A frail voice demanded to know who was there. Nealy stepped up closer to the bed and heard a footfall behind her. Rhy or Pyne? she wondered. More than likely Pyne. In his youth, Pyne had been the one to show concern about things and people. Rhy, on the other hand, had taken after their father, not giving a tinker’s damn about anything or anybody.
“It’s Nealy, Pa.”
The voice was stronger when he spoke a second time. “There ain’t nothin’ here for you, girl. Go back where you came from. You don’t belong here.”
“I don’t want anything, Pa,” Nealy said, looking down at the load of quilts on the bed. They looked dirty, or maybe it was just the lighting. Clean, dirty . . . what did she care? She pushed the Stetson farther back on her head so she could get a better look at the dying man without any shadows over her eyes.
“Then what are you here for?”
Nealy felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced back to see Pyne. The hand was to tell her to take it easy.
Like hell she would. Her father had never taken it easy on her. Not even when she was so sick she couldn’t stand on her own two feet. She removed Pyne’s hand with her own and gave him a warning look. Thirty years she’d waited for this moment, and neither Pyne nor Rhy were going to take it away from her.
“I came here to watch you die, old man,” she said, looking her father straight in the eyes. “And I’m not leaving until I hear you draw your last breath. I want to see them dump you in the ground and cover you up. I want to make sure you’re gone forever. Only after I’ve danced on your grave will I leave. Do you hear me, old man?” She glared at him, her eyes burning with hate.
The old man’s face became a glowering mask of rage. “Get out of my house!”
“Still ordering people around, are you? Well guess what? I don’t have to take your orders anymore. I repeat, I came here to see you die, and I’m not leaving until you go to hell. That’s where you’re going, Pa. Hell!” There, she’d said what she’d come to say, but why didn’t she feel a bigger sense of satisfaction? Why did she feel this strange emptiness?
“Pyne! Take this devil child away from me. Do you hear me?” the old man gasped as he struggled to raise himself up on his elbow.
“I’d like to see him try,” Nealy said bitterly. Then she felt her brother’s hand on her shoulder again. “I’d like to see anyone even try to make me do something I don’t want to do. Those days are gone forever.”
The old man gurgled and gasped as he thrashed about in the big bed. Nealy watched him with clinical interest. Her eyes narrowed when she saw drool leak from his mouth. God did work in mysterious ways, she thought as she remembered the day her father told her to take her drooling dim-witted child and never darken his door again. Spawn of the devil was what he’d called Emma. She stood staring at him until he calmed down, then stretched out her leg and with a booted foot, pulled over a straight-backed chair and sat down facing the bed. For long minutes she stared at him with unblinking intensity until, finally, he closed his eyes in resignation.
“Okay, he’s asleep now,” Pyne said. “What the hell are you doing here, Nealy? We haven’t heard a word from you in thirty years, and all of a sudden you show up just as Pa is getting ready to die. How did you know? Can’t you let him die in peace?”
Nealy removed her Stetson and rubbed her forehead. She didn’t really care all that much for hats, but she’d always longed to wear a pearly white Stetson, just like the Texans wore. These days she was into indulging herself and doing all the things she’d longed to do but for one reason or another had never done.
“No, I can’t let him die in peace,” she said, her voice even now, calm. “He has to pay for what he did to me and Emmie.” Her eyes narrowed as she watched her brothers closely, wondering what they were thinking before she realized she didn’t care. She really didn’t give two hoots what her brothers or anyone else thought. “As to how I knew he was dying, I made it my business to know everything that has gone on here for the last thirty years. A day didn’t go by that I didn’t think about that old man or this place. And you know why I’m here, Pyne. I want my share of this place for Emmie.”
Pyne chuckled softly. “Your share? You just said you’d made it your business to know everything that’s gone on around here. So how come you don’t know that Pa refused to make a will? There hasn’t been any estate planning, Nealy. And neither Rhy nor I have power of attorney. The government is going to take it all. Whatever’s left will be a piss in the bucket.”
Nealy bridled with anger. Leave it to her gutless brothers to let their father go to his deathbed without so much as a power of attorney. “We’ll just see about that,” she said. “Call the lawyers right now and get them here on the double. Offer to pay them whatever they want. Just get them here. If we work fast, we can still get it all into place. As long as Pa’s still breathing, there’s a chance. Now, get on it and don’t screw up, or you’ll be out on the highway along with your brother.”
