Mason's Daughter (12 page)

She giggles. “I know, but he goes to sleep later.”

I can’t help laughing along with her, until I sober up at the thought of my options. “I wish I
could
find someone to help me with Colton, but who can manufacture a family? Mason’s Crossing isn’t exactly teeming with eligible men over the age of thirty-five.”

“Or any age. What’s Brett like?”

“Quite nice and a real gentleman, but not very exciting.”

“Maybe dull is what Colton and you need for a change.” She shakes her head, then looks up at the ceiling. “There’s Mike.”

I squint at her. “Mike who?’

“Are you blind or just stupid? Maybe both? Don’t you realize Mike Avery has been in love with you for years?”

“You’re exaggerating. He’s very friendly and provided a lot of help, that’s all. Only because someone else asked him to.”

“He’d have stepped up to your plate whether Nate Wallace prodded him or not.”

I stare at her. “How did you find out–”

“Everyone’s known it.” Judith shrugs. “Except you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I figured you’d put a stop to it, but frankly I couldn’t see the harm. Besides, what your father does with his hard-earned bazillions is his business. Mike’s very generous, too, but in other ways.”

“Colton doesn’t seem to like him, remember?”

“You’re the heiress-with-the-mostess in five counties. At least all Mike wants to get his hands on is you.”

I shake my head. “You’re seriously delusional.”

Her merriment proves contagious and I forget my anxiety until they leave. My spirits take a deeper plunge, and I almost wish they hadn’t come, or that she hadn’t mentioned Mike’s crush on me. Our little moment of unguarded passion shouldn’t be enough to encourage him and we could probably continue our friendship without complications.

Something Judith said begins to fester, like a splinter under the skin. What else would there be for a man to get his hands on except me? Every woman wants to think of herself as a prize catch. Minus a huge fortune plus debts mounting up, I will make a tenuous partner.

EACH TICK OF THE CLOCK
winds my gut tighter. By noon, I decide to take Colton back to Angelique’s. We find her resting on the terrace. “Help has arrived.” I point to my son.

Her eyelids flutter, then open as she lets out a long sigh. “Good. I’m feeling listless today. Barely enough energy for a catnap.”

“Let Colton do all the work.” I give him a wry smile.

“Good luck with your quest for proof.” Angelique shifts her weight and lets one arm dangle from the chaise. “Tell Nate I said hello.”

“You can tell him yourself, can’t you? Everyone but me seems to be in touch with him.”

Colton narrows his eyes and glares at me, heaving a snort as he walks away.

I recognize contempt when I hear it. I follow him. “What’s wrong?”

Silence.

“Is there something you want to say?”

He whirls around to face me and spits out his words. “You can’t stop screwing things up. Everyone hates what you’re doing. You don’t even have a decent relationship with your own father.”

His stormy words feel like a door slammed against my face, and I can’t let him get away with it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No one believes anything you say. You’re full of shit.”

Lunging toward him, I draw back my hand, palm open. He doesn’t cower, but stands waiting, as if he wants me to slap him. I let my hand drop and turn to leave. Another time, another year, his disrespect will rain punishment on him, but I figure he’ll change his mind if he ever meets Nate Wallace.

WITH JACK’S APPOINTMENT BOOK
in hand, I arrive at the hospital early to seize the advantage and determine what Big Jack’s stamina will allow. Muted male and female voices come from his room, and I hesitate. So much for early. After a moment, I knock and push the door open. “Big Jack?”

Harlene stands next to the bed, leaning over Big Jack, a little too close to suit me. They glance up as I enter, and she snatches a pen and a few papers from his meal cart. Someone–Harlene?–had placed the tray on the floor, his lunch half-eaten.

“Hello.” I give her a mirthless smile. “Having a hard time getting him to hold a pen?”

“Sally can sign ‘em.” Big Jack flops his head back on the pillow. “My goddamn fingers won’t close.”

“Not with a right arm broken in at least two places.” I brush past Harlene and fluff his pillow. “Where’s the comb I brought you? Your hair needs grooming.” Winning a turf war against Harlene will give my day a turn for the better.

Channeling Saint Trixie, I fuss over my father-in-law, a weird maiden voyage for both of us. “There, that’s better.” I turn to face her. “Now, what can I do for you, Harlene? Big Jack says you need my signature on . . . what?”

“Inventory records and payments. I have accounted for every item delivered myself, since I’m the only one in the office these days.”

“You’re one of the special people Big Jack trusts to hold down the fort.” I hold out my hand for the pen and papers. “This will just take me a minute, then you can be on your busy way.”

