Free Miss Julia Inherits a Mess by Ann B. Ross

me.
    â€œSam?” I pushed open the door as he looked up from the book that was open on his desk. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but, oh, Sam, you won’t believe who has gone to her reward.”
    Sam’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t know anybody was up for one.”
    â€œWell, I didn’t, either. She seemed well enough to me. I mean, considering all she’s been through and discounting her mental state. I tell you, Sam, I’m shaken by it.”
    Sam abruptly stood and started around the desk toward me. “What’s happened, honey?”
    â€œMattie Freeman, Sam,” I said, feeling a few tears spring to my eyes. “She’s gone. And I didn’t even know she was leaving.”
    Sam took my arm and led me to a side chair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have been flippant. It’s never easy to lose someone you care about. Sit down and tell me about it.”
    â€œWell, see, that’s the thing,” I said, sinking into the easy chair beside his desk. “I never thought I cared one way or the other about Mattie, and I really didn’t—I mean,
personally
cared. So I was really upset with her for giving me so much responsibility when we’d never been close. But now I don’t know why her sudden passing has shaken me the way it has.”
    â€œI expect you’d have been better prepared if she’d been sick a long time. It’s probably the unexpectedness of it that’s upsetting you.”
    â€œI guess. Except at her age, I don’t know what else I should’ve expected. But, Sam, you and I just saw her yesterday afternoon, and of course she didn’t look well, but I never thought . . . well, anyway, I spent an awful lot of time worrying about where she would go and who would take care of her when she got out of the hospital—all of which has turned out to be a total waste of time. I guess it should teach me a lesson. Make no plans for the morrow, for the morrow may never come—or something like that. Which is certainly true for Mattie.”
    I straightened in my chair, struck by a sudden dread. “What about that power of attorney now, Sam? What am I supposed to do about that?” I just didn’t think I was up to making funerary arrangements, regardless of how much Mattie had thought of me. That was an honor I could do without.
    â€œIt’s all right, sweetheart. The power of attorney expires when the grantor does.”
    â€œYou mean . . . ?” I brightened considerably, realizing that my obligations were over and done with. “Well, that is welcome news. But, you know, Sam, now that I think about it, it hasn’t been so onerous, after all.”
    After a few reassuring words and some comforting hugs from Sam, it occurred to me that I was most likely the only one among our friends who knew about this disconcerting development. So, after thanking Sam for relieving my mind, I left him to his work and hurried to the library. It was up to me, it seemed, to spread the word of Mattie’s demise to our friends and acquaintances. To be the town crier, so to speak, certainly gives one a feeling of importance, and I concerned myself with striking just the right note between accuracy in reporting and personal concern.
    â€œMildred?” I asked when Ida Lee called her to the phone. “I have sad news.”
    â€œWho died?”
    â€œ
Mildred!
How did you know? You didn’t give me a chance to break it to you gently.”
    â€œYou mean somebody really did?” she asked. “Oh, my, that’ll teach me to play around trying to be funny. But, really, who was it?”
    â€œMiss Mattie. Oh, Mildred, I went to the hospital this morning, even took her a dozen petits fours, hoping to perk her up—you know how she loved those things—and her bed was empty. Stripped, in fact, though I thought she’d just been moved. I declare, I was not