At My Daughter's Baby Shower, My Husband Gave My Place to My Best Friend novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Motivated Seller

Diane brings buyers to the barn and tells them Helen's memory is failing; Helen sends them away and Tom Harlan reads out the date she ordered his walnut; then Sophie texts that Mark's lawyer says to stay away from her and the baby.

I pulled the sign out of the ground myself.

It took both hands and a long, ugly twist, and the wet dirt came up with it.

I carried it back to the barn and leaned it against the door, with Diane's face turned to the wall.

Mark had left for work at seven in a clean shirt, without a word.

At half past eight a flatbed truck backed up the drive with a load of walnut boards strapped under a tarp.

Tom Harlan climbed down from the cab.

He owned the lumber yard in town and had sold me wood for eleven years, though I had never learned much about him except that he was quiet and always on time.

"Morning, Helen. Four-quarter walnut, you wanted it kiln dried."

"I did."

"Where do you want it?"

I was about to say the rack by the back wall when a white SUV turned in at the gate.

It came slowly up the drive and parked behind his truck.

Diane got out first.

She wore a camel coat and held a folder against her chest, and her smile was the one she used on strangers.

Behind her came a couple in their thirties, looking at the barn roof and the white fence.

"Helen!" Diane said, and her face went soft. "I didn't think you'd be out here this early. We're only going to take a quick look."

"At what?"

"The property, honey. Mark said you knew."

The couple glanced at each other.

I put my hand on the barn door.

"You can't come in," I said.

"Helen." Diane lowered her voice, but not enough. "We talked about this. You were so tired last month, remember? You said it was too much."

"We never talked about it."

"You said it twice."

She turned to the couple with an apologetic little shrug.

"Her memory has been giving her trouble. It's why the family is helping."

The woman in the couple took a small step back.

My ears were ringing.

I wanted to scream at her, and I could hear how high and shaking it would sound.

I would not do it in front of strangers.

"Diane," I said, in the voice I used on a customer with a bad idea. "Show them the deed."

"Mark has the authority to sell."

"Show them the deed."

Diane's smile stayed where it was.

"The barn is in my mother's name, and then mine," I said to the couple. "Mine only. My husband isn't on it. He hasn't signed it, and I haven't signed anything."

"That's not what the paperwork says," Diane said sweetly.

"Then bring it out and let me read it."

The man in the couple cleared his throat.

"Maybe we should come back another day."

"Of course, of course." Diane reached for his arm, and he stepped away from it.

Tom hadn't moved from beside his truck.

He had a pencil behind his ear and an invoice on a clipboard, and he spoke to nobody in particular.

"Ms. Wendt ordered this load last Tuesday for delivery today, and she caught a mistake in my invoice that two of my clerks missed. Eight hundred fourteen board feet, not eight hundred forty-one."

Diane gave him the smile.

"Tom, you're sweet to stand up for her."

"I'm not standing up," he said. "I'm reading you a date."

The couple got back into their car.

They did not look at the barn again.

Diane waited until the engine turned over, and then she came close and laid a hand on my sleeve.

Her voice dropped to the one I had known for thirty-four years, the one that had once held my hair back when I was sick.

"Helen. This is going to go so much easier if you let us help you."

I looked at her hand on my arm.

"Take it off."

She did, slowly.

"I'm only trying to protect you from yourself."

She walked back to the SUV and drove out through the gate without hurrying.

The sound of the tires on the gravel faded.

I realized I was holding the barn door so hard that my fingers had gone white.

"I'm sorry," I said to Tom. "You didn't need to see that."

"Where do you want the walnut?" he said.

He said it gently.

I showed him the rack, and he unloaded it himself, one board at a time, without asking me to help.

When the last one was down he wiped his hands on his jacket.

"For what it's worth," he said, "you were more careful with my invoice than I was."

Then he drove away.

I stood in the doorway and let myself breathe.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was Sophie, and the message was short.

Dad talked to a lawyer. He says it's best if you stay away from me and the baby until you've seen someone.

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