QUEENIE'S BEQUEST-8th entry

Tap tap swish swish, okay okay, I'm up what time was it. I woke myself up shaking my head to help. That stupid branch was beating against the shutters again. John had to cut that down tomorrow. It wasn't the first time it had woken me since our stay had begun. The wind was sure howling. I heard others walking around and guessed it had awakened somebody else, too probably Charlotte or William. They were both light sleepers like me. I pulled on my robe, deciding I was a little hungry, maybe someone was already making a snack. As I started down the stairs I froze in my tracks. There was someone up alright, but they were using a flashlight. I couldn't breath. I didn't know whether to run or stay frozen. I decided the later. I peeked around trying my best not to make the stair boards creak. Suddenly I was more curious than terrified. I must be dreaming, I started to think, but the hot liquid pouring down my legs clued me I was indeed awake. Suddenly there was a figure. I couldn't make it out, but it seemed to be a man. He left through the back door, at least I thought. I waited a minute or two. I knew I had to get someone else up. I wasn't about to go down there alone, but I had to clean myself up first. I woke John and pretty much everyone else in the house. Strangely enough Mama and Daddy who were on the first floor, never stirred. Still we checked them to see if they were truly just sleeping, they were.

Rudy and John went into the living room first with William huddled behind them. Craig was still sleeping. "You guys better come here" cried Rudy to all. We stood in the doorway peering around each other. "Here's your burglar" mused John, pointing to that picture of my uncle. The one that had mysteriously fallen before. "And I guess who ever played the player piano last, forgot to pick up their mess" said Rudy. We looked to see dozens of player rolls scattered on the floor. We each insisted we hadn't done this, but still everyone was doubting I had seen anyone. We checked the side door, it was shut, but unlocked. There was my proof, but Rudy confessed he had left it unlocked accidentally. "Mystery solved!" cried John. I didn't argue. I knew someone had been there and probably it wasn't the first time since we had been staying in the house. All I had to do was figure out who it was and what they wanted. I decided that the next day I would tell someone about the letters.

The next day was Saturday. All would be around the house. Everyone was going to pitch in and start going through all of Grandmother's things. I made sure I took the closet where the letters were. We all broke for lunch. I was just about to go ahead and tell all at once of my discovery, when William came up with an old scrap book. " Hey Dad did you know there was a bank robbery here way back" asked William. "Oh yes I was about ten or twelve or so when it happened. It was big news around here" said Daddy. "But why did Grandmal keep a scrapbook about it?" asked William. "She was fascinated by it for some reason. Daddy and I never really understood why either. We just figured it was because it was such big news here" said Daddy. "And also because your mother knew some of the boys that were suspected of the robbery" said Mother. "It says here that a woman was wounded also" said William.

"Oh yeah I remember now it was some pastor's wife, from around here. Let me see that" Daddy reached for the scrapbook, searching the article for the woman's name."Here it is her name was Martha McDonald." ........McDonald ..pastor's wife...McDonald.. Quentin McDonald! I screamed.....that's the wife of the man Daddy that came by here a while back..the one you didn't remember, I reminded him. "Oh oh , okay , it's been such a long time since I've heard his name" insisted Daddy. "I never even knew Mama knew him. What on earth was he coming around here for" asked Daddy.

I wondered. Now I was convinced that Quentin McDonald was Queenie's love. The man whose letters she had kept all these years. This wasn't the time to bring them up.

"Says here no one was ever caught for the robbery" said William. "That's right, although everyone always thought it was several young men around here. Is a matter of fact uncle Connor knew some of the boys" said Daddy. "Your father won't tell you all this, but your uncle's disappearance was thought to be connected to something he knew about the robbery" said Mother.

"He was suspected of the robbery was he" I asked.

"No no he was just friends with Cally Thombs the kid, well he wasn't exactly a kid I guess, he was around nineteen or twenty, but anyway uncle Connor was thought to know something. He was either running away from or it was rumored he might have been murdered for what he knew' said Daddy.

William grabbed the article reading it aloud. "Huh that's pretty amazing. Did people really think uncle Connor knew some of the guys that did it." "Yeah nobody ever was sure if he knew anything or not, as I remember Mama saying uncle Connor was never heard of again. He probably was murdered" insisted Daddy. "I wouldn't put anything past your family, it wouldn't surprise mi if your uncle was in on it" quipped Mama.



I decided after breakfast I was going to the library in town to check this out. Some how the whole thing intrigued me and for the time made Grandmal's love affair look pretty tame.

It was late afternoon when I arrived at the only library in town. It was a neat old building, a two story brick, long narrow structure with skinny windows, that had glass distorted somewhat. This library was started in 1805. It was still heated by old radiators that had been it's "update system" decades ago. I remembered going to it many times as a child. My cousins June and Billy and I would walk to it by ourselves. Once we sneaked up in the second floor storage room and smoked our first cigarettes, don't know why we didn't try it behind a barn or something. The librarian caught us and called my grandmother who immediately sent me packing back home. She never told my parents. They thought she wasn't feeling well and that's why she sent me home. She knew she had to punish me but I guess she was afraid if they knew, I had smoked, they wouldn't let me come back. It was one of our little secrets. Seems Grandmother was better that I knew at keeping secrets.

