The Chili Supper at the Fire Hall

The Week After

I did not call Nadine the next day. I did not call her the day after that, either.

Clint asked me on Monday night if I wanted him to go see her. I said no. He said all right, and he did not ask again. That is one of the things I love about my husband.

On Tuesday at school, Kim asked me in the walk-in cooler if I was all right. I said I was. She said, “Your aunt looked sick, honey. At the end.” I said I knew. Kim did not ask anything else.

That is how it was all week. Nobody said a word. But everybody knew.

On Saturday morning, a week to the day after the supper, a car pulled into the gravel drive of the rented farmhouse.

Nadine came to the back door and knocked. She did not come in when I opened it. She stood on the step in her coat with her purse held in front of her in both hands.

“Can I talk to you?” she said. “Just you, if Clint doesn’t mind.”

Clint was in the front room with the kids watching cartoons. He looked at me over their heads and I nodded, and he got up and took them out to the barn to see the landlord’s barn cats.

Nadine sat down at the kitchen table. I poured her a cup of coffee.

What Nadine Said

She did not say anything for a long time. She held the coffee cup with both hands like she was warming them.

“I have worked at that agency for twenty-six years,” she said finally. “Do you know how many fire claims I have seen?”

I shook my head.

“A lot,” she said. “And I have watched almost every one of those families find out that their policy did not cover what they thought it covered. The deductible. The contents limits. Actual cash value. Depreciation on everything you own.”

She looked at me.

“I watched one family last year wait seven months for the dwelling money,” she said. “Seven months, Missy. With three kids in a motel.”

“So you were holding it back,” I said. “For when the adjuster came in low.”

“That’s what I told myself,” Nadine said. “That’s what I really thought, at first. I thought, these kids are going to need this money in June more than they need it now. I’ll keep it safe and hand it over when the insurance check comes up short. I thought I was protecting you.”

Then she put the cup down and covered her face with her hands.

“And then I spent some of it,” she said through her fingers.

I did not say anything. I waited.

“I had my gallbladder out in October,” Nadine said. “You remember. I didn’t tell anybody how bad the bills were. The insurance at my own job, can you believe that, and I still owed sixty-eight hundred dollars. It went to collections in December.”

She took her hands away from her face. Her mascara had run, and she did not wipe it.

“I told myself I would borrow it,” she said. “Just three thousand. Just to get them off my back. I told myself I’d put it back before you ever needed it, and nobody would ever know the difference.”

“And then the supper,” I said.

“And then the supper,” Nadine said. “And Earl Lacey thanking me for the beds. And that man in the seed cap. And Nola.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t answer her, Missy. I stood there and I couldn’t think of one single true thing to say.”