A Patchwork Planet

  “Dine,” I told her.

  “Pardon?”

  “You always dine at eight. Isn’t that what you meant to say?”

  She drew up taller in her seat. She said, “I don’t see—”

  “Gram and Pop-Pop dine at five-thirty, however,” I said, “and what’s good enough for them is good enough for me.”

  “Of course it is!” Dad told me. He bent to set his magazine on the coffee table, as if he’d decided the situation required his full attention. “But you could join us for cocktails,” he said. “Scotch, maybe? Glass of wine?” He rubbed his hands together.

  “Really I just stopped by to give you this,” I said, and I picked up the denim jacket that was lying across my knees. The weather wasn’t cool enough for jackets yet, but I’d needed something with roomy pockets. “Here,” I said. I pulled out the brick of money and leaned forward to place it in my mother’s lap.

  She stared down at it. My father stopped rubbing his hands.

  “I don’t understand,” my mother said.

  “What’s to understand?” I asked her.

  “Well, what is this?” she asked.

  “It’s eighty-seven hundred dollars, Mom. Surely that must ring a little bell.”

  She glanced up at my father. He gazed off over her head, suddenly abstracted.

  “But … is it yours?” she asked me. “Where did you get it? And in cash! Walking the streets of Baltimore with all this cash! How would you have come by such a large amount, I’d like to know?”

  “No trouble at all,” I told her. “Though it did make kind of a mess when the dye pack exploded.”

  “Seriously, Barnaby. Have you been up to something you shouldn’t?”

  Odd that it hadn’t occurred to me she would jump to this conclusion. I made a snorting sound. I said, “Don’t worry. It’s legal. I sold the Corvette to Len Parrish.”

  “You sold the Corvette?” my father asked, suddenly coming to. “Son,” he said. “Was that wise?”

  I wasn’t going to argue about it. I told Mom, “Feel free to count the money yourself, if you like. Make sure I didn’t shortchange you.”

  For a moment, I thought she would do it. She picked up the bills in a gingerly way and turned them over. But then she said, “That’s all right.”

  When they gave me the wad of cash at the bank it had seemed so bulky, but now I was struck by its slimness. For all these years, that money had loomed between us. I recalled Mom’s hints and reproaches, her can’t-afford-this, can’t-afford-that, her self-assured air of entitlement as she inquired into my finances. I recalled my old daydream that she would cancel the debt when I married, or after my first child was born. And yet it made such an unimpressive little package! Granted, it was a lot of money—a lot for me, at least—but you’d think I could have come up with it before now.

  I said, “Well, then. Are we fair and square? Everything settled?”

  “I suppose,” my mother said faintly.

  Somehow there should have been more to this. More excitement, more relief; I don’t know. I stood up. I said, “Well! Guess I’ll be going.”

  My mother went on sitting there. It was Dad who walked me to the door.

  For a month after Mrs. Glynn accused me, I had nothing to do with her. Sophia didn’t, either (she was never going to speak to her again, she said), but I heard a little about her from Ray Oakley. He was the one who was going there in my place. He said she had cut her hours back to one a week, and even then he hardly saw her. “I try and steer clear of her,” he told me. “I’m worried she’ll say I stole something too.”

  Me, I had pretty much let her fade from my mind. Sophia thought that was incredibly charitable of me, but it was more that I just figured things always evened out, sooner or later. Look at it this way: I might have done time in jail if I hadn’t had rich parents. And even rich parents couldn’t have helped if anyone had discovered I stole a Buick convertible the night of my sixteenth birthday. So when Mrs. Glynn said I did something I didn’t, there was a certain justice to it.

  Even losing my Corvette: a certain balance, you might say.

  I was still in possession of Sophia’s little porcelain slipper. I brought it back one evening and put it among some doodads on her mantel, where it didn’t belong, so she would think she had simply misplaced it if she’d noticed it was missing. I didn’t believe she had noticed, though. I felt artful and deft and catlike as I set the slipper soundlessly between a brass clock and a hobnail vase. I slid my hands in my jeans pockets and walked away whistling.