Cal Henry was still working at the library. I couldn't believe it. What was he 150 by now. Old Cal was a hoot a real character. I told him what I wanted to look up. He quickly took me aside and what he said made me know I was on to something big.

"You don't wanna go dredging that up do ya. Why don't you just take a good old fashioned "love novel" (as he called them) and leave things be."

As I insisted that no was not an option, he practically jumped in front of me, as I tried to enter the records room. "You can't go in there now anyhows, bugs, bugs just everywhere. We just had it sprayed with that there bug juice. I wouldn't want you getting sick or something" he said. "I'll take my chances I told him. "Have it your way missy. You'll see you'll see what I mean one day, don't say I didn't warn you" he hissed.

QUEENIE'S BEQUEST--7th entry

Charlotte was raking the yard and part of the field between Grandmal's house and aunt Carrie's. She had a fire going and she was in heaven. I'd never seen anyone like my mother and Charlotte, that loved raking so much and burning a huge smoking pile of crunchy crackling wonderful smelling leaves and brush! We used to tease Charlotte that she was a pyromaniac and that it was probably her who had set her neighbors garage on fire a few years back. I secretly was serious about the accusation. I think she accidentally did it of course. She was never charged.

Ellen was in a cooking mood. She could bake! Her homemade bread would melt in your mouth. I was afraid we were all going to leave twenty pounds heavier. I couldn't afford to gain anymore weight. I had always been the smallest of the sisters up until my first two children were born. After that I just started piling it on. Ellen and I were constantly on a diet. Mother who had a weight problem most of her life, was now quite slender. Charlotte who was always tall but never over weight, was now getting up there too.

We all knew we didn't have much longer to fulfill our agreement so I guess we had started to try harder to make some good memories. It was working. We were beginning to enjoy each others company, at least some of the time. We also figured it wouldn't be long before the money would be our reward for time served.


The sun was unusually hot for an October day. We were having a late Indian Summer. It was beautiful. I couldn't breathe in enough of the delicious weather we were having. I decided I would do a little house cleaning, looking through closets that we hadn't done that first week we were there. They looked like they haven't been cleaned out in decades. I stretched out on the floor, ready for a day of exploring, hoping to find some treasure long forgotten. A secret hidden away where no one would suspect. I never expected to find what I did.

I read them over and over, unable to grasp what I had seen written. Could it be true? The letters had been tucked away in an old hat box, inside the hat itself. There were dozens of them maybe fifty or more. Each one on it's own was enough to tell the story.



Dearest Queenie,

How I have thought about you every second since we last spoke. Not a moment goes by that I don't regret leaving. That I swear to myself I'll come back and fight to be with you, no matter the cost, no matter the guilt. Then she calls me and I have to go to her. She is so weak these days, so unaware of the month or even the time of year. I know it's selfish to think of you so when she is suffering as she is, but I can't help myself. It's like I've gone mad. I'm sorry to ask you to bear this burden with me. I never should have allowed my feelings to touch you. I'm sorry for deserting you my love, but I can't help but believe that one day we will truly be together again. Until then all my love and admiration.

Yours forever


There was no signature. I searched the other letters for one, none were there, and each being in their own envelope had no return address. Could it be, did Grandmother have a lover, but who and when. There were no dates on the letters and the envelopes postmarks I was unable to make out. The letters were very worn, as if she had read them over and over. Maybe Grandmother had been involved after Granddaddy died after all she was still a young woman when he died. Why had she never spoken of this man? Was it because of this person he spoke of in his letters? It certainly made it seem that he was speaking of a wife that was bed ridden or something. That must have been the only reason they hadn't been together. Surely it was after my grandfather's death!


I hid the letters back where I had found them. Would I share this discovery with Ellen or Charlotte probably not William, certainly not Mother and not Daddy. Maybe aunt Carrie knew something about this man. After all Grandmother had lived with her and my uncle the last few years of her life.


