The Secret Letters by Abby Bardi

the dinner table every night while Frank made us laugh so hard that milk came out our noses and our mother yelled at us and sent us to our rooms. “They’re just kids,” he always said, putting an arm around her and kissing her until she backed down and let us come back for blueberry pie.
    I must have zoned out on what Ralph was saying, and when I tuned back in, he was discussing the house sale. “I trust you’re almost finished emptying the property,” he said.
    â€œJust about,” Pam said. This was a baldfaced lie. I winked at her, making sure the Colonel didn’t see.
    â€œGood. We need to set up a timeline. I assume the redecorating will be done by July. I recommend that you put the house on the market in August. The market is a little soft right now, but it’s slated to pick up this fall, when school starts. Of course, the house is in the most desirable school district.”
    Our grade school, an old stone building, had been turned into condos, but new schools were popping up on every corner. Our county had appeared on some lists of Most Desirable Places, so now everyone wanted to live in it, which seemed crazy to me. Every time I turned around, a farmer’s field had disappeared and ugly townhouse developments with names like Bright Meadows and Happy Fields were there instead. I started to imagine myself in the woods again, walking toward the pond with the dogs running behind me, but Ralph’s voice cut into my thoughts.
    â€œYou should put an ad for the Pontiac on Craig’s List,” he said to Pam.
    ***
    â€œShit!” Pam hissed as we walked down the hill to Main Street.
    â€œAt least she doesn’t know you’ve been driving it.”
    â€œShe knows. Did you see the way Ralph looked right at me when he said it?”
    â€œHave you gotten your insurance money yet?”
    â€œNo, they’re dragging their feet. I’m going to have to threaten to sue them. You know, they’ve got that whole procedure.”
    â€œI know.” Living on the blind curve, we had hit-and-run claims down to a science.
    As we reached the Wild Hare, I could see Milo through the window. He looked up, saw me, waved, then spotted Pam, and his face brightened.
    â€œGotta go,” I said, trying to get rid of her before Milo came out and started talking to her again. It was for his own good. “Hector’s going to kill me.”
    â€œWhat are we going to do, Julie? The more we pack and clean, the worse it gets.” She turned her head and spotted Milo, and I could see her give her hair a little smush to fluff it up, though it was pulled back in the dirty ponytail. I decided not to tell her about the dust bunny on her sleeve.
    â€œI’ll come over tomorrow. We’ll kick ass,” I promised, opening the door to the Hare and giving her a little shove in the other direction. I bumped right into Milo and tried to steer him toward the kitchen, saying I wanted to talk to him about the special, but he said he’d be right back and shot out the door to say hi to my sister.
    ***
    The attic was hot as hell; no, hotter. Frank had installed a big window fan but it hadn’t worked in years. I could remember him explaining why it was important to ventilate your attic, how the best thing to do was close all the windows in the house, open the front door, and turn on the fan so it pulled hot summer air up out of the house and puked it back onto Main Street. I always thought this was silly and also, boring, but thinking about it now made me sad. He was constantly building things in the garage, trimming hedges so they looked like boxes, and carving turkeys with an electric carving knife andtalking on and on the whole time about the proper way to carve, how you had to hold the knife perpendicular to the plate to get those paper-thin slices. When he wasn’t bustling around making home improvements, he was kissing my mother, fussing over her, flattering her,