“Tomorrow actually,” he answered.
“Can we please just get beyond the service for Jess before we talk about any of this?” I asked.
He walked over to the far wall where there was a small bar and poured a splash of whiskey into a glass. He turned and gestured to see if I wanted to join him and I declined. Then he returned and sat behind his desk and said, “Mathew, you are now my only son and in spite of whatever differences we may have, I need to know I can rely on you to be here for me and the family.”
I had to try with all my abilities to control my first response which was outrage and condemnation and finally I said, “There is only one issue right now and that is Jess and the funeral tomorrow.” I couldn’t help it, but I started to well up in tears and it so infuriated me to show weakness in front of my father in light of recent events, but I couldn’t help myself. Wiping my eyes, I said, “I left this family because of your betrayal and what I witnessed with you that night down at the creek, and because of a woman who I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. I have no interest in any affiliation with you or that business and I will never forgive you or Jess, frankly, for how you treated Hanna that night.”
I watched as the familiar hard edge returned to his face. “She was nothing but a tramp,” he said.
I wanted to jump over the desk and throw him to the floor, but somehow, I managed to restrain myself. “I know that Jess and Hanna were together that night and her betrayal was as bad as all you have schemed, but you need to know in the end I blame only you.” It felt so good to get all of that out and to confront him with my disgust and true feelings, in spite of the ordeal our family was facing.
He paused a moment before responding and then looked at me with a familiar glare of parental dominance. “Mathew, you have a very important decision to make in your life. We will bury your brother tomorrow and we will all mourn his terrible loss to this family. But then we will move on and I will need to know you will be with us going forward… that you will come back and work to deal with these terrible days that lie ahead.”
There was no other response than total honesty and frankly disrespect for all that he stood for. Very calmly I said, “When the service is over tomorrow I will be leaving and you can count on the fact I want nothing to do with this mess you’ve created.”
He didn’t flinch and I saw the old steely demeanor that had intimidated all of us over the years and so many others in his life. “You will be lost to me and this family, as well as any financial support if you don’t get over this childish anger and come to your senses.”
I didn’t hesitate for a moment when I said, “Your money is the last thing on my mind.”
“I’m serious, Mathew. There is no middle ground here.”
I stood up and pushed the chair away and said, “After the funeral tomorrow I will be leaving again and I don’t give a damn about your money or your business and frankly, I hope you rot in Hell for all you’ve done to this family!” I stood and walked out of the room and heard no further protest.
I left the house without speaking to anyone else. I got in my car and drove out past the police guard at the end of the drive and down West Paces Ferry Road toward town. There was one other stop now that I was back in Atlanta. A few minutes later I pulled up in front of the house in Ansley Park. I parked the car and walked down the drive behind the main house. It was early evening and the sun was low, shining in scattered patterns of light through the tall trees. I saw the bushes up ahead by the garage apartment where I had hidden in shame that night just a few weeks earlier as I watched my now deceased older brother share moments of intimacy with a woman I had thought was my own. I climbed the stairs with no thought as to what I might say, only that I needed some closure on all that had happened between us. When I knocked on the door I tried to control the anger and the nervousness I felt all at the same time. I could hear her coming to the door. When it opened, I saw her standing there in her work clothes, looking as beautiful as she had always been to me. There were red circles under her eyes and I knew at once she had been informed of Jess’s death.
I had expected her to show some remorse or regret, but she came into my arms as if nothing had happened between us and then started sobbing with her face on my shoulder. “Oh Mathew, I’m so glad you’ve come back.”
I was momentarily surprised by her greeting, but then reminded myself of her treacherous behavior at our last encounter. “You’ve heard about Jess?” I asked.
“Yes, your sister called me yesterday,” she answered. “Mathew, I’m so sorry about all of this.”
“About all of what?” I had to ask.
“About Jess,” she said, and there was an innocent look in her eyes that revealed she perhaps had no idea about my knowledge of their little affair. I walked past her into the small apartment and looked into the bedroom where she and my brother had surely been together on that night I had planned to ask her to marry me. As I turned to look at her, she stood there with a sad and curious look on her face. I tried so desperately to push any remaining feelings for the woman from my mind.
“Jess is gone,” I was finally able to say. “He will never be back. I saw you here with him that night.” Her face turned pale and I could tell she was struggling to respond with an appropriate answer. “I’m not here for answers or excuses,” I said. “You just need to know that anything we had together is over.”
I walked past her toward the door. She reached out to me and held my arm. “Mathew, I’m truly sorry.”
I stopped and looked into her eyes that at one time had captured me so completely. Now all I could see was deceit and betrayal. I turned and started to leave, but she wouldn’t let go of my arm. She was crying again and trying to gather herself to speak. I was in no mood for excuses.
Finally, she said, “I never meant for any of this to happen…”
“It’s far too late for that.”
