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.“You think you can go down?”I shook my head no into his shoulder.“I’m going to stay here,” I said.“I’m going to sleep here.I hope you’ll stay with me, but if you don’t want to—”“Don’t be an ass, baby,” he said.“Wherever you are, I am.You need to eat something, though.I’ll go get you a plate and say a few words around for both of us.I won’t be long.”I don’t think he was, but by the time he returned with one of Grand’s Haviland plates full of party sandwiches and cheese straws I was sunk into Grand’s bed, fast asleep in a cloud of Vetiver.He slid into bed beside me and I turned into his arms, but I did not wake.We both slept, that night, with Grand’s arms around us.My mother sent Juanita to wake us early.“Miss Crystal got some stuff she want to go over with you,” she said.“She and your sister and Goose are on the porch.There’s coffee out there.”Alternately yawning and sniffling, I went down the stairs and out to the screened porch.Aengus stayed behind to shave, said Goose would probably kill him with a hoe handle if he saw the state of his stubble.By the time he joined us, his cheeks fresh shining, we were finishing our second cups of coffee.For the last few moments no one had spoken.When Aengus had settled beside me into the long porch sofa, my mother said, “Well.This won’t take long.I know you two want to get back to your honeymoon, and it’s all so simple I believe we can just talk it out.Your grandmother”—and she looked around at Lily and me—”has some specific bequests to you that I thought I would tell you about.You can verify them against her will, of course, but I don’t think there’ll be a reading until a bit later.”She waited, looking at us, and we both nodded.I did not want anything from Grand.I only wanted Grand.But apparently this doling out was going to happen anyway.“Lily, Grand left you and Goose”—did anyone else notice the slight flaring of my mother’s nostrils at the name?—”a trust fund for each child you might have and five hundred thousand dollars.”Lily gasped with what looked to be surprised pleasure; Goose looked taciturnly displeased, but since his brows met over his nose anyway it was hard to tell.“The rest of her estate, except for bequests to her charities, comes to me.You girls will inherit it one day, of course.She has left Detritus the Mercedes and a good sum.He will continue to drive for me.” (This never happened; Detritus and the Mercedes took off the next day and did not return to Lytton.I learned much later that he had a car service with a nice small fleet and was prospering like the green bay tree.)My mother swept her eyes toward me.“Thayer, your grandmother has left you a house.”She did not go on, and finally I said, “What house? I didn’t know Grand had another house.”“Neither did anyone else, apparently,” my mother said repressively.“But she did, and it is now yours.And Aengus’s, of course.”He nodded affably at her.I did not say anything else and she went on.“It is a stone house on Bell’s Ferry Road, out near the Chattahoochee.It has three bedrooms and three baths, and is furnished with pieces from your grandmother’s Buckhead house.It is quite a nice house.The neighborhood is considered very good.All the houses were vacation homes once, I believe, because of the nearness to the river.She has apparently had it cleaned once a month since she moved to Lytton, and all you would need to do is move in.If you should want the house, of course.I know your plans were to remain in Sewanee.In that case I would be delighted to take it off your hands for a very generous sum.There is a letter she left for you, too.”She fell silent.I could think of nothing to say.Aengus said, “Did she tell you about the house, Mrs.Wentworth? You seem to know a lot about it.”“No,” she said levelly, studying, not him or me, but the sweating iced-tea pitcher.“I went up yesterday afternoon and looked at it.”He and I were both silent, simply looking at her.“I wanted to make sure that your inheritance was commensurate with the others, of course, Thayer,” she said.“I was prepared to augment it a bit if it wasn’t.A house, you know, is not quite the same thing as… financial inheritance.”“And was it?” Aengus asked interestedly.“Commensurate?”“I believe so.It isn’t exactly grand, but it’s really quite lovely… for what it is, of course.”“Of course,” he said.And suddenly it occurred to me that Grand’s mystery house must be a really wonderful house in a faultless location, for it was obvious that my mother was furious to the core of her being that the house had come to me and not to her.A house in northside Atlanta… wasn’t it what she had yearned for since the beginning of her marriage?“You said there was a letter…
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