  It wasn’t entirely undeserved, Mrs. Glynn’s accusing me.

  Then one Friday afternoon toward the end of September, she telephoned. “Barnaby Gaitlin?” she said—pert little old-lady voice. But I knew so many old ladies, I couldn’t think who she was. I said, “Yes?” in a guarded tone. When they called me direct, it was usually with a complaint.

  “This is Grace Glynn.”

  I got very alert.

  “Sophia’s aunt,” she reminded me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “How are you?” she asked me.

  “Fine.”

  “Doing well?”

  I waited to see what she was after.

  “I was wondering,” she said, after a pause. “Would you be so kind as to come to my house this evening?”

  “Your house.”

  “Just for a little chat,” she said. “It won’t take long.”

  I said, “I guess I’ll pass on that, Mrs. Glynn. Thanks anyhow.”

  “Please? Pretty please?”

  “Sorry,” I said, and I hung up.

  There were limits to how charitable I was willing to be.

  When the phone rang again, a few minutes later, I let the machine answer for me. But this time it was Sophia. “Barnaby, I wanted to ask if—”

  I picked up the receiver. “Hi,” I said. “I’m screening my calls. You’ll never guess who from.”

  “Aunt Grace,” Sophia told me.

  “Oh. You knew she was calling?”

  “She called me too. I just now got off the phone with her.”

  “What’s she trying to pull?” I asked.

  “She didn’t say, but I guess we’ll find out tonight.”

  “We will?”

  “I told her we’d stop by.”

  “I’m not stopping by,” I said.

  “Oh, Barnaby. Please?”

  She had a different voice from her aunt’s—steadier and much lower—but the upward note at the end was the same. “I think she wants to apologize,” she said.

  “She didn’t tell me she wanted to apologize.”

  “Well, why else would she ask us over?”

  “Maybe to have me arrested,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly. How she put it was, she wanted to ‘chat.’ She said, ‘I know you’re very cross with me, but please, please, the two of you, come for a chat.’ ”

  “She’s got some kind of ambush planned,” I said. “SWAT team lying in wait for me behind her potted palm.”

  Sophia laughed, but dutifully, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. “How could I turn her down?” she asked. “So I said yes.”

  “You can’t say yes on my behalf, Sophia. You had no business doing that.”

  “Well, but, sweetie. She’s my aunt!”

  I kept quiet a moment. Not to sound paranoid, but it crossed my mind that Sophia might be in on this, whatever it was. I knew she was too honorable for that, but even so, I had a little flash of doubt. Meanwhile, some other phone line seemed to be mixing in with ours—tiny distant voices I couldn’t quite decipher, a woman burbling away and another woman laughing. The two of them were so lighthearted. I felt as if we’d plugged into not just another conversation but another time, simpler and more innocent; and here I was in this muddy, confused life of mine.

  I told Sophia, “All right, hon. For your sake.”

  She said, “Oh, thank you! Thank you, Barnaby.”

  “But we’re only staying a minut
e,” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “Just long enough to be polite, so things aren’t awkward with your relatives.”

  “I understand.”

  Hanging up, I felt like a phony. Face it: I couldn’t care less how things stood with her relatives. Underneath, my fantasy was that Mrs. Glynn really would apologize. And while she was at it, why couldn’t all the others too? The Amberlys and the Royces, and Mr. McLeod with his Chinese statue. I pictured them lining up in Mrs. Glynn’s parlor to say … what? Not that they’d wrongly accused me; that was too much to hope for. But maybe, oh, that they’d overreacted, or failed to allow for extenuating circumstances. Or that they still liked me anyhow. I don’t know.

  The plan was, I would drive to Sophia’s after she got off work, pick her up, and then head to Mrs. Glynn’s. But Martine was late bringing the truck back; she was out somewhere on a job. I had to phone Sophia and ask her to come get me. This was fine with Sophia—no doubt she preferred her Saab to my jouncing, bone-rattling truck—but it made me mad as hell. In the two weeks since I’d let the Corvette go, I’d been marooned without a ride three times and been yelled at twice when I’d marooned Martine. Also, we were stuck in a situation where we were thrown together constantly. Mrs. Dibble had always tended to pair the two of us up, for some reason, but now it was even worse. Every job assignment had to take into account that Martine and I shared a vehicle, although we lived five miles apart and couldn’t stand to face each other anymore. What had I been thinking of, agreeing to such an arrangement?

