They Paid the Freeloader Son-in-Law to Leave, Then His Grandfather's Will Was Read novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Out by Noon

Nate tells Leah what his grandfather owned while their boxes sit on the lawn, and on Monday his brother-in-law laughs at him in the bank lobby until the guard says his uncle is holding the elevator.

The sun came up over the hospital garage while they sat in Leah's truck with the engine off.

Nate held the agenda the lawyer had given him.

Leah held his other hand and hadn't let go of it since the elevator.

"Tell me," she said. "All of it. I can take it."

"You know he had money."

"You said a hard old man with money who wanted to pick your wife."

"He owned Imbrie Bank."

Leah looked at him.

"The bank," she said. "The one with its name on the building downtown."

"And the building," Nate said. "And the one next to it. Now I do, if the board says yes in thirty days."

She stared out the windshield at the garage wall for a long moment.

Then she started to laugh.

She laughed until she had to wipe her eyes with the heel of her hand.

"Three years," she said. "Three years you slept in a twin bed in my mother's attic with your feet hanging off the end."

"It was a good bed."

"You gave up a bank for a twin bed."

"I gave it up for you. The bed came with you."

She stopped laughing.

She climbed over the console into his lap, which was not easy in a work truck, and she took his face in both hands.

"You're an idiot," she said. "I'm so sorry about your grandfather."

Then she kissed him, hard, with her fingers in his hair.

He had not cried in the room, but he did then, with her mouth on his and her knees on either side of him.

She kissed the wet off his face.

She pulled his hands under the back of her fleece and held them flat against her skin.

"Warm," she said against his mouth. "You're freezing. Stay there."

A security guard knocked on the window and told them they couldn't park in the ambulance lane.

Leah climbed back over the console with her hair wrecked and gave the man a little wave.

When they pulled into the drive in Fox Chapel at eight, their boxes were stacked on the lawn.

It had rained in the night, and the cardboard had gone soft.

Nate's tools were in a laundry basket beside the mailbox.

Barbara came down the front steps in her robe with a mug of coffee.

She walked to the mailbox every day of her life, and she never let anyone else open it.

"You can take the boxes," she said. "The basket's mine."

"Mom," Leah said. "Where's Dad?"

"Your father's inside. He's fine. He's eaten."

"Who fed him?"

"I don't have to answer to you about my own husband."

Brett's car was already in the drive, and Leah's sister stood at the upstairs window filming the lawn on her phone.

"You chose him in front of everyone I know," Barbara told Leah. "So you can both go."

"This is Dad's house. He built it."

"And I have his power of attorney, and I say who sleeps in it."

Barbara sipped her coffee.

"The van from the county home is coming for your father Monday afternoon. I've signed it all."

Leah went white.

"The county home? Mom, it's two hours away."

"I can't afford a nurse," Barbara said. "Not now that the free help is leaving."

She looked at Nate when she said it.

Nate didn't answer her.

He walked past her and up the steps into the house, and nobody stopped him.

Frank sat in the kitchen in yesterday's shirt, with a bowl of dry cereal in front of him and no spoon.

Nate got a spoon from the drawer and poured the milk.

He crouched by the chair so they were eye to eye.

"They want me out, Frank. Leah's coming with me."

Frank's left hand closed on his wrist, hard.

"I'm not leaving you," Nate said. "I don't know how yet. But I'm not."

Frank let go and tapped the table twice.

Nate could have told Barbara everything on the lawn.

He had a will in a lawyer's bag and no proof of anything until the board voted.

And he didn't want to watch Barbara turn sweet on him for money while Frank sat in yesterday's shirt.

So he carried the soft boxes to the truck in the rain and said nothing at all.

They spent Sunday night in a motel on Route 8, because Nate wouldn't sleep in his grandfather's house before the man was buried.

On Monday at a quarter to nine Nate walked into the lobby of the Imbrie Building on Grant Street in his one good shirt.

The lobby was all gray marble, with a balcony around it and a long security desk.

Brett Shearer was at the desk, signing in, with a leather folder under his arm.

He turned and saw Nate, and his whole face lit up.

"No way," Brett said, loud enough for the line behind him. "Are you here for a job? They hire you people for nights."

A woman in the line laughed into her coffee.

"I'm here to save the company, Nate," Brett said, and he patted his folder. "Somebody in the family has to earn."

He held up his phone and filmed Nate standing in his rain-spotted shirt.

"Say hi to Barbara."

Behind the desk, the head of security got up out of his chair.

He was a retired cop of sixty-one with a gray mustache.

He had taught Nate to drive in this building's garage the summer Nate turned nineteen.

He came around the desk and shook Nate's hand with both of his.

"Morning, Nate. I'm sorry about your grandfather."

Brett lowered the phone a little.

"Your uncle's holding the elevator for you," the head of security said.

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