She exchanges lingering looks with Big Jack and takes her sweet time about offering me the documents, as if they are her children leaving for summer camp for the first time. I pretend to double-check her math and then sign each one at the bottom, along with the corresponding payment draft. Harlene thanks me and departs, trailing the scent of ‘Jungle Gardenia’.

“Let’s get some fresh air in here,” I fan the room with the door. “Company is coming soon and we want to–”

Big Jack groans. “Where is Mike Avery? Let’s get this over with. I wish I hadn’t . . .”

“You’d prefer people not see you in your condition, right?” I pick up the tray from the floor and set it on the cart. “Frankly, you don’t look so bad. You’re on the mend.”

“After what Nate Wallace stole, I don’t want that bastard anywhere near me.”

“I know exactly how you feel, but I saw the agreement.” I scoot the cart across the room and swivel his wheelchair toward his bed. “It was a legitimate sale.”

“I’m not talking about the business. I meant Weesie!”

I freeze, as the wheelchair escapes from my grasp and bumps the bed frame.

Louisa Mason Cobb Wallace. No one had ever been permitted to call my mother by her nickname except people she loved deeply. Her parents. My father.

Big Jack sits up and swings his legs one by one over the side of the bed. “Help me here, will you? Get my pants out of the closet.”

Sliding khaki pants up over my father-in-law’s knobby knees affords me another first. He seems too preoccupied to be embarrassed, and I wonder if, in his absentmindedness, he has mistaken me for someone else.

“I’d rather walk,” he growls.

“Of course you would. Think you can manage it?”

“Get my shoes.”

“It looks like all you have here is slippers.” I hope he doesn’t take my answer as argument.

He slides one foot to the floor, as if testing the water, and changes his mind. After setting the wheel locks, I steady him as he rises and shifts his weight to the seat.

I try to see him through other eyes, as a younger man. Big Jack had been in love with my mother? Did Saint Trixie or my father know? Before I can get any words out, someone taps on the door.

I stare at the door, waiting for it to open. “Come in,” I call.

Nothing.

Louder. “Come in.”

The door swings toward me and I hold my breath.

The figure of Mike Avery consumes almost the entire frame. “Ready? We’re meeting in the conference room down the corridor.”

In the hallway behind him, a commotion of male voices catches my attention. As I strain to peer over his shoulder, Mike steps to one side. My father’s head inclines toward Brett Kennedy. When he turns forward, our eyes lock.

I expect to be zapped by electric current, but nothing happens. Neither of us blinks. I feel no magnetic power, no pull of attraction. Nothing until I detect a white hot ball of fire where my heart should be.

Oh, Mother, what have I gotten myself into?

CHAPTER TWELVE

My father stands against the wall next to Brett Kennedy in the hospital hallway. With his black wool topcoat draped over his arm, he makes no move to shake my hand. “Hello, Sally. It’s been a long time.”

A lifetime. Mine, a life I had to make for myself, settling for a different family instead of the one I was born into. Crumbs, not the feast it should have been. A mountain of losses, a pile of regrets, a carefree youth stolen and replaced by responsibilities and longing. We had mutually separated, and yet somehow he again finds a way to manipulate my life.

Feeling choked, I realize I had fooled myself. Indifference had only masked the anger, not erased it. I study his face, searching for signs of aging. His skin lies smooth across his cheekbones, his forehead unfurrowed. Didn’t pain and loss have any effect on his appearance, or had his own indifference kept him youthful? Squinting, I nod.

“Excuse me,” says Mike’s voice behind me.

I move to one side of the doorway.

Mike wheels Big Jack toward the door. “Everyone, follow me to the conference room.” He leads us down the hall, my father immediately behind them, while Brett and I bring up the rear.

It’s not as if I expect great balls of fire to come shooting toward me, but the atmosphere between the two older men is charged. There can’t be that much distrust and animosity without some level of combustion. Nate stays behind Mike and the wheelchair, out of Big Jack’s line of sight. Big Jack faces forward, struggling to sit up straight.

Mike thanks everyone for coming as he tucks Big Jack under a corner of the table, his back to the window. “Let’s keep this friendly and remember”–he glances at me–“it’s strictly informal.” He takes a notepad from his pocket and clicks his pen. “Be prepared to talk about when you spoke to Jack during that week and what you discussed. Sally might have questions for you.”

In turn, I study each face. These three men had all been involved in my husband’s attempt to start a new venture. One would have quashed it completely, the second couldn’t resist the temptation to ride along for profit, and the third had pulled all the strings. I wish I felt anything but pissed off at each of them for the part they played in thwarting Jack’s life. And his future.

