Chapter 24: The Account

In May the lake thawed, and the bank sent me a statement.

June read it over my shoulder at the kitchen table, with the smallest baby asleep in the crook of her arm.

"Fifty million dollars," she said. "And change."

"It's mine."

"I know it's yours. I wanted to say it out loud in front of a witness."

She had taken a month's leave from the ER, and then another, and nobody at the hospital had argued.

I turned the page.

Three weeks earlier I had spent some of it.

A contractor had come up the road with a roll of plans.

By the end of April my grandmother's cottage had two new rooms and a porch that went all the way round.

The first room was a nursery with three cribs.

The second was a clinic with a green door.

The nurses of Overend Landing could send anyone there who needed care and could not pay for it.

My grandmother's name was on a brass plate beside the door.

Her name, and mine under it.

"You could've bought an island," June said.

"I've got a lake."

"You could've bought the lake."

"The lake's fine as it is," I said.

From the next room came a bellow, followed by another, higher one, and then a third, thin and offended.

"Dinner's early," June said, and stood.

I followed her into the front room.

Sybilla sat on the sofa with the loud boy on her knee, pulling faces at him.

The middle one lay on the rug, kicking.

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