Free Saints Among Us by Anne Marie Rodgers Page B

to take over her position as chairman.” She huffed. “As if.”
    Jane was agog. “Are you kidding? She didn’t.”
    “She most certainly did.” Louise was getting revved up just thinking about it again.
    Alice reached over and patted Louise’s arm. “Oh, Louise, I’m so sorry. But you know how she is. It’s very important to her to feel needed and necessary. Her feelings get hurt over the tiniest imagined slight, and she can make a mountain
range
out of a little
ant
hill.”
    Louise had to laugh at Alice’s twist on the cliché.
    “No wonder she and Florence are such a volatile mix,” Jane commented. “They both need to be handled with kid gloves.”
    “What, exactly, did she say?” Alice asked.
    Louise told them. “I felt as if I was about five years old again, being fussed at. I was intimidated by Aunt Ethel when I was little. She seemed so stern.”
    “Louise, I’m sorry,” Jane said, dropping a dishtowel on the table as she flopped into a seat. “This is my fault.”
    “Your fault? What do you mean?”
    “I’m the one who suggested you offer your pearls of wisdom to Aunt Ethel. I know how she is. I should have thought about how she would react.”
    “It’s nobody’s fault,” Alice said firmly. “Families have misunderstandings and disagreements. It’s part of the package. This, too, shall pass.”
    Louise knew her sister was right. But Ethel’s accusations still stung. She knew she would have to talk with her aunt again. But it would be a few days before she could imagine initiating another conversation.
    “Grace Chapel Inn, Alice speaking. May I help you?”
    “Hello, Alice, it’s June. Again.” It was Friday afternoon, and the two women had talked at least a dozen times over the past two days as donations had begun to roll in at a surprising rate.
    Alice laughed. “It’s a good thing the phone company doesn’t charge us by the call, or you and I would be in the poorhouse.”
    “I know,” agreed June. “But I forgot to ask you if you have a large cooler we could take.”
    “June,” said Alice patiently, “I live with a chef. Of course I have a cooler. If you’d like to come over, you can choose the size you want.”
    “I can’t come over right now. A neighbor called. She has six cases of canned dog food she wants to donate.”
    “Six
cases
?”
    “That’s what I said. Apparently she bought in bulk because it was cheaper, but her dog is allergic to beef and can’t eat it.”
    “How on earth are we going to fit all these donations into that SUV you borrowed? I know it’s big, but still…” June had finagled the loan of an enormous used Chevrolet SUV from Moe Burdock, a dealer in Potterston from whom she had bought a number of previous vehicles. She had driven trucks with horse trailers before, so the prospect of driving the SUV didn’t bother her. The auto’s size made Alice considerably more nervous, but she figured she could handle it on the highway as long as she didn’t have to try to parallel park.
    “I borrowed a turtle from my son. That should help.”
    “A turtle? Do you mean one of those luggage carriers that fit on the top of a vehicle?”
    “Right. It’s the largest size they make, and it will hold a lot.”
    “Whew! For a moment there I took you literally.”
    June laughed. “We’d be taking animals in the wrong direction, then, wouldn’t we? Also, Moe gave me a flatbed that fits into the trailer hitch on the truck. It’s like a big tray, and anything we stow there would have to be boxed and waterproof because it wouldn’t be protected from the elements, but it would provide some more space.”
    “By the time we’re done loading, we’re going to be getting five miles to the gallon.” Consumption of natural resources was something Alice tried hard to be conscious of. Her blue Toyota got more than twenty miles to the gallon around town.
    “Not quite that bad, but close.”
    “I’m glad you called,” Alice told her traveling companion.