Part 3 — The Butterscotch Tin
Mama held the microphone in both hands and looked out across eighty faces at the VFW.
“It is in the hymnal rack at St. Annes. Pew eight, under the Christmas club envelope. In a butterscotch tin.”
The coffee urn gurgled in the silence. Somebody near the back whispered, “She hid it in church.”
“Dolly, I did not hide it from you out of meanness. I hid it because I wanted to see if you would stop on your own. Two years I waited.”
My sister Dolly sat with her face in her hands.
Frank, the bus driver, quietly put on his cap. He said that in eleven years of driving that route he had watched many good people get on that bus, and he knew the look. He said there was a number to call, the New Hampshire Council on Problem Gambling, and he had written it on the inside of the folder.
I had not noticed that, and I never would have.
My mother turned ninety-three that night, and she had outsmarted every one of us and still held out a hand to the daughter who had hurt her most.
Gloria and I drove to St. Annes on Saturday morning. Father Kiley unlocked the sanctuary. Pew eight had a worn blue cushion, and the hymnal rack held eleven books.
The tin was tucked behind the last one. Inside lay a Christmas club envelope with Mamas Sunday handwriting, and in the envelope, four thousand eight hundred dollars in tens and twenties.
Monday morning we took Mama to the audiologist on Elm Street. They fitted her with two small beige hearing aids, and she sat very still while the technician adjusted them.
“Say something, Lorraine,” she said.
“B-7,” I said. “N-33.”
She laughed out loud, and wept at the same time. She had not heard the word clearly in two years.
Dolly showed up at my kitchen door on Wednesday evening with an envelope. Inside was every dollar she could gather, and a note promising the rest, a little each month. She had already called the number on Franks folder.
I did not make her stand on the porch. I said the card would stay with me, the Tuesday bus would not be running for her, and the casino was not welcome in our family.
Crystal sent a handwritten apology. It took her three drafts, according to her mother, and she did not use a microphone.
On Sunday Mama sat in pew eight, and she tucked a butterscotch candy into my palm. This time, she heard the organ.