Page 25 of Something Old

“No, I said things would’ve been worse if he’d hoarded cats or something. Boots is a cat, singular. Plus, he’s a fixed gentleman cat and very fastidious. He so greatly prefers a litter box over random spots that if he’s out and about and needs to go, he’ll come inside just to do his business, then head out again.”

Grant pointed at a bag on the ground slightly behind Madeline that he hadn’t spotted at first. “So that’s a—”

“Litterbox, yep. You’re really good at identifying things.”

Grant ignored the teasing and groaned again. “But what about Grover?”

“What about him?”

“Your cat is evil!”

Madeline followed his gaze. As if to prove Grant’s low opinion, “Boots”—too cute and soft a name for that beaten-up warrior beast, if you asked Grant—was perched on a dented filing cabinet in the yard. It towered over the bench seat where poor, unsuspecting Grover lay deep in sleep. The cat stared down at the snoring dog with obvious distaste and a distinctly menacing expression, tail twitching.

“Don’t be mean. He just wants a friend too.”

“Uh-huh,” said Grant, but an unfamiliar emotion quickened through him like sap through a tree in the spring: happiness.

Leaving the animals outside, they made their way single file toward the dining room, where Grant had been busy.

Madeline inhaled with audible excitement and surprise. “I can’t believe you started with my suggestion!” She ran her hand over the big table. Just hours ago, it had been heavily laden with junk. Now it was completely cleared off, ready for use as a sorting station. A row of black garbage bags squatted below it, awaiting filling.

“Are you kidding? That plan you gave me is like getting the key to a treasure chest or a map to the lost city of Atlantis. Even if you never came back or did another lick of work here, I’m forever in your debt—I am glad you came back, though.”

Madeline smiled all the way to those shining eyes of hers, and Grant’s stomach squeezed. She was so amiable and easy-going most of the time that it wasn’t until something genuinely pleased her—the odd comment from him, Grover’s tail-wagging pleasure at seeing her, that mangy old cat of hers seeking her out—that it hit him anew how terribly sad her expression often was. He wondered if that was why she was helping him. It was one step up from wandering around her shop, now that she’d gotten it off the ground. A way of getting her mind off the grief that dogged her. Well, if it was that simple, he was almost happy his dad had left him this colossal make-work project.

“I’ll get started on the clothes,” Madeline said and proceeded to do just that.

As Grant watched her start to sort through every kind of garment you could imagine, in every state of condition from new with tags to not much better than rags, he marveled at how easily she decided what should be thrown away and what could be donated. There were so many piles of clothes that just getting them out of the house would make a huge difference—but that was just the tip of the iceberg. In less than twenty-four hours, Madeline had done what Grant would’ve never in a million years deemed possible. She’d made clearing his father’s house and property seem not only doable but not even that difficult. It would be time-consuming and labor-intensive, yes, but at least now he didn’t feel like it would own him, break him, or that he’d never be free of it again.

As they had the day before when moving tires, they worked mostly in silence, which Grant enjoyed a lot. At some point, however, it occurred to him that it might not be as pleasant for Madeline as it was for him.

Holly had always accused him of being too “introverted.” He decided he would try to be solicitous and make small talk whenever he and Madeline worked in the same part of the house.

He chatted away while they sorted a pile of empty tin cans, glass jars, and lids—revealed when one of the mountains of clothing was cleared—into recycling bags.

It hit him like a block of wood when, shortly into his attempt to be conversational, Madeline glanced over at him and bit her lip. “Do you mind if we don’t chat? I’m not trying to be rude. Please don’t take it that way. It’s just that we’re going to spend a lot of time together and . . .” Her complexion, often pink to begin with, blushed a deep rose, and in the stark light of the fluorescent bulb Grant had installed in the living room’s chandelier when its last remaining bulb burnt out, wrinkles he hadn’t noticed appeared by her eyes and mouth. They made him relate to her even more, and he liked how they showed she’d laughed often, though the slight furrow in her brow suggested she also fretted a lot.

“I’m used to solitude,” she added apologetically when he failed to say anything to her original comment.

In other words, he was driving her crazy. He was embarrassed. He’d been blathering away about some celebrity nonsense he’d overheard a couple of waitresses going on about at the all-day breakfast place he liked. They were Madeline’s age, give or take, so he’d assumed—man, he was an idiot. This was a woman who’d started her own business, befriended local youth who’d intimidate most people, and volunteered her time to clean up a hoarder’s life work. Of course, who was dating who in Hollywood wasn’t her cup of tea.

“I’m sorry,” he stuttered.

“Don’t be. You were trying to be nice. I think, however . . . even though we’re both a little too good at being alone in our own heads and it’s beneficial for us to get out of them from time to time, maybe we don’t have to keep up a non-stop stream of chat? Is that okay?”

“Absolutely,” he’d exclaimed with relief—but then felt a strange surge of regret as he realized he’d liked having someone to talk to again. And he’d wasted it by talking about . . . nothing.

He experienced an odd sense of déjà vu and a frisson of shame. He’d done this to Holly too, hadn’t he? When she complained about his “long, surly silences,” he’d yammered about nothing of consequence because he thought that’s what she wanted.

“I hate how you go on and on and on!” she’d screamed once. “You never talk about anything real. Living with you is like shouting into a void.”

Of course, she’d only accused him of that after he found out she was screwing his best friend and before that, a string of other guys, off and on, for pretty much their whole relationship—during which time he’d been so totally, pathetically, stupidly happy.

Trying to sound matter-of-fact, not overly morose, he explained as much to Madeline.

“Sounds to me like an excuse, a way to justify her own bad behavior, more than any flaw in your actual topics of conversation.”

Grant’s head jerked up. “You think?”