Part 3 — The Church Safe
Norma closed the green book and laid her hands flat on top of it, the way she had once laid them on a hymnal before a funeral.
“Maxine, the original is in the fireproof safe in the church office. Your father asked Pastor Wills to keep it in 1998, and he put the envelope in with the deed to the cemetery plots.”
Warren said that was ridiculous. Brenda said nothing at all.
The next morning Norma, Pastor Wills and I stood in the church office on Delaware Avenue while he spun the dial. Inside the safe was a long cream envelope marked in my fathers block printing, “For Maxine, when the time comes.”
It held a durable power of attorney signed by my mother in 1998 and a letter from her lawyer, Mr. Hirsch. Mama had named me as the person to act for her, and Warren was named only as a backup if I could not.
The sale of the house had been signed by Warren, with no authority at all, and with my mother unable to say the date.
Mama had spent a lifetime holding up other peoples heads, and now one signature in a green book was holding up hers.
Mr. Hirsch took the case to the probate court in Lucas County. The judge was a brisk woman who read Normas entry twice and asked Warren a single question. Why had he held the pen over his mothers hand?
He did not answer. His lawyer asked for a recess.
By the end of the week, the facts were plain. Warren had not yet spent the sale money. The two hundred eighteen thousand dollars was sitting in an account at a bank on Monroe Street, along with the eight thousand four hundred from the savings bonds.
The judge froze the account and named me guardian of my mothers estate. She ordered that the proceeds be used for Mamas care, and that the coin jar be returned within the week.
The family who bought the house on Delaware Avenue had done nothing wrong. Their title company stepped in, and they kept the house with the wreath on the door. The money, rightly held, was enough to pay for a much better place for Mama.
Warren brought the pickle jar to my salon on Thursday. It was full of dimes, and it weighed more than I remembered. He put it on the counter and could not look at me.
I told him that I did not want a fight, I wanted my brother back at the table, and I wanted him to stay away from the pen.
The new home had a sunroom and a sink with a good spray hose. On the first Friday I washed her hair there, support at the neck, fourteen pink rollers.
“Maxine,” she said suddenly, looking up at me, “you are the lady who does my hair.”
“No, Mama,” I said. “I am your daughter.”
And she smiled as if she had known it all along.