The Legacy of Eden by Nelle Davy Page B

really unclear. Piper never really spoke of it, nor did my grandparents. Whenever the subject was raised with my grandmother all she would say was that the old house was falling apart and needed so many repairs that it made sense to rebuild a new one entirely. Piper would snort if she was in the room and draw her lips together in silent disapproval. My grandmother would watch her as her face would draw to a close, until finally she would snap and say, “Piper, are you sucking on a lemon or something?”
    Piper would look up, her features twitching in surprise. “I don’t know what you mean, Lavinia, my tooth is giving me trouble, that’s all,” she would respond, and then she would go on with either her reading or her sewing, unaffected by the glare of hatred my grandmother focused on her from the other side of the room.
    How my grandmother managed to secure the approval of my grandfather to rebuild the house, when she was already six months pregnant and he himself was just getting re-accustomed to the farm and all its responsibilities, remains a mystery. What is clear is that she persuaded my grandfather to use most of the money Walter had left him to do it. It shows just how much sway she once had over him.
    They moved into Leo’s old place while the house was being rebuilt and, as Lavinia made plans and nested, Piper took over the aiding of my grandfather in building up the farm. That’s one thing I’ll say for him, something which Piper was always grateful for and which may have just saved her: he gave his sister a far greater share in the running of things than Leo ever would have. She managed the accounts and the money, while he went about the practicalities of the farm.
    But because she managed the accounts, she began to see how much my grandmother was spending. On more than one occasion when she would see architectural blueprints sprawled on the kitchen floor or swatches and materials draped over the sides of chairs she would tut, she would mutter and she would ask herself and the air around her when it would all end.
    “Cal?” she said once to him as he sat at the edge of the kitchen counter, tearing a piece of beef with his teeth as he scrutinized the paper. “Do you know how much your wife is spending? Because I don’t think she does.”
    “Leave her be, Piper,” said Cal between mouthfuls. “She never had something of her own like this—she’s just trying to make us a home.”
    “Well, does she have to bankrupt us to do it?” she asked angrily and stepped forward with a host of receipts in her fist. Cal batted her away with his free hand as she approached him.
    “Daddy’s money is running through her fingers like water, Cal.”
    “I’ll make it back.”
    “You’d better hope you do,” said Piper as she angrily peered at her brother. “Why don’t you take this seriously?”
    And he had looked at her wearily. “Because you do too much.”
    So Piper stayed up each night, balancing books and ledgers, holding her head in her hands as she saw the outgoings of her sister-in-law. As she passed the place where she had once lived torn down to form the tall pine erections of a house she did not recognize, but that would now be her home, she saw numbers pouring from it in a haze that made her stay awake at night and worry.
    One night when she was staying up late, a mess of ledgers across her table, she heard her brother pass by her bedroom and called out to him. He peered around the corner of the door.
    “Why you sitting in the dark for?” he asked.
    “Cal, sit down,” she said.
    He perched with a frown at the foot of her bed.
    “Look at this,” she said and handed him a ledger. His eyes scurried across it and the blood began to drain from his face.
    “Exactly.”
    She waited for a moment, savoring his uncertainty, his fear. Serve him right, she thought.
    “Piper…” he began, his mouth a perfect O .
    “I don’t want to hear it, Cal—it is what it is,” she said, and snatched the