We stacked the cabin's contents along one wall in the kitchen.
I dropped Olive's sorry bag of clothes at the last.
It didn't look like much, even for a flaky student and that I wasn't.
Adonie hadn't accepted my plan to toss things in storage and live in the car
until I decided what to do.
"I don't want to live just any place. I hate some places. They're suffocating."
"I couldn't agree more," Adonie replied as if we were having a discussion.
"But living in the car isn't practical."
"Why not? It won't be forever."
"Why waste money on storage if it isn't essential? And it's certainly not
going to be very comfortable in the car. It'll be cramped, not to mention
flat inconvenient. Why put up with it? It could turn cold any day.
Stay in the house with me. You know I'm not likely to interfere with you.
Nor you with me. Which is why I'm suggesting it. I don't want to be disturbed,
either, but why make it more difficult for yourself than it needs to be?
And there's Olive."
I looked at where Olive stood by the old kitchen table balanced on one foot
and staring at us out of her solemn black eyes. "What about Olive?"
"She's a child."
"She certainly is. The car will be a lot bigger for her."
"She ought to have a bath, and hot food and a bed."
I looked from Adonie to Olive and back.
"I'm sure children are different," Adonie added as if she were discussing
an exotic wood and the local possibilities for humidity damage. "They're
growing. That must change everything. What they need."
"I don't know." I glanced around the bare old kitchen. We'd done some
work in here, but it still looked stripped. "It doesn't seem right."
"I can't see why. I've offered, you haven't forced yourself. You haven't
even hinted. If we don't like it we can do something else. But it's getting
late for setting up anything out in the car tonight for you and Olive."
I'm sure she stressed this but maybe it was me. Trying to sleep with
Olive about four inches away was not a thing I liked to think about. Far
worse than Andrew who was trailing around somewhere. Last seen, he
was going upstairs as if he knew exactly where he wanted to be.
"You can sleep on the couch, Olive can take the bed and I'll use the big
chair."
"You're crazy."
Adonie didn't seem surprised at my reaction. "It's practical. I've got to
get myself something to eat. A sandwich. You want a sandwich, Olive?"
Olive nodded.
"She can make her own."
"Tomorrow it'll be time to load up at the store so tonight will be
scavaging."
"I've food of my own for Olive and myself." I turned to rummage through
several cartons.
"Are there things to be refrigerated?"
I nodded, hating to admit it, like the way cheese had of molding was a
fault of mine.
Adonie gestured dramatically, "Put the stuff in then. Plenty of room in
this old crate."
The refigerator was old. So was the wooden table. Both were scratched.
They were left from far back in Cella's time, I suppose and weren't taken
away when the respectable furniture was removed by the heirs.