Blue Willow

by Deborah Smith

  “Including Blue Willow?”

  “I’ll settle for believing that there are places and memories worth preserving, and something meaningful in saving them.”

  “Heady philosophy for a man who remade the family fortune by marrying a senator’s daughter and selling ceramic technology to the military.”

  “It beats the hell out of being a victim.”

  She shot him a hard glance. “Like me?”

  “You’re a victim if you equate blind faith and suffering with nobility.”

  “You mean, sitting naked in the cold won’t get me into the Gandhi Hall of Fame? Damn.”

  He frowned at her sarcasm. “All it might do is get you raped by some wandering hunter who thinks you’re fair game.”

  “Well, if that ever happens, I’m sure your family will have a celebration.”

  “That’s a vicious and unwarranted thing to say.”

  “Is it? They probably think I moved back here to get in your good graces again—and maybe into your bed too.”

  “Did that unscrupulous bastard you were married to teach you this gutter-level cynicism?”

  “My husband—” She tried to say it calmly, but her mouth trembled and her composure shattered. “My husband was the least cynical person I’ve ever met. And he died holding our child in his arms and trying to protect him.”

  Artemas winced, as she put her hands over her face and turned away. “Lily,” he said desperately, reaching toward her. “Lily. Let me make things easier for you. I can give you the money to buy this place back. I can—”

  “Oh, my God.” Her shoulders shook. She twisted from the brush of his fingertips and stared at him. “Do you think I’ll ever take any help from you? Do you still believe you can run my life and get whatever you want?”

  Artemas dropped his hands to his side. “Yes.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Goddamn you.”

  He turned and walked back up the long driveway. Their futures were no less bound together now than they had been the day she was born.

  “She’s poison,” James said. “And Artemas doesn’t seem willing to acknowledge that.”

  Tamberlaine leaned back in the plush chair of his office, one hand bent to his chin, studying James and the others with deceptive calm. He feared their undercurrent of agitation and bewilderment. It was divisive—something the family had never had to deal with before. “What would you have him do?” Tamberlaine asked. “Abandon an estate that has great significance for this family simply because Mrs. Porter has chosen to live at a home that has equal significance to her?”

  “He could pressure her to leave,” Cass interjected. “Instead of telling us he’s accepted the situation.”

  Tamberlaine shrugged elegantly. “That doesn’t imply he intends to hand out a welcome mat for her.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “Tammy, this friendship they’ve always had—is there any reason to think it was ever more than that?”

  “No. As I’ve said before, he spent time with her family, as a child. He and she corresponded with each other over the years. It was quite innocent and sentimental.” Tamberlaine carefully hid his remorse at lying. Artemas had confided the truth to him years ago. It was a confidence he would never break.

  Elizabeth sighed. “Do you think she’s deliberately trying to harm us in some way now?”

  “No. I believe Mrs. Porter is a very honorable person, who feels she has as much right to her heritage as Artemas does to his.”

  Michael leaned forward. “But she must realize that she’s exacerbating a painful situation.”

  Tamberlaine scowled. “It has been widely publicized that the architects as well as the contractor bear the responsibility for the bridge collapse, and that your brother has pursued their liability to the hilt. No one can claim that he let his friendship with Mrs. Porter hinder his duties to Colebrook International—or to this family.”

  James cursed. “We’ll never have any peace as long as she’s living near the estate. And that’s exactly why she’s there—to show us she can do as she damned well pleases.”

  Tamberlaine’s patience for James’s bitterness had faded months ago. James seemed intent on destroying the future, not rebuilding. He scanned the assembled group with deep sorrow.

  James, dressed in tailored black pinstripes, stood by a black marble fireplace as if drawing from its coldness, rigid and alert, one hand white-knuckled on the handle of a metal cane—one of the generic, tripod-footed devices furnished by his physical therapists. Alise sat near him in an armchair, her slim, fashionable black dress making her look even more subdued than usual.

