A little recap for those who just joined the story. Melody Gibbons, a down on her luck hospice nurse, inherits  a former patient's home and rowboat. Well, make that partially inherits it.  According to the will, she is supposed to share it with her benefactor's absent nephew, Levi.

Melody already dislikes Levi since he never came to visit or even called his Uncle Roy as he struggled with cancer. Didn't even bother to show up at the funeral. The only contact she's had with him is a letter from his lawyer threatening to see her in court.

Today's Tale

Running a restless hand through her hair, Melody sighed deeply. It was Sunday. One of the few times, she got an actual weekend off. Saturday disappeared under errands, laundry and a stint at the animal shelter. The physical activity of bathing and walking the animals made her feel useful. It also undid some of the stress that built up from dealing with mortality every day with her terminal patients. Most were similar to Roy and tried to leave the world with dignity. A few considered her the angel of death and treated her with a mixture of horror and contempt, often cringing when she came near.

That’s where a pet would come in handy. A pet would greet her with enthusiasm after a long day. She even had one in mind. A tan mutt about the size of a beagle, but with the long body of a dachshund, would be the one she’d picked. He was one of the few that came through the dog drop window for owners too cowardly to look employees in the eyes as they deserted their pets. Melody nicknamed the dog Charmer because he stole her heart.

 The pound kept the dog despite his age and lack of bloodlines because she suggested she might take him. It was hard to commit, even to a canine. Maybe she needed to clear her mind with a good row across the lake.

Dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, Melody headed down toward the dock. A man’s silhouette against the morning light drew her eye. The man had ramrod posture. As she drew closer, she admired how his t-shirt stretched across his chest. He turned, probably hearing her footsteps. Their eyes met. Her hand covered her heart as it raced. It couldn’t be, but she recognized those slate-colored eyes.

Melody picked up the letter that had fallen to the floor. The day, which has started only minutes before, felt dismal despite the sunlight flooding the living room. Clutching the letter, she collapsed onto the plastic shrouded plaid couch, and stared at the country road winding past the house. Old Roy believed in getting the most mileage out of everything. The upholstered furniture all wore plastic slipcovers while the tables sported felt pads to protect their surfaces. It wasn’t that the furniture was valuable or new, far from it.

Often she wondered for whom he was preserving his 1950’s furniture. She assumed it was for the missing nephew. Not once did she ever consider it was for her. Still, Roy was a sly one, who often plied her with personal questions about her future prospects and gentleman friends. No doubt, when the man discovered she had none, he felt obligated to make provisions for her. She pulled her legs up under her nightgown to prevent them from sticking to the plastic.

The normal thing would be to strip off the plastic, but something stopped her. Even though she’d lived in the house for over a month, it still didn’t feel like home. She unfolded the letter and reread it again. Her initial anger drained away to be replaced by a sense of lethargy.

The unexpected bounty of the house and boat happened when she most needed it. Her luck tended to run to bill payments lost in the mail that resulted in overdue charges. She never expected to keep the house, that’s why she never removed the plastic. Her left hand worried the plastic as she contemplated where she’d go.  If possession was nine-tenths of the law, then she wasn’t leaving. The high-handed Levi would find out she wasn’t a pushover.

The geese, honking as they flew over ahead, woke her. Melody blinked a few times trying to bring the room into focus. The weak morning sunlight filtered through the blinds. The dark  furniture was oddly familiar, along with the strong scent of antiseptic  cleaner.  She was in Old Roy’s  house. Technically, it was half her house now. Hers and some neglectful nephew  who allowed his uncle to die without even a goodbye.
 
Melody had spent hours listening to her patient reminisce about his nephew. Roy was proud of the man Levi had become. She didn’t know why. Pushing herself out of bed, she headed for the kitchen to make coffee. Roy didn’t have a coffee maker with a programmable timer.  Still, she was glad for the unexpected bounty of Roy’s house and all its furnishings. She didn’t have that much since her roommate Linda left to get married and inadvertently took half of her appliances and furniture with her. At the time, she didn’t feel up to mentioning it.

Being a hospice nurse, she had to continually fight against depression because her patients inevitably died.  Before they died, she witnessed their friends’ and close family visits dry up like a creek during a drought. Linda’s sudden marriage emphasized Melody’s loneliness.

None of them were as bad as  Levi who never showed his face the entire time she cared for his uncle. With the coffee started, she opened the mail she was too tired to look at last night. One  envelope with a lawyer’s address on it caught her attention.  Grabbing  a butter knife, she opened it quickly and scanned the contents. Levi apparently heard of his uncle’s death and was suing her for sole possession of the house and boat. The letter fluttered to the floor as she growled, “I’ll see you in court.”

The wooden rowboat bobbed in the water. Melody kneeled to touch the lacquered sides. Mr. McDaniel enjoyed talking about how he created the boat. At the time, his nephew lived with him, and helped him to sand the lumber. As his hospice nurse, she remembered previous trips where she skimmed the rowboat across the water as her patient sported a wide grin, strapped into his modified seat. Near the end, Mr. Roy McDaniel could no longer sit up on him own, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to have that final trip across the water.

No one came around to see Mr. McDaniel anymore. Even the nephew he raised as his own was absent. Her patient made excuses for the missing boy, telling her he was in the service, far away. Maybe that was true but she doubted it. No reason he couldn’t call or write. He did neither.

For their last ride in the boat, she duct-taped a sand chair to the board seat to give the man the ability to sit up. She used an entire roll of tape to secure it. Cancer had taken the once robust seaman down to barely a hundred pounds. As a hardy female, as Mr. McDaniel referred to her, she had no problem lifting him into the boat. His wheelchair restraints kept him secure in his improvised seat as she rowed.

Old Roy, as she sometimes called him, felt more like family. Apparently, he felt the same way. She looked up at the man standing on the dock behind her, decked out in wingtips and a dark suit. “Are you sure he wanted me to have the house and the rowboat?”

The man consulted his paper while she backhanded a tear away. “It says here the house and the boat are to be shared equally between you and his nephew, Levi.”