The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [18]
The dog, Chance, sat on the porch, watching hopefully as the bountiful feast disappeared. Occasionally he pawed expectantly at the screen. Scraping a blob of green Jell-O into the sink, Iona waited until it went down the drain and then said to Jeff, “I can’t keep that dog.”
“I know.” He tossed out a package of lunch meat. “I’ll take Chance back to school. I’ll live someplace where they let you have pets.”
Jeff was nothing if not unreliable, so Iona was doubtful. But as it turned out, he would make good on his promise. He would keep Chance until the dog finally died of natural causes, six years later. It was the beginning of a time of trust.
Now Iona watches from the window as Marie Coleman, procurer of casseroles, disappears down the street. She gets her coffee cup from her office, zaps it in the microwave, and returns to her desk to make out the week’s paychecks. She’ll deliver them to Jeff at the job site right after lunch. The irony of their partnership always makes her wonder what Richard would think if he knew his wife had ended up in the real estate rehab business with his son. He’d probably be delighted.
Maybe he’d be less delighted if he knew their odd pairing was precipitated by his death.
Iona is usually a logical woman, so she still believes that, despite the thorough cleaning she and Jeff gave her kitchen after the mayhem of Richard’s passing, the scent of funeral food lingered for months. Friends said it was her imagination. She knew it wasn’t. It got to the point where she couldn’t even go into the kitchen to brew coffee.
Like any well-educated widow, Iona planned to follow the standard advice not to do anything for a year, but the odor drove her out. She found herself buying meals at places that, philosophically, appalled her but realistically were cheap enough for her budget: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell. She began looking at houses idly at first. She knew that if she stayed where she was, she could live comfortably on Richard’s insurance and social security and her own small income as a part-time real estate agent. This argument aside, she was soon looking at real estate every day, seeking new lodgings with a vengeance.
She would never have ended up in Brightwood Trace, where the houses were all too big for her, except that the one on Hazelwood Way sounded like a steal. The owners had moved out a year before. The property had languished on the market. The price had been reduced for the third time.
Well, no wonder, she’d thought at first. Although lovely from the outside, the house was thirty years old and needed work. The floor plan was nothing special. The bathrooms hadn’t been updated. The Formica counter in the kitchen was about to collapse.
“I’ll do it for you,” Jeff had offered when she described it.
She regarded him skeptically. By then Jeff had dropped out of school. He was working for a builder. Every Sunday he came over for dinner, for reasons neither of them could fathom, except that for a few hours it connected them both to Richard. He had the good sense never to bring the dog.
“You’ll do what?” she asked.
“Remodel the kitchen if you decide to buy the house. Fix up the bathrooms.”
“You wouldn’t have the first clue.”
“Try me,” he said.
She thought, What the hell. If she didn’t get away from the smell of casseroles, she’d be a dead woman, not just broke.
Jeff had always been a mediocre student, but he turned out to be a fine carpenter and handyman, and wise beyond his years in the matter of hiring subcontractors. The new kitchen and baths were a pleasant surprise. The plumbing worked flawlessly. The cabinets and countertops looked far more expensive than they were. Encouraged, Iona bought a second house. Her background in real estate had honed her eye for value. Over the next few