Blackbird Fly

Blackbird Fly

Lise McClendon

Copyright ©2009 Lise McClendon

Published by Thalia Press publishing at
Smashwords

Also by Lise McClendon

Sweet and Lowdown

One O'clock Jump

Blue Wolf

Nordic Nights

Painted Truth

The Bluejay Shaman

Blackbird Fly. Copyright Lise McClendon, 2009.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without written consent
of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical
reviews and attributed to this work. This is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to real individuals, situations, or settings is
coincidental.

First published in the United States by Thalia Press,
2009.

Cataloguing Data

McClendon, Lise.

Blackbird Fly/ Lise McClendon — 1st U.S. Edition

1. Americans in France— Fiction, 2. Women — Fiction,
3. France — fiction, 4. Female Attorney — Fiction, 5. Title.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the wonderful people who helped me
with this book, including my American friends in France, Sharon
Tompkins, Tom Jones, Valerie Trevino, Carol Curtis, Robert
Cabrerra, and Katalina Cabrerra. A special thanks and
bisous
to Patricia Zirotti who corrected and never laughed at my French,
and Laurent Zirotti who helped me plan many trips to his home
country and explained the French way effortlessly and elegantly.
And to Arjan and Marije Capelle at the Hotel Edward 1er in
Monpazier who wined and dined and helped fold those humongous maps.
A big thank you to my contacts at the Legal Aid Society in New York
City, Alan Gordon and Marie Mombrun. To Robin Taylor who helped me
hash things out, and to Sherri Cornett, traveler extraordinaire —
when do we leave? To Katy Munger, who thinks big and just gets me.
To Kipp who always has my back and lets me daydream. Thanks for all
the travel, wine tasting, and brainstorming, honey, you're the
best. To Evan, Nick, Abby, Annie, Susie, Natalie, Barbara, Dean,
and my darling mother, Betty.

I appreciate all of you so much.
Merci
beaucoup
.

Dedicated to my father. Miss you, pops.

John Haddaway McClendon

1921 - 2004

BOOK ONE

The Death

He who binds to himself a joy,

Does the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

William Blake

Chapter 1

On the day Harold Strachie died New York City
struggled to slough off the lingering chill of winter and he
struggled with his spare tire. Twenty pounds had crept up on him,
without his consent. He gulped down the usual double-double
espresso to get the juices flowing. The early morning was dark and
echoing, his only company garbage trucks and young people jogging,
their feet slapping the sidewalk, oblivious to middle age.

Getting fit was a bitch. Walking from the train or
subway was the extent of his exercise up until now. The extra
pounds made Harry feel old at 54, someone who had lost control of
his own fate. He refused to let his champagne belly keep him down.
He would be muscular, strong, a master of his universe. Confidence
was everything.

He’d spent the night in the City as he often did when
his deals were soft. For several hours before the markets opened he
would work while the office was quiet, researching trends and
companies, so he was ready to pounce. But he didn’t feel too
cat-like climbing the seven flights of stairs to his office, his
new daily workout. He stopped on each landing to catch his
breath.

In the empty lobby, he fumbled for the light switch
and swayed on his feet, woozy. Cold sweat ran into his collar. He
blinked, hung up his coat, and sat down. If he’d had a picture of
his family on his desk, which he didn’t, he would have picked it
up. His boy — so smart and tough and, yes, awkward at 15, but he’d
grow out of that and be better for it. And his darling girl who
looked so much like him with dark curls and mournful eyes. He
wished he’d stolen into her bedroom this morning and ruffled her
sweet hair.

A horrible squeeze of his chest made him grab his
shirt. He gasped, waiting. As the tightness eased, he saw his
daughter again, ten years from now, in makeup and mini-skirts and
all her innocence lost, and he felt the pain again, harder.

Black spots floated before his eyes. He sat back in
his chair, trying to relax. Christ, this wasn’t good. He shouldn’t
have had that espresso. If this was heartburn he’d be buying
antacids.

The squeezing lessened. He’d get an appointment with
his doctor for later in the week. He could already see the smirk on
the doctor’s face when he told him to stop being such a nervous
nelly. A moment of calm. The office quiet was soothing. He took a
light breath and blew it out.

Harry clicked on his computer. As the reports
streamed in he clicked through prices, checking analysis. The sweat
on his forehead began to dry. Just another day, he thought. Then,
the last, the worst — the pain seized him again, and the black
spots grew and merged into one.

Chapter
2

When something shatters, when whatever you’re
attached to ends, definitely, the moment rises up like it’s been
hanging there for years, a lead balloon waiting to drop with a
heavy thud into your life. All that living leading to this exact
moment in time. Where has fate been hiding? Doesn’t matter. Here it
is. Here it is, by God.

Merle stared at the phone, heavy, institutional
beige. She’d arrived at the Legal Aid offices in Harlem a few
minutes before. She was still wearing her boots. She hadn’t touched
her coffee.

He was dead. Harry. Husband. Deceased.

She felt the air move around her, solemnly, gently,
as if she was a pile of ash a strong breath might blow away.
Outside her office voices filtered in, the chatting of colleagues,
the insistent tone of an angry client evicted from her apartment.
The sounds grounded her, the endless litany of troubles to be
untangled, emotions to be soothed, hands to be held. Just the name
Legal Aid — aid was so basic, so important in this hard world —
made her warm.

Here she was necessary. Here she did good in the
world.

