Money, Guns, and a Merry Christmas novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Folding Chair

At the family table Bennet gets a folding chair and Spence announces Lawler is suspended, Bennet says it isn't, and Grandma whispers that she never signed her house away.

I told him in the courthouse parking lot, in four sentences.

My aunt thinks I'm the family's wallet.

My cousin thinks I'm the family's joke.

My grandmother is the only one who ever loved me for free.

And Spence Hargrave wants all three of them to watch me say yes.

Bennet listened with his hands in his coat pockets.

"Then we'll go eat her cooking," he said.

The next evening Aunt Deena opened the farmhouse door with her reading glasses on their chain and looked straight past me.

"So this is him."

Bennet held out a pie from the bakery on Butler Street.

She took it without saying thank you and handed it to my cousin.

"Celine, put that somewhere."

Celine already had her phone up, filming.

"Hi," she said to the camera. "This is my cousin's husband. She found him on a bench."

The farmhouse smelled like ham and pine and my grandmother's lavender soap.

My father had grown up in these rooms.

There were a dozen chairs around the dining table and one metal folding chair jammed against the corner.

Deena pointed at it.

"We weren't expecting a guest, so."

"He's my husband, Deena."

"For a week, I hear."

Bennet sat down on the folding chair.

"It's fine," he said. "I like a view of the door."

Then my grandmother came out of the kitchen in her blue cardigan with her silver braid over her shoulder.

"Alana."

She held my face in both hands.

Then she looked up at Bennet, a long way up.

"Are you the husband?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You married her in a fleece," she said. "I saw the picture Celine posted."

"She looked good in it."

My grandmother's mouth twitched.

"Sit by me," she told him. "Not on that thing."

Deena's lips went thin.

Two cousins and their wives filled the other chairs, and every one of them had a question.

"So what do you sell?" one asked.

"Mostly things that keep people safe."

"Like alarm systems?"

"Something like that."

"What's that pay?" Celine said, phone still up.

"About three thousand a month," Bennet said.

A cousin snorted wine through his nose.

"Alana pays her janitor more than that," Deena said.

"She should," Bennet said. "He keeps the floors clean."

My grandmother laughed out loud, the first time all night.

The doorbell rang before anyone could answer him.

Spence came in carrying a box the size of a refrigerator, two of the cousins helping with the ends.

"Merry Christmas, Carolyn."

It was a leather massage recliner with a bow on top.

"Six thousand dollars," Celine announced to her phone. "Heated seat."

Deena kissed Spence on both cheeks.

"You spoil us."

My grandmother looked at the recliner and then at the mantel.

"I'd rather have my clock back," she said.

The old walnut clock on the mantel had stopped at ten past four.

My grandfather had wound it every Sunday for fifty years.

It hadn't ticked since he died.

"Nobody fixes those anymore, Carolyn," Spence said. "I'll buy you a new one."

Bennet stood up.

"May I?"

He lifted the clock down, opened the back, and looked inside for a long moment.

Then he took a pocketknife out of his coat.

Ten minutes later, while Spence was telling everyone about his Range Rover, the clock started to tick.

The room went quiet.

My grandmother put her hand over her mouth.

"The click spring was bent," Bennet said, and set it back on the mantel. "It just needed someone to look."

I watched my grandmother's eyes fill.

Spence watched her too, and his smile slipped.

We sat down to dinner.

Spence took the head of the table, in my grandfather's chair.

He waited until the ham was carved.

Then he tapped his glass with a knife.

"I didn't want to do this at Christmas," he said, "but family should hear it from me."

He looked down the table at me.

"Ironvale is suspending its contract with Lawler Optics effective Monday. Unless Alana comes to her senses."

Deena sighed.

"Sixty jobs, honey. Over a salesman."

My fork was shaking.

Bennet set his own down quietly.

"No, it isn't," he said.

Spence turned.

"Excuse me?"

"Ironvale isn't suspending anything."

The table burst out laughing.

Celine laughed so hard she had to steady the phone.

"Oh my God," she said. "Gutter-guard guy has inside information."

Spence leaned back in my grandfather's chair.

"Buddy. I'd know."

"I'm sure you would," Bennet said.

I stood up.

My chair scraped the old floorboards.

"Get out of my grandmother's house, Spence."

The laughing stopped.

"Your grandmother's house?" Deena took off her glasses. "Honey, this is my house."

"Grandma's sitting right there."

"And her name isn't on the deed anymore."

My grandmother stared down at her plate.

She didn't say a word.

Spence smiled at me, and he didn't get up.

Bennet excused himself and walked out onto the porch with his phone.

Through the frosted window I saw him standing under the porch light in the snow.

His voice came through the glass, low and flat.

"Find out who Spence Hargrave is," he said. "Tonight."

I wondered what kind of salesman had someone to call for that.

Then Grandma touched my sleeve.

She led me into the kitchen and shut the door with her hip.

The ham pan was still steaming on the stove.

Her hands were cold when she took mine.

"Alana," she whispered. "I never signed my house to anybody."

"Deena says you did."

"I signed something in this kitchen." Her voice broke. "She told me it was the pharmacy form."

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