“No, you need to understand,” she said, and then led me over to sit on a sofa against the wall.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Mathew, I’m sorry, but you were starting to get so serious and I just wasn’t ready for that,” she said slowly. “I never told you, but I was engaged for a year back in Chicago and in the end it didn’t work out. I realized how fortunate I was to have another chance at living my own life for a while.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I just wanted to have some fun. Your brother was very charming when he drove me home that night…” I started to get up to leave, but she grabbed my arm again. “He told me you were really getting serious about me and that you might even ask me to marry you soon, for goodness sake. We’d only known each other for a few weeks and he said your parents would never allow it anyway because I’m Jewish.”
“Why did you leave with him?”
“He said you and your father had to attend to some business,” she answered, and I thought again about the beating down behind the house.
“So, you decided to sleep with him?” I said.
“We had a little bit too much to drink on the way back here and it just happened,” she said. “It was just sex.”
“Yes, I noticed.” I stood and this time she didn’t try to stop me. I looked down at her and said, “Hanna, you should know that I was getting serious. I had planned to ask you to marry me that night at the party. I was in love with you and I thought you felt the same way.”
She just looked down at her hands in her lap and shook her head. I left her there and closed the door for the last time.
The funeral was held at the most prominent cemetery in Atlanta, just north of the city. As I watched the coffin that held the remains of my brother being lowered into the ground, I looked around at the faces of family, friends and other business and political acquaintances that were gathered for the ceremony. My sister Margaret and her husband, Desmond Raye, stood next to me, a barrier between my mother and father through the forma
l service. There was a troubling mixture of emotions rushing through my head as I tried to acknowledge the loss of my brother and also attempted to deal with the depths of his betrayal and complicity with Hanna Wesley.
I tried to remember better times with Jess; the days in Paris when he came to visit me in the hospital; laughing with Celeste and listening to them carry on in French; all he had done to save what was left of my leg. Then I realized I had never told him the true events of that last night I was wounded. I pushed those memories away and lowered my head to say a final silent prayer for my lost brother.
After the service, I began walking away to my car without speaking to anyone in the family, fully intent on returning to the beach house in Florida and my pursuit of something new in my life. Maggie came running over to stop me.
“Mathew, wait,” she said.
I turned and looked at her. I saw her husband stood behind her, an expression of indifference on his face to all that had occurred. I was so distressed by both anger and sorrow that I knew I needed to get away as quickly as possible.
“Maggie, this is not for me,” I finally said. She looked at me with the most pitiable face and my heart ached for her despair. There was a clear line, however, in my mind between love for family and any sense of loyalty for business or related purpose. “I’ll not stay any longer,” I said.
Raye stepped forward and I was surprised by his callous response in light of the day’s events. With a maddeningly sour and unsympathetic voice he said, “Your father has asked me to step in and help with the family business in light of the situation and your absence. You need to know if you leave again you will be forever cut off from the Coulter family.” He paused for a moment for effect and then finished the message by saying, “…and any right to the family income or estate.”
It took only a moment, in spite of my immediate desire to throw a fist clear through his face, to smile, as hard as that was and say, “You can take this whole damn state of affairs and shove it straight up your ass!” I wasn’t surprised in the least that he didn’t react in any way to my response; however, my sister rushed forward and threw her arms around me.
“Please don’t leave me now,” she said.
All of the old familiar bonds with my sister and brother swept over me and yet there was an undeniable sense of rage and intolerance with what this family had become that I couldn’t deny. I pulled Maggie close and whispered in her ear, “I can’t stay and be a part of all this.”
The next day I was back in Grayton Beach and it was a day after that when Maggie called for me at the hotel. When I was able to get back to her she told me among other family news that Hanna Wesley had stopped by to see her and that she was leaving Atlanta to move back to Chicago; a move that seemed best for all involved in my opinion.
Chapter Fifteen
Returning to the beach had been somewhat cathartic. Two weeks had passed since my brother’s funeral. I had kept busy with work on my book and I was almost done with the painting project on the Headley place. The news about Hanna Wesley had not been unexpected and in a strange way I found some sense of relief in the closure I thought it would bring to the whole situation; although I had no doubt my father had yet to find closure in any of this.
On a morning that had started like so many others at the beach, I had risen early to write and then to go take a swim in the Gulf. It was early June by then and the temperatures were rising quickly each day. The water was still cool and invigorating, although after my earlier encounter with the dolphin I had stayed much closer to shore. On the way back up the beach to the house, I saw a couple walking together toward me. As they came closer, I saw it was Lila’s daughter, Sara Dalton, with a man I hadn’t met before. He was dressed quite formally for the beach and it seemed curious; a dark silk vest over a white shirt with cuffs and collar neatly starched. He also wore a jaunty felt Bowler hat and his beard was neatly trimmed. Sara had that same vacant look on her face as she came near. She looked up to acknowledge me, but didn’t stop to speak or to introduce the man. I turned and watched them heading down to the shore. The man began to gesture with his arms in a very animated way, obviously trying to emphasize some point he was making.