  Cassandra looked ready to dine on Lily’s pride as she prowled the room in snug red silk, a brilliant scarf fluttering over one shoulder. Elizabeth sat in a prim little armchair with her knees pressed tightly together under a demure gray suit dress, her blond hair curling sweetly around her face, her toddler drooling on her jacket sleeve. She was tall and imposing, but her face had a perpetually timid look, as if she suspected someone might creep out of a corner and shout “Boo” into her ear at any moment.

  Michael, kind, gentle Michael, sat in a chair nearby, his long denimed legs extended and crossed above suede loafers, a houndstooth jacket hanging over a rumpled sports shirt, sandy brown hair shagging over his pale forehead and large hazel eyes.

  They were deeply decent and loving human beings, all of them, and seeing them descend into vindictiveness and suspicion made Tamberlaine sick. He shook his head slowly. “James, you seem to forget—all of you are forgetting, I think—that Mrs. Porter has done nothing more heinous than love and trust her husband.”

  “She said that Julia knew the bridge was faulty, and ignored it,” James retorted. “She said that Julia bullied her husband into compromising standards. There’s no excuse for accusations like that, and there never will be.”

  Alise moved a hand wearily. “I think we should try to understand Lily’s point of view, even if we don’t agree with it. She’s lost so much. Her bitterness may be misguided, but it’s not surprising.” Alise looked at James. His fierce gaze made her clench her hand in her lap. “We have to get on with our lives.”

  He gestured sharply toward his bad leg. “Yes, I know how much you’re looking forward to cheering for me when I try out for the Olympic track team this spring.”

  Alise flinched and turned away. There was awkward silence. Cassandra halted her pacing and scowled at her brother. Elizabeth and Michael seemed equally dismayed.

  Tamberlaine rose to his feet. “James.” His voice was like soft thunder. “Alise has a great deal more respect for you at the moment than I do.” He left the large office, slamming the door behind him.

  The brooding silence became oppressive. James limped to Alise, hesitated, then dropped a hand to her shoulder. She put hers over it, but her expression remained drawn. Finally Cassandra bluntly summed up their mood: “We have to keep a close watch on Lily. That means spending time at the estate. Artemas has said he considers it the family’s home. Given that excuse, we can make certain—discreetly—that she doesn’t worm her way into his life.”

  There were general nods of agreement. James’s face was as closed as a vise. He turned from them, frowning. He would keep his own counsel, and make his own plans.

  Michael wandered miserably through the rooms of the large apartment he and Kathy had shared. It was crammed with books and paintings, sculpture, and ordinary, pleasant, comfortable furniture. Even if he spent most of his time at a town house in Atlanta now, he would never sell this place. He touched Kathy’s clothes, still hanging in the walk-in closets of the bedroom, spread her perfume on his hands, and stood for a long time studying photographs of her that covered one of the bedroom walls.

  He fought the urges as long as he could, and anxiety made his chest constrict. A deep drag on one of his asthma inhalers eased the attack, but he knew nothing but action could solve the other problem. He phoned downstairs to have the doorman call a cab. By the time it arrived, he had changed cl
othes and was waiting impatiently on the curb in the muggy air, his jogging shoes soaking up a puddle from a recent rain.

  He had the cabdriver drop him off a block from his destination, preferring not to cause idle gossip. Dark, silent brownstones and small shops gave no clue that, a century earlier, this had been a tree-lined boulevard fronting the in-town mansions of the very wealthy. But the imposing stone wall at the end of the block hinted at remaining grandeur. It enclosed an acre, a fortune in land at New York prices.

  Michael retrieved a key from his jeans’ pocket and unlocked a tall, narrow gate of black iron. Stepping inside, he locked it behind him and stood still, absorbing the place’s leaden reality. Scattered among old trees like morbid playhouses were the Colebrook mausoleums.

