“Any jewelry or family heirlooms in dispute?”
“No. The family jewelry went to Emma when her mother died. I have what Cam gave me. I’m not big into jewelry.”
“Last week, you brought back an antique baby quilt,” said Lucy. “Where did that come from? Do you have other antiques down there?”
“No.” She looked down at her hands. “That was in the nursery, and – to be honest, I don’t really want anything else in there. There’s nothing of sentimental value. I just want my piano.”
“Okay.” Tom was making notes on a legal pad. “Sorry to drill you, Laura, but if we’re going to write a C&D, we might as well include everything you want that’s still in that house. Here’s the plan. We’ll send the letter, asserting your ownership and demanding no one attempt to remove the piano from the house. We’ll threaten a restraining order if necessary.”
“Do we have to?” Restraining orders sounded like war.
“Don’t worry,” Lucy told her. “Mark will know it’s just us lawyers rattling our sabers.”
“What it will do,” Tom said, “is make it clear that the estate is to deal with us on this matter and that we will take the appropriate steps to safeguard your property rights. But, Laura, you need to understand one thing. We are not your attorneys beyond this. If you want formal representation—”
“What?” she started to say, but Lucy jumped in.
“Tom—” It sounded like a protest, but Tom stopped her with a look and a shake of the head.
Something silent passed between husband and wife, something Laura didn’t understand. After a few seconds, Lucy nodded, and Tom looked back at Laura.
“I’m just your brother-in-law doing you a favor. I am not acting as your attorney. But back to the matter at hand – we’ll draft a letter, but in the meantime, Laura, you need to get that piano out of there as fast as you can and under your own control. Do you have anyone you trust down there? Someone who can arrange to have it removed and stored for you before she gives it to the church?”
Laura rubbed her forehead. The fates were conspiring against her; for the second time in a matter of hours, she was going to have to rely on SBFA. “Oh, yes,” she said, and explained SBFA. “I can call Cam’s admin. She hates Emma. She’ll help me.”
“Call her right away,” Tom said. “Tell her to get a moving company out there and take that piano. We’ll fax her a copy of this letter for the movers to show Emma. Tell her to rent a storage facility under your name and – Lucy, what are you doing?”
Lucy was punching in a phone number. “A hot, dusty storage room for a grand of this quality? I think not. Hey,” she said into the phone, “need a favor. No, not yet, I need you to sign it before we file…. Can you store a grand piano for a while?” She listened. “No, it’s for Laurie. She needs to ship a concert grand up here. Just a sec.” She covered the phone. “Can it fit in Julie’s music room?”
No. She didn’t want to involve Richard in the messy remnants of her marriage. “Lucy, no. I don’t want Julie to move her piano. I can get a controlled environment space in Texas.”
Lucy looked at her. “Are you going back to Texas to live?”
Laura bit her lip and glanced away. “I – don’t know. I don’t think so. I haven’t decided.”
“Yes, you have.” Lucy turned back to the phone. “What about Ashmore Magna? There’s plenty of room in the ballroom. It’ll take a couple of weeks to get it up here – we have time to shove things around.” She listened again. “Okay. She’s right here.”
Lucy handed the receiver over to Laura with a speculative look. Even Tom, still paging through Cam’s will, seemed alert. Time for the acting job of her life, pretending that she and Richard were barely speaking. She couldn’t betray by a flicker of an eyelash, a silly lovesick smile, a melting hint of a bedroom voice, that he had spent the previous afternoon acting out Francie’s fantasy on her.
“Hey,” she chirped into the phone. That seemed safe enough.
“What’s going on?” Richard said into her ear. He must be on his way back from Glen Allen; she could hear traffic noises in the background.
She said brightly, “Oh, some problems with my sister-in-law.”
Would Lucy stop watching her?
“I have problems with my sister-in-law too.” Richard sounded amused. “I’ll bet she’s giving you the evil eye right now. You can fill me in this evening. You need somewhere to put a grand piano?”
