Chapter 8: Mother's House

My mother's house was a white two-story with a porch swing and a maple tree her hands had planted.

On Thursday afternoon a moving truck sat in front of it with the ramp down.

Two men in gray shirts were carrying her hutch out the front door.

Her blue china was wrapped in newspaper on the porch.

Bogdan stood on the lawn in his golf shirt with a clipboard, directing traffic.

Clara leaned on a rental car at the curb, in sunglasses.

I got out of Lucas's car before it stopped rolling.

"Magda," Lucas said.

"Do you want-"

"Stand there," I said.

"And look expensive."

"I can do that."

He leaned against the car with his hands in his pockets, in a charcoal suit that cost more than the truck.

I walked up the driveway and stopped at the foot of the ramp, directly between the movers and the street.

The men with the hutch halted.

"Ma'am?"

"Please put that down."

They looked at Bogdan.

Bogdan looked at me, and his face did a series of things.

"Magda, honey," he said, in a pleasant voice, "I was going to call."

"That hutch was my mother's."

"It's old, it's cluttered, it's a hazard for the buyer.

"Don't make a scene in front of the street."

The street was already watching.

A man across the road had stopped mowing.

Two women on porches had phones out.

An older woman in a cardigan was standing in her gate, three houses down, with her hand over her mouth.

She'd been bringing my mother casseroles for twenty years.

"I'm not making a scene," I said, loud enough to carry.

"I'm reading a will."

I took the paper out of my purse.

It was a photocopy, and I'd had it in there since the day of the funeral.

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