Thank you for all the wonderful reviews and the many expressions of being missed. Maybe this challenge has jumped started the creative juices. My daughter graduated from high school in May and shortly be starting school at the Vet Tech Institute. We had a fire last year and had to have a whole kitchen replaced. For a long time I was cooking with a toaster, toaster oven, small microwave, and crock pot. It was interesting and I appreciate my new kitchen so much. Thanks again, Lee Anne
Frank's POV:
Helen questioned me where I was taking the boxes from the attic which had glassware and dishes belonging to my mother.
"To Stephanie for her new house."
"What house?"
"I sold them my parent's property and Ranger built her a house. These are going back into the corner china cabinet they salvaged."
"You sold it! And never said a word! You have another daughter who could use some of the profits for her family and when were you going to share them with me?"
I put the box down and reached into my pocket for a crumbled dollar which I slapped into Helen's hand. "Split that with your precious Valerie. I sold it to Ranger for a dollar."
Those boxes went into my car. I marched back in past a fuming Helen, up the stairs, packed my clothes, and drove off to my daughter's new house.
Ranger's POV:
The first evening in our new home, Stephanie washed and I dried each piece of white milk glass her father brought. His eyes glistened as she carefully arranged the pieces of her Grandmother's collection back in their original spot. We were both very excited the house was finally ready to move it. I believe Oriana, named after Frank's mother, was conceived that night. Nine months later she came into this world with a loud, healthy scream. Frank was tickled with his mother's namesake and Lucas Frank joined our family three years later.
We settled quite well into our house of old and new. Stephanie, Oriana, Lucas, and I were happy along with our permanent tenants of Frank and Edna across our 'bridge to someday'.
P. S:
It was foresight I think when Anthony designed the four car garage. There was a breezeway leading from the house to it on one side and the other were two stacked one-bedroom apartments. One for Frank to hang out when he wanted and the other for my parents when they visited from Newark. Frank asked the evening he brought his mother's milk glass dishware if he could stay until he found a more permanent place. He's in the upper apartment and for his room and board cuts the grass in nice weather and clears the snow in bad. He actually started a small lawn care service with the local neighbors as clients with his new John Deere lawn tractor. He's happy riding around on it and playing with his grandchildren. He's been dating a widow whose grass he cuts.
A few nights after Frank moved out of the 'Burg', Helen Plum showed up at the gate I installed across the bridge. When she could not get in after the shock she received, she tried crossing the small stream at different points only to be zapped a few times. I'm a security expert, did she not think I would protect my property with invisible fencing. My men removed her frazzled self after I warned her not to come back.
Well, she took to spending much of her time at church for prayers and spiritual counseling. Too much, because St. Joseph's Church had to get a restraining order against her when she showed up at the parish door at midnight, drunk, wearing a raincoat, slippers, and flashed the priests living there. One was in his eighties and had a minor stroke from the incident. She was asked not too politely to leave the congregation. A picture of the event was posted on Edna's Facebook page after she called her daughter a sacrilegious Jezebel with knobby knees and sagging breasts. I wonder where she got that from. Even Edna didn't go after priests she said.
Stephanie received a call from Edna the next day. Big Blue was packed and wouldn't start. She wasn't staying in a house with Harlot Helen. My pregnant wife and I rush over with the Merry Men. Big Blue needed gas and Edna's been occupying the downstairs apartment ever since. She is an adventure, but she loves Stephanie. Edna has taught my wife how to cook and helped with her great-grandchildren. I've come home to find them making apple butter and canning jelly in a disaster of a kitchen.
Frank filed for divorce after the flashing incident and Helen attempted to contest at every corner until I suggested rather firmly she take the $50,000 I was offering her plus splitting the money from the sale of the house. She signed the papers moving out of Trenton since she was the laughing stock of the churches. Valerie barely associated with her after that and Angie Morelli wouldn't return her calls.
Helen landed in Hoboken and via Valerie was working for a dry cleaning company. She had her perfect job, ironing all day, until Frank received a call from the Medical Examiner one afternoon. From his department's investigation piecing together the events and facts, Helen was using an electric mop to clean the floor at the end of the day when she was shocked from an exposed wire on the electrical cord. She was the last one there and was to lock up before leaving. The jolt was enough to knock her unconscious falling into the open industrial clothes press which was off. The heavy top came down on top of her comatose form and she suffocated in the capsule under the weight. The late shift discovered her lifeless body in the machine. The woman who ironed everything was done in by a big iron. Fate can have a sick sense of humor at times.
THE END.