South of Superior by Ellen Airgood

Author:Ellen Airgood
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction.Contemporary, fiction
ISBN: 9781594487934
Publisher: RIVERHEAD
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

When Madeline got to Arbutus’s room one afternoon there was a stout, fiftyish man with thinning hair dressed in rumpled khakis and an oxford shirt standing at her bedside. Nathan. He’d been a couple of times before but he never stayed long and Madeline had always missed him, which she didn’t mind because she had a feeling he blamed her for his mother’s being here, and pretty much he was right. Arbutus was beaming Upon him and Gladys was scowling and he looked weary, more than anything.

“Madeline, Nathan’s here!” Arbutus put a hand on his arm. “And Nathan, you remember Madeline, from Chicago. Remember she came over to the apartment?”

“Yes,” Nathan said in a neutral tone. He went back to the conversation her arrival had interrupted. “Mother, you have to take this offer. Think how much easier it would make everything.”

“But I don’t need all that money all at once right now. I’m going to sell my house.”

“Mother,” Nathan said tiredly as Gladys cried, “Butte.”

“Well I am. And I don’t think it’s right, to sell the hotel to the Bensons. I don’t mind selling it, but not to them. Couldn’t we put something in there, a stipulation that it can’t be torn down? That’s our history, Glad’s and mine, and yours too.”

“History doesn’t pay the bills, I’m sorry to say, Mother.”

“I thought we had this all decided,” Gladys said, irritated. “We agreed.”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind. If the hotel is so valuable, why can’t we take a loan out on it?”

“A mortgage?! At our ages?” Madeline was sure Gladys would never admit she’d already looked into this. “What has gotten into you? We decided. Let’s just do it and get it over with. I can’t stand this shilly-shallying.”

“And even if you could get the loan, who would pay it back, and how? And take care of the Upkeep, and the insurance, and a thousand other things?” Nathan asked.

But Arbutus seemed immovable.

“Well, we’re just at a complete standstill,” Nathan said finally. “I thought you wanted me to get started on the paperwork. You’ll need a seller’s appraisal, a disclosure statement, a purchase agreement, all kinds of things.

“And I can’t think why you’re being so stubborn,” Gladys said. “We decided all this already.”

“I don’t want to rush into it, is all.” Arbutus looked very Unhappy. “Maybe there’s another way. Maybe somebody else would want it. Maybe somebody would live in it and run it again, appreciate it for what it is. I don’t think we’ve really tried, when it comes right down to it.”

“No one else wants it,” Gladys said. “The overhead, Butte. And the repairs. No one will take on the repairs.”

“I know you said that, but you might be wrong. I don’t think we’ve given the old place a chance. Is that really fair? What would Mother and Dad think?”

“Mother and Dad are dead. And we’re the next to go, and Nathan here doesn’t want it, he’s made that clear—”

“No, I don’t want it. So sue me. I live in Chicago, my life is there.

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