Nobody's Sorry You're Dead

12

"Hadley Jane Pell," Maury said, "have you lost your ever-lovin' mind?"

Hadley had phoned her sister to tell her the good news.

"You just wait till Bill gets home. I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. And when I'm finished with that I'm going to give him a good swift kick in the seat of his pants! I can't believe he suggested that to you, Hadley! He knows you have a talent for always finding ways to get into enough trouble on your own without giving you any encouragement."

"Don't you say anything to Bill, Maury. Promise me. I'm pulling the big sister act on you. I mean it. Not one word. I'm glad he thought of me."

"Glad! Huh, you're glad! I'm mortified! What is everyone going to say when they hear about this? Oh, my stars! I'll be hiding under the bed! Hiding in shame, Hadley!"

"Well," Hadley said, "at least I'll know to go to your bedroom when I can't find you in the kitchen."

"You're incorrigible. Why do you go all over the county like a day laborer begging work? Harry left you enough, for goodness sakes! It's embarrassing! People already think you are doing these odd jobs to scrounge up enough money to eat!

Emmaline Houston as much as told me that in those exact same words, Hadley. She thinks you need to work to pay the light bill! To keep a roof over your head and put gas in the car! Hadley! Please!"

"Not another word, Maury," Hadley said, sipping her large cup of coffee.

Of course, she knew Maury would ignore her last comment.

"And cleaning out a dead man's house!" Maury went on. "Are you crazy! Hadley, that is Eustian Singlepenny's junk hole we're talking about! Eustian Singlepenny! What on earth are you thinking? I'll tell you what you're thinking! You're not thinking! That's the trouble with you, Hadley. You don't think! You just jump in! Both feet and no shoes!

Well, you're knee deep in the mud hole, this time! You'll be smothered in dust or bitten by black widows! You'll be carried off by cockroaches longer than my arm! The flies will beat you with a nasty stick.

You'll probably end up with some awful disease that a trip to the doctor's office can't cure! I'll bet you that old house is infested with rats! Rats! Hadley! Big wharf rats! The kind you'll drag home because they've hitched a ride in your car.

You're liable to wake up in the middle of the night and have big hairy whiskers and two rotten yellow gnawing teeth staring you in the face! That monster will be growling and smiling and hungry and smelling musty like Eustian Singlepenny!

I could just faint thinking about all the filth you're going to be getting yourself into. Not to mention, the crud you'll bring to your house! And from your house, it will find its way to mine! Did you hear me?

I said who knows what you'll bring to my house!

And it's not like you're going to be able to start tomorrow. I read the papers, too, Hadley. They are going to autopsy that codger. He's in some fridge in Bowey Hill right this minute just waiting his turn on the table. Goose feathers and camel humps! I get the willies just saying that!

And who knows when they'll get that old goat in the ground! You've really done it this time, big sister! You've tied yourself down for I don't know how long with this latest scheme!

And Bill is your guilty co-conspirator! I don't know who I am madder at – you or him!

I don't think I will ever live this down, Hadley. Don't you think about what your neighbors say? Forget the neighbors! Don't you care what your friends will say! Hadley, you may be my sister, but I truly believe you've lost all your marbles agreeing to do this!"

"Oh, Mary Maureen," Hadley said, eyeing a glazed doughnut she'd place in a lidded plastic bowl to keep fresh, "stop hyperventilating. You know, if I really cared about the old man, I'd never be able to do it. It would tear me up too badly. But Eustian Singlepenny is a unique case. I hate to say it, but nobody's sorry he's dead."