“An odd day to miss me.”
“A safe day to miss you,” she said, looking into the same eyes she’d looked into all those years ago at the duck pond, shadowy eyes that could see the beauty in Afghanistan, eyes that could see things as they were and yet something more.
5
On her second day in charge, she dropped the bag of iPhones and iPads she’d bought for the Fates onto her desk and answered the phone.
“Hey, Cass, it’s Gregory. On behalf of the board, we’d like to say congratulations.”
“Thanks, I appreciate—”
“We hope you had a good first day because … Well, we know how much you wanted this but …” He cleared his throat.
“But what?” she asked, visualizing Gregory slumped over his too-small desk, twiddling his pencil, his Panama Jack hat pushed back, revealing the baldness it was there to hide.
“Howell is in a bit of a financial situation,” he said. “I’m afraid we only have enough money to stay open until the end of the year.”
Cass collapsed into her chair. “How can that be? I don’t understand.”
“The property taxes went up. Actually, everything has gone up. Except for the investments. And we made assumptions based on previous years’ incomes and expenditures. Those assumptions proved to be—”
“Why didn’t Bev tell me?”
“When she gave us her news, we didn’t think … Only the board knows.”
“How could you let this happen? How did you not see this coming? How could you not give us a warning?” She pushed back from the desk and stood again, facing the back yard.
“This is your warning.”
Overhead, the tall, tall trees—a safe canopy—but too far away, as if a layer were missing. In the past few weeks, it had seemed impossible the fuzziness on the trees would ever turn into large green leaves, but now Cass could see the bare branches of winter.
“How much do we need?”
“Half a million—to make it another year.”
Cass closed her eyes. She’d never raised so much as a hundred dollars. “I wanted to be in charge for the Fates, to make their lives bigger, not to spend my time asking people for money.”
“Sorry this is falling on you, Cass.”
“How long do we have?”
“All I know is the lights go out December 31.”
He picked up on the first ring. “Hey babe.” “There’s no money,” Cass said.
“No money?”
“Howell House,” she said. “There’s no money for next year.” She stood and then sat, having a hard time being still.
“Are you kidding me? That can’t be right.”
She leaned back and swiveled toward the side windows, no longer seeing the trees she knew were there.
“Bev should have told you six months ago.”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Well, the foundation should have told you before you accepted.”
“I would have accepted anyway.”
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t have left the Fates with no one. At least I know I’ll try my hardest.”
“I’m so sorry. It’s hard to believe. How much do you need?”
“Five hundred thousand.”
“Half a million—wow. Somebody screwed up.”
“Don’t say ‘half a million.’”
“You just need a few big donors, or one actually.”
“I’m worried, Ethan.” She stood up and turned to the deck behind her. Like a child, she stomped her foot. “I got what I wanted but without any money for it to last. I’ve never handled fund-raising. I thought I would have more time to learn that part of the job. And I didn’t think it would be such an important part.”
“You know you can do this, babe,” he said. “You’re going to be great.”
“I had so many plans,” she said, sinking back into her chair, staring at the bag of unopened iPhones and iPads.
Upstairs, May’s door was open. She sat in her favorite spot, a chair facing out the window, her gigantic knitting needles in her lap. Even with daily housekeeping, her room was a mess, but it didn’t make Cass feel anxious or as if she needed to clean. With other Fates, Cass would have started picking things up as soon as she opened the door. But May’s mess was different, and lovely. It was part of her. And it calmed Cass.
May turned in her direction and smiled, tears streaming down her face.
Cass handed her a tissue.
“Sometimes I can’t hold it all inside.”
May still looked the same as when Cass first met her—small recessed green eyes, a face that pooled into wrinkles, and familiar white hair soft like the petals of a flower with just enough wisps of it to cover her head, no eyebrows. But these days, May had trouble seeing the center of things. Macular degeneration. Light was the only thing that helped.
“I never did like being out there,” May said, nodding to the window, still patting her face with the tissue. “At first that didn’t make any sense—that I wanted to look at it but not be in it. My Harvey was just the opposite. He wanted to be on the horse or in the water. He didn’t just walk on the beach; he dug his toes in the sand. But it doesn’t have to make sense, does it?”
“It doesn’t,” Cass said. May often told her about Harvey digging his toes in the sand.
“People enjoy things in different ways,” May said, turning again to the window.
But nothing was happening in the back yard—it was so still it could have been a photo.
“I had a good life,” May said finally. “I’m not ready for it to be over. Inside I feel just the same as when my mama called me Cora May and told me to stop spinning, that I was going to make myself sick but I never did. I can’t believe it when I look in the mirror. The first half of my life took place in slow motion. Then I got married and time seemed to stop. Or it seemed irrelevant. I sold real estate, I made dinner, the next thing I knew I was fifty years old.”
Cass looked at the window’s rectangular panes—still twelve.
“But time is never irrelevant,” May said. “It’s
