Chapter 6: Casseroles in Coats

I did not sleep after Cal said it.

Rhys had been ten minutes from Gran's door, and he never got there.

Something had stopped him on Marlow Road, and I lay on the window seat with the silver phone under my pillow, telling no one, as Cal had asked.

The heat went off on Thursday.

It went off only in the kitchen wing, where I lived, and the radiators in the main wing stayed hot enough to hear.

"The boiler zone is being serviced," Graham said at breakfast, buttering toast. "A week, maybe two."

"It's October."

"Wear a sweater, Nor."

Delphine passed me the jam and said she was so sorry.

I ate my toast in my coat.

My friend from the school library called at lunch.

"I looked it up," she said. "The deed was recorded on April second at the county office. It has a notary seal. It looks legitimate."

"It isn't."

"I believe you. But on paper it's clean, and clean paper is hard to fight."

I thanked her and sat on the window seat with my knees pulled up, looking at my own breath.

I did not want to do what I did next.

I called the president of the Port Haddon Garden Club, who has held the job since before I was born, and asked if she would like to come for soup.

"Soup," she said. "Tonight?"

"If you're free."

"Dear, I'll bring the club."

I was not sure what that meant until six o'clock.

At six they began to arrive in coats, hats and scarves, carrying foil-covered dishes in both hands.

There were eleven of them, all over seventy, and every one had known my grandmother for fifty years.

They came through the kitchen door in a line and set their dishes down on my table.

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