Chapter 20: What Frank Wants

I wasn't invited to the porch.

I stood behind the screen door in the front hall anyway, with my mother at my shoulder, and neither of us pretended we weren't listening.

Grandma sat on the swing with her purse on her knees.

Dad stood at the rail with his back to the street.

"Frank," she said. "I've never asked you this."

"Ask."

"What do you want?"

My father didn't move.

"I mean it," she said. "Your brother has made a fool of me, and I made one of myself for fifty years before that."

She gripped the purse.

"I'm too old to get this wrong again. What do you want from me, Frank?"

"You're asking me now?"

"I'm asking."

Dad was quiet for so long that I thought he wasn't going to answer.

A school bus went by on the corner.

"My hundred and forty thousand dollars," he said.

"Yes."

"I want it back in my account, Ma, in full. Not as a gift, and not as a loan you'll forget. Back."

"Dennis doesn't have it."

"He has a house. He's going to sell it."

Grandma's mouth tightened, and then slowly she nodded.

"What else?"

"Your house comes off that loan. I hold the paper now."

"Frank."

"I'll sign it off the day his house sells. You'll never have to worry about Fairmount again."

Her eyes filled.

"That's generous."

"It's not generous. It's fair." He turned around. "And there's one more thing."

"Name it."

"You say you're sorry to Maureen."

Behind me, my mother stopped breathing.

"I said I was sorry about your money," Grandma said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Troublemakers Mess With the Wrong Girls from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.