  And my poor little car, my little lost car. That car was my very identity—so ramshackle and rascally. I should never have let Martine talk me into selling it.

  You see what I mean about my life being muddy.

  Sophia arrived in her bank clothes, but I wore jeans and a stringy black sweater. No way was I dressing up for this. I climbed into the Saab, turning down her offer to let me drive. “Just gun that motor and let’s get this over with,” I told her.

  She said, “Now, Barnaby, promise you’ll be nice to her.”

  “Did I say I wouldn’t be nice?”

  “She’s just a helpless old lady. Promise you won’t forget that.”

  But as things worked out, it seemed to be Sophia who forgot.

  Oh, she was congenial enough at the start. She pressed her cheek to her aunt’s cheek, and she told her how pretty she looked. Mrs. Glynn wore a baggy-chested silk dress and a strand of pearls she could have jumped rope with, looped and looped again and hanging to her knees. I’d never seen her in jewelry before. Or leather pumps, either, instead of Nikes. And Tatters was yapping frantically in the pantry. The only other time I’d known him to be shut away was when the minister came to call.

  “How’ve you been, Aunt Grace?” Sophia was asking. “How’s your bursitis?” As if they were on the best of terms. It irked me some, I can tell you. When we sat down, I chose a rocker, not my usual seat beside Sophia on the couch. I tucked my hands between my knees and watched glumly as Mrs. Glynn arranged herself in her favorite chair.

  “I can see just fine,” she told Sophia, “except for reading. Why do you ask?”

  This caused a shattered little pause, until Sophia’s forehead cleared and she said, “Your bursitis, I said; not your sight.”

  “My bursitis. Oh. It’s just lovely,” Mrs. Glynn said, peculiarly. She laced her fingers together and leaned toward me. “Barnaby,” she said, “I don’t believe we’ve conversed since I discovered I was burglarized.”

  “No,” I said, “we haven’t.” I felt embarrassed; Lord knows why.

  “Of course, it was a most distressing event. Most distressing. But you know what I say: money is only money.”

  I’d never heard her say any such thing, but I nodded.

  “In the final analysis,” she said, “the human element is what counts. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Well …”

  “You are a person my niece regards very highly I can appreciate that. And Ray Oakley isn’t half the worker that you were. I propose we let bygones be bygones.”

  It was while I was computing her words that Sophia’s attitude changed. “If that doesn’t take the cake!” she told her aunt.

  “I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Glynn said.

  “Let bygones be bygones? Generous of you, I must say!”

  “Excuse me, dear?”

  I said, “Sophia—”

  “You owe Barnaby more than that, Aunt Grace. You owe him an apology. A complete and humble apology.”

  “Sophia, it’s okay,” I said.

  I had never seen her like this. I felt kind of flattered. But, “We’ll just put it behind us,” I said. “No big deal.”

  “No big deal!” Sophia cried.

  “Wonderful,” her aunt told me. “And may I expect you to resume your regular hours?”

  “No, you may not expect him to resume his regular hours!” Sophia cried. “Over my dead body he’ll resume his regular hours!”

  I said, “Hon.” I turned to Mrs. Glynn. “Unfortunately, I’ve … ah, got those hours filled now,” I said. “But I’m sure Ray Oakley—”

  “You found the money, didn’t you,” Sophia told her aunt.

  “What, dear?” her aunt asked quaveringly.

  “You found it where you left it, and you don’t have the courage to say so.”

  This struck me as assuming a bit too much. More likely, Mrs. Glynn had just recalled that I wasn’t the only person who knew her hiding spot. I said, “In any case—”

  “You are the most dishonest of all of us,” Sophia told her aunt. Two scratched-looking patches of pink had risen in her cheeks. “You found that money and you won’t admit it. I bet you didn’t even notify the insurance company, did you?”