“For the time being.” She made her voice formal.
“How big are we talking?”
“Nine feet.”
He seemed taken aback. “Whoa. It should fit through the front entrance. I might have to take the doors off. You’re having it professionally moved?”
“Yes. You’re very kind to do this, Richard.”
He laughed at her cool tone. “Not a problem. Make whatever arrangements you need to.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
Another laugh. “Okay, let’s maintain the charade. Pass me back to Lucy before she gets suspicious.”
Laura complied and waited while Lucy told Richard she had sent over some papers he needed to sign. With a light touch on her shoulder and a kiss for Lucy, Tom told her he had to get back to his deposition, reminded her to call SBFA right away, and then left her alone with Lucy.
She hadn’t been alone with her sister since their argument over Richard.
They sat there, side by side, Lucy making notes on her legal pad, Laura folding the debris of their lunch back into the deli boxes. The silence stretched between them, not uncomfortable, but cooler, stiffer, shorn of the friendliness Tom had imposed by his mere presence. Their sharp words of the previous week still hung in the air.
Laura wondered when Lucy was going to pounce on her.
But, when her sister finally spoke, her words had nothing to do with Richard.
“I saw Di for breakfast this morning,” said Lucy casually, and continued to write, but her pen was digging into the pad, and her fingers were white around the knuckle. “So – when did you plan to tell me she cut herself?”
Laura sat still. She hadn’t expected that. “How do you know about that?”
“I saw her wrist,” Lucy said. “She didn’t attempt to hide it. I understand you were there.”
“Yes.” She heard the anger underlying the flatness of her sister’s voice. “She broke a mirror. I took her to the hospital.”
“Yes, I heard. Not a very original cover story.” Lucy ripped the sheet off the legal pad. “And I heard you took her back to her condo and put her to bed and took care of her.”
Laura remained silent and waited, every cell of her body on alert.
“And I heard you also ransacked her apartment looking for various substances that she isn’t supposed to possess.” Lucy looked at her steadily. “While that’s fine – you deserve a medal, wish I’d been there to see it – what is not fine is that she wanted to call me and you threatened to rip the phone out of the wall if she did.”
Laura opened her mouth to defend herself, then changed her mind. “Yes, I did,” she said and looked at her sister straight on. “What of it?”
“What of it?” Lucy repeated. “Laurie, you – you should have called me! I can’t believe that you didn’t let me know! How dare you try to keep this from me!” She slammed her pen down on the table. “You listen to me. Everyone in this family is treating me like some sort of invalid or mental defective. I’m pregnant, damn it, not incapacitated, and I’ve been taking care of Diana since I was a kid! I’ve rescued her, I’ve put her to bed more times than you want to know – when stuff happens with her, I want to know. I’ll take care of her. You don’t have to do it.”
She heard anger, but she saw fear. Lucy was afraid. If Diana had hurt herself before, then Lucy must have been the one to pick up the pieces. She drew a breath, and said, “No.”
“No?” Lucy became the third one that day to go ballistic. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean
no.” Laura turned in her seat and reached for her sister’s hands. “Lucy,” she said gently, “you don’t have to deal with Di by yourself. Let me help.”
Lucy tried to pull her hands away. “I’ve been doing this for years. I do not need help.”
“Maybe not,” said Laura, “but – look at me.” She caught the sheen of tears in Lucy’s eyes as her sister looked away from her. “You are pregnant, and I want this baby for you more than anything. Di’s a grown woman, and other people can help – Richard, me. She has lots of resources. But, Lucy, you’re all that baby has right now. You don’t need to deal with this.”