Pyne stammered in bewilderment. “But . . . I can’t. Pa wouldn’t . . .”
Nealy stood up, took her brother by the shoulders, and shook him. “Don’t tell me what Pa would or wouldn’t do. It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s dying. There’s nothing he can do to you, to any of us. Don’t you understand that?”
Pyne Coleman stared down at his fit and expensive-looking younger sister. After all these years she was still pretty, with her dark hair and big brown eyes. Once when they were little he’d told her she looked like an angel. She’d laughed and laughed. Back then they had been close out of necessity. It was all so long ago. And now here she was, thirty years later, just as defiant as ever and issuing orders like a general.
Nealy suffered through her brother’s scrutiny, wondering what he was thinking. She was about to ask when Rhy stuck his head in the door, and hissed, “You better come downstairs, Pyne, there’s a whole gaggle of people outside. They said they were relatives, family. I didn’t know we had a family. Do you know anything about this?”
Pyne didn’t seem the least bit surprised. “I know a lot about it,” he said, smiling. “Pa told me about them about a month ago, right before he had his stroke, but he didn’t say anything about them coming here. I wonder what they want.” He took Nealy’s elbow and steered her toward the door. “I’ll make you a deal. You make them welcome while I make that phone call to the lawyers.”
Nealy jerked her arm free, walked back to her father’s bedside, and leaned close to him. Only after she was satisfied that he was still breathing did she follow her brothers downstairs.
In the foyer, Nealy set her hat down on the telephone table and checked her hair and makeup. With all the skill of a seasoned actress, she worked a smile onto her face as she headed toward the door. Rhy wasn’t kidding when he said there was a gaggle of people outside. But family? Whose family?
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Nealy Coleman. And you are?”
A well-dressed elderly woman stepped forward and introduced herself. “I’m Fanny Thornton Reed. I represent Sallie, your father’s sister’s side of the family. We’re based in Las Vegas, Nevada. And this is Maggie Coleman Tanaka. She represents Seth, your father’s brother’s family. Their roots are in Texas. I talked to your father on the phone about a month ago and told him we were coming, but it looks like you weren’t expecting us. Is something wrong?”
1
Seventeen-year-old Nealy Coleman’s chest heaved and rattled when she coughed, causing the housekeeper’s faded eyes to grow wide with alarm. The toddler at Nealy’s feet started to cry. Nealy reached down to pick up the little girl. “Shhh, don’t cry, Emmie. Please don’t cry,” she pleaded hoarsely. The child whimpered in her mother’s arms.
“Let me hold her while you stick your head under that steam tent I made for you. Land sakes, child, if you don’t take care of yourself, you’re going to end up in the hospital or the cemetery.” The housekeeper reached for the toddler.
“All right, Tessie, but you keep an eye out for Pa. I�
�ve still got three horses to groom, and you know how he is. He doesn’t like it when any of us get sick and can’t do our chores.” Nealy gave Emmie over to the housekeeper and sat down. “If you sing to Emmie, she’ll stop crying.”
Tessie walked around the kitchen with Emmie in her arms, crooning to her as she tried to comfort the fretful child.
“Whatever you do,” Nealy added, “make sure supper isn’t late. Pa will take it out on me if it is.” Nealy stuck her head under the towel and struggled to take deep breaths from the bowl of steaming mentholated water. She could hear the old woman singing off-key to her daughter. Something about a blackbird baked in a pie. If she wasn’t so sick, she might have laughed.
Moments later Nealy heard the swinging door slam against the wall and ripped the towel away from her head. Her face dripping wet from the steam, she jerked around to face her father. In that one instant she saw everything in the huge kitchen: the coal stove and bucket, the stewpot on the stove, the old refrigerator, the clean, crisp curtains hanging on the windows, her brothers Pyne and Rhy, and her hateful, angry father. So much for Tessie keeping an eye out, she thought miserably.
The sound of the rain hitting the back porch beat like a drum inside her head. Chills racked her body as she struggled to her feet. Afraid of what her father might do, she started to inch closer to Tessie and her daughter when his hand snaked out and pulled her back.
“What are you doin’ lollygaggin’ around in here when you have horses to tend, girl?”
