolled her eyes, kept counting leg swings. When she’d finished she said, “I told you to tell her about Walter right away.”
Gladys didn’t answer. She had lunch to fix.
Arbutus started in on her arm exercises next, pumping them slowly Upward, like she was lifting weights. “Would you have given her the keys if she asked?”
Gladys refused to answer that too, she knew a trick question when she heard it.
Arbutus came and sat down when she’d finished. “She’s not like her mother, Gladys, and you know it. And even if she was, so what?”
Gladys rustled around in the cupboards getting dishes out.
“Look at that picture she painted of Us, she wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t care.” The picture was propped Up on the bureau in Arbutus’s room, and Gladys had looked at it more often than Butte was to know. Arbutus snagged a fried apple out of the dish Gladys sat on the table and Gladys swatted at her hand. “It’s Us but in a way it isn’t Us. It’s more than Us. Don’t you think?”
Gladys finished putting lunch on the table. A piece of baked fish, broccoli with cheese sauce, a loaf of nisu to go with the fried apples.
“I still say you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face,” Arbutus said after they’d said grace.
Gladys didn’t want to talk about it. “I guess Emil figures he’s safe, these days,” she said. “Hasn’t heard any more from that zoning board.”
“His plan worked, then.”
Gladys speared a piece of fish off the platter and laid it on her sister’s plate. “Seems to have. Though I wouldn’t rest too easy if I was him. I still think Cal Tate’s got plans for that land Up there.”
“Probably. I think I’ll like the apartments, though. Unlike Emil. It’ll be nice having the shoveling looked after, and people just down the hall. Less to worry about.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Gladys warned. “Once the hotel sells, you’ll wish you had your house back. I wish you’d listen to reason.”
“I’ll be fine. My mind’s made up. I’m tired of worrying.”
Gladys rolled her eyes but kept still. Arguing with Butte was a waste of breath.
Arbutus ate a little more, studying Gladys all the while, and then she said, “Nathan says Madeline’s still got her apartment listed with him.”
“Well, good for her.”
“She hasn’t withdrawn her offer on the hotel, either. It’s contingent on her place selling, is all.”
“La-di-da. I won’t sell it to her.”
“Well I will. And if you won’t, you’ll have to pay a big fee.”
“What?”
“We drew Up all those papers with Nathan, remember? Once you list with real estate you have to accept the offer if it meets your price, or else you have to pay a penalty. My realtor in Crosscut said the same thing, she said make sure you’re sure, you can’t just change your mind.”
“Nathan wouldn’t dare.”
“Of course he would. I told him he should.”
Gladys slammed her fork down. “Arbutus Hill, I don’t believe you.”
Arbutus shrugged. “Business is business.”
Gladys stabbed a chunk of broccoli and ate it. Then she said, “It’ll never happen anyway. She’ll think better of it. It doesn’t make any more sense now than it ever did. She probably just forgot to withdraw that offer. She’s forgotten