Sycamore Row

attention.
    “Get that, Lettie,” Herschel yelled from the den. “We’re hiding in the kitchen.”
    It was the neighbor across the road with a lemon cake. Lettie thanked her and explained that Mr. Seth’s children were indeed there but “not taking company.” The neighbor loitered for a while on the porch, desperate to get inside and stick her nose into the family’s drama, but Lettie politely blocked the door. After she finally left, Lettie took the cake to the kitchen where it sat untouched on the counter.

    At the kitchen table, it didn’t take long to get down to business. “Have you seen the will?” Ramona asked, her eyes remarkably clear now and glowing with intrigue and suspicion.
    “No,” Herschel said. “Have you?”
    “No. I was here a couple of months ago—”
    “It was July,” Ian interrupted.
    “Okay, July, and I tried to talk to Daddy about his will. He said some lawyers in Tupelo had written it and that we would be properly taken care of, but that was all. Did you ever talk to him about it?”
    “No,” Herschel admitted. “It just didn’t feel right, you know? The old guy was dying of cancer and I’m asking about his will? I couldn’t do it.”
    Lettie was lurking in the hallway, in the shadows, catching every word.
    “What about his assets?” Ian asked, in cold blood. He had good reason to be curious since most of his own assets were so heavily mortgaged. His company built low-end shopping centers and strip malls, every deal loaded with debt. He worked frantically to stay one step ahead of his lenders, but they were always howling.
    Herschel glared at his brother-in-law, the leech, but kept his cool. All three suspected trouble with Seth’s estate, so there was no sense inrushing things. They would be at war soon enough. Herschel shrugged and said, “Don’t know. He was very secretive, as you’ve seen. This house, the two hundred acres around it, the lumber yard up the road, but I don’t know about his loans and such. We never talked business.”
    “You never talked about anything,” Ramona shot across the table, then immediately took it back. “I’m sorry, Herschel. Please.”
    But such a cheap shot from a sibling can never be left alone. Herschel sneered and said, “Didn’t realize you and the old man were so close.”
    Ian quickly changed the subject with, “Does he have an office here, or a place he kept his personal papers? Come on. Why can’t we look around here? There’s bound to be bank statements and land deeds and contracts, hell, I’ll bet there’s even a copy of the will, right here in the house.”
    “Lettie should know,” Ramona said.
    “Let’s not involve her,” Herschel said. “Did you know he was paying her five bucks an hour, full-time?”
    “Five bucks?” Ian repeated. “What are we paying Berneice?”
    “Three fifty,” Ramona said. “For twenty hours.”
    “We’re paying four and a half in Memphis,” Herschel reported proudly, as if he and not his mother wrote the checks.
    “Why would an old tightwad like Seth pay so much for a housekeeper?” Ramona mused, knowing there was no answer.
    “She’d better enjoy it,” Herschel said. “Her days are numbered.”
    “So we’re firing her?” Ramona asked.
    “Immediately. We have no choice. You wanna keep forking over that kinda money? Look, Sis, here’s the plan. We get through the funeral, tell Lettie to get things in order, then cut her loose and lock up the house. We’ll put it on the market next week and hope for the best. There’s no reason for her to hang around, at five bucks an hour.”
    In the shadows, Lettie dropped her head.
    “Maybe not so fast,” Ian said politely. “At some point, and soon, we’ll see the will. In it we’ll find out who’ll serve as the executor of the estate, probably one of you. It’s usually the surviving spouse or one of the kids. The executor will run the estate according to the terms of the will.”
    “I know all that,” Herschel said, though he really didn’t. Because Ian dealt with lawyers daily, he often acted like the legal expert in the family. One of many reasons Herschel despised him.
    “I just can’t believe he’s dead,” Ramona said, finding a tear to wipe.
    Herschel glared at her and was tempted to lunge across the table for a backhand. To his knowledge, she made the trip to Ford County once a year, usually alone because Ian couldn’t stand the place and Seth couldn’t stand Ian. She would leave Jackson around