Free Emancipating Alice by Ada Winder Page B

watching her face closely: “So when’s Elaine coming?”
    His mother shrugged.
    “She didn’t say. She was pretty upset with me that I didn’t call her right after I called you.”
    Drew was disgusted.
    “Well, that’s pretty selfish of her considering the circumstances. I really don’t know what her problem is.”
    Drew never figured out what the issue was between his sister and his mother, only aware there was always great tension between them. He could not imagine why, and Elaine would not talk to him about it. In any case, he found it inappropriate for the current situation; she should be able to put whatever it was between them aside for the time being.
    He sighed.
    “You want me to call her for you? Find out what’s up?”
    “Oh, no—it’s okay. She’ll show up; it doesn’t matter when—she won’t miss the funeral.”
    “Well, okay mom, whatever you want. So what did you want me to help you with?”
    “Well, first of all,” she started walking up the stairs, indicating that he follow her, “I need you to take your father’s things down these stairs and wherever they’re supposed to go—I labeled them.”
    “Well, all right, let’s get started.”
    As he walked into his parents’ bedroom, Drew was surprised at how clean and empty it looked, save for the cluster of boxes and containers that he assumed were his father’s disposable belongings. He wondered if there was anything in them that he would want. He asked his mother for a summary of the contents of each box. When he was satisfied that he did not need what she had boxed up as trash, he carried that box down to the garbage. Then he went through the boxes in which his mother had packed all of his father’s books. He took out books that might be of interest to him, and he carried the remainder to his car, laying them on the backseat for a later trip to the local library. As for the boxes of clothes and shoes, there was no doubt that he would want nothing from his father’s wardrobe except for a few ties, so he wasted no time taking those boxes and packing them in the car for a later trip to the Salvation Army.
    By now, his car was almost filled to capacity, but he still had the passenger’s side. He figured he would just have to leave Jack with his mom when he ran the errands. It had always been difficult for him to leave Jack anywhere, but since he had to for various reasons—school and camp for example—he started getting used to it a bit; besides, his mother needed someone to be with her. He could not hog Jack to himself.
    By the time he had finished going through and transporting all of the boxes to the trash or his car, the distraction of the work had worn off and he started thinking about his dad.
    He had always thought of him as a great father, the model for his own parenting approaches, and Drew would miss him terribly. His father had not been home for long periods of time as far as he remembered; in fact, in his childhood, he remembered seeing him just an hour or two before his bedtime, but the time he did spend with him and his sister meant the world to Drew. He was funny and playful with them, playing board games and teaching them card games. He read to them, and brought them gifts from time to time.
    Drew never doubted his father’s love for them, nor his own love of and admiration for him. The fact that he was dead still had not sunk in, and he did not want it to. For now, he preferred to ignore it, pretend it did not really happen. That it was someone else who had died.
    Back in his parents’ bedroom, Drew asked his mother what else she wanted him to do. She headed over to his father’s side of the bed and sat near the head of it, next to his father’s nightstand.
    “Well, since you’re in the same field as your dad—all that business and accounting and stuff—I was hoping you could help me make sense of some of his financial files.”
    “Did dad have a will?”
    His mother looked stricken, as if the thought had