There Was an Old Woman

Chapter Seventeen


Evie realized that Mrs. Yetner was only trying to be kind, asking about her mother, but Evie was finding it overwhelming enough without having to deal with the concern of others. Peace, quiet, and some time alone were what she craved.

She closed some of the windows and plugged the refrigerator back in. Started a potpie in the oven and put the rest in the freezer. Pure comfort food was exactly what she needed, never mind that it was mostly cornstarch and salt.

She put away the rest of her purchases. In the bottom of one bag, along with her receipt, she found another copy of the Soundview Watershed Preservation brochure. The photographs of the marsh on the back cover could have been taken from her mother’s back porch. She set the brochure on the mantel.

Other than pretending that stems of feathery marsh grass were their magic wands, Evie and Ginger had always been oblivious to the marsh and its wildlife. Mostly Evie had been embarrassed by its farty smell.

Now she didn’t mind that smell so much. It was preferable by far, she thought as she took in the remaining mess, to sewage and rotting food. At least the smell in the house was better than when she’d first gotten there. Sleeping there wouldn’t be as miserable as she’d feared.

While she waited for the pie to heat up, Evie went methodically from room to room, looking on every surface, in every drawer and box and closet, grabbing any mail or official-looking papers that might help her assess her mother’s finances. She piled everything she found on the kitchen table.

It was only when the smell of baking chicken pie filled the kitchen that she remembered how often her mother had made them for dinner. How their freezer had been packed with Stouffer’s potpies and Swanson TV dinners and Van de Kamp’s fish sticks.

Evie pulled the pie from the oven, let it cool a bit, and then devoured it directly from the baking tin. After that, she began to sort the papers she’d accumulated. Piece by piece, she fell quickly into a rhythm, separating bills and statements into categories, setting aside the occasional personally addressed envelope, and discarding junk mail and advertising circulars. She’d done this kind of thing countless times when the Historical Society acquired paper archives, separating the wheat from the chaff.

When she had everything categorized and sorted by date, she stopped to assess. REMINDER. PAST DUE. OVERDUE. The words were in bold on envelope after envelope. Water, gas, electricity, heating oil bills: all were at least two months overdue.

And yet there were also envelopes with checks. Social Security. Fireman’s pension. In all, the uncashed checks added up to about fifteen thousand dollars, plenty to pay off unpaid bills.

Evie opened her mother’s latest bank statements. There was only five hundred in checking; a little over four thousand in savings. There’d been no activity in either account since mid-March. No deposits. No withdrawals. No nothing.

She was afraid to open the latest credit card bill. But when she did, she found a zero balance due. Zero! She opened the three earlier statements. Her mother hadn’t even used the credit card in March, when the overdue balance had been more than eight thousand dollars with finance charges accruing to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month. In April that balance had been paid off in full.

How had her mother paid the bill? Evie went back to the bank statements but found no checks corresponding to the payment. And how on earth was her mother managing to keep herself stocked with vodka and cigarettes, never mind cat food for strays, if she wasn’t withdrawing money or using her credit card?

The only mail left to be sorted was about a dozen pieces that looked personal. There was the birthday card Evie had sent, unopened. Two more of the envelopes also looked like greeting cards. One turned out to be happy birthday from her mother’s dentist; another birthday card was from “Frank.” Of course, the neighbor who’d come over and introduced himself that morning. She put all three cards on the mantel.

Finally, there were five identical brown envelopes, each with her mother’s name and address handwritten on the front. She picked up one of them. It was thick, as if a sheaf of papers was folded inside. The flap wasn’t sealed. Evie lifted it and looked inside. She pulled out a bundle wrapped in a sheet of white paper. She opened it up to find a stack of hundred-dollar bills.

What on earth? Evie started to count them. When she got to twelve, the doorbell rang.