claimed the house was a mess. Well, it was hell without help. Hope’s best housekeeping efforts had a rather smeary, lackluster effect that she’d gotten used to. She’d bust her butt if Franklin would even get out of the car when he picked up or delivered the kids, but since he didn’t care, she didn’t care. She had her groceries delivered. She had gained something in the vicinity of eighty pounds. Thirteen pounds a year. Roughly one pound one ounce per month since Franklin left her.
She spent her days and nights on the couch, watching TV and cutting pictures out of catalogs. Earlier on she spent most of her money paying for the useless things she’d bought from the shopping channel; Franklin had bailed her out of credit card disasters twice but on the third time around he refused and her card was canceled so she was reduced to catalog snipping until her monthly check was due. Then she ordered COD. She frequently overordered and had to send packages back.
But all that was going to change now. She was going home. Home to her rich family. Grandma Berkey had piles and piles of money and was older than dirt. She probably wouldn’t last much longer... Hope would finally get her inheritance... Maybe she would move in with Grandma Berkey and start over... Oh, God, she needed to lose some weight! She needed to get her house in shape! She would have to get in touch with the girls and let them know what they were doing this summer.
Somehow, in the fever of all this, she pushed aside the fact that Megan had cancer. Hope’s mother, Josephine, had chronicled all she knew about Megan’s illness and treatments in her regular letters to Hope, but Hope almost never read them. If she did open a letter, she merely scanned it in search of something of importance to her. It had not for one second occurred to Hope that Megan might be spending her last months at Lake Waseka.
Hope dressed in the only clothes that would fit her and began the most thorough job of housecleaning she had done in at least five years. She heaved out so much trash—from papers to cans to dead houseplants—she completely filled the Dumpster at the far end of the alley. She scrubbed, scoured, dusted, washed, wiped, shined, vacuumed and waxed. She laundered and ironed. She phoned in a grocery list that was largely fresh greens and cleaning supplies. She called carpet cleaners and window washers. She wrote checks for those services she couldn’t cover immediately and made appointments to have her hair and nails done. And her legs waxed.
Hope’s house had twelve rooms and even though she had been the only one living there full-time for five years, it took days to snap it into even tolerable shape. She was never going to be a very good housekeeper. She drank a lot of coffee, didn’t eat any sweets and only slept for a few hours each night on the sofa in the den. Then she called Franklin.
“Is this the Franklin Griffin residence?” she asked the woman who answered the phone. She pretended not to know Pam’s voice even after all this time.
“Just a moment, Hope. I’ll get him.”
It annoyed her very much that Pam would take that kind of liberty with her. She grimaced and tapped her freshly manicured finger on the streaked kitchen counter.
“Hello, Hope,” Frank said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Franklin. And yourself?”
“Well, thank you.” He waited. She didn’t speak. “What can I do for you, Hope?”
“Nice to talk to you, too, Franklin.”
“All right, then—”
“Wait! Wait a minute,” she begged. “I’m making some summer plans and I have to discuss the girls’ schedules with you, among other things.”
“Shoot,” he invited.
“Well, my family is opening up the lake house for the summer. We haven’t been back since the judge died,” she explained, which she knew was not the truth at all. Her brow wrinkled. She’d taken him to the lake the summer they got married...1996? It had only been seven years since the family had stopped going there but the years had been very hard on the house. Was that when Franklin first began to doubt that she came from a very rich, prominent family? Was that why he really left her? “It’s been completely refurbished,” she informed him quickly, hoping first that Megan would at least buy some new appliances, and second that her daughters would lie to their father about its condition. “I’d like to take the girls there for six weeks or so this summer. From about the tenth of June to maybe the end of July.”
“No can do, Hope. We’re going to be in New York and the Cape until the middle of July. The girls are expecting you to join them at the Cape and bring them home by the first of August. As usual.”
“Franklin, this is my family!” She stopped herself just short of demanding that he be there with them. Despite what she said to others, she knew Franklin was not inclined to spend any time with his old family.
“Maybe we can work out some compromise, but the girls are going to have a say in this. They don’t have to go with you at all if they don’t want to.”
“Franklin, why do you persist in trying to turn my own daughters against me? Isn’t it enough that you’ve taken them away from me? My own children?”
He sighed into the phone. “We’ve been over this, Hope. They love you very much but they hate this game you play, pretending we’re still married. Not to mention all the other airs you put on.”
“I don’t do that,” she insisted, her voice beginning to tremble. “Believe me, Franklin, I’m well aware that you’re not married to me anymore.” She wouldn’t go so far as to admit that she was not married to him, however. That was too much. She loved Franklin! “All I want to do is take my children home to see my family. We haven’t seen each other in years.”
“All right. I’ll talk to the girls about it. Maybe something can be worked out. It won’t be for six weeks, though. That’s too long. But maybe a little longer than—”
“And, Franklin? I’m going to need a little extra money. To buy some clothes for myself and the girls and to—”
“The girls have clothes,” he said irritably.
“The right kind of clothes. I know how to buy my daughters’ clothes. I’m not taking them back to Minnesota dressed like a couple of punk rockers. I have to get a few simple, inexpensive things for myself and I’m going to need some travel money. Also, I’ve just put some work into the house... It was quite falling down around me. I’d happily pay for all this if I had any money, but unfortunately on my limited income...”
“Hope, I give you two thousand dollars a month and pay all your bills, including gas for your car. You have only to buy food and clothes. You have a college degree. Have you ever thought of going to work?”
“Can’t we call it a loan, then? You could simply advance me a few months of that allowance you give me...” She could not call it alimony. No matter how hard she tried.
“And add it to what you already owe me? No, I’m afraid not. Sooner or later you’re going to have to be accountable.”
“At least May and June, then! At least send those checks early! For God’s sake, Franklin, would you like to see me beg? Am I not quite humiliated enough for you?”
“Overdrawn again, Hope?”
She was silent for a moment. “Does this young girl you’re living with know what a cruel bastard you can be?”
“Do you mean Pam? My wife? Who is only eleven months younger than you?”
“Please, Franklin,” she whimpered, but it was more a plea for him to stop throwing that truth in her face than a plea for money.
“I’ll send May’s check now,” he relented. “And I’ll talk with the girls and call you next week to let you know what time they’re willing to compromise from their summer plans. And...if you decide to drive to Minnesota, you can use the gas card as usual, but I’m unable to fund plane tickets.”
“Drive? You expect me to drive?”
“Actually,