them, and the bad ones aren’t going to follow them anyway.”
At a few minutes past noon, when the back door predictably opened and
slammed, Olivia was downstairs sitting in the rocker. The pump handle creaked
a few times and then Mrs. Place came into the parlor holding a glass of water.
“Sleep well?” she asked.
“Yes. Thank you,” Olivia replied.
Mrs. Place settled herself in her wing chair. Olivia nodded at the other one and asked if it would all right if she sat there.
“Well, of course. What a question. You make yourself to home wherever you
want. I hope you got some breakfast.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Mrs. Place leaned back and stretched.
“Is this where my father used to sit?” Olivia asked, after moving to the softer chair.
“Yes. Yes, it is. He bought the pair of them. Brought ’em back from one of his
buying trips, a very long time ago.” She reached down to the basket on the floor
and picked up some knitting. “We’ll have our dinner right quick,” she said.
“That chicken’s been done for a while, but I like to sit on something soft for a
few minutes, after a morning behind that counter.”
“Did he ever make you laugh?” Olivia asked.
“Beg your pardon?”
“My father – did he ever make you laugh?”
“Well, I don’t recall him telling jokes, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean ... I’ve never been in love, but when I try
to imagine what it must be like, there’s always a lot of laughing. I picture a man
and woman lying together in a field of daisies, talking forever and finding the same things about the world funny. That kind of laughing.”
Mrs. Place dropped the knitting into her lap and looked over at Olivia with a
wistful smile.
“And my father … Well, I just can’t imagine him ... Of course, none of us knew him very well. He didn’t exactly wear our ears off. Never said much at all,
except for telling us to do our chores and homework, and keep our marks in school up, and not give the teacher any guff. Sometimes at Sunday dinner he’d
read things out of the newspaper, but he never really talked to us. I’ve always wondered if he talked to our mother. I can’t begin to think how they ended up married. Or how he got to be your … friend.”
Mrs. Place wore an uncertain smile. “You asking?”
Olivia nodded.
“Sure you want to know?”
Olivia nodded.
“You’re in the middle of all these terrible problems of your own and that’s what you got on your mind?”
Olivia nodded again, thinking her terrible problems weren’t going anywhere,
but she might never get another chance to ask the “fancy lady” about her father.
“You sure you aren’t going to pull out a little pearl-handled pistol and shoot
me?”
Olivia smiled, shook her head, and raised her right hand to draw an X over her heart.
“Well, all right then, I can understand you wanting to know. But let’s go in the
