Free Broke: by Kaye George

back up, too."
    Ralph hefted it a few inches from the floor. "Heavy sucker. This would have cracked his skull if it had hit him."
    Was that breathy, barely audible sound coming from the end of the hall where the mist had seemed to float to --was it laughter?
    "Do you hear that?" whispered Immy.
    But Ralph did n't hear anything. He didn't seem to see anything besides the light fixture either.
    ***
    By the weekend, Immy thought she could start moving in. The fall weather was cooling each day. On Saturday morning Ralph had helped her carry two of the old beds to the third story. That level was made up of small rooms, maybe servants' quarters a long time ago. It had been used for storage more recently . Most of the rooms held boxes and a couple had large trunks, but no furniture. Immy and Drew had shared a room in the single-wide, but now they would each have a bedroom. Her twin bed , after she and Ralph set it up, looked lonely in the rather large bedroom she' d chosen . She'd picked the first one at the top of the stairs, facing the street. Ralph put Drew's small cot in the room next to hers and her bed looked even lonelier.
    When Immy's room held the dresser she' d shared with Drew , it looked a little better. They'd left an old dresser from the original furnishings in Drew's room, having clea r ed linens out of the drawers and carried them to one of the trunks upstairs.
    After Immy had brought her mother the footstool with the needlepoint cover, Hortense had gone through her pots and pans and dishes and given Immy a box of things she considered extra. There were already dishes in the tall cupboards, and pans on the shelves underneath the counter, but none of the stuff had been used for years and everything would require a thorough washing. For now, Immy left her things from Mother in a box on the kitchen counter.
    They had made several trips from Saltlick and now almost everything Immy ow n ed was in the house . But her possessions seemed few and paltry, especially in a place cluttered with such an overabundance of accumulated furniture and knick-knacks. Ralph must have sensed her disappointment.
    "Hey, let's get outta here," he said. "Let's go get supper somewhere. I'll treat."
    They'd eaten thick ham sandwiches supplied by Hortense for lunch, standing in the kitchen because Immy hadn't cleaned off the ancient wooden table and chairs yet. Th ose were some of the few pieces of furniture not protected by dust cloths and the dust was piled in drifts on the surface of the table.
    "DQ!" Drew hopped up and down. "DQ! I wanna B lizzard!"
    Before Immy could say she'd have to eat supper before dessert, Ralph promised her a B lizzard. Immy shrugged and they buckled Drew into her car seat in Immy's Hyundai and took off for the bright lights of Wymee Falls. The lights were especially bright at the DQ because it was next to the main highway through town.
    They could have walked there, the house was that close to the DQ, but there was that highway in between.
    After hamburgers, and a Blizzard for Drew , Ralph drove Immy's car to the house. She thought that was gallant of him. Ralph could be so sweet sometimes. While h e hopped out to unbuckle Drew , Immy leaned against her own passenger door , gazing fondly again at her own house.
    Well damn. "The light's on in the living room," she said. More intruders?
    "I switched it on when we left," said Ralph. "I didn't want us coming back to a dark house."
    They walked up the sidewa lk , swinging Drew off the ground between them every third step.
    "Are we s w eeping here tonight?" Drew asked.
    "We have to," said Immy , laughing. "Our beds are here. If we slept at Geemaw's we'd have to sleep on the floor."
    Drew stopped walking a nd process ed this information. "But Marshmallow isn't here."
    "I have to finish the gate in his fence, then he can move in."
    "When, Unca Ralph?"
    "Tomorrow, I promise."
    Satisfied, Drew ran up the porch steps and waited for someone to unlock the door. Immy turned her key,