I decided I wouldn't tell anyone about the letters for the time being. Each day for the next week, whenever everyone else was busy outside the house, I scurried to the closet again, re-reading each letter for some clue as to who this mystery man in my grandmother's life was. Rev. Quentin McDonald kept coming to my mind. Was he the one? Had he returned to his love when he heard she was ill, only to find she had died? Maybe that was why he was interested in Grandmother's house, but why would he want to live in this old house anyway? He had too be close to eighty or so. If it was him Queenie had certainly been robbing the cradle! This was all too insane. How was I going to not tell anyone about this? I wondered if I could possibly keep this awful but delicious secret.

cont- QUEENIE'S BEQUEST--6TH entry

Ellen was elected to answer it. The knocking was insistent. We crowded around the door. "Who is it we asked". "It's Carrie, open up!." We flung the door open. Aunt Carrie flew inside, almost pushing Ellen over. "What's wrong" we asked. "There was someone walking around outside my house. I watched and saw them running down the other direction". She panted gasping for air between words. Carrie lived about two lots away, but it was still quite a little walk for someone her age, not in the best of health and to make matters worse, she had run! "I tried to use the phone" she continued, "but it's dead, have you tried yours lately?" Charlotte got the phone. It was dead also. "Did you get a good look at him" William asked? "Yes he looked vaguely familiar and before he knew I saw him he seemed to be just looking around, like he was lost. It scared me to death" Carrie cried.

Carrie stayed with us that night. We found out the next day that all the phones in the area were out that night, but we still hadn't a clue about the strange man Carrie had seen, or did we. From the moment Carrie told us of the stranger, my mind had gone to the recent visit of Rev. Quentin McDonald. The Rev. no one remembered. The familiar face could they be connected? I thought so.



It was September and the family thing was starting to grow old. Ellen was anxious to get back to her church. William was pretty much back to work full time during the days. Mother was sure no amount of money should be worth this. She was tired of cooking for so many as she usually ended up preparing the dinners. My father was probably the only one content to wait out the time. After all this was his boyhood home. Everyone was walking on egg shells at first, but now we were all too eager to give our opinion on just about everything. Of course most of the opinions were far and wide apart from the other. There were so many arguments, that one night we decided this was the time to get it all out once and for all. So what if anyone ended up not speaking for the rest of our lives. We'd had enough of each other for a life time.

Charlotte started the "discussion"- "I would like to know once and for all what's the problem with this family, why are you all professing Christians, but no one wants to ever talk about it. I don't get that." "Well maybe it has something to do with the fact it's all you ever talk about" I claimed. "She's right" agreed Ellen. That's all it took. IT ALL CAME OUT! One by one we let Charlotte have it. Each confessing our discomfort at her constant spiritual assessments of never being able to measure up. Daddy walked out of the room when Mother let it out that she'd been told by me, Charlotte didn't even think some or most of our family were saved. It was true, Charlotte had scolded me many times on the inadequate and lost condition of our family! Charlotte started to speak in "tongues" and that's when it really got crazy. Ellen started quoting the Bible, reciting parts that she believed said there were no more "tongues" today. Joanie began to tell about some woman "Lilith" that was Adam's first wife, while William, whom I believed enjoyed it all had the nerve to bring up evolution. I had to tell him that Darwin himself denounced evolution and had even become a Christian before he died. He was sure that wasn't right. Ellen confirmed it and of course he took her word for it.

These kinds of scenes were rare for our family, but always under the surface. We are all so different in our lives and temperaments . Charlotte is fiery and has the red hair to match, but there's a side to Charlotte that's calm peaceful especially when she's gardening or cooking, two of her passions. She and Rudy have four children. Andrew the oldest, he's like Rudy, very studious, quiet and gentle. Then there's Lany just the opposite of Andrew. Lany's Charlotte's spit. It's really uncanny. Then there's Shelley, a beautiful young woman, she is a model and lives in New York. Shelley's the black sheep of that family. Charlotte cried for a month when she moved to New York City with her boyfriend. Kelsey's the baby he still lives at home and goes to school where they live. Charlotte calls him twice a day. She really is a good mother in many ways.

Ellen the smart sister is also the quiet one, always in control always decisive always respected. Craig and Ellen have three girls, Debbie, Marsha and Beverly. They're all pretty much alike, great girls all in college away in Virginia. Ellen also has a son from her first marriage to the wild one. I'm afraid he took after his father, wild and aimless a real embarrassment to Ellen's almost perfect family.

My two oldest kids Brian and Doug, are both in dental school. they are great kids but did manage to give us plenty of grief in their teen years. My girls Kellen and Amy are both married already--way too young. They are both still in school though and Kellen still lives at home with her husband Kyle. Amy has a one year old little boy, Neal and that makes me the youngest grandmother of the sisters.

William will make a great grandfather but neither of their boys are even seeing anyone special that I know of. I know my mother regrets the fact that William and Joanie never had a child together. She always told me how much she wanted William to have a little girl. It's probably just as well they never had any more children. Out of all of us they are certainly the most social of the family. My brother golfs, belongs to mens groups that kind of thing. Joanie has more best friends than Emelda Marco had shoes!


The garden was starting to pop over with pumpkin, my father had planted in my grandmother's garden. We hadn't seen that garden produce anything in years. My grandmother used to work like a dog. I guess that's where Charlotte gets her love of gardening. It's funny the little things you find you have adopted from grandparents. It's like my grandmother always signing a Bible verse on any card or note she would send anyone. For years I thought it was so corny, but the last few years I find myself doing this.