Lucy bit her lip, and Laura watched her try to bring herself under control. “I – I don’t even know if I’m going to have this baby. But I do have my sister. I can do more for her than I can for—”
How could she have missed Lucy’s fatalism about her pregnancy? Her poor sister must wake up every morning afraid that the worst might happen by nightfall. “I know how scared you must be—”
“You don’t know. There’s no way you can know.” Lucy sounded muffled. “You don’t know how it feels – to want to shelter and nourish and love it, just keep it inside, for God’s sake, keep it strong and safe and growing—” Her hand went to her eyes. “I do everything right, Laurie. I eat right, and I exercise, and I sleep, and I take my vitamins, and Tom and I haven’t – well, for weeks – I’m doing everything I can. And it’s—” she swallowed— “it’s probably not going to be enough. I’m probably going to lose this one too. So what does it hurt if I know about Di?” She put her head down on her arms. “At least I still have my sister.”
“Oh, Lucy – sweetie, don’t.” Her heart was breaking for her sister. She laid her hand on Lucy’s back. “I do know. It’s just terrifying, isn’t it, you want so much to be happy and excited, you want to tell people, you want to run right out and decorate the nursery, and you’re scared stiff to plan ahead or talk about names because you’re constantly waiting for the shoe to drop. And you feel so helpless, because you’re right, you do everything you’re supposed to and sometimes it’s not enough. I know.” She rubbed Lucy’s back for comfort. “I lost four babies, the last one wasn’t even two years ago. I did everything right, and I still lost them. I had no control at all.”
She felt the shock across Lucy’s shoulders. Her sister’s voice came slowly, choked with tears, “You never told me that.”
“I didn’t want you to think about it. I didn’t realize how you felt – oh, Lucy, I can’t believe you let me rattle on about a damn piano when you’ve been worrying like this. I’ll survive without the piano.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Lucy said again, and Laura felt her disengaging. “Four? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you need to look forward. You can’t give up hope. You have to believe that you’ll have your miracle.” She stopped for a moment. “You’re so strong, you want everybody to come to you for help – you have to share the burden. You’re not alone with Di anymore. I’m here. I’ll do anything to help you. I believe in your baby, Lucy.”
Lucy turned her head on her arms to look at her. “I get so scared,” she said, and her voice sounded more like Lucy now. “I’m not like Di – she breezed through Julie. She could have had a dozen kids if she’d wanted to. I’ve got a different history. This is my sixth pregnancy in three years. I’m like Mom. Do you know how many she lost before Richard? Seven.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “I don’t think I could stand it.”
Peggy had always glossed over her losses, choosing to be grateful for Richard’s birth after thirteen years of marriage. “But she did manage one, and look at him! Please have faith, Lucy.”
Lucy sat up and pushed her hair away from her tear-stained face. “I have to go on bed rest from August on. My doctor thinks that’s my best chance.”
“Then it’ll be our turn to take care of you so you can take care of your baby. Let the rest of us deal with Di.” Laura brushed away a stray strand of hair that Lucy had missed. “You don’t have to do everything.”
Lucy said nothing. Laura suspected that, deep inside, her sister was rejecting her words. She’d become too used to being the core of the family, running around to prop everyone else up. And what had she herself done? Run to dump her trifling problems with Emma in Lucy’s lap. Fallen in love with the wrong man. Set up a certain explosion somewhere down the road.
It was time to stop being the little sister, take her place as an adult in the family.
But I can’t give him up. Please, anything but that.
She started to gather together the papers she had brought with her into her bag, and Lucy roused herself long enough to demand, “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking these back. You’re not getting dragged into this.”
“Give me those!” Lucy snatched the papers right out of her hands. “I told you, I’m not an invalid. It won’t hurt me or the baby to write your trustee a nasty letter.” She paused. “Besides, I can’t wait to tangle with this Emma person.”
“You may live to regret those words,” Laura warned her, glad to see a militant spark in her sister’s eyes again. “Emma is really mean.”
“So am I.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want you getting upset.”
“I don’t like her bullying you.” Lucy’s look told her to stop arguing. “That’s my job.”
~•~
By mid-afternoon, Laura finally started working on the song she had abandoned days before. She managed to get an hour of work done before the airline delivered her package from Terry.
