"Never mind. Yeah, I recognize the way Mom thinks. That a wife paid her husband to support her and the kids by letting him have sex whenever he wanted it. And then she apologized to God for having sex by having the kids and needing to change diapers for them and such. Going around in a circle. She learned that was how it was supposed to be. That's what they taught her when she was growing up. She never thought she deserved anything from you because, um, she never felt dutiful about you. You, uh, had maybe better ask Bernadette and Denise about that stuff, not me, if you want to find out more. All I know is what I wasn't supposed to overhear."
"So I just set it aside for you." Dennis thought he would ignore the rest of what she had just said, at least for the time being. "When you were getting ready to start college, when you were eighteen, I wanted to give it to you. So you could pick the school you wanted and not have to scrape and scrimp. But Pat got upset about the other girls again."
Noelle folded her hands on the table in front of her and closed her eyes, trying not to clench her fists. The money had been there. She could have gone to a four-year college for a four-year degree. She could have gone to WVU in Morgantown, like Jen Richards. Could have majored in what she was interested in, instead of making the hard calculations about what field would bring her a living wage as soon as possible. But then she would have probably been left up-time like Jen and Mom would have been here with no one, really. It was hard to count Keenan, and Aunt Suzanne had her own family and was busy. So did Denise. Even if Mom and Dennis had gotten back together, there would still have been a couple of years when Mom was alone.
"That's okay," she said. "Don't worry about it. But the others didn't want to go to college, anyway. Maggy's grades weren't good enough, to start with. They could have been, but she just didn't focus, and she was as happy as a clam working at the riding stables. Pauly got married right out of high school. She and Dillon bought a tow truck together and she drove it from his father's garage for Triple-A. Patty just wasn't interested. She made quite a bit of money waiting tables at the lounge, right away—more than a beginning teacher makes. And she liked to party."
"Anyway." Dennis came back to the topic at hand. "The money's there, in your name. If you'll come down to the bank with me one of these days, when we're both in Grantville, I'll have Coleman Walker put your signature on the account instead of mine. I'll take you to talk to Huddy Colburn so you can find out what's coming in from the real estate that's left in more detail. I've just been having him reinvest it in more when enough built up and checking the quarterly reports. I'll give you those. They already have your name on them and I can have him take mine off. And if you want to draw on the part that's in the business, just give me a couple of months' notice. There's more there, really. It's more profitable than drawing interest in the bank. But what's in the bank should be enough to cover just about anything reasonable that you need right away."
"Okay. Uh. Thanks a lot."
"You're welcome." Dennis didn't want to push things with the girl. He was just glad that he had been able to help her out with this.
When Noelle looked at the papers covering the bank account, she thought that there certainly was enough to cover anything she needed right away. Including the safety deposit and three months' advance rent on an apartment of her own. It was more money than she had ever expected to see at one time in her life.
Of course, that hadn't been much. Her financial expectations had been pretty modest.
Grantville
October 1634
"How did it go in Erfurt, Noelle?" Tony asked.
"I got to know Dennis a little better."
"Did you like him?" Denise asked. She put down saucers with fruit cobbler on the coffee table.
"I'm not sure. Juliann used to talk about him some, and his brothers. She said that he was different from Joe. That when storms came down, Dennis was like a tough old tree with deep roots growing into a cliff side. That he'd bend over before the wind and water and then, when the calm came, manage to stand up straight again. With some scars and gouges, the worse for wear, but stand up again and keep going."
"Interesting." Bernadette put down her cobbler. "What about Joe?"
"That he was like a flint boulder. He wouldn't bend in a storm. He'd just sit there and part the waters. Until they eroded the ground out from under him. Then he'd crash down the cliff and break into a thousand fragments." Noelle put down her empty saucer. "Thanks for having me over, but I really do have to go."