Queenie was truly a sweet person, unassuming and long suffering, hardly ever complaining. If the truth be known, I think I'm more like her than any of us--humble too.


It was the middle of September and leaves were beginning to change. They always did change a little earlier here where my grandmother lived. I breathed in the crisp morning air, glad to be alive, even glad to be here in this house with all my family-almost. I really missed my kids who were not going to be able to visit as much now with the fall semester being tougher. We only had about three months left of our stay, and in a way I was sorry to be leaving here before Christmas. I remember so many Christmas dinners here. Huge trees, tacky ornaments, some of which are coming back in style now. Bubble lights, paper ornaments. I loved it all. The old house was beginning to feel the autumn chill. If you were in the living room you were toasty with it's massive oil space heater, but except for a couple of small space heaters for the bedrooms, that was the only heat in the house. We sometimes used the old wood burning cooking stove in the kitchen just for extra heat, it was really kind of neat. The air down in the country always had a smokey smell in the fall. It was intoxicating to me. What would it be like to live here all the time, I often wondered. I secretly fantasized about living in this old house permanently. John would have loved it, but the commute had already taken it's toll on him. Yes we definitely were creatures of convenience. Why was I becoming so romantic about this place and sentimental. I had always prided myself on how unsentimental I was, a trait I almost considered a virtue. But now I was melancholy, reflective. It was new for me.

I would look back in the field between Grandmother's house and Aunt Carrie's and I could see it plain as day. Sunday afternoon, hot and dry, everyone full from lunch, lazily sitting around the front porch. Then someone, Charlotte or Uncle Alvin would say "anyone up for baseball". We'd all run out, no one was any good and everyone wanted to pitch. Usually Daddy would get to or William. We weren't the "Kennedy's" but we did have our moments- that was one of them. We were great. Never did we imagine when we were playing at baseball, that those days would be no longer. That some would die and others would grow apart. That life would change.

cont-QUEENIE'S BEQUEST---5th entry

Later that evening as we all sat on the porch, trying to cool off. It had been a usual hot July day. The guys had installed the new window units and we were hoping the house would feel cooler by the time we retired for the night. I told everyone about pastor McDonald's visit, but no one not even my father could place him.

The next few weeks were filled with unexpected events. Storms were frequent and severe. There was even a couple of small tornadoes. No real damage was done to our immediate area, but people not ten miles away had a huge mess to clean up. Thankfully there were no casualties.

It still was a wonder to me, just sitting or swinging on that old front porch, listening to the rain pelting away at the tin roof, such a soothing familiar sound. We all played endless games of checkers and on especially rainy long days a game we played as children, the "I see something game". Someone would choose something obscure in the room saying I see something whatever color it was until someone guessed it.

One rainy night, unable to sleep, I decided to get up and venture downstairs. The old house was pretty scary at night, with it's creaks and settling sounds. I often wondered how my grandmother lived there so many years alone. I would have gone crazy I think. I entered the downstairs hallway, stopping dead in my tracks, listening to a sound I couldn't distinguish. Maybe someone else was up. As I got up the nerve to round the corner to the living room, I gasped. The large portrait of my great uncle Connor, fell to the floor. The thing was creepy enough just hanging there. Connor was the youngest of my grandmother's siblings. He had moved away when he was around twenty. The portrait made him look forty. A lot of the pictures people had done then were like it, solemn, cold, haunting. I picked up the picture, barely checking to see if it had broken. I just wanted to re-hang it and get the heck away from it. His eyes stared at you, stared wherever you were. He was handsome though. Grandmal had said my father looked like him, I could see it. Good it hadn't broken, I flew back to bed!


The next morning I told Ellen about the picture falling. She said it was probably a "hant". She was making fun of what my mother would always say, meaning something was haunted. We decided to stay up late that night and tell old stories we'd all heard a dozen times, but still would manage to give you a chill.

Charlotte started first. "I'm gonna tell one about Grandmal Miller" she said. Grandmal Miller was my mother's mother. I knew the story she was going to tell, it was a good one.
"One cold rainy night Grandmal was doing some private duty nursing at and old house in town that had been converted into a recovery hospital. It was late about eleven or twelve. She needed to call the corner pharmacy for her patient's medication. She made the call unlocked the door and lay down on a cot next to her patient. She was tired but didn't plan to go to sleep. While she slept the pharmacy delivered the meds as they had done before and left without waking grandmother. While Grandmother lay sleeping, another man came to the door. This one did awaken Grandmother, but as soon as she opened her eyes to see him coming through the door, she knew it wasn't the pharmacy boy. The man was crazed, probably looking for drugs. Grandmother lay still, pretending to sleep. The man ransacked the tiny hospital room and quickly left, leaving the door ajar. Grandmother waited a second then jumped up running to the door to shut and lock it. As her hand touched the doorknob, someone on the other side grabbed it, and held the door. Grandmother felt her heart pounding. In an instant he pulled the door from her hand and slammed it shut! Grandmother frantically locked the latch. She peered ou the sid window to see if he had gone, she screamed! There was his face staring back at her. He laughed, a menacing howl, running away wildly into the black street."

