“I make that one. Nice whatchamacallit. Lloyd’s favorite.” She nodded.
Cass took the lid off the macaroni casserole and showed it to Momoko.
“Yes,” Momoko agreed, looking in. “Pot roast. He like it very much. He is meat-and-potatoes kinda guy.”
Cass sighed. “Good for you. I’m glad you had a nice supper. Now, how about some breakfast?”
“Okay. I go upstairs to call Yumi.”
“I don’t think Yummy’s here, Mrs. Fuller. Why don’t you go up and get Lloyd? See if he wants to come down for breakfast.”
“Okay,” said Momoko. “Then you go out and play.”
The old woman shuffled from the room. Cass poached up some eggs and heated water for coffee. She sliced the bread, annoyed with herself for forgetting to buy Wonder. The crusts of her home-baked loaves were too hard for Lloyd. She had seen him struggling one day, sucking on the crust to soften it and then mashing it between his gums. She was out of the habit of store-bought since Will had gotten her the bread machine for Christmas several years back, when potato prices were up. What she’d wanted was a new oven. What she’d really wanted was a whole new kitchen, but that was another story.
She heard Momoko upstairs, talking to her husband. He wasn’t bedridden, but he liked to take his time getting up. Mornings were difficult. It was hard for him to get downstairs, and he liked it when Cass could give him a hand.
“You’re a big, strong girl,” he joked. “Momoko’s too small. She’ll just buckle. Look! I’m afraid I’ve bent her in half already!”
“Ooooooh, he is so big man!” Momo said, slapping him. “I carry him all the time on my back! How you say? Like on back of piggy? See? He make me crooked all over!”
Sometimes the three of them could share a laugh.
“You so old man!” Momoko would scold him. “How you get so old?”
And Lloyd would smile. “How’d you get so pretty?”
Sometimes it wasn’t so bad.
“Breakfast is ready!” Cass called. “Lloyd, do you need a hand?”
She walked to the foot of the stairs in the living room and waited. The room was still and close. It was a nice room and had potential, but it would have to be entirely redone. She rubbed the shiny banister. She could still hear Momoko, muttering upstairs.
“Lloyd?” she called again.
The heavy curtains shut out the morning sun, except for a single shaft of light that shot through the gap where the fabric panels didn’t quite meet in the middle. The light touched the air, made it substantial, made it come to life with motes and particles, flying things. Maybe it was the tilt of the shaft, but Cass felt the room shift, no longer familiar. She held on to the banister. Probably just hunger, she hadn’t had her own breakfast yet. Still, there was a feeling.
The light came to rest on a dusty horsehair love seat. She had a history with that chair. The last time she’d sat there, feeling oversize, was a year ago, when she and Will signed the last of the documents that Duggin had brought over for the closing. Lloyd sat across from them, sunk deep in his ancient recliner. Momoko had brought them all coffee in stained cups, then joined them, sitting on a small, hard-backed chair, her worn flip-flops dangling a few inches from the floor.
“My colon this time,” Lloyd told the lawyer. “Cancer. Nipped it in the bud, but they took out close to a foot of the darn thing. Have to wear a contraption now.”
He paused, contemplating his breached innards, then continued, with something like pride. “Always thought my heart would kill me. Never expected this—”
He looked around for confirmation, but no one would agree, or even answer. No one would say, Yes Lloyd, it sure is funny. Or, Absolutely right, Lloyd, with a trigger heart like yours. Will was looking down at his lap. Duggin was aligning the edges of the contract of sale. Cass stroked the upholstery on the arm of the love seat. She found a hard bit lodged in the nap and worried it with her fingernail. The silence was long, until she broke it.
“You’re doing great, Lloyd,” she said, too late to be quite convincing. She’d had a run-in with cancer herself, so she could sympathize, but while she was doing great, she knew he wasn’t. Recently she had taken over helping him with his colon bags, too. His thick, hardened fingers had trouble with the snaps, and Momoko couldn’t remember how the appliances got attached.
Lloyd sighed. “Not likely I’ll ever be up to running three thousand acres again, eh, Will?”
“No, sir,” said Will, looking up. Blunt. Honest. The old man hadn’t run three thousand acres for years.
“It’s a lot of work—” Duggin said.
“Don’t mind the work,” Lloyd said. “That’s never been the problem. God knows I worked hard when I could, and we surely were rewarded.” He looked over at Will. “Ever tell you about that year? 1974, it was. We got nine dollars per hundredweight. . . .” Then all of a sudden his shoulders sagged. “Don’t know what we were thinking, eh, Momo? What were we thinking?”
Momoko didn’t hear him. She was watching Cass. “You are Yumi’s friend?”
Cass nodded. “I used to be.”
“She not here, you know.”
“I know. Have you heard from her . . . ?”
“She was too-pretty girl,” the old woman said. “If she was more ugly, maybe she not get into trouble.”
“Momoko!” Lloyd struggled to stand, but the old chair seemed to stick to his buttocks. His skinny knees flapped open and closed and he looked like some long-legged marsh bird caught in a sump pond, throwing his weight forward again and again. Finally, breathless, he sat back. His bony chest heaved. He closed his eyes.
Will coughed. “If this isn’t a good time, we can take a break—”
Cass frowned at him. No point in putting it off.
“Good time?” asked Lloyd, voice tight, speaking to no one at all. “There’s no good time. There’s no time at all.”
He opened his eyes and spoke to Will. “My wife and I want it guaranteed that we can go on living here in this house. That is nonnegotiable, Will. And we keep five acres for Momo’s seeds.” He turned to the lawyer. “We’ve made quite a nice little business out of the seeds in the past few years. All Momo’s doing, really. Haven’t been much use, ever since my heart . . .”
“Of course, Lloyd,” Duggin said. “The house and five acres are guaranteed. For as long as you like. Or until—”
Lloyd closed his eyes again and let his head fall back against the upholstery. “I’d always hoped . . .” He rolled his head from side to side as though his hopes were a muscle he could loosen. “Don’t know who we’re going to get to take over our seed stock. We got hundreds of varieties, some of ’em quite rare.”
His white hair, fine spun and charged with static from the friction, clung to the nubbly fabric. When he opened his eyes again, the pale blue irises were covered in a greasy film. He blinked, then let his watery gaze roam around the room to the lawyer, then to Will, to Momoko, and finally to Cass. Looking for answers. Cass looked away.
“All right,” he said. “Give me a pen, then. Let’s get this over with.”
“That’s right, Lloyd,” Duggin said, handing him a ballpoint. “It’s the only sensible thing to do.”