by Robin Wells
“Who on earth from, dear?”
“Why . . . from Joe.”
“Joe?” Gran put her hand on her chest. “Joe Madison?”
“Yes, dear. I’m his widow.”
• • •
“Oh. Oh my.”
I ran to Gran’s side, alarmed, and helped ease her into her chair. “Are you okay?”
She sat there, her hand still on her chest. “Yes. Yes, dear.” Her eyes were fixed on the woman’s face. “Joe’s gone?”
“Yes. He died six years ago. A heart attack.”
“But the flowers—” Gran suddenly broke off. She bit her lip, as if she realized she’d said something she maybe shouldn’t have said.
“What flowers?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing.” Gran’s hand flapped the question away.
“It’s okay. I know all about them,” Viola said gently. “Joe’s attorney sends them.”
“What flowers?” I repeated.
“Tulip bulbs.” Gran’s voice was thin and breathy. “Every spring they’d come. Charlie thought I ordered them, but . . .”
An image flashed in my mind—tulips flaming in the front yard every March, then disappearing, leaves and all, to await another spring.
As luck would have it, Hannah was the aide on duty. She looked at Gran and Viola, then back again. “I think you-alls need a drink.” She scurried into the kitchen.
“Joe arranged for you to receive the bulbs every spring for the rest of your life,” Viola said.
“Oh, my. And you—you knew?”
“Yes.” Viola’s eyes creased as she smiled. “You were the reason he married me.”
The conversation was interrupted by Hannah returning with a bottle of wine and a mismatched assortment of juice glasses. She poured all of us a glass, then took one for herself and sat down on a cane chair in the corner, actively listening. This time, no one bothered to shoo her away.
“I don’t understand,” Gran said. “How . . . ? When . . . ?”
“I was a stewardess. I was crazy about him—we all were. He was so dashing and handsome and charming. I was thoroughly in love with him, but he wouldn’t settle down. Claimed there was only one woman he would ever marry.” She took a sip from her juice glass. “I was with him right after you told him he should marry someone else and start a family of his own—and, well, I scooped him up on the rebound. We were married within two months.”
“Oh my.” Gran sat back, her eyes wide. “Did you have a good marriage?”
“In our own way.” Her lips curved in a small, wry smile. “We loved each other, and we were willing to overlook each other’s . . . flaws, I guess you’d call them.”
Gran stared at her, her mouth open. She abruptly closed it, then opened it, but no words came out.
“Joe was a wonderful man in many ways,” Viola continued, “but he had an insatiable craving for novelty and excitement.”
“He did like an adventure,” Gran mused.
“He always wanted what he couldn’t have.” Viola took a long draught of wine. “He had a roving eye, you know. Pardon me for saying this, but . . .”
“But what?” Adelaide urged.
“Well, it’s not my place.”
“Please.” Gran leaned forward. “Tell me whatever you can.”
“Well, through the years, I’ve often wondered if he could have been faithful to you, if he’d married you. Forgive me for saying it, but I have my doubts.”
Gran sat perfectly still, unmoving as a rock, for several long moments.
I leaned forward, about to ask if she was all right. Matt put a reassuring hand on my arm.
“You know,” Gran said at length, “that very same thought crossed my mind. I never really allowed myself to ponder it much; I didn’t want to, because I didn’t want to spoil the notion of a grand romance. But deep down, I think I had the same doubts.”
I sat there for a moment, stunned. I’d been so caught up in the tragedy of the thwarted lovers that it never had occurred to me it might not have worked out.
But Gran was right. The character traits that made Joe so exciting as a young beau would not necessarily have made him a good husband. How could one woman hold the interest of a man who was always in search of the next conquest, the next adventure?
Gran leaned forward. “Did Joe . . . Did you two have children?”
Viola’s lovely face, so composed until now, fell. She shook her head. “Lord knows we wanted them. That’s why Joe married me—to start a family. But it turns out Joe had the mumps when he was overseas, and it left him sterile.” She polished off her wine. “But . . . he had Becky.”
“It’s a such shame he didn’t know her.”
“Oh, but he did.”
The color drained from Gran’s face. “What?”
“He followed her progress through school and college, and when she got a job, he became a client.”
“He . . . met her?” Her voice was a raspy whisper. “When she was grown?”
“Yes. Oh, she never knew he was her father, of course. But she was his investment advisor. He would go to Chicago and take her to lunch.”
Gran’s hand flew to her chest again.
“You see, Joe did quite well for himself. He took all of his back pay from the service for the years he was a POW and invested it in IBM and Xerox when they first started. He made quite a fortune. He had a real knack for wheeling and dealing.”
“I knew he had a sharp mind,” Gran said. “Becky took after him that way.”
“He was very proud of Becky. Loved to say she’s the one who really made his fortune. He always gave her a generous Christmas ‘bonus.’ She refused to take it, so he started sending it to her anonymously.” She grinned. “Much like he sent you the tulip bulbs.”
“Oh my.” My grandmother’s hands fell to her lap.
“As for Becky, I believe she always gave her gift to charity.”
