Then it was a matter of finding somewhere else to put the money. I started looking at the furniture pushed up against the wall. The secretary and dresser had lots of empty drawers, but how bright would it be to dump the money in there?
I finally settled on the rolltop desk, especially after I found a key in the little drawer underneath the rolltop part. The key was for locking the rolltop down, which was exactly what I did after I’d stuffed each of the six pigeonholes with bundles of cash, then stacked the rest of the bundles in front of the pigeonholes. Afterward I pocketed the key to guarantee that if maybe Pops ever got the idea of locking something of his own in there, he wouldn’t be able to get the top up.
Before leaving I checked and double-checked and triple-checked everything I’d touched, and felt for that key in my pocket at least a half-dozen times, making sure it hadn’t evaporated, I guess. Then I locked up the unit, shook the padlock as hard as I could to make sure it was secure, and climbed back into the truck with nothing in my hands but a smashed-down shoebox.
I backtracked a couple of miles, using those few minutes to calm myself down as much as I could before I picked up the girls. I pulled over a block from the daycare to stuff the shoebox into a trash can, then drove forward and parked again and apologized to Anita, a college girl who had stayed late and was keeping the girls entertained with a game of Chutes and Ladders.
I was still out of breath and nauseated when I pulled into the garage at home and unbuckled Emma from her car seat. Then Dani climbed out and sniffed the air and squealed, “I smell pasgetti!,” and I couldn’t keep it down any longer. I hustled outside around the corner of the garage and hoped the neighbors weren’t watching while I puked into the grass.
Sunday mornings I usually stay in bed with Cindy, snuggling and talking about whatever, until we hear the girls making noise. But that next Sunday wasn’t typical, and I was awake before dawn, even though I’d spent most of the night jerking awake at the slightest sound, some of them probably not even real. I slipped out of bed and dressed and put on a pot of coffee, and while the coffee was dripping into the pot I walked out our street to the intersection, where there’s one of those glass boxes with newspapers in it.
I bought a copy and checked out the entire front page before I got back home. Nothing. Then I laid it out on the counter and drank my coffee and went through the paper from front to back. By the time I got to the last page, the coffee tasted sour going down and even worse in my stomach.
Around here, it’s big news if the police shut down a meth lab. The whole county is basically a bunch of small towns and villages, a lot of two-or three-man police forces whose biggest excitement is breaking up a bar fight or a domestic disturbance. Early last spring a van with fourteen illegals in it was stopped along the interstate that runs through the northern part of the county, and before long that part of the highway looked like a state trooper convention. I swear that if it had happened at night instead of in the afternoon, the glow from all those flashing red and blue lights would have painted the sky like the aurora borealis. It was all anybody could talk about for at least a week.
So when the Sunday paper had not a word in it about a meth lab being raided out along Route 218, I knew that despite the call I made from the nursing home, no raid had taken place, or one had but nobody was arrested. And every implication of that was sickening. I knew I had to do something, but what?
That morning dragged on forever, though even now I can’t remember any of it, except that it seemed an eternity before the girls finished lunch and I came up with a plan. I said, “How about after your mom and me clean up the dishes, we go get G-paw and take him out for an ice cream?” Of course, that suggestion had the effect I knew it would, at least from the girls.
Cindy said, “I thought you said you were going to mow the yard today. And then you’d bring him over for a barbecue tonight. Remember?”
She could tell by the look on my face that I had no idea what she was talking about.
“I mentioned it Friday when you wanted the truck for the day,” she said. “Don’t you remember? It was your idea last Monday, Tuesday night. You said if the weather was good on Sunday, today, which it is, you wanted to mow the yard and then bring Pops over to spend the day with us. That’s why there’s a rack of ribs and four chicken breasts thawing out in the refrigerator right now.”
The girls started chanting, “Ice cream! Ice cream!” And I told them, “Hush now, I can’t think.”
Cindy said, “We can do it some other time if you want, it’s up to you. But remember that Dani starts first grade the day after Labor Day, and I haven’t had a chance to get her any school supplies yet, and both girls need a couple of outfits and new shoes. I was planning on going to the outlets next weekend to do all that. Which means putting off a barbecue until, what—the second weekend in September?”
I sat there blinking, feeling stupid, unable to put a single clear thought together.
“Ice cream,” Dani said in a loud whisper.
So Emma, of course, had to scream it at the top of her lungs. “Ice creeeeem!”
And at the sound of that shriek I jerked. I practically jumped out of my chair.
Cindy studied me for a few seconds. “You all right?” she asked. “Are you still not feeling well?”
I took a couple of breaths, then I gave them all what even I knew was a phony smile. “Let’s do this, okay, guys? I’ll get started on the yard while you two help your mom out in here. I want your rooms cleaned too before Pops gets here. And if you do everything Mom asks you to, when I go pick up Pops I’ll bring home some of that cookie dough ice cream you like.”
“Yeah!” Dani said, and Emma grinned and bounced up and down in her booster seat.
I asked Cindy, “Is that okay?”
“Sounds like a plan. You mind getting the ice cream at the Giant Eagle down the road from Pops? They have those sweet Hawaiian rolls he likes.”
“Sure. Make me a list.”
“The girls and I will make potato salad. Can you buy another side, something without mayonnaise in it?”
I pushed myself away from the table, put my hands on the edge of the table and stood up. “Put it on the list so I don’t forget.”
She followed me out into the pantry and stopped me before I went out the back door. “Hey,” she said, just loud enough for her and me.
I turned.
“Are you all right?”
I smiled again. “Don’t I look all right?”
“No, you don’t. You look like you need to go back to bed.”
“My stomach’s a little queasy, that’s all.”
“Why don’t you forget about the yard for today?”
“Well if you have a magic wand you can wave over it, you be my guest.”