CHAPTER 14
OPPORTUNITY
In the morning, Lillian thought about her idea as she examined a bright yellow button nestled in her palm.
Patricia peered at the button too. ‘You know, Madame Claudette often paid Mama with gold picked straight from the miners’ pans.’
They were sorting through an upended jar together at the table, trying to find a match for one Peter had accidentally torn from his shirt. He’d been climbing up the balustrade on the front porch.
Lillian shuddered. ‘I don’t want to think about it. Can we please change the subject?’
Madame Claudette hadn’t been the woman’s real name; Lillian and Patricia knew that. Hell, the whole of Gympie knew that. How could it be when the woman had the acquired nasal drawl of a second-generation colonist? Madame Claudette thought such a pseudo
