The Line That Binds Series Box Set (2 page)

“Are you ready?” I asked Pop, stepping beside him on the slate steps outside Janine’s house. More people were arriving, tramping through the lawn and shuffling past us to the door. As expected, I recognized some as employees from years ago.

“As I’ll ever be,” he replied when we stepped inside.

The house was dark and empty. Not in a physical sense. There was plenty of crap in this place: depressing paintings on the walls, coat racks and tables cluttering the hallways, and pieces of antique junk stacked on any flat surface available. Everything displayed a thick layer of dust due to the housekeeper’s recent neglect. Nope, it wasn’t physical. The dark emptiness was all about feeling. A void of existence. It was the cold, hard truth about the last years of Janine’s life, and her mind. It was sad to think about really, living in the dark with nothing to hold on to, no memories to cling to in the end. People say dying in your sleep is the most peaceful way to go. That’s the way she went, though I know it wasn’t peaceful. I doubted anyone would want to go the way she had, whether a normal sleep, Morphine induced, or even a coma. That sleepy peace couldn’t have applied to her because her mind was never at ease. She was lost and couldn’t remember any of it. Beginning, middle, or end. No good, no bad. Just confused emptiness.

I straightened my tie as we walked into Janine’s grand office. Actually, it was Pop’s tie, my grandfather. He’d lent it to me for the funeral last month. I’d also bought a button-down shirt and pants specifically for the occasion since I hadn’t been to a funeral in close to three years and had outgrown everything I’d worn as a skinny freshman. Of course, there were other, less depressing, dress-up opportunities in between that I’d never bothered with. I’d watched the revolving weddings and parties at the event house─commonly referred to as Stockton Mansion─every week since I was ten, but there was no good reason for the groundskeeper’s grandson to attend. Then there were school dances. To me, going to an after-school function was like going to detention while wearing some lame-ass suit. I’d rather break both legs attempting a double back flip on my bike than sit through the agony of a school dance. Despite my affliction, my girlfriend at the time, Harper, persuaded me to attend one freshman year. The suit I’d worn that night was the same one I was forced to wear to her funeral the following week. That solidified my hatred of suits and school dances.

Today’s clothes weren’t a complete suit, though the tie strangled me over an uneasy edge, adding to the silent chokehold of this already bitter morning. “Here?” I asked Pop, pointing at the set of chairs closest to the double doors, planning for the quickest escape possible. I didn’t want to hang out in this house any longer than necessary. It was no longer welcoming, just depressing.

Pop nodded his bald head and took a seat beside me. The buttons on his suit jacket pointed their rims outward, threads straining under the pressure of his bulging stomach. His pudgy, calloused fingers twitched anxiously in his lap. Sitting here was torture for him. He’d been Janine’s closest friend for years, even before she’d lost her mind. She’d given him the old servant house on Stockton Estate decades ago, along with the lead groundskeeper position. They were close enough to make this day uncomfortable, and it was obvious because he sat stiffly on the edge of his seat, refusing to even unbutton his jacket for a little relief.

“Why are you so worried? She had to have left this place to you or Simone. Or maybe to both of you,” I whispered to him as I watched more people take their seats.

“I’m not so sure,” he mumbled to keep his rough voice from carrying. “Being that she’s the manager, Simone would be the best choice. But I’m more concerned the state will get a hold of this place.” He stared at the empty seat in front of him as his voice faded.

We both cared for Stockton Estate. Years after Janine hired Pop, he brought me here and it became my home so I understood his concerns. The state would add the property to their protected park, which enclosed most of the grounds already. They’d make Stockton Estate a historical landmark, and we’d be fired and replaced with state employees who’d read the history to tourists from placards; they wouldn’t care for the property the way Pop had all of these years. We’d also have to find a new home.

This week had been filled with apprehension, and today was the finale. With all of our worries and all of the possibilities, somehow we overlooked the conventional line of inheritance.

Family.

“Well, more shit decided to hit our fan,” I whispered to Pop as I watched a family walk through the double doors behind us.

After years away, and after skipping her funeral, any thought of Janine’s remaining relatives showing up today was laughable. Yet, here they were, recognizable because of their unfamiliarity. The man of the family escorted a teenaged daughter with bleach-blonde hair and a short son who couldn’t have been much older than twelve. Janine’s niece, Rina, wasn’t with them. The last time they visited Janine was the year I’d moved in. I’d spied on their short reunion from behind the event house’s gazebo. Janine and Rina yelled at each other inside her kitchen while Rina’s husband occupied the kids outside.

Pop waited until they passed our seats to speak. “I guess they were contacted about Janine’s death after all.”

The father had grayed since the last visit and the daughter obviously covered her jet-black hair that matched Janine’s with bleach. They took their seats in front of the ornate cherry desk where Janine’s lawyer stood sorting papers with his glasses tipped down.

“Guess so,” I mumbled, watching the backside of the teenage girl before she sat down. She wore one of those long, skin-hugging skirts that reminded me of a sexy teacher or librarian. Not that I’d ever seen a sexy teacher or librarian, except in a few movies that only used wardrobe as props. Her gear was definitely not prop material. It was designer, and it probably cost more than I made in a year gardening and maintaining Stockton Estate.

“Is it being held in the office?” a woman’s voice called from the hallway.

The voice was so loud everyone shifted in their seats to locate the source. Rina entered the office after a few moments. Her hair was also bleached now, though not as sleek or as kept as her daughter’s long strands. She stumbled toward the front of the office with a dark, greasy-haired man lagging behind her. They took a couple of empty seats on the opposite side of the room’s divide, separated from her family. I understood why the kids were with their dad even before Rina nearly toppled over her chair. I’d seen the same jacked-up symptoms with my own mother, too often to count. Rina and her boyfriend were strung out on something. I caught a glimpse of her wild eyes as she looked around the room, observing her aunt’s employees with a blankness that lacked all sympathy for the situation.

