The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [67]
Would I tell them that my family thought their money was dirty? They’d both been so happy to help, when they hadn’t done it before. My receiving the funds relieved them from a former guilt. Maybe they’d wash their hands of a family so foolish as to turn down good money. Maybe they’d wash their hands of me.
“Did the day go well?” Louise chirped when I came through the door. “Why, you’re soaked. Where’d you leave your umbrella?”
“I left it at home. At the farm,” I corrected. “One day I’ll own a car,” I said. “So I won’t get so drenched.”
“Well, get those wet things off and I’ll heat up water for a tub.” She took the fur jacket and hat, hung them in the hall while I peeled the packet of mementos out from under my blouse, where I’d kept it as dry as I could.
“I’ll be fine.” I shivered.
Olea came out of her room. “I thought I heard talking.” She looked at her lapel watch. “Was there a train at this hour? We assumed you’d stay the weekend to finalize things.”
I took a deep breath. “There was nothing to finalize. My stepfather, my mother, everyone … They … rejected the money.”
“What?” Louise said.
“Indeed,” Olea said. She sat down on the arm of a chair. Louise brought a fur wrap and put it around me. “They didn’t want to pay off the mortgage?”
“They … didn’t like the source of the funds,” I said. I felt embarrassed for my family, shamed that they couldn’t see the benefit of the money without the story behind it carrying more weight.
“But you earned it,” Louise said. “You and your mother.”
“Not in my stepfather’s eyes. And Mama … she’s too worn out to stand against him anymore. Saving the farm would have been a gift to her. She might have forgiven herself for not being home when Bertha and Johnny became ill. I wanted to do that for her. For them. But they …” The tears began again. “They want nothing to do with the walk or money from it. They think I’ve abandoned them because I came back here, because I want to continue to work for you. If you’ll have me.”
“Of course we’ll have you.” Louise put a teakettle on. “You must get out of those wet things. Go now,” she urged.
I followed her advice, stripped the wet clothes, then put on a wrapper and rolled the fur around my shoulders again. Louise pointed to a chair and put slippers onto my feet when I sat. She brought me tea. My eyes pooled with tears at her care.
“The money is in my purse,” I said. “Take it back.”
Olea sipped her tea. “It’s not our money anymore, Clara. It’s yours. To do with as you see fit. You earned it. Invest it. Turn it into something your parents can be proud of.”
“They’ll never be proud of anything I do with it,” I said. Nor would they ever be proud of me. I could see that now. Even Mama couldn’t speak up for me anymore, though we’d shared a memory none of the rest of the family had. That might have been another reason why my brothers and sisters could so easily side with my stepfather against me, against their own best interests. They wanted to keep the farm too, but not if I gave the money.
“Then invest it for yourself. Make your own way,” Olea said. “Prove that it isn’t money but what you do with it that is the moral base of who you are. After all, God loved things. He made things every day for six days and said they were all good. It isn’t having things that is the issue; it’s the attitude. Make your own way; give back in your own way too.”
I’d dreamed of having a career, a profession too, a life apart from working for my family. I could go on to college now. The world was open to me if I kept the money, so open that I was paralyzed to act.
“They’ll feel better about it in a few days,” Louise said. “Time is always a good healer. You plan to go back out there again. After they’ve had a little time to consider, they’ll likely welcome your offer.”
In that moment, Louise reminded me of my mother’s once cheerful optimism about mishaps, and I knew it to be equally hopeless.
“They’re not welcoming me