Strings Attached

“Where is it, then?” my sister shrilled at me across the living room.

It was the day after Mom’s death, and all of our nerves were a little raw, Brigid’s especially.

“I mean, seriously. What would she have done with $20,000?”

Brigid started pulling up the sofa cushions, sending dust flying from years of neglect by Mom. She pulled open squeaking drawers, pored through Mom’s music books, and lifted up the edge of the carpet.

My brother and I just stood there, still stunned by this sudden unreality. Mom, so cantankerous and so unmotherly, yet adored by her daughters, had collapsed of a heart attack and died after a gambling excursion, and here we were pawing through her house.

“Brig…” I started, wondering if my sister was losing it. But I also knew Brigid needed to move and fret and shriek, or she would just collapse into a caterwauling blob on the floor. Her hysterics were always her self-defense.

“You could help, you know,” Brigid howled at our brother, who was leaning on the piano, Mom’s special treasure, and looking helpless. “You live here!”

Matt reluctantly lifted the piano lid, peered inside, and shook his head.

“I have no clue. She never tells me anything,” he shrugged. “Told me,” he corrected himself.

I was sure that was true. Matt and Mom never got along. Her crankiness was never amusing to him, as it was to us, and his unreliability infuriated her. Yet when he lost his programming job, Mom offered him the bedroom in the basement until he could find work.

That was six years ago, and we all just came to believe that he would never leave. Brig was furious, but I decided it was probably good for Mom to have someone nearby in her old age, even if it was Matt.

Which was maybe overprotective of me. Even with her heart condition, Mom would still get on her riding mower, host the Tuesday book club, and drive out to the Indian casino for a weekend of senior-citizen carousing with her friend Pat.

It was Pat who told us about the $20,000 when she stopped by the house the morning after Mom died. They had spent the previous two days at the casino.

“I thought she was going to have a heart attack when she cashed in her baccarat chips. Twenty thousand dollars!” We were all gathered around Pat in the tiny kitchen, eyes wide. “I didn’t know the heart attack would come when she got home. Oh, your poor mother! You poor kids.”

That’s when Brigid started tearing the house apart. It wasn’t the value of the money so much as it was the fact that it was missing. Pat said Mom insisted on taking her winnings in cash, and the casino made her fill out a bunch of forms before they piled four purple envelopes, each one thick with hundred-dollar bills, in front of her on the counter. Mom, Pat said, was on cloud nine.

Matt and I eventually joined Brigid in the treasure hunt. I took the bedroom – yes, I looked under the mattress – and he ransacked the car and garage. Nothing.

Not that we lacked anything else to do. We all met with the funeral home director after lunch, and I gave him my little black notebook, a special sketchbook where I had scribbled down the outlines of Mom’s life so that he could write an obituary. Later, Brig took over the task of calling family and friends, while I stood blankly in front of Mom’s closet trying to pick out something for her to wear in the open casket. Every outfit I looked at reminded me of some adventure of hers – the blue sweatshirt she always wore camping, the frilly blouse that her last boyfriend had given her, the green sweater she pulled out every St. Patrick’s Day. Through a blur of tears, I finally chose a peach-colored satin dress that I hadn’t seen before. No memories there.

The next day, we went through her will with the lawyer. With a foresight I didn’t know Mom had, the will ordered the house to be put up for sale and her assets split three ways – with Matt’s share going into a trust administered by Brig and me.

“Good on you, Mom,” I thought.

After living rent-free for six years, Matt was going to have to be really, really nice to his sisters or finally get off his butt and make it on his own. He wasn’t going to see his money soon, anyway – I knew it would take a while to settle the estate, sell the house, and set up a trust.

When school let out for the summer the next month, I moved into Mom’s house so that Matt and I could sell her things and get the house ready to go on the market. Finally facing the inevitable, Matt announced one day that he would move out, maybe head for Florida, where the jobs were better and the cost of living cheaper. He seemed relieved when I told him I would front him some money to get situated.

The day the house was listed, I drove him to the train station.

“She never liked me, you know,” he said matter-of-factly. The spirit of Mom hung over us, as it had since the day she died.

“That’s ridiculous,” I felt compelled to assure him. But then Mom’s irascible aura seemed to swirl around my head. “She liked you well enough. She just never trusted you,” I blurted out.

Matt scowled, grabbed his backpack and headed off to the platform. Neither one of us said goodbye.

I stood there for a moment, watching his back until he disappeared up the stairwell. Where did that come from? Mom must be getting to me. I made up my mind to stay only until the first open house. I was suffocating under her.

A retired couple from the city were the first ones to visit for the open house. She loved the outdoor space, but he worried about landscaping costs. She wondered if the tiny kitchen could be enlarged. He asked about the age of the furnace. It didn’t seem to be going well.

“Oh, look, honey,” the woman called from the living room. “A baby grand! A Steinway! Do you mind if I play?”

“Please,” I told her. “And maybe we can work that into a deal. I haven’t gotten around to selling it yet.”

Her eyes brightened as she perched on the bench. But the piano just made a dull thumping when she tried the keys.

We looked at each other. Clearly, something was not right. Mice, I thought in horror as I reached over and lifted the lid.

No. Not mice. Stuck between the wires right in the middle of the piano’s innards were four very purple, very empty envelopes. My mind raced back to an image of my brother raising the piano lid and shaking his head.

“That bastard!” I said aloud.

***

A year after Mom’s death, the house was sold and the estate signed, sealed and settled. Brigid and I hadn’t heard a word from Matt since he got on that train, and we made no effort to find him. One tipsy night at Brigid’s place a couple of weeks ago, Brig and I pricked our fingers and made a blood oath, as if we were 12 years old, never to give Matt a dime, regardless of our oaths as trustees. Somehow, we thought he already knew that would happen.

Before the sale, we had the piano appraised. That nice retired couple who bought the house offered almost $40,000 for it. Brig and I split the money.