When Charlotte had finished her rendition of Grandmother Miller's tale, we each took our turn. Each trying to tell the best ones we could remember. But the one William would tell, left us all with an eerie feeling of something.

William began,"in this house right down this hallway" William stood, raising his arm high, pointing with his finger, head turned aside. "Our great grandmother came face to face with a real live ghost, but not just any ghost. NO! The ghost of her dearly departed Clarabelle. The story so goes. One blustery October night, just days after the much too, early death of dear great aunt Clarabelle, our great grandmother walked these floors trying to get baby Claralee to sleep. Claralee, the baby Clarabelle had died giving birth to- one week shy of her nineteenth birthday, which just happened to be October 31th-just a coincidence- that being OL HALLOWS EVE--I DON'T THINK SO" William cackled, being his truly dramatic self. As dearest Grandmother finally was able to quiet the child, she put her in her cradle, yes her cradle! Down this hall in the bedroom our mother and father are sleeping in at this very moment. Some time during that night, somewhere around midnight October 31th. Grandmother awoke to little Claralee crying uncontrollably. She sat up in bed, sled her cold feet into her slippers and was about to go comfort the baby, when a great wind knocked her back. As she caught her breath and steadied herself, she looked over at Claralee and there at the foot of her cradle was a figure, singing in a strange voice. Grandmother reached for her spectacles, rose to her feet. She tried to speak, but couldn't- was she awake. She bite her lip, yes she was indeed awake. There rocking her baby was her precious Clarabelle. She reached to touch her but she was gone, but Claralee's cradle continued to rock back and forth back and forth all through the night." As William finished there was a hard knock at the door. We nearly jumped on top of one another. Who could that be at that hour?

cont- QUEENIE'S BEQUEST

John and I didn't talk much on the ride home. My mind was reeling. Had I heard what I thought I heard. Grandmother was worth one million! No there must be some mistake.

"Penny for your thoughts or maybe I should say $1000000" John joked. "I don't know what I'm thinking. What do you think?" I asked John. "Well Carol it's not too hard to figure out it was spelled out pretty plain. What don't you get?" "You're not surprised I take it, you're just as smooth as ever. Nothing fazes you huh" I quipped. "The only hard part to understand is how the hell your family's gonna do it" John laughed. "I know it's crazy isn't it. Guess Grandma's got the last laugh.



Queenie had indeed gotten the last laugh. For when the will was read nobody else was laughing, not exactly. I guess my mother had been right all along. She was hiding loot. Who would have thought it, but one million, no way, she couldn't have had that much.

Grandmother had left half her money and possessions to my father, nothing to my mother or aunt Carrie, who had taken care of my grandmother the last few years of her life. She had left the other half to myself and my sisters and brother to be divided equally. There was one condition. One condition and all would be ours. The condition? We were all to move into her old house, live there six months no exceptions. Could we do it? I certainly didn't know. We had one week to think it over and if we decided not the deal was off! Making it more unacceptable, if one family member my mother, Daddy, Charlotte, Ellen, William or myself did not do it , no one got the money. It was funny she hadn't mentioned our spouses or children.

In her will she had stated, she wanted to give us a chance, a chance of becoming a family again. She said it was the greatest thing she could leave for us. We were sure she was senile and a little evil in her old age.

We were instructed not to consult with one another. She wanted everyone to come on their own, not knowing what the other would choose to do.


As the week was nearing an end I started to panic. John and I had decided to do it and now we were just afraid the others wouldn't and we'd be out our share. I guess our motives weren't off to a great start. All our children being grown pretty much, had decided to opt out. The older two were in graduate school in the summer session. The two younger were taking the summer off and traveling around and such with friends before they started back to school in the fall. I knew they would all be fine and besides we were only an hour away. It was all worked out, but I can't say we were looking forward to it. Was my grandmother crazy, had she really thought this would bring us closer. We'd probably kill each other. We were more like the Calhan's from HEE HAW T.V. show, not the Waltons.


It was nearly sunset when everyone had arrived, but arrive they did. All of us were there. Maybe not looking forward to the next six months, but there none the less.

We all chose our rooms and retired early. John and I took the pink room. It had the same wallpaper all these years. It must have been changed at some point, but no one knew for sure. The house was well over 120 years old. My grandmother had grown up in that house and being the last to marry, she had taken care of her parents in their later years. So naturally she stayed when she and my grandfather were married. It was my grandmother who refused to leave her childhood home. My grandfather, I'd been told was not too happy about it, but he gave in.

