Lily scheduled a working lunch with Arthur to crunch numbers and to get his advice. That evening, she discussed with Anna and Jared her decision to take the job. As expected, Jared was petulant and Anna tried to compensate by being perfect and perky. Anna’s hands were getting chapped from too much washing, but that was a worry for another day.
The following Sunday, she summoned “the fam” for dinner and cards so she could break the news. As expected, everybody already knew.
“Well, I think it’s marvelous!” Camellia gushed. “Tom is a delightful man, and highly eligible.”
“And that was on my list as a con not a pro.” Lily said.
“Lily, I’m going to miss you,” Azalea said.
“I’m only going to Two Rivers.”
“I know, but--”
“Don’t cry, Zaya.” Lily enfolded her baby sister in her arms.
The brothers-in-law coughed and shuffled the cards.
In the two weeks between the card party and the actual move to Two Rivers, Lily had to decide whether to put her house on the market or to rent it out. She had to arrange for the children’s school transfer, pack up all her belongings, haul most of it to Goodwill, put in for a change of address, and all of the other details that go along with moving house. So, of course, Sam chose this time to make a suicide attempt. He was on the fifth floor at St. Vincent Hospital, while Vi was across the street at Bellin undergoing bariatric surgery. Lily spent a lot of late nights at Denny’s with Azalea and a lot of afternoons at the hospital acting as a buffer between Camellia and Violet. Thanks to the Relief Society ladies, Lily’s, Azalea’s and Violet’s freezers were stocked with casseroles within an hour of church letting out. In the end, Lily threw up her hands and asked Iris and Ted and all the teen-aged nephews for help with the move, asked Arthur to rent out the house, and accepted Camellia’s offer to help decorate the new living quarters.
“Dude! This house is like Clue!” Jared had exclaimed when they arrived.
He and Anna were given free reign of the outside and the third floor. Tom set up a system whereby, he would fly a storm warning flag outside the pool house if he didn’t wish to be disturbed. As long as the pennant was not flying they were free to swim whenever they wanted. Inviting friends to swim was limited to times when Tom was out of town. Mr. Abbot had arranged for the old ping pong table to be moved to the third floor. There was an old stereo and an impressive collection of records. Every book that Frank felt children ought to read was moved upstairs. He asked only that they take good care of things and that they ask before they go into the library. For all his blustering, he was secretly glad to have children in the house again.
It didn’t take long for this new family group to settle into a routine. Frank took his breakfast in his bedroom on a tray while he worked the crossword puzzle in the newspaper and had his first dialysis exchange. While he was “plugged in,” Lily got the kids breakfast and sent them out to catch the bus. The morning was devoted to physical therapy. Claudia came over everyday, following her morning’s volunteer work, for lunch and a game of cribbage with Frank while he did his afternoon exchange. After Claudia left, Lily fired up the laptop, and they worked for precisely one hour on genealogical research and the outline for his memoirs.
Then it was time for the kids to come home. They usually went for a swim and worked on homework till supper. Tom came to the house for dinner (unless the storm warning flag was out) and the five of them ate together. The children called Tom by his first name and joked with him as though he were one of the uncles. Mrs. Berger invited them to call her “Miss Claudia.” She promised to teach Anna all sorts of arcane needle arts and Anna was enchanted. It never occurred to them to refer to Frank as anything but “Mr. Abbot.”