“Maybe its legal and maybe it aint,” I says. “I'd have to haul you into court to find out one way or the other, wouldn't I, and I ain't got either the time or the money to do it. Besides, it ain't the question what's legal or what ain't that's knocked me for a loop here… it's how you never once thought that someone else might be concerned about what happened to that money. Don't “standard bank practice” ever allow you folks to make a single goddam phone call? I mean, the number's right there on all those forms, and it ain't changed.”
“Mrs St George, I'm very sorry, but-”
“If it'd been the other way around,” I says, “if I'd been the one with a story about how the passbooks was lost and ast for new ones, if I'd been the one who started drawin out what took eleven or twelve years to put in… wouldn't you have called Joe? If the money'd still been here for me to withdraw today, like I came in meanin to do, wouldn't you have called him the minute I stepped out the door, to let him know-just as a courtesy, mind you”-what his wife'd been up to.”
Because I'd expected just that, Andy-that was why I'd picked a day when he was out with the Stargills. I'd expected to go back to the island, collect the kids, and be long gone before Joe come up the driveway with a six-pack in one hand and his dinnerpail in the other.
Pease looked at me n opened his mouth. Then he closed it again and didn't say nothing. He didn't have to. The answer was right there on his face. Accourse he-or someone else from the bank-would have called Joe, and kep on tryin until he finally got him. Why? Because Joe was the man of the house, that's why. And the reason nobody'd bothered to tell me was because I was just his wife. What the hell was I s'posed to know about money, except how to earn some down on my knees scrubbin floors n baseboards n toilet-bowls? If the man of the house decided to draw out all his kids” college money, he must have had a damned good reason, and even if he didn't, it didn't matter, because he was the man of the house, and in charge. His wife was just the little woman, and all she was in charge of was baseboards, toilet-bowls, and chicken dinners on Sunday afternoons.
“If there's a problem, Mrs St George,” Pease was sayin, “I'm very sorry, but-,
“If you say you're sorry one more time, I'll kick your butt up so high you'll look like a hunchback,” I says, but there was no real danger of me doin anything to him. Right about then I didn't feel like I had enough strength to kick a beer-can across the road. “Just tell me one thing and I'll get out of your hair: is the money spent?”
“I would have no way of knowing!” he says in this prissy little shocked voice. You'da thought I'd told him I'd show him mine if he'd show me his.
“This is the bank Joe's done business with his whole life,” I says. “He could have gone down the road to Machias or Columbia Falls and stuck it in one of those banks, but he didn't-he's too dumb and lazy and set in his ways. No, he's either stuck it in a couple of Mason jars and buried it somewhere or put it right back in here. That's what I want to know-if my husband's opened some kind of new account here in the last couple of months. “ Except it felt more like I had to know, Andy. Findin out how he'd fooled me made me feel sick to my stomach, and that was bad, but not knowin if he'd pissed it all away somehow… that was killin me.
“If he's… that's privileged information!” he says, and by then you'da thought I'd told him I'd touch his if he'd touch mine.
“Ayuh,” I says. “Figured it was. I'm askin you to break a rule. I know just lookin at you that you're not a man who does that often; I can see it runs against your grain. But that was my kids” money, Mr Pease, and he lied to get it. You know he did; the proof's right there on your desk blotter. It's a lie that wouldn't have worked if this bank-your bank-had had the common courtesy to make a telephone call.”
He clears his throat and starts, “We are not required-”
“I know you ain't,” I says. I wanted to grab him and shake him, but I saw it wouldn't do no good-not with a man like him. Besides, my mother always said you c'n catch more flies with honey than you ever can with vinegar, and I've found it to be true. “I know that, but think of the grief and heartache you'da saved me with that one call. And if you'd like to make up for some of it-I know you don't have to, but if you'd like to-please tell me if he's opened an account here or if I've got to start diggin holes around my house. Please-I'll never tell. I swear on the name of God I won't.”