Charlotte and Rudy took the sewing bedroom. It had earned that distinction because of an old singer sewing machine that occupied a corner of the room right next to a huge old spinning wheel. It was really kind of creepy I thought and although it was the next largest room, I was more than happy to let Charlotte have it. William and Joanie almost had a fight with Craig about their rooms. One of the bedrooms had a bathroom off of it with only that room the access to it. No one wanted that one. I really think the real reason was because my grandfather and my aunt had died in that room. William and Joanie ended up with that room. Craig insisted his bad back prevented him from the death room as it had been nicknamed. Craig was sure the feather mattress was partly to blame for my grandfather's death, since he had heard he had a bad back too.

Ellen trying to be the peacemaker was willing to take the death room, but William finally accepted it. I think William secretly wanted the death room.

As children we had been fascinated about the room and I'm sure it still intrigued him. Ellen and Craig took the attic room. It was really quite lovely and the largest bedroom. As children we all loved to play up there. Part of the room was storage. I was terrified by that part, but as long as the door was shut to that part I was okay. My parents had taken the bedroom on the ground floor of course.


The sun was blinding me as I tried to open one eye. It was the first morning of our adventure. I stretched, my back hurting from a different mattress. Where was John? What was that delectable smell? I followed my nose down the stairs to the tiny kitchen. John was making breakfast. "Hey honey want some bacon and pancakes, buckwheat even!" John knew buckwheat pancakes were my favorite. He had brought the mix along to surprise me. I hadn't had them since our honeymoon. I had always said how much I loved them, but in all these years John and I had not had them again. They were delicious. John was always quite the cook, messy but good. He loved to create new dishes and did have a flare. "Are we the first ones up?" I asked. What time is it? No and ten replied John. "Where is everybody?" "I fed them too and they're off to the store all except Charlotte and Rudy. They went for a walk. I also called the kids all are well. What's up for today?


We decided to explore. It had been a long time since I had really walked the grounds around the house. I had forgotten how beautiful and lush they were. We met up with Charlotte and Rudy. We picked a massive amount of blackberries and Charlotte promised to make Grandmal's famous blackberry cobble that night. It was a good day.


The first week seemed to fly by, not being too eventful though. We got the kitchen all stocked up, cleaned out some closets, cut down brush and pruned bushes that hadn't been touched for years. Everyone pitched in, some doing more than others, but all trying to make a tense situation better.


One day during the next week something odd happened. A man stopped by, coming to the front door as I was opening it to sweep the porch. "Oh you scared me to death" I cried, clutching my chest. "Sorry dear I thought you probably saw my car pull up" he said. I suddenly became aware of the fact that there was only us girls there. John had gone back to the car dealership he ran. Craig back to the tire place he where he worked and Rudy who was retired had gone with my father into town for another air conditioner unit. "Who are you" I asked. "You don't recognize me dear, has it been that long?" he asked. "No I am afraid I don't, what can I do for you" I asked. "I used to be your grandmother's pastor, you must be Charlotte" he said smiling. Not only had he startled me, but now he had insulted me assuming I was ten years older than I was, but of course he probably thought Charlotte was twenty or so. "No I'm Carol" I defended. "Oh yes now I remember, you're the youngest girl aren't you" he said. I nodded. "Well anyhow my dear I hadn't seen your dear grandmother in ages and had heard of her passing. I saw people milling around here the other day when I drove by. I'm sorry I still haven't introduced myself or should I say reintroduced myself. You see I used to give you candy when you came to church with Queenie, I'm pastor McDonald, Quentin McDonald" he said. Still no memory of him, his face or name. "Nice to meet you" I muttered, my mind still racing, trying to place this man. He wasn't as old as my grandmother maybe 20 years or so younger, it was hard to tell. He was quite handsome and there was something about him that reminded me of someone, but I couldn't think who. "Well my dear I just wanted to stop and offer my sympathy. I've just recently moved back to the area, by the way are you going to live here or someone in your family" he asked? "No, no we're all here for the next few months-- it's a long story" I said. He started to leave saying his goodbyes when suddenly he stopped. "If your family ever wants to sell this house please let me know. I'd be very interested indeed."

cont- QUEENIE'S BEQUEST

It's funny how close I had been to my oldest older sister. Ten years apart she was my idol, so beautiful so popular. I wanted to be just like her. We remained close until I was about twenty, even taking day shopping trips together-making sure we always had an outing around Christmas time. She had been so distant in the past couple of decades. We really didn't have much in common and had a hard time communicating. Charlotte had become so angry at the family, especially Mama and Daddy. I'm not sure she was even aware of her bitterness, but it had destroyed so much of her charm and life. She was only certain it was all the things that had been done to her or not done. That she was the only one in the family to have truly found religion.


We had all gone to church as a family growing up. My mother saw to this. Way back she had made my father go. He had been quite the rounder before marrying my mother at twenty, mom just eighteen. We attended a small Baptist church, where my parents are charter members. We all were active in the church. My parents always teaching Sunday School, heading G.A.'s and R.A.'s, leading vacation bible school. You name it they did it. Everyone always remarked what a close family we were and they all think it's still that way.


