An Inheritance

Chapter 12

The small bedroom was trying to draw Lauren in, reminder her of all the letters still left to read.  But she held fast to her motto: work first, then letters. 

She groaned as she looked at all of the boxes lined up in front of the bookcases.  Take one at a time and I’ll be through it all before I know it.  True to her resolve, she dragged the first box over to the sofa and opened the lid. 

The first box, and subsequent boxes, contained receipts, bills and payments all bundled up by year with a ledger attached.  Browsing through the ledgers, Lauren saw that each item in the bundle had been carefully itemized.  Her grandmother kept meticulous records of everything she had bought and everything she had used.  These boxes held over sixty years worth of her grandmother’s day-to-day life, and although some of it was fascinating to go over, most of it was just mundane unimportant items.

Lauren kept with her system of sorting by started three piles.  The first pile would include all of the ledgers and official looking documents, along with any odd or questionable receipts which she would keep.  The second would contain everything that was within the past ten years and also retained.  The final pile would hold everything she felt she could safely shred.

Just as she closed the lid on the last box, the phone ran.  For a moment Lauren was puzzled and looked around.  She then remembered the antique looking phone.

“Hello?”

The caller on the other end was hesitant.  “Is this Lauren Labeaux?”

“Yes, it is.”

The caller gave a little sigh of relief and her voice perked up.  “I’m Sarah, Sarah Young.  I was a friend of your grandmother’s”

“Oh, yes.  I talked to Pastor Paul and he told me what a good friend you were.”

“He’s a good man, our pastor.  But I was wondering if you might have some time for me.  I know your grandmother would have wanted us to meet.  She talked about you a lot.”

“Really?  Well … sure.  In fact, if you’d like to come for lunch, I’d love to meet you.”

“Oh, I don’t want to be a bother … “.

“No bother at all.  I was just going to fix a large salad and I have some store-bought dough that I can put in the oven to make some bread.  I’d really like it if you’d stop by.  Oh, wait … can you get here … I mean … would you like me to pick you up?”  Lauren was suddenly hesitant, although she knew Sarah had been here in the past, she didn’t know Sarah’s physical limitations or age.  She didn’t want to insult her by insinuating she thought she was infirmed, but didn’t want to put a burden on her either.

Sarah laughed at the other end.  “No, it would be no problem for me to drive over.  What time would you like me to come?”

Lauren told her 12:30 and they hung up.

Lauren went back to clean up the sorted piles she had amassed, moving the different piles into the smaller bedroom.  Here she would shred the unnecessary papers and find a place to put the ones she’d keep.  She didn’t want to continue storing everything in boxes in front of the book shelves.

She cleaned up a bit, then went into the kitchen to get the lunch started.  She took out the bread dough and put in the oven.  The stove was old, and it had crossed Lauren’s mind that maybe the oven wouldn’t work properly, but it had heated up fine, much to her relief.  

Lauren went about fixing a large salad, adding a variety of the herbs she had clipped earlier.  She then made a light honey mustard dressing, one that her mother had made many times.  Lemons had been on sale at the grocery, so she had bought plenty to make fresh lemonade; another favorite of her mother’s.