Back up on the road in town I saw Lila sitting on the porch at the hotel with Melanee and I walked over to say hello. I noticed Willie Palumbo’s car was gone. I suspected he was back at his club again for the day. I had not been back with him since my return from Atlanta, thinking it best not to further align myself with the man, but the beautiful waitress, Eleanor, was often on my mind.
“Hello Mathew,” Melanee said as I walked up onto the porch. Lila smiled at her granddaughter’s uncanny sense of what was happening around her, often even what people were thinking. On the day of my return from the funeral the little girl had come over to the house with Lila to welcome me back and to give me a hug for my loss, before I had spoken to anyone back in Grayton Beach about Jess.
“Did you see my momma down at the beach with Mr. Boudreaux?” she asked. “He’s come in from New Orleans to visit. He owns a big nightclub in the French Quarter.”
“Yes, I saw them,” I answered.
“Melanee, you need to go in and finish your lessons, child,” Lila said, and the little girl got up and made her way across the porch and inside. In a few moments, we heard the sound of the piano begin to play. I sat down next to Lila. “So, you met the famous Miller Boudreaux?” she asked.
“No, not actually,” I answered. “They passed without speaking.”
“He showed up this morning. Arrived by boat into Port Washington last night and then got a ride out here. He’s come back for Sara,” she said. “Sara was starting to do so much better. I’m just sick about her going back there.”
“Has she already decided?” I asked.
“No, they went off to talk about it,” she said, and then stood to walk over to the rail and look out at the beach. “He’s a dangerous man, Mathew.”
“And how is that?”
“He’s a very prominent man in New Orleans and from all I hear, extremely ruthless in the process,” she said, as a tear let loose and made its way down her cheek. “Sara has been together with him for almost two years now. He seems to hold a spell over the poor girl. She sings in the club for him. He apparently provides quite well for her, but she’s changed so. I barely even recognize anything about her anymore. Her old spirit is just gone.”
I felt so badly for the woman who had become my friend and I understood the feeling of anguish in dealing with family issues that seemed beyond your control. “Do you want me to help with this?” I asked.
She turned and looked back at me. “I don’t want you to get in the middle, but thank you,” she answered. “I just feel so helpless and stupid I ever let her leave home with that band all those years ago. I was so caught up in the ruins of my marriage that…” and then she couldn’t finish.
Around the corner from the main road into town we both turned to see Seth Howard riding up on a black horse. He was holding the reins of another horse trailing along behind him. He stopped in front of the hotel and nodded to Lila Dalton, giving me a threatening glare instead. The door opened behind us and Louise Palumbo came out dressed in black pants and boots, putting a large straw sunhat on her head covering her bright red hair.
“Seth has been so nice to offer to teach me to ride,” she said as she passed and went down the steps. Seth got down from his mount and helped her up into the saddle.
As the two of them rode away toward the beach without another word, Lila said, “This has been going on for over a week now. Every time Willie goes off on one of his trips to town the Howard boy shows up to take her riding. This is going to end badly.”
“Does Rebecca know about this?”
“I don’t think so,” Lila replied. “They’re supposed to be married in two weeks and this kid is running around with a married woman in broad daylight, no less. If her husband finds out about this I can’t begin to imag
ine what he’ll do.”
I had a fairly good idea what Willie Palumbo would do and it didn’t bode well for the young Howard boy.
Sara Dalton was coming back up the road from the beach with Mr. Miller Boudreaux. This time she introduced him to me as I came down the porch to return home. I shook his hand and scrutinized his face, trying to get some sense of the man. He stared back impassively.
“And what keeps you here in dis lovely place, Mr. Coulter?” he said in a strong Cajun accent.
I told him I was a writer finishing a book and staying at a friend’s place for the season.
“Well good luck to you then, Mr. Coulter,” he said. He took Sara by the hand up into the hotel. “We’re famished, Lila,” he said. “How about we scare up some food in ‘dat beautiful kitchen of yours?” Lila followed them in, giving me a final hopeless look of desperation.
I was napping that afternoon on the big leather sofa in the Headley’s front room, trying to find some respite from the hot sun, when I heard a loud commotion out on the road that woke me. I shook off the haziness of sleep and looked out the window. An old dusty black truck was parked in front of the hotel. Miller Boudreaux was standing by an open door, holding Sara Dalton’s arms and talking loudly to her. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but it was clear that Sara was struggling to get away from the man. With no hesitation or second thought I ran as best as I could out of the house and through the front gate toward the hotel. Lila was up on the porch yelling and as I got closer I saw Melanee was standing behind her holding her skirt and crying.
“Please just leave us alone!” Lila screamed.
My only consideration, at the moment, was for young Melanee. To have her mother caught in the middle of such terrible circumstances was unconscionable to me and I felt an angry and immediate need to intercede. I was hobbling along as fast as I could when I reached the car. I grabbed Sara around the waist and pulled her away from Boudreaux. I almost knocked him over and he came around with a furious, lethal look on his face.
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