Mind Games

“Get what settled? We can stay here. You said—”

“That’s a different thing, and already settled. Thea.” Lucy waited a beat. “That part’s never going to change. I wouldn’t lie to you about something so important.”

“I know. I just … I get scared.”

“Don’t be scared about that. I just had to sign some papers. He emailed them, and I signed and did that scanner business. This is about the rest. The house, what’s in it, their cars, and the bank accounts and all that.”

“Okay.”

“It can take a year or two to get it all settled.”

“Why?”

“God knows, darling. It’s lawyers, and making sure everything’s done right and proper. I’m telling you so you know you and Rem have time to be sure what you want to do about all that. When you’re ready to go to college, you’ll have the means. They made sure of that. Beyond that, beyond the house, there’s a considerable amount of money that’ll come to you and Rem one day. I’m going to do my best to school you both on how to handle that.”

Blowing out some air, Lucy sat back. “Your grandpa was a good provider. A hardworking man. And I didn’t sit on my hands. My business does just fine. But I’m going to tell you the pure truth. All this is more money than I’ve known in my lifetime. We’re all of us going to respect that.”

“Are we rich?”

Lucy took another sip of coffee. From where she sat, Thea could see her trying to work out what she wanted to say and how to say it.

Then she said, “Hell with it. You’re sitting here drinking coffee with me, so I’m going to give you more pure truth. I try not to speak ill of people, and that ill can come back on you threefold. But it needs saying. Marshall and Christine Fox—’cause never again will I call them your grandparents—are the kind of rich people call wealthy. And they’re poorer in who they are than anyone living up in those hills struggling to keep a roof over their heads or fuel in the fire.

“Do you understand what I mean?”

Thea realized Lucy still held a lot of anger in that direction. And it made her feel warm and safe.

“I understand.”

“You’re going to be rich in who you are, you and Rem. I think you already are. Unless you’re plumb stupid, which you aren’t, you’ll never have to struggle for the roof or the fuel.”

She sighed again. “I’ll be working with the lawyer and the financial adviser your parents had looking after all that, and an accountant, and Jesus only knows.”

Thea saw the tears swim into Lucy’s eyes, and the struggle to hold them back.

“You said to cry when you need to.”

“I did. I did say that.” So let the tears come. “It’s my baby I’ll bury in a few more days, and the man I loved like my own child. I have to do right by their babies. I’m going to make mistakes, because people always do, and I’m no better than the next. But I have to do right by you and Rem. And here I am, loading you down with all this when you’ll bury your mama and daddy in those few days.”

“No, Grammie, I want to know. It helps to know. I— Grammie, I can see your hurt, all dark red, like bleeding inside. And when I see it, it helps to know. Like needing to do the regular stuff. Like that.”

Lucy reached across the table for her hand, and for the second time, Thea felt a flash, a spark. “I need to teach you, do right by you there, too. I promise, I will.”

They both looked over as Rem clambered in with his eyes glazed with sleep and tears. “I dreamed they were back, then I woke up.”

“Oh hell.” Lucy reached out for him with one arm, and for Thea with the other. “Let’s all have us a good cry, share these tears. Then Rem’ll go milk Molly and Thea and I can make breakfast.”

Later, when they went out the front to weed and water, they found a mason jar filled with wildflowers and a round of bread wrapped in a cloth.

“This is kindness,” Lucy said. “This is richness.”

“Do you know who left them, Grammie?”

“I do, Rem. Remember the lady we visited, and her little girl had ringworm? The bread’s for what I brought her, and the flowers are for your parents. This here’s stottie cake—it’s bread but some call it cake. You take it back in the kitchen, and we’ll make some sandwiches with it for lunch with that sun tea we’ve got going.”

“Cake sandwiches!” He grabbed it up, ran inside.

“At this rate we won’t have to cook for a week.”