A failure.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Betsy
I’m notproud of myself, but I played hooky all day Friday, wandering around town and seeing the sights before heading back home to Nana. I didn’t want her to know I quit my job on only the third day, the one her best friend had gotten me out of the goodness of her heart. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
To be honest, I mostly spent the day talking myself out of feeling guilty. I’m not one to jump ship at the drop of a hat. I can withstand strict bosses or nasty coworkers or even that confused, fish-out-of-water feeling when you’re the new girl in the office. It’s just that I knew I couldn’t help Silas. I’d only be a drag on his bottom line, and I could tell the ship was already sinking. Silas didn’t say it in so many words, but I can read between the lines. I didn’t have it in me to be another expense for him when I could find a job somewhere else just as easily. I gave him all the research I got from the mamas in town and then removed myself from the situation.
Nana and I stayed up late playing mahjong, a tile game Nana recently started playing with her elderly friends. I’m not very good at it, but it was fun to spend time with Nana, just the two of us. All the other times I’d come to visit as a child, Mom was here, adding an element that usually led to arguments, hard feelings, and a heaviness lingering in the air that didn’t lead to easy conversation. Nana and I steered clear of any controversial conversation—namely my mother—and we got along just fine.
I wake Saturday morning to the smell of pancakes and bacon. I slide out from the single sheet—the handmade quilt at the foot of the bed is far too warm for summer—and head downstairs, bed head and everything. The stairs creak with every step. I wonder if I could YouTube how to fix them.
“God bless you, Nana,” I announce as I waltz into the kitchen that still has faded wallpaper with alternating lines of colorful flowers and chickens. It’s an eclectic wallpaper I doubt they make any longer.
Nana turns from the stove, her floral apron almost swallowing her whole. “There’s my sleepyhead. Silas has been working you too hard, but I’ve got some vittles here that’ll have you ready to cheer on our Angels!”
The stab of guilt for lying to her wakes me right up. I run my fingers through my hair and help myself to the coffee maker for a fresh cup. “What are we cheering for?”
Nana turns, her face aghast. “It’s football Saturday, darlin’!”
I remember what Silas told me. “Oh, that’s right. College football. It’s not much of a thing on the West Coast.”
Nana goes back to flipping the pancakes. I get out plates from the cabinet. “Well, you’re in the South now. We need to find you some purple and gold gear.”
I study her, realizing she does indeed have a purple sweater on under the apron. Sipping my coffee and waiting patiently for the bacon to be cooked just right, I wander over to the bar area,noticing a stack of mail. A single finger pushes them around enough to see most of them are bills.
“Nana,” I start, setting my coffee down and facing her back. “We didn’t talk about me paying rent while I live here, but I’d like to start helping out with expenses. What do you think is a fair amount on a monthly basis?”
Nana slides our pancakes on the plates and uses the tongs to grab a few slices of bacon for each of us. She turns with the plates and I take one from her, following her to the breakfast table.
She doesn’t answer right away. She gets settled in her chair and bows her head to say a quick prayer over our food and our day. When that’s done, she pours syrup over her two pancakes and hands the little porcelain syrup dish to me.
“Well, now, I don’t know about all that.” She cuts into her pancake with the fork, and then sets it down against her plate with a clink. “There’s something you should know, Betsy Mae.”
I take my first bite of pancake and nearly expire at how good it tastes. I don’t know what it is about home-cooked meals from scratch, but the food I was eating before doesn’t even seem like food compared to this.
“I reverse mortgaged the house last year,” Nana says, finally grabbing my attention away from the pancakes.
I swallow hard. “You what?”
Nana looks guilty as she fiddles around with the food on her plate. “The roof was bad, Betsy. I had a guy patching it here and there and that worked for a few years, but the whole thing had to be replaced eighteen months ago. Then the pipe near the kitchen sink sprung a leak in the slab and that had to be repaired. The final nail in the coffin was my car breaking down. Needed a whole new transmission!” Nana sounds close to tears.
I shift out of my seat and come around the corner of the table to give her a hug. She pats my arm and sniffles. I’m a terrible granddaughter. I had no idea all this was going on. I bet Momdidn’t either. Hell, even if she did, she didn’t have any extra money to send Nana. She never does.
“I’m so sorry, Nana,” I whisper into her thin white hair that’s already been teased and hair-sprayed to give her a few more inches of height.
Nana pats my arm again. “It’s fine, darlin’. I just did what I had to do, but I’m sorry to say this house isn’t paid for like it was before. If you want to live here after I’m gone, you’ll have a mortgage to pay back.”
I release her and sit back down. A growing sense of panic is waking me up far faster than that cup of coffee. “It’s okay. I don’t expect to be handed anything in this life.”
“Oh, Betsy Mae. I wanted to hand you this house. I really did.” Nana uses the edge of her apron to wipe her eyes. “My social security just doesn’t cover enough for those kinds of repairs.”
My brain is spinning. I moved out here thinking I’d live with Nana, help her in her last years, and then quietly stay in her house when she was gone. But a reverse mortgage changes things. Is it appropriate to ask how much she mortgaged? I’ve heard some of these reverse mortgage companies are predatory, talking old people into all kinds of crazy situations like mortgaging the whole thing just for a pot of money now and losing the house altogether once they die.
“It’s okay, Nana,” I say again, though nothing feels okay. I take a bite of my pancake that’s gone cold. It’s still better than anything I ate for breakfast back home.
Oh God. I just quit my job!