Brett waits to see where the rest of us choose to sit. My father moves to the far end of the table, opposite Mike, as if they are partners. I walk to a chair across from Big Jack and lay my husband’s appointment book on the table. Brett follows me and pulls out my chair before he seats himself next to me. Maybe Brett intends to be a buffer between my father and me, the way he stepped in between Big Jack and Nate when he brokered the sale.

With a nod at me, Mike picks up the appointment book and fans the pages. He asks each of us to match dates and notations with conversations, offers, signatures, and meetings. A whole week, the last of Jack’s life, unfolds before me with no surprises. Doesn’t anyone know what really happened?

Clicking his pen, Mike flips to the next page of his notepad. “Now, I want each of you to think back about your talks with Jack. Anything lead you to believe he was upset or depressed?”

I try to remember even one thing Jack and I discussed. Arguments, money worries, what was for dinner. Nothing comes to mind. The bastard kept his plans well hidden from me.

Brett wags his forefinger. “Not when we first spoke. Later Jack admitted he and his father had had a serious disagreement. Very contentious.” He stares at his hands, and then looks up at Nate. “It’s one of the reasons I turned him down.”

“Big Jack, you have anything to add?” Mike fixes his gaze on my father-in-law, while I wonder what he can possibly say in his own defense.

“We argued. That’s all.” Big Jack spews the words out, like the snap of a wet towel.

“What about?” I’m not letting him off the hook that easy.

“He wanted to spend too much on another of his cockeyed schemes. I wouldn’t go for it.”

“Is that when he started contacting other people?” I want to make him squirm and don’t care if it happens in front of my father. “As potential partners?”

“I told him he had to give me back the money he took.”

“You mean, the money you gave him?”

“I didn’t give him any money. On his last day at work, he took $18,000 from the office safe. I told him he’d have to pay it back.”

I sink back in my chair. Is this the money Colton was talking about the other day, when I didn’t believe him? Without grasping all the implications of Jack’s actions, I can see his behavior those last days as desperate. But desperate enough to steal from his father? If Colton knew about it, no wonder he didn’t want me to dig all this up. He’s been fighting me to protect Jack.

“Nate, it appears you might have been the last one to speak to Jack.” Mike leans back in his chair and tugs at his belt buckle. “What was your impression of Jack’s reaction to the news you’d bought the whole enchilada?”

Jack’s David to my father’s Goliath, maybe? Except Goliath would win this one. I am disgusted just hearing about it.

My father places his hands carefully on the edge of the table as if he’s hiding the cards he’d just been dealt. “Disbelief at first. He thought he’d be out of a job the next day.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I offered him his same job at a slightly higher salary, with a chance for advancement. I planned to make him area manager in the event of improvement and expansion.” Nate throws a quick look in my direction. “He knew there’d be hurdles, but he seemed pleased.”

My father’s voice reveals his unemotional, matter-of-fact demeanor, a practiced response to every event, whether crisis or routine. He used the identical tone when he informed me my mother was all packed for a visit to the sanitarium. I don’t cry this time either.

We must have been getting ready to take a trip somewhere because somebody’s luggage waited in the front entryway. No one told me where we were going, but I supposed Mrs. Gussmann had already instructed one of the upstairs maids to pack for me. I climbed the stairs to my room, to be sure my doll Esmeralda came along. Three years ago Mother’s cousin, Audrey Cromwell, ordered it for Christmas from a doll maker who created it to look like me. Esmeralda and I also had seven matching outfits. Despite what Clyde said, nine wasn’t too old to be playing with dolls.

My room looked just as I left it this morning, clean and everything put away. I wondered where my suitcases were. Maybe someone carried them to the trunk of the car already.

I tucked Esmeralda under my arm and wandered down the hall to Mother’s suite. Grunts and groans came from beyond her bedroom. I tiptoed toward her dressing room and peeked in. She straddled a bench, pulling on a knob to her highboy. The bottom drawer wouldn’t open, and she used language that would earn me a spanking. When she noticed me, she asked me to bring her a hammer. She needed lingerie for the trip.

I was not allowed to give Mother any tools, nor was anyone else, but I went downstairs anyway in search of someone to help. To my surprise, our pilot Danny waited in the entry hall.

“Hello, missy.” He doffed his cap. “Coming for another ride with me soon?”

“Of course.” I tried not to make a face at him, since I hated that nickname. The Negro servants called me Miss Sally, but everyone else just used my name. “Can you please come help me?” All the same, I thought he was very cute, with broad shoulders and close-cropped blond hair. He won some medals in the last war and was very proud of them. Mrs. Gussmann once said he acted like he was the Lord’s gift to women, but I didn’t know what she meant by that.

I took him upstairs to my mother’s dressing room. His eyes widened when he saw my mother in her pale pink dressing gown, barefooted and with her blonde hair hanging down.

