Anne Tyler - A Patchwork Planet

“I can see just fine,” she told Sophia, “except for reading. Why do you ask?”

This caused a shattered little pause, until Sophia’s forehead cleared and she said, “Your bursitis, I said; not your sight.”

“My bursitis. Oh. It’s just lovely,” Mrs. Glynn said, peculiarly. She laced her fingers together and leaned toward me. “Barnaby,” she said, “I don’t believe we’ve conversed since I discovered I was burglarized.”

“No,” I said, “we haven’t.” I felt embarrassed; Lord knows why.

“Of course, it was a most distressing event. Most distressing. But you know what I say: money is only money.”

I’d never heard her say any such thing, but I nodded.

“In the final analysis,” she said, “the human element is what counts. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well …”

“You are a person my niece regards very highly I can appreciate that. And Ray Oakley isn’t half the worker that you were. I propose we let bygones be bygones.”

It was while I was computing her words that Sophia’s attitude changed. “If that doesn’t take the cake!” she told her aunt.

“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Glynn said.

“Let bygones be bygones? Generous of you, I must say!”

“Excuse me, dear?”

I said, “Sophia—”

“You owe Barnaby more than that, Aunt Grace. You owe him an apology. A complete and humble apology.”

“Sophia, it’s okay,” I said.

I had never seen her like this. I felt kind of flattered. But, “We’ll just put it behind us,” I said. “No big deal.”

“No big deal!” Sophia cried.

“Wonderful,” her aunt told me. “And may I expect you to resume your regular hours?”

“No, you may not expect him to resume his regular hours!” Sophia cried. “Over my dead body he’ll resume his regular hours!”

I said, “Hon.” I turned to Mrs. Glynn. “Unfortunately, I’ve … ah, got those hours filled now,” I said. “But I’m sure Ray Oakley—”

“You found the money, didn’t you,” Sophia told her aunt.

“What, dear?” her aunt asked quaveringly.

“You found it where you left it, and you don’t have the courage to say so.”

This struck me as assuming a bit too much. More likely, Mrs. Glynn had just recalled that I wasn’t the only person who knew her hiding spot. I said, “In any case—”

“You are the most dishonest of all of us,” Sophia told her aunt. Two scratched-looking patches of pink had risen in her cheeks. “You found that money and you won’t admit it. I bet you didn’t even notify the insurance company, did you?”

“On the contrary. I notified them at once,” Mrs. Glynn said. “I would never commit fraud , for mercy’s sake.” She spoke very primly and evenly, somehow not moving her lips.

I stared at her.

“So there,” Sophia told me, settling back in her seat.

“I don’t know how I could have been so forgetful,” Mrs. Glynn said. A teaspoonful of tears, it seemed, swam above each eye pouch. “I’d been listening to everybody’s warnings, you know. Everybody warning me I shouldn’t inform all and sundry where I kept my cash. So I took it out of the flour bin and I moved it elsewhere. Well, I’ll tell you where: I moved it to the pocket of my winter bathrobe. Then I just … I don’t know; I must be getting senile. I forgot! I looked inside the flour bin and I saw there was no money and I forgot I’d moved it! I hope I don’t have Alzheimer’s. Do you think I might have Alzheimer’s? I went along for weeks not recollecting, and then this morning when the weather turned I was getting some of my woolens out of the cedar closet and I saw my winter bathrobe and I said, ‘Oh, good heavens above. That’s where I moved my money to!’ I’ve been a fool, children. I’ve been a forgetful old fool.”

“It could happen to anyone,” I told her. “Don’t give it another thought.”

I looked over at Sophia, waiting for her to chime in, but she had this flat look on her face. “Right, Sophia?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“We’ve all done things like that, right?”

“Oh, yes …”

“So if you’ve got Alzheimer’s, Mrs. Glynn, I guess all the rest of us have it too.”

Mrs. Glynn tried to smile, dangerously swelling the spoonfuls of tears. I said again, “Right, Sophia?”

“Right,” she said after a moment.

“Well. That settles that,” I said, and I stood up. “No need to show us out,” I told Mrs. Glynn.

“To shout?”

“No need to show us out , I said.”

“Oh.”

I wanted to get going before she could bring up my work hours again. (I wasn’t totally forgiving.) But Sophia stayed on the couch, still wearing that flat expression. At the door I said, “Sophia?”

She rose, finally, and so did Mrs. Glynn. They didn’t kiss goodbye. “Well, Aunt Grace,” was all Sophia said, “I hope next time you won’t be so quick to accuse an innocent man.” And she hoisted her purse strap onto her shoulder. Mrs. Glynn stood straight as a clothespin, her hands knotted tightly together.

I would have expected Sophia to act more gracious. But I felt sort of pleased that she didn’t.

In the car I said, “So! Turns out you were right about why she wanted to see us.”

“Yes …,” Sophia said. She made no move to start the engine.

I said, “How about I buy you dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“What’s the problem, Sofe?” I asked. “Something on your mind?”

She looked over at me. She said, “I had no idea Aunt Grace had changed her hiding place.”

“Well, she’d better change it again,” I said, “because already she’s told at least two people where the new place is.”

“And so I put the money back in the old place,” Sophia went on, as if I hadn’t spoken.

“What money?” I asked.

“My money. Two thousand, nine hundred and sixty dollars.”

For a second, I misunderstood. I said, “You stole that money?”

Which didn’t make sense, of course, since no money had been stolen, but all Sophia said was, “Me? No.” She started the engine, and we pulled away from the curb.

I said, “Begin at the beginning, Sophia.”

“See, I felt so responsible,” she said. We arrived at an intersection, and she braked and looked over at me. “I knew Aunt Grace held me to blame for bringing you into her life. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘all right, I’ll just put my own money there to replace the money she’s missing.’ So I took it out of my savings. I called in sick at work on a Tuesday, Aunt Grace’s podiatrist day, and I let myself in with my key and put the money in the flour bin.”

“But… how would she explain that? First her money is missing, and then it magically isn’t?” I said.

“She could explain it any way she liked,” Sophia said.

“And for sure the new bills would be a different denomination from the old ones. You never saw the old ones, did you? You don’t know if they were tens or fifties; you don’t know if they were rubber-banded, or stuffed in an envelope, or tucked away in a wallet, do you?”

“No, and I don’t care, either,” Sophia said. She flung her head back so recklessly that a hairpin flew out of her bun and landed in the rear seat. “All I cared about was clearing your name.”

“Some criminal you would make,” I said.

Then I saw what was bothering me. Forget the logistics; forget the question of denominations, rubber bands …

I said, “You believed I did it.”

“No, no,” Sophia said.

A car drew up behind us and honked.

“You actually believed I stole that money.”

Sophia took her foot off the brake. We crossed the intersection, but on the other side she pulled over to the curb and parked. “It’s not the way it looks,” she said, turning to face me. “I just couldn’t stand for her to suspect you; that’s all.”