A Wicked Lie

by M. S. Parker

  I turned away from the driveway and went the other way, out into the fields. I walked between the rows, trying to remember how it looked when the vines were full. The heady smell of them. Right before harvest, I’d always loved walking outside in the evening and just breathing in that scent.

  Now, I felt nothing about them. Nothing about the harvest to come. I knew Jacques would take care of everything, but there were some decisions that would have to be mine. Because the vineyard was only mine now. Allen had added my name onto the deed after we’d been married. His parents hadn’t liked that too much, but it didn’t matter. It was mine.

  But I’d give it all up if it meant I could have Allen back.

  When I got back to the house, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. I was sweaty and dirty, and no closer to finding peace. Thirst clawed at my throat and I decided that there was one solution that could take care of both things. If I drank enough, I wouldn’t be thirsty anymore and I wouldn’t have to think.

  “Shae!” Jasper’s voice cut through the haze. “What the hell?”

  I blinked at him. Where had that come from? Better, where had he come from?

  “Where have you been?”

  I made a vague gesture behind me. “Walking.”

  “Shit.” He came closer and I could see concern on his face now. “You’re burnt.”

  I frowned and then winced, feeling what I hadn’t felt before. My face hurt. I looked down and saw that, beneath the dirt, my arms were red. Not dangerous red, but red enough that I would feel the fire soon.

  “Come on.” Jasper put his hand on the small of my back, a place where my tank top had protected my skin.

  I didn’t ask why or where. I just let him lead. I felt a faint start of surprise when he took me into the bedroom and then into the bathroom, but I still didn’t say anything.

  “Here, Shae. We need to get you cleaned off and then put something on those burns.” Jasper’s voice was gentle.

  When I still didn’t move, I felt his hands on the hem of my shirt. I raised my arms and let him pull the tank top over my head. I barely registered that my shorts and shoes came off next. Everything felt fuzzy and I had the fleeting thought that I might have sunstroke.

  “Um, Shae?” He sounded slightly embarrassed, but I couldn’t figure out why.

  I looked up at Jasper and the lines of his face blurred. I felt myself sway slightly and Jasper swore. His arms went around me and I made a pained sound as his t-shirt rubbed against the burned skin, but I didn’t struggle. Moving felt like too much effort. My head rolled to the side, landing on Jasper’s shoulder.

  The world faded.

  And came back as icy needles stabbed at my skin.

  I jerked, trying to get away, but strong arms held me tight.

  “Shh. I know it hurts, but it’ll feel better soon.”

  The voice was familiar, deep and soothing. I knew it wasn’t Allen, but it comforted me all the same. The needles still hurt, but I stopped struggling.

  The world faded again.

  In and out it went, bringing with it incoherent images and feelings.

  A towel patting down my body, rough against my skin.

  Hands working something cool into my heated flesh, something that took away some of the pain.

  A glass of water at my lips.

  Concerned gray eyes looking down at me.

  Dark, wet hair dripping on my cheeks.

  Soft cotton too harsh against the burns.

  “Go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll stay with you.”

  I was too tired to argue, but I didn’t know if I would have anyway. Even if I was asleep, I didn’t want to be alone.

  Chapter 12

  I wished I could say that things got better. That I woke up from my little walkabout and my head was clear. That the grief didn’t come back with the same crippling agony.

  I couldn’t say that.

  Aside from the fact that my entire body hurt when I woke up, there was the fact that Jasper had fallen asleep next to me and I was pretty sure we’d taken a shower together. Fortunately, he didn’t let it get weird. When I came back in from the bathroom, he was awake and simply asked how I was feeling.

  I had to promise to call him if I needed anything before he’d leave, but once I made the promise, he nodded and headed out, leaving me alone. I wasn’t exactly feeling better, but I had at least lost the aimlessness that I had yesterday. I wasn’t going to wander. I didn’t have school to distract me – and I was actually grateful for that since I doubted I was emotionally stable enough to deal with a class of screaming second graders at the moment – but I could find other things to do.

  As I was scrounging in the kitchen for something to eat for breakfast, I realized that my refrigerator was packed. I sighed. All right. First thing on my to-do list. Cleaning up the well-intended gifts everyone had brought over. Whatever I didn’t want to keep, I’d take to Gina and Junie. The rest could go to the local mission. I didn’t want any of it to go to waste.

  With that decided, I grabbed an apple and looked around to see what else I needed to clean up. Once I was done with that, then I’d figure out what I wanted to do next. Having a firm goal in mind didn’t ease the pain and didn’t prevent me from having to stop occasionally to wipe at my eyes or have a short bout of crying. But still, it was better than not having anything to do.

  I wasn’t strong enough to go through Allen’s things, to start deciding what I was going to keep and where the rest would go. Right now, I didn’t think I’d ever be strong enough, though I supposed that would change with time. Time was supposed to heal all wounds, or at least that was how the saying went. I didn’t know about time healing, but I did know that it wouldn’t stop passing.

  There were some things, however, that I knew couldn’t wait. Business things. I’d already talked to Allen’s lawyer, telling him that I wasn’t ready to hear Allen’s will. I’d talked to Jacques too. He was taking care of things at the vineyard, going through papers and making sure things were still moving towards the planting and harvest that Allen had planned.