She asked him to get the drawer unstuck and he moved the bench out of the way. She and I stepped back while he braced his foot against the front of the dresser, next to the stubborn drawer. Standing on one leg, he gave a mighty pull, once, twice, and the drawer popped open. He flew backwards, dragging the drawer with him and scattering Mother’s underwear all over the floor. Danny flopped on his back and a pair of blue lace panties landed on his face.

Mother shrieked with laughter, holding her tummy and leaning against the wall. I started to giggle, until the figure of my father blocked the light in the doorway.

“What is going on here?’ he barked.

Like it was a giant leech, Danny snatched the underpants from his face and turned sickly white. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” he gasped. “Mr. Wallace, I swear I was just helping your missus get a drawer unstuck.” He jumped to his feet. “I was downstairs when your daughter came to get me.”

I felt sorry for our pilot. Daddy shouldn’t have been mad at him, because the troublesome drawer wasn’t his fault. Daddy glanced at me, and I nodded, but he glared at Mother. Then he turned to Danny. “Your only concern here is to take the luggage to the airstrip and stow it in the plane. Wait for me on the front porch.”

Danny raced out of the room and I edged toward the door. I didn’t want to witness my parents arguing. It would make for a bad beginning to our trip together.

My father picked up a white bra and tossed it at my mother. “Please get your clothes on. We’re leaving in ten minutes.” He talked through clenched teeth, but his manner was calm.

She shouted at him that she wouldn’t go and didn’t need any check-up at the clinic in Baltimore.

I put my fingers in my ears, but I could still hear her.

“You want the doctor to come here again and give you another treatment?” Daddy spoke softer than she did, the kind of tone that perked up everyone’s ears because they didn’t want to miss a syllable.

He might as well have thrown a blanket over her. She rubbed her wrists and frowned, as if she was trying to remember where she left her gold cuff bracelets. Her voice grew quieter, like she was telling a secret, as she promised to get dressed and meet him in the entry hall.

Daddy turned to leave and stopped when he saw me. “Oh?” He glanced at Mother, uncertainty on his face. “How long have you been standing there, Sally?”

He didn’t wait for my answer, as he left the room in two quick strides.

Mother dropped to the floor and shoveled her lingerie back into the drawer. I knelt to help her, but she told me never mind. Scrambling to her feet, she sent me out so she could change into a traveling suit.

I went back downstairs to the entry. Daddy must have stepped outside. I checked the ID tags on the only two bags remaining. They belonged to Mother. Danny probably stowed mine already.

The front door swung open, and Danny came in to gather up the two bags. He must have been still embarrassed, because he didn’t look at me.

“May I come sit beside you during the flight for a little while?” I asked. “I like to watch the instruments.”

He looked puzzled. “I didn’t think you were coming on this jaunt.” His hands were too full for him to close the front door after he took the bags outside.

His words pierced my heart like icicles. Why couldn’t I go along on the trip? It wasn’t fair to leave me behind.

In a panic, I looked to the left and right. Daddy wasn’t in either room. A door closed upstairs. The grandfather clock’s first chime startled me, and I ran to my father’s office. He talked quietly into the phone and snapped his briefcase shut at the same time. When he hung up, he stared at me.

As if he could read my thoughts, he said, “Not this trip. You’re staying home.” His voice was calm, as if he had just given Mrs. Gussmann his order for dinner.

Tears pricked my eyes and I blinked several times to make them quit. “But I don’t want to get left here. Mother needs me to go with her.”

He hefted his leather case off his desk.

I fought back the sobs and swallowed hard. “How soon will she be home?”

“I’ll be back in a few days.” He walked out, leaving me to gaze at the portrait of Mother hanging over the mantel. It was painted when she was young and beautiful and healthy.

While I still stared at her portrait, the front door closed.

School and Mrs. Gussmann kept me busy, so several days passed before I realized how long they had been gone. By the dinner hour of the third day, I was excited to learn the plane had landed at Daddy’s airstrip. Downstairs, I waited for the sound of his car in the driveway. I wanted to show Mother my book report and what I’d been drawing while she was away. Daddy came in the house alone.

I stood on my tiptoes, but couldn’t see over his shoulder. “Where’s Mother?”

He sighed and placed his briefcase on the table in the entryway. “She has to stay at the hospital.”

“For how long?”

Daddy rubbed his chin, his fingers covering his mouth. “For a long time.”

When he said she was sick and the doctors told him a cure was impossible, I felt like I had stepped into a flowing stream and the water rushed by faster than I realized. I was about to lose my balance and get swept away, taken far from the shore I have always known.