Free A Comedy of Heirs by Rett MacPherson Page A

dismissive noise and then said, “That’s just the clouds shaking off dust.”
    â€œWell, up there in Minnesota things get a little ridiculous. Fifty feet of snow is a little overboard.”
    â€œWell,” she said, “maybe since I’m here the snow will follow me and you people will get more than a dusting.”
    â€œWhat’s with all this ‘you people’ crap? Did you forget you’ve only lived in Minnesota for ten years? We are your people.”
    She made that noise again. “Oh, I brought you something.” she said. “I brought you a big box of scrap material so you can make a quilt.”
    â€œAunt Sissy, I don’t quilt,” I said, even though I had checked a book out on it. She knew I didn’t quilt. We’d had this discussion many times and it always ended with her being thoroughly disappointed in me.
    â€œAs much as quilting runs in your veins, you should quilt. I don’t care if it’s ugly and none of your points meet, you should be doing it.”
    I took her coat that she had folded across her arm. Coat was not the word for it. It was more like a jacket. Guess if this wasn’t real cold down here either. “Aunt Sissy—”
    â€œDon’t. Just hush,” she said and held up her hand. “I also brought you a box of stuff that was Mom’s.”
    I looked at her for a moment. Why would she bring me a box of Grandma’s things when she had children of her own to give it to? “What things?” I asked, curious but cautious.
    â€œIt’s just a box of things. Some letters, cards, a few old buttons, a handkerchief or two, some matchbooks. You know, the kind of stuff you’d get out of somebody’s junk drawer,” she explained. “Let me go out to the car and get them.”
    â€œWait,” I said. “Why would you bring them to me?” She could cause some hurt feelings among the other cousins. She just looked at me. That look made me think that maybe she wanted to stir up trouble.
    She escaped through the living room and out to her car. Wendy came back into the kitchen with a bottle of rum ready to make daiquiris. “I hate that woman,” she said about Aunt Sissy. I could have told her that the feeling was mutual but decided not to. She went to my freezer and got out frozen strawberries and the lime juice and went about making the daiquiris. I decided to meet Aunt Sissy on the way in, because I didn’t want her to come back into the kitchen with the stuff and take a chance on Wendy seeing it.
    Rudy smiled at me from his favorite chair as I entered the living room. He and a bunch of my cousins were watching some sport activity. It seems that after he’d had a chance to think about this baby thing, he is actually quite excited about it. Which not only worries me but scares me. I on the other hand, was still wrestling with the idea that I had a baby, a little creature that was going to grow up and scream at me, growing within me at this very moment. It just didn’t seem real. We hadn’t told anybody else. It’s sort of hectic and we thought we’d just announce it at the dinner on Sunday when everybody would be in attendance.
    I met Aunt Sissy at the door. She was carrying two boxes. “Let’s take these upstairs,” I said and took a box from her. She followed me up to my office and the bedroom that Rudy and I shared. Our upstairs used to be just all one attic, but before we bought the house the owners sectioned it off. So the steps were the divider between my office and our bedroom with the bathroom directly in front of the steps. There was no real wall to separate my office from the bedroom.
    I had just redecorated our room in blue gingham. My pinewood floors were the perfect accent against pale blue walls, with dark blue checked border and similar curtains. I set one of the boxes on the bed and Aunt Sissy sat her box in the