“What’s wrong, Mama? You not feeling good?”

“Ray never came back. He was gonna do so many things for me, and cheap, too.”

“Like what things, Mama?”

“He was gonna pave the driveway, make it real pretty, and change the gutter out back that’s rusted bad and got holes, and there’s a limb on that tree over yonder to the side of the house that’s gonna break and crash my roof come a high wind.”

“Nonsense.” June stomped out back, followed by Ida. She shaded her eyes and squinted up at the gutter. “Eddy checked your gutters when he cleaned out all the leaves from the oaks this spring. He never said there was anything wrong with them.”

Ida stood there wringing her hands. “It’s full of holes where the tin’s worn through, and it’s sagging, can’t you see?”

June whipped out her cell phone and tapped her foot, waiting for Eddy to pick up. He was home. She’d just left him there. “Eddy, get over here to Mama’s right away. I think we got us a problem.”

Ida made a resolution. Upsetting as this was, she sure wouldn’t tell them about the money. June would be at her forever, fussing about how she could throw away money when she could have used it to pay bail for Bryan.

June walked the length of the back of the house. She studied the gutter again. “I tell you, Mama, I don’t see no rust, or sag, or holes nowhere, but Eddy’ll get out your ladder and climb up, and he can tell better.”

It struck Ida, then, that Ray Wilson hadn’t used a ladder, just shaded his eyes and looked up. Were his eyes so much better than June’s? He had used the short ladder she kept on the porch for changing lightbulbs when he told her there was a split in the limb of the tree in front. She had believed him and handed over her money like she was a money tree.

Ida considered herself luckier than some women her age who lived alone, many only on Social Security. She had Social Security and her husband’s government pension. He’d worked for the state around and about the prison in Swannanoa, and his life insurance money was safe in a CD at the bank. She had a paid-up house, but even with a paid-up house, costs never stopped. Insurance and taxes kept going up. The government, Ida thought, should pass a law against increasing taxes on the homes of older folks. She’d written a letter to her congressman and told him so. She had gotten a long letter back that went on and on about all he’d done for folks. Well, he sure hadn’t done anything about her taxes or insurance.