Chapter 39: Earned Twice

Grandma Bronze came to the villa on a Sunday, a month after the wedding, in a taxi she had argued the fare down on.

She stood in the front hall with her good purse and looked up at the chandelier.

"That's a lot of light for one house."

"Hi, Grandma," Jude said, and hugged her, and she let him.

"You've got thin."

"I have not."

"You've got happy. It looks thin on a Parker." She patted his belly, once, hard. "Where's my Kenny?"

"On the phone with a roofer."

Grandma's eyebrows went up.

"Which roofer?"

"Yours," Ken said.

He came down the stairs two at a time, in a work shirt with the sleeves rolled.

He stopped on the last step with his phone still in his hand.

"Grandma. You were supposed to call from the station."

"I took a taxi. The bus driver talked too much."

"I wanted to tell you in person."

"Tell me what?"

Ken took an envelope from his back pocket.

It was thin, creased, and had Ken's square handwriting on the front.

"The roof," he said. "It's done. A crew from town went up Thursday."

"They finished in two days. Nothing drips into the bucket anymore."

"Who paid for it?"

"I did."

"With what?"

"My own pay. The first full month from the title."

He held out the envelope.

"Every receipt is in there. I wrote it all down."

Grandma took it and turned it over and did not open it.

"No Parker money?"

"None. Jude asked me what I needed, and I said this, and he said okay."

Grandma looked at Jude.

Jude raised both hands.

"I didn't send a ladder. I didn't even call a roofer. I only asked."

"He asked," Ken said. "And then he stayed out of it. It was very hard for him."

"I cried in the car," Jude admitted.

Grandma Bronze laughed, a short bark, and put the envelope in her purse without opening it.

"I'll read it tonight," she said. "Slowly. I like to look at money that was earned."

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