Gran nodded. “That sounds like Becky. She wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t on the up-and-up.”
“Well, that brings me to the topic I really came here to discuss.” Viola set down her juice glass.
“Good heavens—what more could there be?”
“Joe made provisions for Becky or her heirs in his will. He didn’t want to cause problems or scandal for you, Adelaide, so it specifies that the funds could only be dispersed after your death—or in the event that Becky learned of her true parentage. Since Becky is gone and Hope knows the truth, well, the criteria is met. So I’ve brought her a copy of the part of the will that pertains to her.”
She reached into her bag—I think it was Prada, although I’m not as knowledgeable of expensive bags as my ex was; he said you could identify clients with the means to purchase serious art by the handbags they carried, although I’ve had friends who’ve gone into hock to buy a bag, so to me, an expensive one just means a person’s shelled out a lot for one item—or maybe even bought a fake. I had a friend who used to buy fakes.
But that had nothing to do with what was going on here. My ADHD flibbertigibbet mind was off on a tangent, because I was having a hard time processing what Viola was saying. I forced myself to focus as she pulled out a manila envelope and held it out to me.
“My attorney wants you to call him after you’ve had a chance to read through this.”
I gingerly took the envelope. I almost didn’t expect it to feel solid, the moment seemed so surreal. “I—uh—this isn’t necessary,” I stuttered.
“Nonsense. Joe wanted you to have it. For what it’s worth, Hope, Joe kept tabs on you, too. We have one of your sketches hanging in our living room.”
Now I really felt as if I were having an out-of-body experience. “But . . . how? My art was never really for sale.” My ex-husband had refused to carry any of it in the gallery. He said it cheapened our collection.
“From a college exhibition your senior year.”
He’d bought my college art? “He—he knew where I went to college?”
“Oh, yes, honey. He flew in to see that exhibit.”
My heart felt strangely warm. A grandfather I’d never known had been watching out for me?
“It’s the pen-and-ink of a little wren in an azalea bush. I think it’s marvelous.”
I’d always loved drawing birds. I felt my face heat. “Thanks,” I mumbled.
Gran and Viola talked some more, but I had trouble following the conversation. Hannah’s evening replacement arrived and she resisted leaving, but I wasn’t really jarred out of my dazed state until Viola stood, took both of Gran’s hands, and promised to stay in touch. She kissed me on the cheek and told me the same. I walked with her to the foyer.
“Just one thing before you go.” Gran had risen and was scooting her walker forward. “However did you handle it? Weren’t you jealous?”
Viola paused. “Oh, I admit, it bothered me sometimes—especially when we learned Joe couldn’t father any more children. But I knew what I was getting into when I married him. I made a conscious decision that I’d rather have as much of Joe as I could than have none of him at all.” She smiled. “You were the one woman he couldn’t have, so of course you were the one he always wanted.” She walked out the door, toward a large town car waiting at the curb.
Matt went with her. A uniformed driver got out and opened the door, and Matt helped her in. I waved as the car pulled away from the curb.
Matt returned to the house, and we both went back in the parlor.
“Open the envelope, Hope!” Gran urged.
I realized I still held it in my hand. I walked over and passed it to her. “It belongs to you.”
“Oh heavens, no, dear! I promised Charlie I wouldn’t take a dime from Joe, and I’m not going to start now. Besides, what does an old woman like me have to spend it on?” She thrust the envelope at me. “That’s yours. Joe intended it for Becky and her heirs—and that’s you, dear. I won’t hear another word about it.”
Matt sat beside me on the sofa. My hands shook. I pulled at the flap, then extracted a document. I scanned it. When I got to the part about what he bequeathed to Rebecca Elizabeth McCauley, the figure mentioned had more zeroes than I’d ever seen in one place. I showed it to Matt. “Is this for real?”
Matt look it over. “Looks about as real as it gets.”
“What did he leave you?” Gran asked eagerly. I passed the document to her. Gran’s eyes widened. “Oh, my gracious!”
“I could buy a home!” I said, stunned.
“You could buy two houses and still have money left over to invest!” Gran clapped her hands together. “Oh, honey—I’m so happy for you!”
“Thanks.” I grinned, but the expression felt forced. Truth was, I didn’t feel happy so much as numb. I could buy a condo in Chicago. I could buy a gallery of my own. I could . . .
The evening aide came into the room. “Time for your evening medicines, Miss Adelaide.”
Gran nodded. “I think it’s time for bed, period. It’s been a long day. But you two young people should go out and celebrate.” She turned to Matt. “Matt, dear, I don’t know how you found Viola, but thank you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”
“My pleasure, Miss Addie.” He kissed her cheek. I did the same, and we wished her good night.
“Want to go out for a drink?” Matt asked when we were alone in the room. “Peggy’s watching the girls.”
“I think I’d rather just go out on the porch.”
Matt refilled our juice glasses, and we moved to the front porch swing. The day had cooled and a pleasant breeze lifted my hair off my neck. “So how did you find Mrs. Madison?”
“Through a private detective.”
My feet dragged on the porch, stopping the swing. A hard, hot knot formed in my stomach. “I asked you not to hire one.”