She worked only thirty minutes past dinner when the doorbell rang again, and the process server handed her a subpoena to testify against Richard in Ashmore v. Ashmore.
Chapter 3: Diana, Served
SO, MONDAY NIGHT. AND HERE I sit in my office with my trusty little recorder and one hell of a case of cramps coming on, and PMS doesn’t begin to describe how I feel right now. Woe be unto the first idiot who wanders through that door and looks at me cross-eyed.
Unfortunately, I know from bitter experience that Midol and Scotch are not a good mix. So I want one but I’ll have to settle for the other, at least for a few hours. At least until Lucy turns in and can’t call to check on me.
So what do I want to talk about tonight, baring my soul and all that? Where did I leave off?
Except I can’t work on my memoirs, not tonight. I have Lucy’s assignment: tell me everything that happened, and don’t leave anything out, blah, blah, blah, nag, nag, nag.
So I have to think back to what happened out there on Ash Marine all those years ago. Laura said it was eleven years ago. I guess I’ll take her word for it. (Note to self: Discuss with Laura the importance of minding HER OWN BUSINESS.)
(Hmmm, has Miss Laura gotten her subpoena yet? Need to call Kevin in the morning and check. I haven’t heard any screaming yet, so guess not.)
Okay, back to the matter at hand.
(Other note to self: What exactly is Lucy planning to do with this Ash Marine info once she gets it? It’s not like she can play detective and trap the murderer in one of those a-ha! moments, not at this late date. Francie is dead and gone. So are Daddy and Philip, and they are the only ones who could have given her the keys to the bridge. So what good does any of this do?)
But Lucy has her reasons. I’ll trust her on that. And I do owe her. I owe her a lot. For staying my sister through thick and thin. For not hating me. For not washing her hands of me. Most people would have.
Most people did.
So here goes. The true story of what happened the day Francie up and called me, out of the blue, claiming she wanted to kiss and make up.
The day I went out there to neutralize her, once and for all.
Ten years, eleven years, I don’t know. Laura’s probably right. All I remember is it happened at the tail end of that summer after Richard threw me out of my own house, and suddenly I was living on the not-so-largess of Daddy Dearest and facing life as a si
ngle woman.
Something I had never had to be before.
Diana, standing alone.
~•~
The first thing I learned: when you’re getting sued for custody, you need a lawyer.
And lawyers want to be paid.
With real money.
Which I didn’t have.
Lucy helped me find a lawyer. Oh, she was mad at me, all right; she’d been out to Ashmore Minor to see my “renovations” to Richard’s face and briefcase and workroom, so, before she helped me, I had to sit there and lump it while she let me have it in no uncertain terms.
“He had that model since he was six years old! We built it together! That was half mine, and you – you hammered it to death! You—” she had to stop for breath — “you murdered it! What the hell were you thinking!”
“Uh, nothing,” I tried to get a word in edgewise. “I didn’t know it was half yours. I wasn’t thinking—”
“I know you weren’t thinking! You never think! God, Di, I swear, you have to be the stupidest woman alive!” And on, and on, until finally Daddy got tired of the shouting and came upstairs to intervene.
Dominic Abbott, peacemaker. That was a new one.
“Lucia,” he started to remonstrate, and that was as far as he got, because then Lucy turned on him and let him have it.
“Don’t you encourage her! And don’t you dare stick up for her! She committed a felony, Dominic! A felony! She’s fucking lucky Richard isn’t pressing charges —”
“Your language, Lucia—”
“— because he can! She assaulted him! She broke his glasses! She cut his face open! He had to get stitches! Domestic violence is a crime, even when a woman does it to a man.” She got right in his face, jabbing her finger into his chest. “Maybe you think that’s an acceptable way to deal with your significant other, but I assure you the courts here in Virginia are not quite so lenient as the courts in Ireland.”
Oh, low blow, Lucy, remind him of that trial, bring up the sins of the father. And quite unjust, of course, but neither of us could tell her the truth.
All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) Page 5