To mutter like that. The horrid word. And when I was trying to be nice! So the stone of May Hill was again heavy around my neck, all the bad juju of my encounters concentrated in that stone: the interview, the capture in her room, the pronouncement that I, and perhaps each of us, Amanda and Adam and William, too, were people beneath her contempt. Individuals with no breeding. But if there was a leader of the pack it was MF Lombard. I was certain that in her ordered mind I, above all others, was the vermin.
I might not have minded her condemnation so very much if there hadn’t been the matter of her plan. My parents now were often talking about it, a conversation I wanted to understand and also couldn’t bear to hear. We’d been at dinner a few weeks after the World Trade Center attacks when the topic first came up for our benefit. William and I were startled at the way my parents were speaking, as if the plan was common knowledge.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
May Hill was drawing up a document with a lawyer, my father explained, that would allow Philip to buy her out, to purchase the acres she owned on a land contract.
“A land contract?” I said.
He repeated the fact. May Hill was preparing to transfer her assets to Philip.
“Transferring her assets,” William echoed. “Why doesn’t she just will it to him? Why does he have to buy her out?”
“That’s not information I’m privy to,” my father said.
“May Hill is remarkably savvy,” my mother added.
“She can’t do that,” I cried. For starters, we all knew that her property included the right-of-way to the apple barn. She owned that stretch and the half acre the house sat on, but not the house itself. We had always understood that the owner of that strip held power, our great-uncle Jim for his own reasons conferring a certain influence upon May Hill.
“She can do whatever she wants with it,” my mother argued in her cross way.
“Of course she can,” my father replied.
“She considers Philip her heir.”
“That’s obvious, Mother,” William said.
“Someone has to think of the future,” she insisted. “Someone has to take steps to ensure this place isn’t going down the tubes.”
“That is such an insulting thing to say to Papa,” I shouted.
“Oh, he knows what I mean,” she said lightly. “Why Sherwood and Dolly aren’t in favor of Philip’s having ownership is beyond human comprehension.”
“It’s always a slow process, coming around to change,” my father said. He rubbed his eyes. “They’ll get there.”
“It would be ideal if they got there before you men are wheelchair-bound,” my mother said. She then chattered on about how Adam would soon be in college, how the guidance counselor at school had never heard of any of the institutions Adam was considering.
“The farm’s not going down the tubes,” I repeated, interrupting her monologue.
“Repairs are in order, Marlene,” my father said. “Don’t say it, Nellie—don’t.”
My mother started to laugh in that terribly annoying fashion of hers. “Let’s see,” she said. “Two of the barn roofs have gaping holes. How many sheds are on their last legs? Sherwood spent all spring on that contraption to wash boxes and all summer picking garlic mustard? I mean, really?”
“Sherwood works plenty hard,” my father said.
“I mean, really?” I mocked my mother.
“Where’s May Hill going to live?” William thought to ask.
“She has the right to live in the house until her death,” my father replied.
Philip actually owning a piece of Volta? I kept asking that question to myself. He had been learning how to spray, studying for the Pesticide Applicator’s Test, something Gloria had never done. But even if he had skills, even so we would always own more of the land than he did and if necessary we could put in a different driveway. We could get to the apple barn without his precious holding. I wondered then about William’s question, why May Hill didn’t just give her nephew her land, why she needed him to buy it. But wait, I thought, would we have to buy our portion from my father?—No, of course not, he would give it to us. But maybe we’d have to buy Sherwood’s shares, something I’d never considered before. How could we possibly find the money to purchase Volta? I very much wanted to ask how William and I would take over, how the mechanics of it would happen. Instead I said, not looking at William, I said, in the spirit of helpfulness and charity and also fear, “Philip is a good worker. And strong.” Ah, I was having an epiphany! “He’ll be like our Gloria, William.” In a snap I’d figured out at least part of the puzzle, Philip always willing to do any task at our bidding.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Francie,” my mother said. “He will not be like Gloria. He’ll have ownership.”
“It’s a dramatic change, Marlene,” my father said soothingly, “but it’s important for him to have a stake—”
“It’s not something you have to think about right now,” my mother butted into my father’s comforting words. “You don’t have to decide your future right this minute.”