The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [19]
In this year’s slow market, the only house she felt confident enough to invest in was a decaying junk heap that would have been worth almost nothing except that it was located in an otherwise-decent neighborhood. After finishing up in the office and eating a sandwich, Iona drives out to take a look at it. A few months before, it was a fall-down pile of rubble. Now it’s a nice suburban house with a spacious, grassy lot some young family will find perfect for a vegetable garden and a swing.
Jeff has been supervising the carpet installers this morning, not painting or sawing or climbing around on rafters, so he ought to look more put together than usual but, as a matter of principle, doesn’t. If his father’s death twelve years ago cut off the long tail of his rebellion, he’s pridefully retained its stub. Except at his wedding, he has unfailingly looked like poor white trash, giving himself away only when he talks. His long hair is gathered in its usual limp ponytail, his frayed jeans ride far too low on his hips, and today’s T-shirt features a large, menacing-looking motorcycle above a faded logo too washed out to read.
“Paychecks?” he asks, fingering his signature silver earring as he strides toward her across the construction-littered yard with its eco-friendly Real Estate Reborn sign sprouting from the dried mud. Jeff knows she has the checks but leaves the matter in question for the workers emerging from the house, milling about in the distance until the moment they can grab their pay and then take off early, as on Friday they always do.
“Paychecks,” Iona confirms, and adds as she always does, “Next time I’m going to let you do them yourself. You need to learn, sooner or later.”
“Later would be nice.”
“One of these weeks I’ll drop dead before they’re ready, and then you’ll be in a fix. You’ll have subcontractors sitting in your living room when you get home, harassing your wife and unborn child.”
“I’m not worried.” He takes the checks from her and flips through them to verify the names and amounts, which he invariably commits to memory. “You’re going to live to ninety, Iona.”
“I’m going to retire long before then and spend my golden years sipping margaritas.”
One of these days she’s going to take a firm stand about this. She’s going to make Jeff learn all the office functions—the accounting software, her filing system, the taxes. It’s ludicrous for someone whose name is on the account to be incapable of doing the payroll. Like most skilled carpenters, Jeff is good in math. If everyone were paid in simple cash, he’d take over in a second—ten dollars an hour times eight is eighty dollars, no problem. But when it comes to figuring taxes and other deductions, he isn’t interested. He doesn’t like office work. He hates computers. Iona clings to the hope that when Lori gives birth to their daughter next month, he’ll change his mind.
After she leaves Jeff, she goes to the bank, picks up her dry cleaning, and stops at Whole Foods for lettuce and walnuts. She’s nearly forgotten the ribbons until she turns onto Brightwood Circle and practically has the wind knocked out of her by the sight of the streamers dancing in the breeze around the trunk of the small maple at the Kelly house at 109.
She will have to see this every time she turns into this street. She will have to prepare herself better. Sit up straight. Look straight ahead. Breathe.
Last night, when she couldn’t sleep, she spent hours at her computer, scanning medical websites from which she learned very little. Doesn’t cancer come on slowly? Not always. Doesn’t it give signs? Only sometimes. She hasn’t seen much of Paisley since school started last month, but on those few occasions,