My sister Ellen is even a co-pastor at a small Christian church, much to her husband's objections, as he doesn't believe in women ministers (they almost divorced over it)

They live in a rural area of our state in a house that Ellen's husband Craig grew up in. It's a neat old house with gargoyles on the roof. It has a lot of charm, but still needed a lot of work.

Ellen was always the brain girl of the family. Charlotte used to tell this joke to anyone who'd listen (in a country southern hick accent). She would tell this story of a family that couldn't blow out the family candle- "Pa would try but he blew up, Ma would try but she could only blow down, Brother would try but he could only blow to the side, then Sister would lick her fingers and putting them to the flame, extinguish it". I always thought of Ellen as that smart sister.

Ellen and I had not liked each other much as little girls. Me being the baby girl and her stuck in the middle. Charlotte teased her unmercifully and I doing whatever Charlotte did would chime in. I remember on one of our trips to the beach we decided to put sand in her bed. She was very fair skinned and blood red from sunburn. It was really mean. We also had nicknamed her "bugger ball Betsy" for some reason. We were cruel-oh well.

Ellen and I did manage to become close in our twenties, doing everything together but when she moved away, an hour trip proved to be enough to change all that.

Craig was Ellen's second husband. A good looking man with quite the gift of gab and a heart of gold. Still he was very much an old fashioned man in much of his thinking, having been brought up in the country. He was quite different from Ellen's first husband Gary.

Gary was the rebel. The rebel that took my sister away to Biloxi Miss. To where he was stationed in the air force. Their first week of marriage found them in the middle of hurricane Camille.

My mother nearly died when Gary started coming around. Ellen had not dated much and certainly no one like Gary. I'll never forget when I first saw him. There he was parked in the street in front of our house, Ellen hanging on his red neck souped up car, bleached blond long straight hair, chain smoking and tattoos to boot. My father refused to come to the wedding and my mother cried for months.

Because of their marriage I did get to travel as far as I'd ever been at that time. I was sixteen and flying for the first time to stay with them in Biloxi. I loved it. My father had tried to bribe me not to go, with the promise of a whole new wardrobe, but nothing could have stopped me.

Ellen and Gary divorced after she caught him with a girlfriend of hers. The last time I saw him, he was at my sister's apartment trying to retrieve some of his belongings. My mother was there and told him off up one side and down the other, chasing him off yelling as she was fond of calling him to me "and don't ever let me see you around here again you sawed off hammered down runt".



It was time for the reading of the will. We were all to meet at the lawyer's office. My mother had always said we were going to be surprised how much money Grandmother had, Mama said it was no telling where she had money tucked away.

Once my grandmother had been staying at my parents house. My mother was putting her things away and discovered my grandmother had brought $5000 in cash just sitting in the bottom of the suitcase. She told my father she didn't know when she would get to her bank again so she wanted to have enough cash on her for the stay--a week.

If she did have money you wouldn't have known it by what she gave you. She had long ago given up Christmas presents. She would give my father five dollars on his birthday and my aunt and mother three. I guess it was how she was brought up.

Queenie was in the middle of ten children, the oldest girl. She didn't have much growing up. My grandfather, never made much money. Queenie would make corn-shuck mats and patch work quilts to sell. They had their own garden and sold some of their crops. It was hard to see how there could have been money to save.



We pulled up to the lawyer's office. There was Ellen and Craig and Mama and Daddy. We got out greeting one another, each of us kissing the other. That was one of the strange things about us. Even though we weren't very close anymore, we always had to kiss and hug each other and again when we would leave.

We walked into the old office building. It had been the old city hall where my grandmother lived. Rudy and Charlotte, William and Joanie were already inside.

"Sit down all, let's get started--I think you are all in for a very great surprise" Paul Angers said. Leaning back in his leather chair putting his glassed on, taking too much time. I guess enjoying his moment of power. We all leaned on the edge of our chairs, trying to appear calm. He read "I Queen Elizabeth Chambers Hargrove being of sound mind and body on this the first day of July in the year nineteen and eighty do hereby bequeath.

cont- QUEENIE'S BEQUEST

John opened the door, taking us into her foyer. It was filled with old dark wicker with massive heavy dark green patterned cushions. Ellen and I had always admired them too. To the right was the living room. A homey room with an oil space heater. In the winter the younger people couldn't hardly stand to be in there, the heat would knock you out, so my mother and aunt usually sat in the foyer. On one wall was an ugly sofa with a large sofa picture above it. I never cared for the picture and today it hangs over my son's sofa (I had always thought he and his wife had good taste). My son must have felt sentimental about it. It's kind of a woodsy picture with an old shack in it. The coffee table sat in front of the sofa and was always loaded with sit around knick-knack stuff. There was this tea cup and saucer, really ornate. As a child I hated it, but a few years ago as I had started collecting tea cups, my mother took it an gave it to me. I have it on my piano. My grandmother had an old player piano in that room too. We all loved playing that thing. Boy your legs would get a work out! There were so many player rolls. There was this one song I especially liked to play called "Changes". It's funny I had never heard that song anywhere until a couple of years ago we rented a movie, can't remember the name, but it was a recent one set in modern day time. That song was the opening song!

