After Pam hung up, I sat at my desk for several minutes.<\/p>\n
The payroll figures on my computer hadn't changed.<\/p>\n
The employees still needed to be paid, and the reports still needed checking.<\/p>\n
But I couldn't concentrate.<\/p>\n
I kept hearing Pam's voice.<\/p>\n
"You went behind my back."<\/p>\n
Maybe I had.<\/p>\n
I had taken over the propane account without speaking to her first.<\/p>\n
But what was I supposed to do?<\/p>\n
Leave Mom in that house and hope the next delivery arrived before the furnace stopped completely?<\/p>\n
I couldn't do that.<\/p>\n
I also couldn't pretend the pink delivery ticket didn't exist.<\/p>\n
That was the part I couldn't get past.<\/p>\n
Two hundred gallons.<\/p>\n
Seven hundred and fifty dollars.<\/p>\n
And an eighty-two-year-old woman sleeping in a winter coat.<\/p>\n
I called Mom that evening.<\/p>\n
She sounded better.<\/p>\n
The furnace was working, and the temperature inside the farmhouse had returned to normal.<\/p>\n
She told me Duane had checked the monitor before leaving.<\/p>\n
I asked whether she had eaten supper.<\/p>\n
She said Pam had brought groceries on Sunday.<\/p>\n
That answer made me pause.<\/p>\n
"Did you see Pam?"<\/p>\n
"Of course. She came by."<\/p>\n
"Did she say anything about me?"<\/p>\n
Mom became quiet.<\/p>\n
Then she answered.<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
I didn't ask again.<\/p>\n
I knew Mom loved both of us.<\/p>\n
I also knew she didn't want to be caught between her daughters.<\/p>\n
So I changed the subject.<\/p>\n
We talked about the weather, her neighbor's dog, and the church ladies preparing for Easter.<\/p>\n
Nothing important.<\/p>\n
Nothing about the money.<\/p>\n
Nothing about the cold.<\/p>\n
When we finished, I sat beside Steve on the couch.<\/p>\n
He had finally returned to his regular schedule after the storm.<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
"How's your mom?"<\/p>\n
"She's warm."<\/p>\n
"Good."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
But I wasn't thinking about the furnace anymore.<\/p>\n
I was thinking about Pam.<\/p>\n
The next few weeks passed without a conversation between us.<\/p>\n
I called Mom every evening.<\/p>\n
Sometimes she answered immediately.<\/p>\n
Other times, she called me back after finishing her television program.<\/p>\n
The automatic propane system worked as promised.<\/p>\n
In February, Duane delivered another load.<\/p>\n
I hadn't requested it.<\/p>\n
The monitor had alerted the cooperative, and they had arranged the visit.<\/p>\n
I received the bill and divided the amount according to the arrangement I had made with Rob and Dean.<\/p>\n
For once, nobody had to guess how much fuel remained.<\/p>\n
That part was working.<\/p>\n
But everything else felt unfinished.<\/p>\n
Mom continued telling me about Pam's Sunday visits.<\/p>\n
She brought groceries.<\/p>\n
She collected prescriptions.<\/p>\n
She took Mom to church.<\/p>\n
Sometimes she stayed for coffee.<\/p>\n
I was glad she continued doing those things.<\/p>\n
I didn't want my decision to take over the account to turn into a reason for Mom to lose the daughter who lived closest.<\/p>\n
One evening in March, Steve found me sitting at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
I had the pink delivery ticket beside my phone.<\/p>\n
I had brought it home from the farm without thinking much about it.<\/p>\n
Now I kept looking at it.<\/p>\n
Steve pulled out a chair.<\/p>\n
"You're still thinking about that receipt?"<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
He studied the paper.<\/p>\n
"Have you called Pam?"<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
"Why not?"<\/p>\n
"She hung up on me."<\/p>\n
He waited.<\/p>\n
I knew he wasn't going to argue.<\/p>\n
That was one thing I appreciated about Steve.<\/p>\n
He usually let me finish before offering an opinion.<\/p>\n
"Maybe she's embarrassed," he said.<\/p>\n
I folded the receipt.<\/p>\n
"She should have told us."<\/p>\n
"Maybe."<\/p>\n
"She knew we were sending money for Mom's propane."<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
"She knew Mom needed heat."<\/p>\n
Steve looked at me.<\/p>\n
"Do you know what happened to the money?"<\/p>\n
I started answering.<\/p>\n
Then stopped.<\/p>\n
I didn't know.<\/p>\n
I knew the delivery had cost approximately $400.<\/p>\n
I knew the three of us had sent $750.<\/p>\n
I knew Mom had been cold.<\/p>\n
But I didn't know where the remaining money had gone.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether Pam had contributed her own share.<\/p>\n
I didn't know what had happened inside her household after Mark's surgery.<\/p>\n
I had built an explanation from the few facts I possessed.<\/p>\n
And I had been treating that explanation as the truth.<\/p>\n
"No," I admitted.<\/p>\n
Steve leaned back.<\/p>\n
"Then perhaps you should find out."<\/p>\n
I didn't like hearing that.<\/p>\n
It made me feel as though he was defending Pam.<\/p>\n
He wasn't.<\/p>\n
He was asking me to be certain before deciding what kind of person my sister had become.<\/p>\n
I looked down at the receipt.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I wondered whether I had been so busy being angry that I had forgotten to ask a simple question.<\/p>\n
What had happened to Pam?<\/p>\n
I still didn't call her.<\/p>\n
I told myself Easter was close enough.<\/p>\n
We always gathered at the farmhouse for Easter.<\/p>\n
It was one of the few traditions our family had never abandoned.<\/p>\n
Even after Dad died, we continued coming together.<\/p>\n
I decided we would talk there.<\/p>\n
All four children.<\/p>\n
Mom included.<\/p>\n
No more telephone conversations that ended before anyone understood anything.<\/p>\n
I wanted the truth.<\/p>\n
I just wasn't prepared for how much of it there would be.<\/p>\n
Source: kaylestore.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n After Pam hung up, I sat at my desk for several minutes. The payroll figures on my computer hadn't changed. The employees still needed to be paid, and the reports … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sharestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10913,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901\/revisions\/10913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nClick here to continue reading: PART 6: When We Returned to the Farm for Easter, the Green Propane Monitor Was Working, but the Family Was Still Waiting for an Answer<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"