Remember that you are dust. Then, she had said the words. Now… now she really felt them.

Tuesday, May 23, 1950

Norman Madsen put down the last of the legal-sized papers on his green felt blotter and looked up. He smiled tentatively across the expanse of his desk at the woman seated in the deep leather chair opposite him. She did not smile back.

“Mrs. Ketchem,” he said, “I’m afraid I have to tell you, as your attorney-”

“You’re not my attorney, young man,” she said. “My attorney is Mr. Niels Madsen. I assume the reason I’m talking with you instead of him is that he’s indisposed.”

Norman propped up his smile by force of will. “I can hardly claim to be the equal of my father”-with the ink still wet on his Juris Doctor, that was certainly the truth-“but I hope I can continue to give you the excellent service you’ve come to expect from Madsen and Madsen.” This was the whopper. Of course, his dad and his uncle wanted to keep every one of their clients, no matter how unprofitable their business or how infrequent their need for legal service. They loved to gas on about the practice during the Great Depression, when they were paid, to hear them tell, exclusively in chickens and hogs. But in the here and now, the senior partners of Madsen and Madsen couldn’t afford to spend their billable hours on the steady stream of dairy farmers needing land titles or old ladies wanting to bequeath their homes to the Society for Indigent Cats. So it was left to the newest addition to the firm to handle the penny-ante clients. Norman’s small office continuously smelled faintly of manure and orange-blossom water. It was not the life he had envisioned back in the stately halls of Cornell University.

“To continue: I’m sorry to say you’ll be unable to deed your late in-law’s property to Millers Kill. As you directed, we approached the board of aldermen quietly about your offer. Your generous offer,” he added, seeing the mulish look on her face. “While they appreciated the idea of”-he glanced down at the letter he was holding-“the Jonathon Ketchem Clinic for the town’s poor, they have to weigh the benefit against the likely detriments, namely, the loss to the town of the tax revenue currently generated by the house, and the cost to the town of maintenance, which, given the property’s age and size, cannot be inconsiderable.”

Mrs. Ketchem folded her arms over her chest. “They certainly taught you well in law school, didn’t they? Never use one word when fifteen will do. You’re telling me the aldermen think taking the old heap off my hands will cost them more than it’s worth.”

He flushed, but held himself to a mild “That’s correct” in response. He reminded himself-as his father and uncle were fond of doing-that the firm had seen a sharp decline in revenues after the Howland Paper Mill closed two years ago. Every client is a valuable client, the old coots would say. Of course, if they would listen to some of his suggestions to lift their Dickensian practice into the atomic age, they might realize more profit.

Mrs. Ketchem was sitting silently, her gaze unfocused and her graying eyebrows bunched together as she plotted God knew what. If he was honest with himself, which he prided himself on, he had to admit she made him uncomfortable. She was decked out like all the other ladies of her age-in an out-of-date floral frock, summer gloves and hat on his desk-and she spoke with the same clipped-off drawl that identified every farm family from the hills around Cossayuharie. But she wasn’t the same. He could always charm a smile out of the crankiest old lady or put a man at ease who had never worn a suit save for one borrowed for his wedding. Not Mrs. Ketchem. Meeting with her was like taking an oral exam from his stone-faced contracts professor. If his professor had been wearing a dress and sensible shoes.

Norman waited. Finally she unfolded her arms and leaned forward. “I want you to go to the board and tell them, along with the Ketchem house, I’ll give them the farm in Cossayuharie. They can either run it as my in-laws did, as tenant property, or sell it outright. It’s a rich farm with a good herd, productive. It’ll generate more than enough money to pay for the roofing and painting and whatnot that the house in town will need year to year.”

“Are you kidding?” he said. He winced as soon as the words tumbled from his mouth. The old bat would never take him seriously if he gawped like a runny-nosed schoolboy. “I mean,” he tried to salvage, “that’s a valuable piece of property. Shouldn’t you be saving it as a nest egg for your, ah, golden years?” Which were right around the corner. She was in her mid-fifties, only a few years older than his own mother, but she looked more like one of his grandmother’s generation: skinny and sharp-boned, with her coarse gray hair twisted into a bun atop her head.

She snorted. “I got enough of a nest egg already. I want that house to go for a clinic. I want for no woman to ever have to go without medical care for her children.”

He pulled the manila folder containing her history with the firm out of a red-well file beside his desk. He flopped it open. “Of course, I understand. And I admire your altruism.” He found the copy of the senior Ketchem’s will, flipped it over to the paragraph outlining the disposition of realty, and read it. He almost smiled in relief as he laid the document on his blotter and turned it so Mrs. Ketchem could see. “Unfortunately, you aren’t able to sell or deed the farm. As you can see, it’s been left equally to you or your heirs and to your brother-in-law or his heirs.”

“I know that.” Her voice left no doubt that she thought him a fool. “David’s got no interest in running a farm. I’ll buy out his half.”

Norman blinked. “You’ll… buy out his half?”

“How long do you think it will take?”

“Gosh.” Norman stalled. He knew the faded neighborhood where Jane Ketchem lived in her modest house; knew her thirteen-year-old car, most likely held together by spit and wire; had seen her at Greuling’s Grocery, carefully counting out coins from a snap purse to pay her grocery bill. “Well, we’d have to get a commercial Realtor out there, and an auctioneer to value the livestock, and another for the personalty-that’s the effects inside the house…” How could he phrase this so as not to wound her pride? “I’m no expert, but I think the farm might easily be worth twenty thousand dollars. Maybe more.”

He waited warily for her face to sag in disappointment or tighten in frustrated anger, but it did neither. Instead, she said in her usual snap-to-it tone, “Very well then. Can I trust you to hire the Realtor and auctioneers? I don’t want to be robbed blind by a bunch of unnecessary fees.”

“Mrs. Ketchem, that means buying out your brother-in-law’s half interest would cost ten thousand dollars. Or more.”

“I can divide twenty by two, Norman Madsen.”

“But-how can you afford that?”

She leaned back into the leather chair, so that her eyes seemed sunk in shadows. “I told you I have a nest egg. I’ve invested well over the years.”

He made one last effort to save her from her own folly. “Even so, if you deplete it to buy out David Ketchem’s share in the farm and then turn around and give it away to the town, you’ll be left with no other income stream but your Social Security. I have to point out that as a single woman-”

“Widow,” she said. Her dark eyes beetled into his. He actually felt a narrow thread of sweat erupt on his upper lip. His father had stressed how important that title was to her. The fattest folder in the redwell contained the records of Madsen and Madsen’s efforts to have the maybe not-so-late but certainly run-off Jonathon Ketchem declared legally dead.