The Purse Mom Carried at Eighty

The week of the Fourth when Tonya was at the lake. Six thousand six hundred.

She did not call Tonya a thief. She did not use the word once. She said, “Tonya has been taking money out of my purse, honey, on her days, since April. I know it for certain. I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t.”

She told him she would not have the sheriff called. She told him about the new caregiver, which I had found the week before: Jan Miller from our church, a retired nurse who wanted something to do on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

And she told him what was in the new purse, and where it came from.

Curt did not say anything for a long time. He sat there with his big hand under hers, and I watched his jaw work.

My brother has the Sauer jaw, square and stubborn, and it goes tight when he is trying not to feel something in front of people. It was tight as a fence wire.

“Six thousand dollars,” he said finally. His voice was very low. “Out of your purse, Mom.”

“Six thousand six hundred.”

“And you sat out there alone thinking you were going senile.” He closed his eyes. “And I was at the elevator.”

“You were working,” Mom said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s what your father did. Don’t you put this on yourself, Curtis. This was not your doing.”

He opened his eyes and looked at me. “You knew.”

“Three weeks,” I said. “Mom asked me not to tell you. She wanted to be the one.”

“That’s your car money in there,” he said. It was not a question.

“It’s Mom’s money.”

“It’s your car money.” He let out a breath. “I’m going to make that right, Vicki. Not today. But I am.”

Then he stood up. He did not hurry. He did not knock his chair over or slam anything down. He walked across the Grange hall floor, past the Methodist circle and the coffee urns, to the side table where Tonya was cutting cake, and he stood close and said something to her I could not hear.

I saw her face. She put the knife down on the board. She wiped her hands on a paper napkin, very slowly, one finger at a time.

She nodded. Curt got her coat from the hooks by the door, a black quilted jacket, and held it for her the way Dad taught him to hold a woman’s coat.

He did not drag her out. He did not make her walk past our table. They went out the side door by the kitchen, the way the ladies go out to carry the garbage, and hardly anyone in that hall noticed.

The polka band was tuning back up. One of the Hoffman wives took over the cake.

I watched through the window as his truck pulled out of the gravel lot. It was twenty minutes to three.

The coffee had not been poured yet. In our Grange the coffee always comes after the cake, the ladies bring it around in the big steel pots, and the cake was still being served.

Mom did not watch them go. She turned to Mrs. Hoffman and asked her about her grandson at Ohio State.

But her hand stayed on the purse, and I felt her lean against my arm, just a little, and stay there.

I think it was the first time all day she let herself lean on anybody.