  I couldn’t stay in the house once I’d finished cleaning, and I couldn’t risk wandering about like I had before. I needed something constructive to do. If it had been closer to the next school year, I would’ve been okay working on new lesson plans and ideas. But it wasn’t. I needed something else.

  So I went to the one place where I knew I could be surrounded by Allen, but not be crushed by his presence. Somewhere he’d been, but we hadn’t really been together. And somewhere I could find something to do.

  Jacques looked up in surprise when I knocked on the office door before stepping inside. He was a short, wiry man with cropped black curls and eyes that were obsidian black. His skin had been tanned and weathered by the years, so he looked older than I knew him to be.

  “Mrs. Lockwood.” He stood.

  “Jacques, please, call me Shae.” I gave him the best smile I could.

  He studied me for a moment and I thought he was going to refuse, citing that it wouldn’t be appropriate, but his expression softened and I knew he understood why I wanted him to address me by my first name. Hearing the name I’d taken when I’d married Allen was a brutal reminder that he wasn’t there anymore.

  “Of course, Miss Shae,” he said with an incline of his head. “How can I help you?”

  I took a breath. “I’d like to learn about the business.”

  His eyebrows went up, but all he said was, “Of course.” He pulled out the chair he’d been sitting in. “Have a seat, Miss Shae.”

  Jacques was a patient teacher. He began with the basics, reviewing the different types of grapes and their uses. Allen and I had gone over that when he’d first inherited the vineyard, but it hadn’t been information I’d really retained. I’d never envisioned a future where I’d need to know it. Now, I focused on every word, categorizing everything the same way I did for school work. Part of it was because I still didn’t know what I planned to do with the vineya
rd and I wanted to be as knowledgeable as possible. The bigger part though was that this was something I could do and still feel Allen’s presence, but not so much that it hurt.

  We took a break for lunch and then kept going with a review of the points of the grapes we grew. Not once did Jacques ask about my sudden interest or even act as if this was something out of the ordinary. He also didn’t ask about my crispy and peeling skin, which I was grateful for since that wasn’t something I wanted to share with anyone. Ever. When I told him I’d come back the next day, he simply nodded and wished me a good evening.

  As I stepped back outside and felt the heat of the summer sun, I knew that, despite how much I missed my husband, I would be able to keep going. I looked out across the land and then up at the house. The question I had to answer now was if I wanted to stay here to do it.

  I walked slowly up the path to the house, letting my thoughts flow freely. The entire vineyard had been Allen’s, free and clear. The only thing we owed on it were the yearly property taxes, and while those were hefty, I’d be able to manage without too much of a problem. While my own salary wasn’t meager, it also wasn’t as much as we made on our wine in a good year. We had money put away for bad years too, plus what was left of Allen’s trust for emergencies. With Jacques running things, I didn’t doubt that staying was an option.

  It was the matter of wanting I had to come to grips with. My emotions about staying were conflicting. Memories of Allen were everywhere. I’d moved in here with him after we’d gotten engaged, and before that, I’d spent all of my school breaks with him here after my mother had died. Pictures were everywhere. Eight years of memories hanging on the walls. I’d helped decorate it. Turn it from a bachelor pad into a home. All of that made it so much harder for me to be in the house.

  But it was home. The only home I had.

  After our mother died, Mitchell had put the family house on the market. He’d known I wouldn’t be going back to Utah and he’d planned on moving to be closer to me. Once he’d paid off what Mom had owed on the house, he’d used the rest to get an apartment in St. Helena. While I loved my brother, his apartment was definitely a one-man space, and he spent a good deal of time out with his construction crew. The vineyard was my home and had been since my mother had passed. It was solid, reliable, and I needed that right now.

  Maybe I’d feel differently in a few months, years, but at least for the moment, I needed that familiarity, no matter how much it hurt.

  With that initial decision made, I felt some of the pressure lift from my shoulders. There was no need to make an immediate decision about anything to do with the vineyard or Allen’s things. I had time and now I had something to keep me busy until I was ready.

  None of that, though, made it any easier to climb into my bed alone and see the empty place where Allen had laid. I’d gone to sleep in this bed alone plenty of times before...it happened, but it had always been with the expectation that Allen would come crawling under the covers at some point. That I would feel the heat of him, the strength of his arms around me. None of that would ever happen again. The spot would stay empty, no matter how much I wished it could be different.

  My sunburned skin rasped across the sheets as I reached for Allen’s pillow. The physical pain was still no match for the internal emptiness I was feeling, but I didn’t dissolve into sobs as I had on the nights before. Tonight, I just held Allen’s pillow tight and only a few tears escaped before I fell asleep.

  The days fell into a routine. Breakfast, working with Jacques in the office and sometimes inspecting things outside, dinner, exercise to make sure I was sufficiently exhausted, then a shower and bed. I knew it wasn’t really moving forward, but it was as close as I could manage at the moment. The fact that I could do anything other than lie in bed and cry was an accomplishment in and of itself.

