had kicked off all the covers and was sprawled sideways on the pink-sprigged sheet.
“Hey, Maggy,” Riley called softly. “Sleepyhead.”
Her daughter sat up in bed, stretched, and yawned. “What time is it?”
“It’s still early. Just barely eight.”
“Good.” Maggy launched herself backward onto the mattress. “See ya, Mom.”
“Honey, I just wanted to let you know I’m going into town this morning, to try to buy back our house.”
Maggy’s eyes widened. “Oh, Mom. That is so awesome. I’ll get my old room back, and we won’t have to share a bathroom.…”
“Wait. I said I’d try. The house is being sold at an auction, and that means that if somebody else comes along with more money, I might get outbid.”
“Then you just outbid them. Right? I mean, it’s our house.”
“Not anymore,” Riley said. “It belongs to the bank now. Look, there are some things I need to tell you. I thought you were too young to understand before, but now, I really don’t have a choice. I’m sorry, baby, but you’re gonna have to grow up in a hurry today.”
Maggy clutched her hand. “What, Mama? Are you sick?”
“No, baby, that’s not it. I’m healthy as a horse, and I’m not going anywhere. It’s about your dad.”
“Oh.” Maggy crossed her eyes. “That again.”
“Just listen. Your dad made a big mistake. Several big ones. I know you want to think he was perfect, but he wasn’t. None of us is perfect, including me, which is okay. And it’s good that you want to remember what a great dad he was to you, and how much he loved you, because that part about your daddy is true, and nothing can change it.”
Maggy nodded. “But there was bad stuff too, wasn’t there? Stuff he did that hurt you and made you cry, which is why you were going to get a divorce, right?”
“That’s true. I don’t want to dwell on that. I want to move ahead with our lives. But I have to deal with the fact that his bad choices, and some dishonest things he did, are going to affect our family for a long time to come.”
Tears filled her daughter’s eyes. “I know, Mom. BeBo told me a little bit, when we went for ice cream yesterday.”
“He did?” Riley was again taken by surprise at her brother’s sudden streak of maturity.
Maggy nodded. “Yeah. Dad took your money that Granddad left you, and BeBo’s, and Mimi’s too, didn’t he?”
“I’m afraid so, sweetie. I think he intended to pay it back, and he had his reasons. He thought he was doing it for the business, but it turned out to be a really bad thing.”
“And that’s why we’re poor and have to live with Mimi,” Maggy concluded.
“We’re not really poor,” Riley protested. “But it’s true we’ll have to change the way we live. And we may not get our old house here back. Your Aunt Roo is being incredibly generous and giving me some money to try to buy it, but I just don’t know if it will be enough. Either way, we’ll always have a place to live here on Belle Isle. And when we get back to Raleigh in the fall, I’ll have to get a job.”
“That’s cool,” Maggy said. “But what about my new school? Can I still go?”
“I think so. Anyway, let’s worry about one thing at a time.”
* * *
Since the auction was to start at 10 a.m., she took the 8:30 ferry and was waiting outside the bank when the doors opened. As promised, Roo had gone to her bank the previous day to make arrangements for the money, but the teller had informed her that such a large withdrawal would require the signature of a bank officer, who was out of the office until late in the day.
“They said they’d have the cashier’s check ready for you at the receptionist’s desk first thing Friday,” Roo reported.
“It’s for five hundred and fifty thousand, and I’m sorry it’s not more,” she added. “I took a flier with one of those damn dot-coms in the nineties. Myspace. Phooey!”
“That’s more money than I ever could have hoped for,” Riley told her aunt. “And I can never thank you enough.”
At nine o’clock, she rushed inside the bank and made a beeline for the receptionist’s desk. “I’m picking up an envelope for Riley Nolan,” she told the elderly man.
He fumbled around the desk for a full five minutes, mumbling her name over and over. “Riley Nolan. Riley Nolan. Riley Nolan.” After he’d turned over the same piece