Angel at Troublesome Creek Read Free Page B

sorry-to-hurt-you message on my answering machine. One week ago. And they had buried my aunt only yesterday.
    “Do you remember what she said?” Augusta went to the window where she held aside the blue-flowered curtain to watch passing traffic. “My goodness!” she said, her eyes widening.
    “Nothing special,” I answered. “She was expecting her bridge club this week—today, in fact, and said she was giving the living room a thorough cleaning.” That was when Aunt Caroline had found that old picture of Sam and me at the Easter-egg hunt. I smiled, remembering how my aunt always covered her dress in a huge red striped apron and tied her curly gray hair in a rag before attacking the enemy: dirt.
    “And she’d been to see Dr. Kiker; he’s our family doctor.”
    Augusta dropped the curtain and whirled about. “Ah!” she said. “So your aunt was in poor health?”
    “Nothing that couldn’t be controlled. High blood pressure—sometimes she had dizzy spells. That’s why I didn’t want her in the attic, but she was on medication.” I swallowed to keep my voice from shaking. “My aunt was only in her midsixties, she should’ve had a lot of years left. Dr. Kiker thinks she must’ve forgotten to take her medicine and had one of her swimmy-headed turns, but I think he’s full of beans!” I stood abruptly, scraped my plate in the sink, and switched on the garbage disposal.
    I heard the legs of a chair skidding across the floor behind me, and then a soft thud, followed by Augusta’s frightened shriek. “What on earth are you doing under the table?” I asked.
    “Get down!” Augusta yelled. “We’re being blitzed!”
    “It’s only a garbage disposal.” I reached out to her. “Come on, I’ll show you how it works.”
    But Augusta held back. “Does it always come on like gangbusters? I thought we were being attacked.” The woman straightened her pert hat, which didn’t seem to have suffered from her dive under the table, and smoothed the frilly collar of her blouse. Angel or not, she really was quite vain. “I don’t suppose you’ve looked up there yet?” Augusta said.
    “Where?”
    “In the attic. Look, maybe somebody gave your aunt a push, maybe not, but there must have been a reason she was taking a chance on those stairs. Something important. Maybe we can find out what it was.” Augusta waited for me by the kitchen door. “Well? Come on, then.”
    And bossy too, I thought as I followed her up the narrow stairs.
    It didn’t take long to figure out somebody had been there before us.
     
     
    I hadn’t been in the attic since the week after Christmas when I came here to put away tree decorations, and at first I thought it looked much as I’d left it.
    Except for the ceramic dog. The cookie jar with the chipped ear that always sat by the kitchen window. Aunt Caroline kept it filled with molasses crisps and snicker doodles, and I had broken the lid when I was about nine. But after I left home to take that job in Charlotte, my aunt didn’t bake much anymore, and the ceramic dog was banished to the attic.
    Now it sat in the middle of the floor in a box that once held the coffee maker I gave my aunt for her birthday. Gently I touched the top of its glossy head. Most of these things could be disposed of at a yard sale, but this I meant to keep. Just behind it to the left, a fold of yellowed lace cascaded from the trunk Aunt Caroline’s mother had taken to college. It looked as though someone had dropped the lid in a hurry, leaving the contents in a tumble, and when I opened it, that’s exactly what I found. Fringed shawls and satin slippers, lace-trimmed dainties, and the quaint cloche hats I’d loved to dress up in were tossed about as if somebody had wadded them up and thrown them there. The musty smell stung my nose.
    “Would you look at this! I used to have a pair just like them!” Augusta snatched up a wrinkled pair of kid gloves the color of weak tea. Digging into the jumble she found a