Her little world, so ordered and sane. Her nest,
every twig in place. The selfless lawyer, fighting for the homeless
and disenfranchised. The charity work on her days off, boring or
annoying at times but always fulfilling in the end. Tomorrow there
was another luncheon, a benefit for African orphans organized by
her sister. Francie was so excited about the celebrities, a
baseball player, a talk show host, that she had lined up.

No luncheon now. Merle knew she should make a list of
what tomorrow would look like but the murmur of the office
captivated her, the buzzing like a hive, as if she’d never really
listened before, never felt the ordinary blessing of her colleagues
and their routine.

“
Merle?” One of the law fellows
stood in front of her with a quizzical look on her face.

The receiver was still in Merle’s hand, making a
noise. Laura took the phone and replaced it on the cradle. Merle
swallowed, frowned, and stood up.

“
I have to go.”

“
Oh,” Laura said, fluttering the way
young people did.
When had she started thinking of new graduates
that way?
“Your appointments? Mrs. Elliot is waiting, then — ”
She stopped, seeing Merle’s face. “Sorry. I don’t need to tell you
that.”

“
I’m sure you can handle them, ”
Merle said, putting her coat back on. It was still damp with
morning rain. “I have an emergency. I must go.”

“
Oh,” Laura said again. “Can I
help?”

Not unless you can bring a man back from the
dead.

Of her four sisters, the one she wanted at the
hospital was Annie. It was sad, really, that Stasia was her second
choice because she was so strong and capable. A magazine editor
these days — not the lawyer she’d trained to be but no one blamed
her for that — and damn good at it. An organizer, a do-everything
gal. She and Merle lived close together in Connecticut but they
were so different. Merle and Annie, her oldest sister, shared an
intangible something. In this emergency Merle never thought of
Francie or Elise; they were younger and if she had to say so, a bit
shallow, despite going to Whitman Law like their older sisters.
Someday they would lean on Merle, the middle child. They would need
her like she needed Annie. But Annie lived too far, in western
Pennsylvania. You had to be practical.

Stasia came, promptly, and held Merle until she
didn’t want to be held. Dried her tears, called everyone. She made
the lists that stubbornly jumbled up in Merle’s head. She was so
efficient.

In the end Stasia arranged the funeral, wrote the
obituary, talked to everyone for Merle. Arranged flowers, watered
flowers, threw away flowers. Arranged meals, heated up meals, threw
away meals. And so, when it was time, two weeks later, for the
visit to Harry’s lawyers to hear his will, there was no question
which sister went with Merle.

Deep rugs, old oak, leather-bound tales of mishaps
and bad decisions and the appalling nature of life: The Law Office.
With eyes closed Merle caught the smell of the time crumbling, the
fruitlessness of human endeavor, of — mortality. Well, it was on
her mind.

In the law you could change lives, you could make a
difference. You learned the rules then you bent them. But justice
was a slippery devil. Hard to quantify, impossible to hang on to.
She concentrated on the endless rows of dusty books, not justice,
searching the shelves for the earliest court records. New York
District Court, 1878. Harry’s lawyers, and his father’s before him,
were a very old, very white-shoe firm, not unlike Byrne &
Loveless, firm of her misguided youth.

Harry. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, now that
he was gone. Trying to remember little things, it was hard. She
hadn’t really noticed him recently, besides his dry-cleaning and a
cocktail party or two. She stared at his suits in his closet, lined
up the oxfords he would never wear. He wasn’t in the best of shape,
never had been, with that paunch and double chin. He hadn’t told
her but apparently he had a plan to get healthy by exercising, or
at least climbing stairs.

Genius, that Harry.

She gripped the arms of the chair, trying hard to
picture him the first time they met — the day she made partner at
Byrne & Loveless, at the bar after the party after the
celebration. She tried to remember the feeling of being valued,
loved, feted. All she could remember was barfing in the women’s
room. And Harry taking her home.

When he told the story he was the gallant knight,
swinging the limp princess over his shoulder. She may have knocked
into him coming out of the restroom. Yes, that was it. Almost fell
down and he saved her from cracking her head.

Out of the blue, the question boomed inside her head:
What-what
. What? What?! It was back, like a disease never
quite cured. She hadn’t heard it for weeks, that little voice that
plagued her. These last weeks everybody knew what was what: Harry’s
dead, that’s what.
Shut up.
She looked out the window and
silenced it.

Stasia sighed and looked at her watch. The lawyers
were keeping them waiting. At the funeral Stasia had surprised
everyone by sobbing, loudly. Strange, since she never cared that
much for Harry. She thought he didn’t love Merle enough, and told
her so one famous Christmas in front of a roaring fire before she
knew about the baby on the way. Maybe that’s why she cried at the
funeral.

Merle’s cell phone vibrated in her slacks pocket.
Tristan’s school calling. She went into the hallway. Trouble. The
Headmaster (unbelievably they still called him that) would put the
boy on the bus, if she agreed. She sighed, closed the phone. Back
in the office she shook her head at Stasia:
not now
.

Harry’s ancient lawyer, who he’d called The Geezer,
was shouting in the hallway. The door opened and he shuffled in
with a younger man who introduced himself as Troy Lester, a
partner. The old man, eighty-five minimum, Landon McGuinness the
Third wore neatly-pressed gray flannel almost as ancient as he
was.

His thick glasses perched on a beak no doubt less
prominent when his cheeks had flesh. The younger partner, Lester,
was close to their age but bald on top like the geezer. He was
obviously the old man’s right-hand everything.