Kate had been going to visit her aunt on weekends ever since she could remember. This aunt was actually a great-aunt who lived alone despite an advanced age. When she was little, Kate would ride her bike over and eat the sweet custards in various flavors Aunt Martha always had in the fridge. She spent hours studying the various doilies that littered every piece of padded furniture and every little table. Aunt Martha said she would teach Kate how to crochet and she could make herself a hope chest. Now, that was a fascinating concept, but one that never materialized. Her mother said they were from another era. Kate ended up making a bag that could carry shopping and gave it to her mother, who never used it.
When Kate was about 13, Aunt Martha fell and broke her hip. She had a full-time live-in companion for a while, until she regained her mobility. When Kate went to visit, she started doing the vacuuming, washing the dishes, taking out the trash, even helping out with the laundry. The only thing she minded doing was picking up all those doilies to get the dust that accumulated in the little holes. She had begun to see the doilies as a total waste of time and space. She couldn’t believe she had once found them so fascinating.
When Kate turned 19, Aunt Martha began a quite sudden decline and had to move to a nursing home. Kate now had a driving license, so she could still visit her aunt every weekend. Kate’s sister occasionally came along with her. The sister was quite the artistic and dramatic type. When she came along, she usually read poetry to Aunt Martha, who loved the Victorians. Kate thought the stuff was pretty sappy, though she could see that Aunt Martha was thoroughly enjoying it, and she supposed the poetry matched the doilies somehow.
That phase didn’t last long before Aunt Martha died. After the funeral, it turned out that Aunt Martha had left her estate equally to Kate and her sister. Kate felt betrayed since she had spent so much of her life with Aunt Martha, whereas her sister had never spent any time with the old lady. She knew perfectly well that an inheritance was not the reason she had spent time with Aunt Martha, nor was an inheritance payment for services rendered, but it took her a long time to get over what seemed unfair.
About a year later, the lawyer who had handled the settlement of the estate contacted Kate to tell her there was a special bequest to her that had been overlooked until then: Aunt Martha had left all her doilies to Kate.
