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“Sure. You made the cookies and the pie for this one just like you did for yours. It’s no different.”
“I guess you’re right. But then you won’t have a bucket.”
“I’ll think of something else to put in the auction,” Ellen said, knowing that she had pledged to do something for the auction, and she couldn’t go back on her pledge. Well, she could. She could explain what happened. No one was going to hold a gun to her head and make her do it. But she wanted to keep her word. Even when it was hard. Even when she could point to Chalmer as the reason she couldn’t.
“But what would you sell?” Maeve asked, and she looked around. “Your car?”
Ellen laughed. “It’s a piece of junk, and I can’t imagine anyone would want to buy it.” It was twenty-five years old, and while it started every time she turned the key, it wasn’t much to look at. Which was exactly how she liked it. She’d rather save her money than spend it on a fancy car. Plus, it got good gas mileage, and she wasn’t afraid to drive it in the snow, because it didn’t matter whether she ran it into a snowbank or not. It already had a lot of dents in it. One more wasn’t going to make any difference at all.
“You don’t have anything else?” Maeve said, chewing on her lip as they fixed her pink flower beside the blue one that was already on Ellen’s bucket.
“I can auction off my clothes,” Ellen suggested with a little grin.
“You wouldn’t,” Maeve said, laughing.
“You’re right. I’d better not do that. I might not be welcome at church anymore.”
“Church is a hospital for sinners,” Maeve said, the pain and suffering that had been in her voice because of Chalmer almost completely gone as they fixed up Ellen’s bucket and Ellen handed it to her.
“Thank you. I was really looking forward to this. I’ve always wanted to have a bucket to sell. I wonder who will buy it?” That was a question Maeve had been asking all day long, and it made Ellen think that there was someone she wanted to buy it.
Maybe one of the Hansom boys. They were a little older than Maeve, but they definitely would catch the girl’s eye, although they were a little too wild for Ellen to be comfortable with them.
There were some Powers boys, as well as the Calhoun brothers, two different families of them. Whoever Maeve was interested in was anyone’s guess. She was way too young to be dating, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t looking. Ellen hadn’t come right out and asked, and she probably wouldn’t. If Maeve wanted to tell her, she certainly could, and Ellen figured she knew that.
Ellen had always been a confidant to her. Every time she had done something wrong and her parents had disciplined her, she cried on Ellen’s shoulder, talking about how unfair her life was.
Ellen had tried to gently nudge her in the direction of realizing that her parents were only doing it for her good, the way that Ellen sometimes had to discipline her dogs, for their own good and safety. To turn them into perfectly trained herding animals, who were able to do what they were born to do. Without the training, they might want to chase cows, but that’s all they’d do. Just chase them. There would be no rhyme or reason, and they wouldn’t be any good to anyone.
Ellen wasn’t sure whether Maeve had ever truly understood what she had been trying to say, but she supposed she’d keep trying, until Maeve either got it or moved out.
Maeve carried the bucket with a big smile on her face as she slipped her hand into Ellen’s and skipped along beside her as they walked into the community building which had been there for more than a decade. It used to be new, of course, and Ellen still thought of it as new, but a decade had slid by, almost without her recognizing it. She felt like an old lady, because she used to come here as a young girl, about Maeve’s age, always excited to be able to participate in whatever town festival was going on. And now, she was part of it.
It was amazing to her how quickly life went by. And a little sad too. She missed being little, the naivety of youth, and the unbridled enthusiasm she had for everything she did. For some reason, there was a growing sadness inside of her, and she wasn’t sure exactly what caused it.
It was a longing for something, she supposed, but she wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was something that God put in every young person, something that drove them from their comfortable place with their parents and pushed them out into the world, ready to leave their own mark on it.
But she’d think about that some other time, because she loved her town and never wanted to leave, except for that growing discontent inside of her that felt a little bit like wanderlust. Maybe it was just a bit of jealousy because her best friend had been in Brazil for so long and traveled the world, and she barely ever left the town where she grew up.
“We have one lunch bucket for you,” Ellen said as they reached the platform and gave Maeve’s lunch bucket to the lady in charge.
“You’re scheduled for two. Where’s the other one?” she said, checking the clipboard that she held in front of her. Every other town in the United States probably had gone electronic, but not Sweet Water.
Ellen didn’t smile, because she felt bad. “We dropped one. I’m sorry.”
“Well, is there something else you can offer instead?”
“Don’t let her offer you her clothes. She told me she wouldn’t. Her car is a piece of junk too,” Maeve said, with the unfiltered way a child often spoke.
“Thank you for the tips,” Lim said, giving a benevolent smile to Maeve. “I would not allow her to offer me her clothes, and I definitely do not want her car. I’ve seen it. It belongs in a junkyard,” Lim added, looking over her glasses.
Ellen tried not to be offended. She loved her car. It was...dependable and had never let her down. Except for the times that she’d run it into a snowbank herself.
But it started when she wanted it to, it ran well, and it got her where she needed to go, without costing her a lot of money. Plus, with all the places that she took her dogs, she really didn’t want to get a nice car that would just get covered in dog hair.
But she didn’t want to get into an argument with Lim, so she just smiled and held her hands out.
“I wish I could do something. I know I signed up for it.” She didn’t say what had happened. She wasn’t a big believer in offering excuses. Plus, she didn’t want to make it sound like she was complaining about Chalmer. This was a party, not the place to complain about people.