  I continued putting off the things I didn’t want to do and ignored the voicemails left on my phone: concerned ones from Gina and passive aggressive ones from the Lockwoods. The only texts I answered were the daily ones from Jasper, checking in to see how I was doing, and I only did those because I knew he’d come over if I didn’t respond. Plus, he was satisfied with short answers and didn’t push for more. And he didn’t mention Allen.

  Friday morning, just as I was getting ready to head down to the office, the fragile bubble I’d been building over the past few days was broken by a single phone call.

  I didn’t know why I picked up the phone when I’d ignored all of the others. Maybe it was because my morning coffee hadn’t quite kicked in yet. But the why didn’t matter. What mattered was that I answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “May I speak with Shae Lockwood, please?” a pleasant female voice replied.

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. If this was a sales call, this woman was going to regret her job choice momentarily. “Speaking.”

  “Hi, my name is Rita Sandberg and I’m with Winthrope Insurance.”

  I opened my eyes and frowned. This just kept getting better and better. A sales call was bad enough, but if she thought she could sell me a life insurance policy, we were going to have an issue. I could feel my anger bubbling below the surface, eager for a reason to be unleashed.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Lockwood,” Rita continued. “We usually work through the mail, but there was a note to make direct contact with you.”

  “A note?” I let my confused impatience seep into my voice. “Look, I don’t know who you are or why you’re calling, but you need to explain yourself right now or I’m hanging up.”

  “I apologize, Mrs. Lockwood,” Rita said. “I didn’t realize that you were unaware of...it makes sense now.”

  “What makes sense? What am I unaware of?” My grip on my phone tightened as I resisted the urge to throw it against a wall.

  “It makes sense why you didn’t call us about the life insurance policy, ma’am.”

  “What?” I shook my head. “The insurance company already sent a check.”

  At least, that was what Jasper had told me. He’d called them and taken care of depositing it in the ’joint account Allen and I had opened years ago. I barely remembered signing it. I didn’t care about it. Allen and I each had a small policy, just enough to take care of funeral expenses. There was enough money in savings and other sorts of stocks and things that we’d never seen the point of having large policies.

  “Not from our company, ma’am,” Rita continued. “With a pay-out of this amount, our company policy is to deliver it in person either to the beneficiary or an attorney.”

  That didn’t sound like the few thousand dollars Allen and I had agreed on.

  “What amount?” My voice sounded hollow in my ears.

  “The policy is for one million dollars, ma’am.”

  Chapter 13

  I sank into the chair behind me, grateful that I hadn’t taken the call while walking down to the office. I would’ve ended up in the dust.

  “Mrs. Lockwood?” Rita’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

  A million dollars. Allen had taken out a million dollar life insurance policy? When? Why? If I hadn’t handled our personal checking account and had just gone over the books for the vineyard with Jacques, I might’ve been worried that Allen had done it because we weren’t as well-off as I’d thought. But we were fine. More than fine. I could’ve quit teaching indefinitely.

  Unless it hadn’t been just me Allen had been worried about.

  I put my hand on my stomach. I’d been trying very hard not to think about the possibility of being pregnant. I’d already scheduled my blood test for the last week in July. I wasn’t going to rely on my body to tell me. Not with the amount of stress I’d been under. After my mother’s death, I’d had a scare when I’d missed my period and I’d thought I was pregnant. I wasn’t going to put myself through that again.

  I hadn’t told anyone about it either. I wasn’t planning on it until I knew for sure and was further along. I
didn’t want to hear all of the advice. I knew people would mean well, but all of them would try to get me to do what they thought they’d do in my situation. That I should’ve gotten Plan B at the hospital as soon as I’d found out Allen was gone. That I should terminate the pregnancy because I didn’t want to be a single mother. Adoption. Keeping the baby because he or she would be a part of Allen.

  I knew all of the arguments because I’d been having them off and on with myself. Just because I’d tried not to think about it didn’t mean the thought didn’t pop into my head from time to time.

  “Mrs. Lockwood, are you still there?”

  I jerked out of my thoughts. Right. I had something I needed to deal with right now, not a speculation of something that may or may not be in my future.

  “I’m here.”

  “I need to know if you’d prefer to meet with us in person or if you have an attorney you’d rather work through.”

  “Can – I need some time to think,” I finally said. “Do you need my answer right away?”

  “We prefer not to hold pay-outs for clients, Mrs. Lockwood.”

  Something in Rita’s voice said this wasn’t a request she often got. I wasn’t surprised. I was sure most people had to fight with the insurance companies to get their money, especially considering how expensive funerals were.

  “My lawyer then,” I answered. “Savill Henley. He has a private practice. Give me a minute to find his information.”

  “Of course.”

  I stood on shaky legs and made my way towards the home office. Allen and I shared that one, so I knew where to look for what I needed. I tried not to let myself think about the money or why Allen would have taken out such a huge policy, instead focusing on getting Rita the information that would get her off my phone as quickly as possible.

  “Thank you,” Rita said after she’d repeated the contact information back to me for the second time. “We’ll make all future contact with your lawyer and he can contact you. Do you have any questions for me before I let you go?”