The lawyer stopped sorting papers and stood straighter as the final person entered the office and the doors were closed. “Hello, everyone, I’m Reynold Upton and I’ve been Janine’s lawyer for many years.” He cleared his voice and straightened his suit jacket uneasily, which made me wonder if her death affected him beyond professional bounds. “Most of you are familiar with me from the funeral or from my notice to appear here today. Janine chose to have a will reading to disperse her possessions to cherished friends and family. Keep in mind that the will hasn’t been altered for a few years, as Janine lived with Alzheimer’s and was unable to coherently change many details after that time.” He picked up the first stack of papers and said, “If no one has any questions, we’ll get started.”

He began with ex-employees, who looked the most confused about attending. As soon as he read what Janine had left to them, he directed them into the hall where they were met by Simone with their new belongings. Paintings and statuettes were among some of the common items given. There were some odd items, too, like kitchen spatulas and garden hoses, causing several people to break the respectful silence with bursts of involuntary laughter. I guessed the items linked to inside jokes shared between them and Janine, memories that she had unfortunately lost long before her death.

Pop and I waited silently. His hands fidgeted, my eyes wandered. The room slowly emptied, leaving a clear view of the family up front. Rina sat with her limbs indecently tangled with her intoxicated beau despite her ex-husband and children’s close proximity. The son showed little interest in his surroundings. He kept his clipped head down, staring into his lap with the glow from his hand-held game system beaming back into his eyes. The husband kept his slender face forward, though the side that faced Rina had a hardened edge. His mouth was pressed tight and his eyes neared a squint. The daughter’s face was much the same, though her eyes shifted nervously to her brother every so often, checking on him. A narrow strip of light peeked through one of the office’s curtained double windows and fell on her bleached hair, highlighting its perfection in the dim room. Her lips remained tensed, but they were still full, like some glammed-up magazine model.

Pop coughed beside me and she turned our way, catching my stare. Her eyes scrunched, evaluating me, then darted to her giggly mother with a gaze that spit both sadness and hatred. In the next second, her focus swept back to the front as Upton finished with one of the seasonal groundskeepers.

Upton walked the final person from the office before he spoke again. “Now, about the remaining assets.” His voice lengthened each word as his stubby legs returned him to the desk. His wire frames slipped down the bridge of his nose while he peered at the documents in his hands. “Even with custody changes, there shouldn’t be cause for concern. The entitlements are specific enough.”

For a moment, I wondered why Pop and I were still in the room when we clearly weren’t part of this conversation. No one else seemed worried about our presence, or even acknowledged it, except the girl. She threw me a head tilt and a quick glance that sliced through my fake monkey-suited appearance, straight to the dirtbag hiding beneath. It was a silent judgment that happened often enough to recognize. I went to school with the usual bunch of cliques, some more well-off than others. I didn’t care. In the same two seconds it took her eyes to tear me down, I couldn’t keep mine from sizing her up. Her skin looked soft, even with an unusual springtime tan, and I wondered how it would feel pressed against me.
Damn.
I was at Janine’s will reading and I was thinking about groping her niece’s uptight daughter. I guess that made her Janine’s great-niece, technically. Janine’s
smoking hot
, uptight great-niece.

Mr. Upton spread some papers around on the desk and cleared his throat. “To my niece Rina,” he began, looking up from beneath his frames as Rina’s minimal attention zeroed in on him for the first true time since he’d introduced himself. He continued, “I, Janine Stockton, leave my niece Rina Wayde the contents of my personal bank account and safety deposit box.” He motioned her to the desk, and she stood, pulling down her frilly skirt that curved high under her butt and left little to my─or any other man in the room’s─imagination. Rina squinted at the pages and her lax body swayed as she signed. Her daughter watched her; her ex-husband did not. She rushed back to her boyfriend with an excited smile and snatched his hand. They hurried out of the office without speaking a word to her kids. She seemed happy enough not to question the property at all, even though she was the closest surviving relative.

“Janine struggled over this last decision for months, years before her memory loss was incapacitating,” Upton spoke to all five of us remaining in the room. “She called the proper surveyors and had the land divided. Keep in mind that these first pages are preliminary paperwork. I’ll need the packets signed and returned to me as soon as possible. First, to Mr. Lloyd Shadows.” Pop stood in front of his chair, waiting for more. “I, Janine ‘Genie’ Stockton, wish you a long,
memorable
life in the house that will be forever yours.”

“Oh, Genie,” Pop sighed through his white mustache and let his bald head fall for a moment. He wiped a hand beneath his eyes before he moved to the desk. Upton slid paperwork in front of him to sign and handed him a stack to keep. When he returned to his chair, we both stared at each other. Pop’s heavy eyes were glassed with conflict. I saw the relief hanging in them, knowing the house that had become our home would remain ours. But there was more there. His eyes dropped to the paper outlining the small portion of property now declared his. It was not all of Stockton Estate. “The curse,” he said with a sigh.

Pop and Janine believed the property’s stone well was responsible for her Alzheimer’s. “It’s cursed,” he’d said years ago, shortly after I’d moved in. As a kid, it was easy enough to believe. I’d gone to the well several times with my own wishes, my own desperate cries. Wished my mother and father loved me enough to stop their addictions. Wished for Harper’s life the night she overdosed. But even though I was willing to take my chances with the curse, Pop told me later that the only person the well wanted was Janine and that somehow her blood was forever linked to it. “The Stockton curse runs deep and transcends time,” he’d said. The rumor was that
it gave Janine the power to grant other people’s wishes. In return, the curse supposedly claimed her memories. That’s why Pop was worried now. Janine may be gone, but her blood was back. Family blood.