Читать книгу Tidal Flats - Cynthia Newberry Martin - Страница 15

5

On her second day in charge, she dropped the bag of iPhones and iPads she’d bought for the Fates onto her desk and answered the phone.

“Hey, Cass, it’s Gregory. On behalf of the board, we’d like to say congratulations.”

“Thanks, I appreciate—”

“We hope you had a good first day because … Well, we know how much you wanted this but …” He cleared his throat.

“But what?” she asked, visualizing Gregory slumped over his too-small desk, twiddling his pencil, his Panama Jack hat pushed back, revealing the baldness it was there to hide.

“Howell is in a bit of a financial situation,” he said. “I’m afraid we only have enough money to stay open until the end of the year.”

Cass collapsed into her chair. “How can that be? I don’t understand.”

“The property taxes went up. Actually, everything has gone up. Except for the investments. And we made assumptions based on previous years’ incomes and expenditures. Those assumptions proved to be—”

“Why didn’t Bev tell me?”

“When she gave us her news, we didn’t think … Only the board knows.”

“How could you let this happen? How did you not see this coming? How could you not give us a warning?” She pushed back from the desk and stood again, facing the back yard.

“This is your warning.”

Overhead, the tall, tall trees—a safe canopy—but too far away, as if a layer were missing. In the past few weeks, it had seemed impossible the fuzziness on the trees would ever turn into large green leaves, but now Cass could see the bare branches of winter.

“How much do we need?”

“Half a million—to make it another year.”

Cass closed her eyes. She’d never raised so much as a hundred dollars. “I wanted to be in charge for the Fates, to make their lives bigger, not to spend my time asking people for money.”

“Sorry this is falling on you, Cass.”

“How long do we have?”

“All I know is the lights go out December 31.”

He picked up on the first ring. “Hey babe.” “There’s no money,” Cass said.

“No money?”

“Howell House,” she said. “There’s no money for next year.” She stood and then sat, having a hard time being still.

“Are you kidding me? That can’t be right.”

She leaned back and swiveled toward the side windows, no longer seeing the trees she knew were there.

“Bev should have told you six months ago.”

“She doesn’t know.”

“Well, the foundation should have told you before you accepted.”

“I would have accepted anyway.”

“Really?”

“I wouldn’t have left the Fates with no one. At least I know I’ll try my hardest.”

“I’m so sorry. It’s hard to believe. How much do you need?”

“Five hundred thousand.”

“Half a million—wow. Somebody screwed up.”

“Don’t say ‘half a million.’”

“You just need a few big donors, or one actually.”

“I’m worried, Ethan.” She stood up and turned to the deck behind her. Like a child, she stomped her foot. “I got what I wanted but without any money for it to last. I’ve never handled fund-raising. I thought I would have more time to learn that part of the job. And I didn’t think it would be such an important part.”

“You know you can do this, babe,” he said. “You’re going to be great.”

“I had so many plans,” she said, sinking back into her chair, staring at the bag of unopened iPhones and iPads.

Upstairs, May’s door was open. She sat in her favorite spot, a chair facing out the window, her gigantic knitting needles in her lap. Even with daily housekeeping, her room was a mess, but it didn’t make Cass feel anxious or as if she needed to clean. With other Fates, Cass would have started picking things up as soon as she opened the door. But May’s mess was different, and lovely. It was part of her. And it calmed Cass.

May turned in her direction and smiled, tears streaming down her face.

Cass handed her a tissue.

“Sometimes I can’t hold it all inside.”

May still looked the same as when Cass first met her—small recessed green eyes, a face that pooled into wrinkles, and familiar white hair soft like the petals of a flower with just enough wisps of it to cover her head, no eyebrows. But these days, May had trouble seeing the center of things. Macular degeneration. Light was the only thing that helped.

“I never did like being out there,” May said, nodding to the window, still patting her face with the tissue. “At first that didn’t make any sense—that I wanted to look at it but not be in it. My Harvey was just the opposite. He wanted to be on the horse or in the water. He didn’t just walk on the beach; he dug his toes in the sand. But it doesn’t have to make sense, does it?”

“It doesn’t,” Cass said. May often told her about Harvey digging his toes in the sand.

“People enjoy things in different ways,” May said, turning again to the window.

But nothing was happening in the back yard—it was so still it could have been a photo.

“I had a good life,” May said finally. “I’m not ready for it to be over. Inside I feel just the same as when my mama called me Cora May and told me to stop spinning, that I was going to make myself sick but I never did. I can’t believe it when I look in the mirror. The first half of my life took place in slow motion. Then I got married and time seemed to stop. Or it seemed irrelevant. I sold real estate, I made dinner, the next thing I knew I was fifty years old.”

Cass looked at the window’s rectangular panes—still twelve.

“But time is never irrelevant,” May said. “It’s just hard to see something you’re inside of. I should have looked up more.”

May told her this almost every day.

“It’s a wonderful thing, marriage,” May said. “Two people committing to stick together. But it closes doors. It drops you into a container. Before, anything. After, married.”

This was new.

May picked up the needles and the small patch of pink yarn, still staring out the window. “But by making your circumstances fixed, marriage forces change inside you.” Her black T-shirt read Easily Distracted by Shiny Objects. “Or it busts the container to bits,” she said and laughed.

“If you knew then what you know now, would you do it again?”

May turned to her. “But we’ll never know before what we know after. It will always be a leap. But, yes, I would do it again.”

Huge old oak trees bordered the lot. May’s answers weren’t supposed to change. “What do you remember about being a kid?”

“No trash,” May said.

Cass relaxed.

“We used everything. Until the paper disintegrated or the fabric shredded, or the last carrot top had dissolved into the broth. When there were bones, we played with them first and then gave them to the dogs.”

Cass leaned against the bed.

“If I were doing it all again, by the way, I’d have a houseful of children.”

“Why?”

“They bring the life to the party. They bring the unexpected, the future. But I couldn’t have any. Are you sure you don’t want any children?”

“Pretty sure.” The sky was a clear blue.

“Why?” May dropped the needles and yarn into her lap.

Cass hesitated. “My mother didn’t want me. I ruined her life. Then, when I was in seventh grade, I saw a little girl get hit by a motorcycle. And that was that.”

“Bless your heart, you were a child yourself.”

“Let’s read.”

“Cass,” May said, reaching out. Cass leaned forward and May touched her arm. “Bad things happened to you, but good things can happen, too. Look for the good things. Your heart may surprise you one day.” May placed her hands in her lap on top of the needles. “Okay, climb up and get comfortable. Let’s read.”

Reading to May was how it had all started, and it remained Cass’s favorite part of the day. She missed it when they couldn’t find time for it—like yesterday. Thirty minutes and then she would go back to the office where there was no money for any of her plans.

Cass dropped her sandals and scooted up. “Page one,” she said.

But before she could read the first word, May began from memory. “In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together.”

Stretched out on May’s bed as if she were a child, listening to the words lift and unfold, Cass looked around this room that seemed bigger than it usually did. She closed her eyes. May’s steady, melodious voice grounded and soothed her in a way nothing else could. Cass loved Howell House. It gave her something she couldn’t give herself, something not even Ethan could give her—a layer above her.