To the left of the foyer was the dining room. I have the china cabinet in my kitchen now. There was so much activity around that table. Always the news from my grandmother and aunt Lily ( she was my grandmother's sister who lived with her) about someone passing away or in the hospital.

As we walked in the kitchen, it was just like I had remembered. You see I hadn't been in the house since my grandmother had gone down to live with my uncle and aunt years before, but it was as I remembered, tiny leaning, the old stove the wood burning kind, the kind you can get now in reproduction. They start around $3000. I have that stove too.

We walked around a little more and as it was starting to get dark, we headed home. No one talked much. My grandmother had been one hundred and four years old. Her death was very expected. But it was more we were leaving. Something you can't recapture, a time a feeling an emotion a part of your life, a place to go, a family. My aunt Carrie whom my grandmother had lived with was still there but my grandmother's youngest son Carrie's husband had died three years before. In a lot of ways the passing of my uncle had changed that part of our family. It had started the death of going to the country.



3

William was on the phone I heard my son calling me. "Hey, how you doing?" he asked. "Oh hi William, what's going on, everybody okay?" "Yeah just thought I'd see how you were doing".

We started to reminisce. William was so sentimental not emotional. Although I had seen him cry before. He was the pride and joy of my parents. The only son and youngest. Just a few years younger than me. We were probably the closest of the kids. He was the funniest and smallest kid you ever want to see. It's so strange how he turned out to be 6'4" and 200lbs. And as my mother is fond of saying "the handsomest thing you've ever seen". As we were growing up I was quite protective of him. It was really a burden that overwhelmed me and didn't stop until I had my first son.

Whenever I would hear of anything had happening to a little boy I would transfer it to my brother. I continued when my son was born, but the responsibility I felt for my brother took a much needed backseat.

William could always make me laugh. I remember one time when we were teenagers. After dinner, just being silly, he sang and banged on the piano. It's hard to describe, but I've still got it on tape. You can barely hear my brother singing over my constant laughter. It was something about janitor in a drum and whatever it was nuts! I was his best audience. I always thought he should have gone into the entertainment industry. He really does remind me of Tom Hanks. Oh well he didn't, as a matter of fact he's about as far from show business as you can get. He's a very successful insurance broker.

He hadn't been so successful in marriage though. He was on his third marriage. His first two wives left him. Nobody really ever knew why. The first one did leave and immediately moved in with a girlfriend, so we all wondered if that was it. The second, a lovely girl, just up and left one day. I think she suffered from depression. The last anyone heard she was living in New York, unmarried and working for a talent agency. She broke my brother's heart. I used to feel so sorry for him and for some reason whenever I hear the song by Foreigner "I've Been Waiting for a Girl Like You", I always think of my brother and Karen.

His third wife Joanie was so different from the first two, which has proved to be a good thing. She's Italian, funny charismatic and quite the nurturer. She's good for him. They never had any kids together, but they have two grown sons from her first marriage. They were off at college, both in their senior years. Twins, Tim and Tyler. Those boys really had two fathers as their birth father was still very much in their lives and William had been with them since they were very small. Is a matter of fact, it was always amazing to me, how close my brother and Joanie were to her first husband Dave. They are even the Godparents to Dave's daughter with his second wife. Strange if you ask me.

William continued to reminisce about times at Grandma's "hey do you remember me waving the whole way back." I laughed. We had this thing whenever we were leaving no matter what the weather, my grandmother would stand in the driveway and see us off, waving until we were out of sight. As my father would always do a beep on the horn. One time when we left my brother being about 8, I dared him to lean back looking out the back window waving the whole way home. He did it. His reward was to be an hour back rub. He swears he never got it. I can't remember.

William and I finished our conversation and hung up. It was true we were probably the closest of the kids, but that wasn't saying a lot. We would all go sometimes six months maybe longer, without seeing each other or even talking on the phone. It was really a shame, but that was the way it was and no one seemed willing to change it. There were no falling outs sot to speak of just growing apart. Letting our lives get busy, unchanging routines, just not trying to be close, close as we were as children.

I've read books and seen television shows about sisters especially and envied even marveled at how close they were. I saw this piece on T.V. once about these four sisters. One had some king of cancer and they all had rallied around her, seeing her every day. Two of them even moved to be closer to their ailing sister and all going around trying to drum up support for a cure( maybe it wasn't cancer maybe it was M.S.) I thought as I saw these sisters, how lucky they were even the one with the illness. Was it unusual? Were more sisters like mine? Who really knows.