  A half-moon had come out from behind high, scudding clouds. He didn’t need the moon; he had found her crypt in pitch-darkness many times. He picked his way up a path to the newest mausoleum, a broad, stately monument in white marble, with a door made of steel grate in an ornamental pattern of overlapping Cs.

  Another key unlocked that door, and then Michael was inside, sitting cross-legged on the cold floor next to her, tracing her carved name on the wall with trembling fingertips. The past two years disappeared; she was alive again. Michael laid his cheek against her name.

  He tried never to think of Kathy inside the coffin, just as he struggled every day not to think of her cradled, warm and loving, in his arms, whispering his name.

  “Hello,” he whispered. “I know you don’t want me to come here like this. But I have to.” He huddled as close as he could and shut his eyes. He and she had been soulmates since their freshman year at college, both of them psychology majors, she Jewish, from a family of academics, he benignly cynical about religion in general, and from a family whose name meant wealth and decadence. They had never spent a night apart until she died. There would never be anyone else for him.

  He acknowledged James’s reasons for hating and distrusting Lily Porter. James sought someone to blame for every limping, painful step he would take for the rest of his life. Michael doubted James or anyone else in the family—even Elizabeth, with whom Michael had the close, intuitive bond of a fraternal twin—would approve if they knew he had always admired and sympathized with Lily

  He could never punish her for loving her husband so much that nothing else mattered. He understood that pain too well. Touching Kathy’s name again, he cried against the cold stone.

  Twenty

  Edward Tamberlaine bent to pet Lupa. If he ever wore anything less formal than a handsome double-breasted suit, Lily had never seen it. His skin was the color of rich chocolate, his hair short, trained into graceful waves, and salted with gray. Inky-black freckles were sprinkled over the bridge of his flaring, elegant nose. He smiled somberly as he came toward her, leaving his car parked in the yard.

  Lily watched from her place in what had been the front pasture—now a muddy, flat expanse cleared by the bulldozer Mr. Estes had sent. She set a bucket of grass seed down and walked swiftly to meet Tamberlaine. The breeze made jonquils sway along the shallow ditches that bordered the drive, where they had bloomed every March as long as Lily could remember. Deep orange daylillies would take their place later in the spring. No amount of desertion or neglect mattered to them. When she had the time and a little precious money to allocate, she would reward them with mulch and fertilizer.

  Her hands were chapped and scratched, her nails chewed to the quick. Aching muscles and bruises had become everyday companions over the past two months. She made long lists of tasks and began work before dawn most days, fighting the weight of grief and depression that always hovered like a shadow just beyond conscious thought. If she stopped moving, she started thinking and sank into bleak moods.

  “How are you, Lily?” Tamberlaine asked.

  “Fine,” she lied. Feeling a little awkward, she tucked a jonquil into a buttonhole on his lapel, then stepped back. “Now you look ready for spring.”

  “I came up to the estate to see the progress. I couldn’t help stopping by here. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, of course not.” He was here on Artemas’s behalf, to see what she’d accomplished so far. She was certain of it.

  She followed his curious gaze. The mountain of garbage was gone, though a pile of discarded shag carpet and torn paneling lay in the front yard, waiting to be hauled away. She wanted every hint of Joe Estes out of the house. Mr. Estes had looked dour but said nothing when he’d noticed her intentions.

  A long concrete foundation had been poured toward the front of the cleared pasture, with a smaller pad nearby. She pointed toward them. “The little one is for an office and shop, eventually. The other one is for a greenhouse. The rest of the clearing will be used for nursery beds.”

  Tamberlaine nodded. “And you’ve had the lane from the paved road widened a bit and graveled, judging from the looks of it as I drove in.”

  “The road was washing away a little more every time it rained. And little trees were trying to take over.”

  “It’s a fine road now.”

  His solemn praise made her slide her hands in the back pockets of her khaki trousers and try to appear nonchalant. “So what’s the news, Mr. Tamberlaine? Has he moved in yet?”