  “On the contrary. I notified them at once,” Mrs. Glynn said. “I would never commit fraud, for mercy’s sake.” She spoke very primly and evenly, somehow not moving her lips.

  I stared at her.

  “So there,” Sophia told me, settling back in her seat.

  “I don’t know how I could have been so forgetful,” Mrs. Glynn said. A teaspoonful of tears, it seemed, swam above each eye pouch. “I’d been listening to everybody’s warnings, you know. Everybody warning me I shouldn’t inform all and sundry where I kept my cash. So I took it out of the flour bin and I moved it elsewhere. Well, I’ll tell you where: I moved it to the pocket of my winter bathrobe. Then I just … I don’t know; I must be getting senile. I forgot! I looked inside the flour bin and I saw there was no money and I forgot I’d moved it! I hope I don’t have Alzheimer’s. Do you think I might have Alzheimer’s? I went along for weeks not recollecting, and then this morning when the weather turned I was getting some of my woolens out of the cedar closet and I saw my winter bathrobe and I said, ‘Oh, good heavens above. That’s where I moved my money to!’ I’ve been a fool, children. I’ve been a forgetful old fool.”

  “It could happen to anyone,” I told her. “Don’t give it another thought.”

  I looked over at Sophia, waiting for her to chime in, but she had this flat look on her face. “Right, Sophia?” I asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “We’ve all done things like that, right?”

  “Oh, yes …”

  “So if you’ve got Alzheimer’s, Mrs. Glynn, I guess all the rest of us have it too.”

  Mrs. Glynn tried to smile, dangerously swelling the spoonfuls of tears. I said again, “Right, Sophia?”

  “Right,” she said after a moment.

  “Well. That settles that,” I said, and I stood up. “No need to show us out,” I told Mrs. Glynn.

  “To shout?”

  “No need to show us out, I said.”

  “Oh.”

  I wanted to get going before she could bring up my work hours again. (I wasn’t totally forgiving.) But Sophia stayed on the couch, still wearing that flat expression. At the door I said, “Sophia?”

  She rose, finally, and so did Mrs. Glynn. They didn’t kiss go
odbye. “Well, Aunt Grace,” was all Sophia said, “I hope next time you won’t be so quick to accuse an innocent man.” And she hoisted her purse strap onto her shoulder. Mrs. Glynn stood straight as a clothespin, her hands knotted tightly together.

  I would have expected Sophia to act more gracious. But I felt sort of pleased that she didn’t.

  In the car I said, “So! Turns out you were right about why she wanted to see us.”

  “Yes …,” Sophia said. She made no move to start the engine.

  I said, “How about I buy you dinner.”

  “Dinner?”

  “What’s the problem, Sofe?” I asked. “Something on your mind?”

  She looked over at me. She said, “I had no idea Aunt Grace had changed her hiding place.”

  “Well, she’d better change it again,” I said, “because already she’s told at least two people where the new place is.”

  “And so I put the money back in the old place,” Sophia went on, as if I hadn’t spoken.

  “What money?” I asked.

  “My money. Two thousand, nine hundred and sixty dollars.”

  For a second, I misunderstood. I said, “You stole that money?”

  Which didn’t make sense, of course, since no money had been stolen, but all Sophia said was, “Me? No.” She started the engine, and we pulled away from the curb.

  I said, “Begin at the beginning, Sophia.”

  “See, I felt so responsible,” she said. We arrived at an intersection, and she braked and looked over at me. “I knew Aunt Grace held me to blame for bringing you into her life. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘all right, I’ll just put my own money there to replace the money she’s missing.’ So I took it out of my savings. I called in sick at work on a Tuesday, Aunt Grace’s podiatrist day, and I let myself in with my key and put the money in the flour bin.”

  “But… how would she explain that? First her money is missing, and then it magically isn’t?” I said.

  “She could explain it any way she liked,” Sophia said.

  “And for sure the new bills would be a different denomination from the old ones. You never saw the old ones, did you? You don’t know if they were tens or fifties; you don’t know if they were rubber-banded, or stuffed in an envelope, or tucked away in a wallet, do you?”