Chapter 14: Notice

On Monday after school we drove to Birch Street for Maddie's clothes.

She had slept at my farmhouse since Thursday, in the spare room, with Gary the cactus on the dresser.

We wanted her winter coat and her good boots, and I wanted it done before dark.

I saw the cars first.

Dee's Buick was at the curb, and two station wagons were parked behind it with their blinkers still ticking.

Six women stood in a half circle on Maddie's frozen lawn.

Each held a casserole dish wrapped in foil.

"Oh, no," Maddie said.

"Stay in the car."

"No. It's my lawn."

She got out before I could stop her.

Dee stood at the center in her pink coat, with her head bowed and her eyes open.

I watched her do it.

She prayed in a soft, carrying voice, and the whole time her eyes followed Maddie up the walk.

"Lord, we ask that Madeline accept the help that's being offered, and that she let her family hold her."

"Amen," said four of the women.

Two were looking at their shoes.

A paper was taped to the front door at the height of Maddie's face.

It was a single typed sheet.

Maddie pulled it off with two fingers and read it out loud, in the voice of a girl reading a menu.

"'Notice to vacate. Thirty days. No cause stated.' It's dated Friday."

"My cousin is so sorry, hon," Dee said. "He needs the house for his daughter. I'd have talked him out of it if I could."

"Your cousin hasn't been to Kellner since Easter, Dee," Maddie said. "Somebody phoned him."

The retired mail carrier had come out onto his porch two doors down with his small white dog.

"Thirty days, no cause," he called, to nobody. "Forty years on this street. We used to have to have a reason."