Threads of Evidence by Lea Wait

like to get home to sleep tonight.”

Chapter 7
    Death’s terror is the mountain Faith removes
’Tis Faith discovers destruction.
Believe and look with triumph on the Tomb!
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    â€”Sampler stitched by Elizabeth Greenleaf, age ten, Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1768
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    â€œFifteen thousand dollars? For one week’s work?” Gram looked thunderstruck. “Are you sure you heard her right?”
    It was after ten at night. I was exhausted and covered with dust, dirt, cobwebs, and quite possibly other things I didn’t want to think about. I could still smell the mildew, even though I was now home, a couple of miles away from Aurora. All I wanted was a long drink and then a hot shower and bed. Gram, on the other hand, had spent the day peacefully enjoying a successful shopping trip to Camden and had finished supper without me.
    I was starved. (Sarah and I had laughed when Skye asked whether there was some local place that would deliver pizza or Chinese. The only thing delivered in Haven Harbor was mail.)
    Thankfully, Gram had ignored my instruction to forget about dinner. She’d made my favorite macaroni and cheese with Swiss and Gruyère and sharp Vermont cheddar. I poured us each a glass of wine. I gulped my wine, poured another glass, and stuck my plate of mac and cheese in the new microwave I’d bought for her as an early wedding present. I suspected I’d need to buy another one for her to take to the parish home she’d share with Reverend Tom. This microwave was going to stay where it was—in the kitchen that would soon be mine alone.
    I couldn’t imagine the kitchen without Gram.
    She looked pointedly at me, and then at my wineglass, with a silent “another glass already?” expression. Tonight I was too tired to care.
    Soon she’d be married. No one would be here to care how many glasses of wine I’d poured. I’d enjoy that freedom, but I’d miss having someone care about when, or whether, I got home and what I ate. Or drank. I’d lived on my own for ten years. I was twenty-seven. But it still felt good to be taken care of.
    â€œShe really said fifteen thousand dollars. We’re going to work for it, though,” I said, taking a bite of my pasta, and then adding a bit more cayenne. “We were there almost twelve hours today. Sarah’s still working tonight. She’s checking current prices for the items she identified as being worth something.”
    Gram smiled. “And what will you do with all that money?”
    â€œI haven’t decided. I could pay off my car and have a few hundred left to buy some new clothes,” I said. “Most of what I wore in Arizona won’t work here in Maine. But I’ll put some aside in an emergency fund, too.”
    â€œI’m assuming the house is in awful condition now.”
    â€œLots of water damage from the roof leaking. Mildew. Wallpaper peeling. One ceiling has fallen in, and several are threatening to collapse. Squirrels and a raccoon got in at some point, and at least one crow. Everything is in bad shape.”
    â€œSo Sarah won’t have too long a list to work on.”
    â€œLonger than we thought. Fabrics are in horrible condition, brass and silver needs to be polished. Some may be beyond reclamation. But much of the glass and crystal and china is just dirty.”
    â€œSad. It used to be such a beautiful place. So full of light and color,” said Gram.
    â€œYou told me you’d gone to those end-of-the-season parties the Gardeners used to give?” I’d definitely need more mac and cheese. And wine. While she talked, I got up to make a deeper hole in Gram’s casserole.
    â€œMost folks in town went. Every year in the fifties and sixties, the Gardeners gave a party the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend. They headed back for New York after that, and the place would be closed up until spring,” Gram remembered aloud.