A Daughter's a Daughter by Irene Vartanoff

Author:Irene Vartanoff [Vartanoff, Irene]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2016-02-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Pam hauled out her car again and made the long drive to Long Island to see her mother’s attorney in his office in Port Jefferson. He was even farther out on the island than Dorothy.

Signing the documents only took half an hour. The emails they had exchanged in the past week had saved them precious face time. She had come prepared. The attorney knew exactly how to handle the filings and promised he’d expedite them as much as possible. After shaking hands again, she’d walked out a bit poorer but happy to have taken the first big step to solving Magda’s money problem. Luckily, the law allowed Pam to partially fund the nonprofit. She had cashed in a CD, and used the proceeds to start the ball rolling.

Now it was time to visit her mother again. The beach community was all the way south across the island, but not terribly far. When she had driven most of the way, she stopped at a grocery and picked up a prepared meal, the kind Dorothy preferred, and a few other things.

An hour after she left the lawyer’s office, she was turning her car into the drive at the beach house. The houses were far enough apart that some of the beach was visible behind and between them. Dorothy and Bruce were returning from their daily beach walk with his dog.

“Hello,” she called from the driveway.

They waved, and Bruce left Dorothy with his dog and sprinted over to help Pam, whose arms were filled with groceries.

“Pam. Glad you’re back.”

The words were conventional, but the expression on Bruce’s face said he meant them. He wasn’t exactly smiling. That would be too revealing. By his age a man knew how to keep a poker face. There was a lightness to his expression. His eyes looked happy.

She had no such hesitation. She smiled, a big goofy smile.

“Yes, I’m back.”

They stared at each other for a second, taking each other in. Then they both started, as Dorothy came up behind him.

“Now don’t stand there gawking, Pamela. The man is holding your packages. Open the door.” Dorothy chided her.

Pam sprang into action and opened the door, which as usual was unlocked. In other times, her mother’s words would have mortified her. With Bruce, it didn’t seem to matter.

“You don’t keep your front door locked, Dorothy?” Bruce asked. It was obvious he disapproved of unlocked front doors.

“Of course not. Who would bother me way out here?”

“You’re not in the sparsely populated countryside anymore,” Pam reminded Dorothy. “The New York suburbs have spread all the way out here. Maybe you should.”

“Oh, nonsense. After all these years of living in an unlocked house, it’s more likely I’d forget the keys and lock myself out than somebody would bother me.” Dorothy said it in her usual take-no-prisoners manner.

Pam said no more, but Bruce didn’t know Dorothy well enough to stop. He frowned. “I’d be happy to keep a set of keys for you. If ever you got locked out, you could come to me.

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