“I know, I know. But I already had.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Matt rested his juice glass on his thigh. “After I learned how you felt about it, I called to pull him off the case. It turned out he’d already found Mrs. Madison and learned you had an inheritance coming. He said Mrs. Madison insisted on meeting you and Addie and telling you in person. She wanted it to be a surprise. So I decided to just let things play out.”
I knew it was petty of me; I knew I should feel grateful, but the thought that I should feel grateful for him going against my wishes made the knot in my stomach smolder like a coal. “So you just kept me in the dark, because you figured you knew what was best.”
“No. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to blow a potential bonanza for you.”
The knot tightened and burned. “There’s no excuse for not telling me.”
Matt looked at me. “Whoa—what is this?”
“I want to make my own decisions about my life, that’s what this is.”
“I thought I was doing you a favor. I hope you’d do the same for me if anyone ever shows up out of the blue wanting to give me nearly a million dollars.”
“You should have told me,” I said stubbornly.
“So you could do what? Contact her on your own? I was afraid that if Mrs. Madison didn’t get to handle it the way she wanted, she might decide to wait until Adelaide was dead to give you the money. It would have been entirely within her rights. I was trying to look out for your best interests.”
His logic was sound, but my feelings weren’t responding to logic. “You have no right to presume that you know my best interests better than I do.”
He held up his hand. “Wait a minute. You’re actually mad at me for bringing in a woman who just handed you an enormous check?”
“No. I’m mad at the way you did it.” He was just like my ex—making high-handed decisions about my future without consulting me, acting as if I were somehow incompetent.
It punched my buttons—and not just because of my ex, I realized. It was how I’d often felt around my incredibly accomplished, brilliant, glass-ceiling-crashing mother.
“Know what, Hope? ‘My way or the highway’ isn’t usually the best strategy. Sometimes things work out best when you trust other people.”
“I tried that once, and it didn’t work out so well.”
He looked at me, a look that lasered right through me. “So that’s what’s really going on here, huh? You’re done with trust because of your ex? You’ve got such big control issues that you can’t deal with any deviation from a plan?”
“Of course not.”
“You sure? Because that’s how it looks from here.” He set his glass down on the porch railing with a final-sounding thump. “Well, I promise you this: the next time someone wants to give you a bank vault of money, I’ll keep in mind that you don’t want my ‘interference.’” He rose. “I think I should say good night.”
The thud of his footsteps on the porch echoed in a hollow part of my chest. I knew I was being unreasonable. I knew I should admit it, that I should apologize, that I should thank him, but some stubborn, unreasonable, angry part of me resisted.
We were going to be over in just a couple of weeks anyway. All that would happen in two more weeks was that I would grow to love him more, and it would hurt that much more when I left.
Love. Oh God. Was that what I felt for him? Despite my best intentions, had I fallen in love with Matt?
I knew the answer even as my mind formed the question. I loved him, and here he was walking away from me. I put a hand to my mouth, but it didn’t stop the word from coming out. “Wait!”
He stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“I—I know I’m being unreasonable.”
He slowly turned toward me.
“I’m sorry.” I rushed down the steps and into his arms. The sol
idness of his chest, the strength of his arms around me—it felt so good, so comforting, so terribly, awfully . . . temporary. Tears welled in my eyes.
His hand tangled in my hair. “It’s okay.”
I nodded against his chest.
He pulled back and looked down at me. “You’re crying. Are you still angry at me?”
“I don’t know what I am,” I confessed. “Confused, I guess. This is a lot to process.”
He smoothed my hair back from my face. “Yeah, it must be.”
“Part of me wants to stay mad at you.”
“Why?”
“It’ll make it easier to leave.”
“So don’t.”
Fresh frustration welled up in me. “Matt, art majors wait their entire lives for something like this to open up. This inheritance is a lot of money, yes, but it’s not enough to live on the rest of my life.”
He blew out a sigh. “Yeah, I know.”
“Besides, you and me—this is just temporary. Our way of getting over the hump and back into dating.”
“I kind of thought we’d moved beyond that.”
My heart gave an irrational jump of joy, only to feel like it had plunged off a cliff. “Matt—we both know a long-distance relationship isn’t going to work. Your schedule is so packed you can barely carve out a full evening for a date, much less weekends away. And my new job is going to be really time intensive.”
A nerve worked in his jaw. “Let’s talk about this later. I don’t want to spoil the time we have left.”
I didn’t, either. I reached up, looped my arms around his neck, and pulled him down for a kiss, only to see a figure standing behind an open curtain next door.
“We’re being watched,” I whispered.
He turned and waved to Mrs. Ivy. The curtain immediately dropped back into place.
Our laughter broke the tension. He kept his arm around me. “Listen—Peggy and Griff want to take the girls to the beach as a beginning-of-summer treat. They’re planning on leaving the morning after Miss Addie’s going-away party.”
Leaving. Going away. Each phrase cut me like a razor. “Sounds nice.”
“So I was wondering if you’d go away with me for a long weekend in New Orleans.”