  “Yes. The house is functional, but hardly comfortable. He moved into a suite of rooms his grandparents had occupied. It’s rather spartan.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth. I slip through the woods sometimes and stand just out of sight, by the lake, to watch the work. There must be a hundred people around the place. He’ll need to hire a top landscaper to restore the gardens. I could give you a list of names, if you won’t tell him where you got ’em.”

  “He doesn’t plan to renovate the gardens anytime soon.”

  She frowned. “But he’s had everything cleared around the mansion. And on the hill above the lake.”

  Tamberlaine said softly, “I expect the gardens are more personal to him than the house. Perhaps he doesn’t like the idea of having some stranger design them.”

  An invisible hand pressed on her chest. She looked at Tamberlaine. She’d almost forgotten that he rarely contacted her without dropping some bit of information—and usually for a reason.

  “I’m gonna start calling you Machiavelli, if you keep scheming like this.”

  A pensive smile crooked the corner of Mr. Tamberlaine’s mouth. “I’m afraid I’ve grown too fond of my role over the years. I would like to see this heartache resolved between you and him. And the others.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible.” She linked an arm through his. They walked down to the creek. “They’re like family to you, aren’t they?” she asked gently.

  “Yes. But then, so are you.” They stopped under an enormous willow. He sighed and caught one of the draping tendrils in his free hand, studying the tiny new leaves. “Dusky blue-green, even in infancy,” he mused. “What a marvel.”

  “I could dig up one of the saplings for you.” She nodded to the small trees spreading out around the grove’s edges. “These willows are hardier than most kinds. And they breed like mice.”

  He cleared his throat and said gruffly, “I’d love to have a blue willow at my house.”

  “I’ll send you one.”

  “Would you believe that I bought a twenty-room Italianate villa near the governor’s mansion? I believe I’m the first black man my neighbors have seen who isn’t wearing a butler’s uniform.”

  “Aw, it’s not like that anymore.” She tugged at his coat sleeve. “Get yourself a white butler named Billy Bob.”

  He laughed. “Perhaps I will.” Tamberlaine studied her with somber amusement from under bushy brows. As he continued to look at her, a pensive look replaced his smile. “He has never directed me to explain his behavior to anyone, on his behalf. His actions often speak for themselves. Forgive me if, in this case, I step over the boundaries of my duties and speak on a personal level.”

  “I’d appreciate that. G
o ahead.”

  “He may appear aggressive and even self-serving to you, but he is not someone you should consider an enemy.”

  Her hands shook. She wound them into her pockets and stared at the creek, seeking answers in the ever-moving water. “I know that. But he’s trying to fix my problems for me, and he considers my loyalty to Richard something that needs fixing along with the rest.”

  “The desperate state of his family never allowed him to choose between taking care and taking over. There was simply no gray area for him. There still isn’t.”

  “He’s going to know where the gray areas are with me.” She gestured at her land, including herself in it. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons I came back here. To prove that he can’t take care, take over, or ignore me.”

  “And perhaps to prove to yourself that you don’t want him to succeed?”

  She was silent, shaken by his insight. “Yes,” she admitted finally.

  After he left, she returned to spreading grass seed on the stripped earth of the old pasture, but a new, indefinable darkness hovered over her. She found herself studying the dense woods across the road that fronted the pasture. Artemas had come back, as steadfast as the jonquils and daylillies along the driveway. So had she. Both of them had kept some part of an old promise. The rest was hopeless. Her hand wavered, halted. She shut her eyes against sorrow and dread.

  On the other side of those woods, so close that when the wind was right she could hear the sounds of heavy trucks and bulldozers, saws and jackhammers, Artemas woke, slept, and dreamed his own memories at Blue Willow.

  Artemas set the Blue Willow teapot on a crude table made of sawhorses and plywood in the center of the upstairs gallery, stood back, lit a cigarette, and studied the small, delicate vessel grimly It looked as if it were waiting for interrogation under the harsh light of a construction light clamped to the top of a stepladder by the table.