But I also know what it was. It was eleven-year-old money. It was money a little girl raised one porch at a time, for a friend who had lost her hair in August, and Tawny had taken it out of the can and spent it on herself.
I did not yell. I have never been a yeller, and I did not want the neighbors out on their porches. I just stood there at the bottom of the steps and let her cry until she was done.
“I’ll pay it back,” she said finally. “I swear to you, Lise. I’ll pay every dollar.”
“You will,” I said. “But Addie needs it this weekend. Not on the fifteenth. Not after a family fight.”
That was the whole of my thinking, and it still is. I could have called Burl’s mother.
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I could have gone to the pastor, or told every woman at the quilting circle, or made her come up with it somehow by Saturday. Every one of those things takes time and noise.
Gail did not have time, and Addie did not need noise. Addie needed a full tank of gas Monday morning and a mother who was not lying awake wondering how she would get her to Lincoln.
I told Tawny the drawing was at two the next afternoon at the ballfield. I told her I wanted her there.
“Why?” she said. “So everybody can look at me?”
“Nobody’s going to say a word to you,” I said. “I’m not going to tell a soul. But Clara is going to hand Gail that money, and I want you to watch her do it.”
She did not answer. I got back in my car and drove home, and I had to pull over once on the highway shoulder by the grain elevator because my hands were shaking on the wheel.
Burl called at a quarter to five from the cab of his truck. I could hear the engine and the radio and the auger running behind him. I told him all of it in about two minutes.
He was quiet a long time. Burl is a quiet man in general, the kind who will fix your fence before he tells you it was broken. When he talks, he means the words.
“She’s my sister,” he said. “That’s mine to deal with, and I will. You take care of our girl, and Gail, and the money. Whatever you decide, I’m with you.”
“It’ll have to come out of Christmas,” I said.
“Then it comes out of Christmas,” he said. “We’ve had thin Christmases before. We’ll live.”
I went home. The sun was still well up, long gold light coming across the yard, and Clara was out by the garage throwing a softball against the wall and catching it in her glove, over and over, the way she does when she is thinking.
I called her in and sat her down at the kitchen table. I did not lie to her. I have never lied to her about the things that matter, and I was not going to start with this one.
I told her the money did not get to the bank. I told her Aunt Tawny was in trouble with her bills and had used it to keep her lights on, and that she had meant to put it back before anybody found out.