A Bone to Pick Page 0,14

like I said, Marcia's home and she'd love to help if she could." "Thank you for offering," I said. "And I'm sure I'll be talking to you soon.

Thanks for all you've done with the yard."

And finally I got to leave. I stopped at Burger King for lunch, regretting that I hadn't grabbed one of Jane's books to read while I ate. But I had plenty to think about: the emptied closets, the holes in the backyard, the hint Bubba Sewell had given me that Jane had left me a problem to solve. The sheer physical task of clearing the house of what I didn't want, and then the decision about what to do with the house itself. At least all these thoughts were preferable to thinking of myself yet again as the jilted lover, brooding over the upcoming Smith baby... feeling somehow cheated by Lynn's pregnancy. It was much nicer to have decisions within my power to make, instead of having them made for me. Now! I told myself briskly, to ward off the melancholy, as I dumped my cup and wrapper in the trash bin and left the restaurant. Now to work, then home, then out on a real date, and tomorrow get out early in the morning to find those boxes!

I should have remembered that my plans seldom work out.

Chapter 3

THREE

Work that afternoon more or less drifted by. I was on the checkout/check-in desk for three hours, making idle conversation with the patrons. I knew most of them by name, and had known them all my life. I could have made their day by telling each and every one of them, including my fellow librarians, about my good fortune, but somehow it seemed immodest. And it wasn't like my mother had died, which would have been an understandable transfer of fortune. Jane's legacy, which was beginning to make me (almost) more anxious than glad, was so inexplicable that it embarrassed me to talk about it. Everyone would find out about it sooner or later...mentioning it now would be much more understandable than keeping silent. The other librarians were talking about Jane anyway; she had substituted here after her retirement from the school system and had been a great reader for years. I'd seen several of my co-workers at the funeral. But I couldn't think of any casual way to drop Jane's legacy into the conversation. I could already picture the eyebrows flying up, the looks that would pass when my back was turned. In ways not yet realized, Jane had made my life much easier. In ways I was just beginning to perceive, Jane had made my life extremely complicated. I decided, in the end, just to keep my mouth shut and take what the local gossip mill had to dish out. Lillian Schmidt almost shook my resolution when she observed that she'd seen Bubba Sewell, the lawyer, call to me at the cemetery. "What did he want?" Lillian asked directly, as she pulled the front of her blouse together to make the gap between the buttons temporarily disappear. I just smiled.

"Oh! Well, he is single - now - but you know Bubba's been married twice," she told me with relish. The buttons were already straining again. "Who to?" I asked ungrammatically, to steer her off my own conversation with the lawyer.

"First to Carey Osland. I don't know if you know her, she lives right by Jane... you remember what happened to Carey later on, her second husband? Mike Osland? Went out for diapers one night right after Carey'd had that little girl, and never came back? Carey had them search everywhere for that man, she just could not believe he would walk out on her like that, but he must have." "But before Mike Osland, Carey was married to Bubba Sewell?" "Oh, right. Yes, for a little while, no children. Then after a year, Bubba married some girl from Atlanta, her daddy was some big lawyer, everyone thought it would be a good thing for his career." Lillian did not bother to remember the name since the girl was not a Lawrenceton native and the marriage had not lasted. "But that didn't work out, she cheated on him." I made vague regretful noises so that Lillian would continue. "Then - hope you enjoy these, Miz Darwell, have a nice day - he started dating your friend Lizanne Buckley."

"He's dating Lizanne?" I said in some surprise. "I haven't seen her in quite a while. I've been