“All right. All right. But only if you stop calling me Mrs. Place. Jettie will do.”
The idea of calling an older woman by her given name appalled Olivia. Who
had ever heard of such a thing? Olivia didn’t even know what Mrs. Hardaway’s
Christian name was. Or Miss Evans’. But she nodded her acknowledgement of
the request and again begged Mrs. Place to ask about Mourning.
But no one had heard a thing about him since he’d left.
Mrs. Place continued to behave as if Olivia’s presence in her home were the
most natural thing in the world and Olivia accepted her benefactress for what she
appeared to be – a kind-hearted, lonely woman, with affection in her heart for the daughter of the man she had tried to love.
One rainy day after closing up shop Mrs. Place told Olivia that she needed
some things from Killion’s General and would be back shortly. This was not
unusual; Mrs. Place went to the store at least once a week. But when two hours
had gone by and she hadn’t returned, Olivia started pacing and peeking out the
front window every few minutes. By the time another hour passed she had begun
imagining awful things – Mrs. Place slipping in the mud and being trampled by
horses, keeling over in the street as she clutched her heart, being shot by bank robbers, bitten by a poisonous spider, or attacked by a pack of wolves.
Olivia was ashamed to realize that most of her worrying was on her own
behalf. Imagine the troop of church ladies that would lay siege to the house, in
search of a dress in which to bury poor Mrs. Place. Once “that woman” was
dead, they would surely welcome her into their congregation. Imagine them
discovering that Killion girl cowering in a corner. “Tsk tsk, What did I always tell you about her? Shame, shame, there the little slut was, in the family way, living with that harlot. Well, no wonder. Birds of a feather. Old Man Killion must be spinning in his grave, but what could he expect, the example he set. And
him with his poor sick wife.”
Olivia realized how totally dependent on Jettie she was and began to harbor
second thoughts about her decision to stay. But those dissipated the moment she
heard familiar footsteps on the back porch. Mrs. Place nudged the door open
with her hip, hidden behind a tall stack of books.
“I know, I know, I had you worried. You don’t got to waste your breath saying
it.” She huffed and puffed.
She set her burden down on the kitchen table, steadied the top of the pile to
keep it from toppling over, and shook the raindrops from her coat before hanging
it on the hook by the door.
“But you’re gonna forgive me, once you know the reason.” She nodded at the
books. “I’d just about finished settling up with your brother when those two Wainwright sisters come in, brimming over with the good news that Old Mrs.
Steadman died last night.” She turned to hang up her bonnet and grab a rag to wipe the floor. “Not that her dying is good news, Lordy me, no, I didn’t mean that, even though she was a nasty old toad, may she rest in peace. The good
news is that she had a roomful of books and left all of them to the town, to start a real lending library. Those Wainwright sisters are volunteering the use of that storage shed out behind their place and they’ll be the librarians. But they were telling your brother Avis how they needed someone to catalog the books. So who
do you think butted right in and said she’d be glad to do it?” She beamed with
pride, watching Olivia pick the first book off the top of the pile.
“Well, you can imagine the look those old crows gave me. Don’t think I know
how to read a book, let alone catalog one. They swung their pointy chins around
to stare at me, right on cue with each other. You’d think they’d been practicing.