Nealy threw her head back, lifted her chin and met his angry gaze. “I wasn’t lollygagging, Pa. I was waiting for the rain to let up.”
Her father snickered in disgust. “Like hell you were,” he said, looking at the bowl of water. “You got a slicker, girl. Now git to it.”
Pyne stepped forward. “I can do her chores, Pa. Nealy’s sick.” Without warning Josh Coleman swung his arm backward. Pyne took the blow full to the face. He reeled sideways, his hand going to his nose. Blood spurted out between his fingers. Rhy handed him a dish towel.
Tears filled Nealy’s eyes. She staggered over to the coatrack by the kitchen door. Her hands were trembling so badly she could barely take the slicker from the peg. She turned around as she put on her slicker and looked straight at Tessie, begging her with her eyes to take care of Emmie a little while longer. The old woman nodded in understanding. Nealy cringed when she heard her father say, “Put that drooling half-wit in her bed and get our supper on the table, woman.”
Outside in the pouring rain, Nealy trudged to the barn. Once inside, she collapsed on a bale of hay and fought to catch her breath. She turned fear-filled eyes on the barn door and whispered, “Just this once, God, help me. Please.”
Help arrived minutes later in the form of her brother Pyne. He touched his lips to her forehead. “Jesus God, Nealy, you’re burning up. Lie down and rest and I’ll do what needs doing. Pa will never know. He went into his office with a bottle so you know what that means.”
Nealy curled up in a nest of loosened hay and put a horse blanket under her head. “I don’t understand you, Pyne. Why do you let Pa treat you like he does? Why don’t you stand up to him and show him what you’re made of?”
Pyne looked up from cleaning April Fantasy’s rear hoof. “You keep thinking I’m something I’m not. I don’t have your grit, Nealy. I never have and I never will. And Pa knows it.”
Nealy sighed in resignation. It was sad but true. Pyne had no backbone whatsoever.
“He doesn’t pick on Rhy, just you and me. I hate him. I hate him so much . . .” She broke into a fit of coughing. She felt like she’d swallowed a pack of razor blades. “I never felt like this before, Pyne. I think I must be dying. I see two of you. Who’s going to take care of Emmie if I die?”
“Shhhh,” Pyne said as he picked up the currycomb. “I’m not going to let you die, Nealy. As soon as I finish up here I’ll take you into the house and put you to bed. Tessie told me she’s going to fix you a couple of mustard plasters and that you’ll be right as rain in no time.”
Right as rain, Nealy thought as her eyes started to close. What was right about rain? she wondered as she drifted off.
The barn door opened and banged back against the inside wall. Nealy struggled to a sitting position and was relieved to see it was Rhy, not her father.
Pyne looked over the horse’s back. “Rhy!”
Rhy looked at Nealy, then at Pyne, his expression full of disgust. “Pa’s in rare form tonight,” he said, picking up a hoof pick and a currycomb as he walked past Nealy toward the second stall.
Nealy didn’t know what to think. Was Rhy going to help Pyne do her chores? Maybe he wasn’t such a bad brother after all. Or maybe he wanted something. With Rhy, you just never knew.
“Hey, Rhy, you ever been horsewhipped?” Pyne asked.
Nealy knew that it wasn’t so much a question as it was a prediction of what was going to happen if their father found out what they were doing.
“You know I haven’t. If you’re trying to scare me, don’t bother. Pa isn’t going to find out unless one of you tells him.” He bent to pick up the horse’s hoof. “I can tell you this, Pa’s worse now than he ever was, and it’s all her fault,” Rhy said, pointing the hoof pick at Nealy. “Her and that illegitimate half-wit of hers have been the talk of the town for the last two years. Christ Almighty, we can’t go anywhere anymore without folks whispering behind their hands.”
Nealy bristled. “Just because Emmie hasn’t talked yet doesn’t mean she’s a half-wit. Stop calling her that, Rhy. Please.”
“Wake up, Nealy. For Christ’s sake, Emmie’s two years old and she hasn’t done anything but cry and grunt. Like it or not, sis, you spawned a half-wit, but worse than that you brought shame to this family and this farm. It’s pretty damn hard for us to hold up our heads. Guess you didn’t think about that when you opened up your legs.” He tossed the hoof pick into the bucket. “You’d be doing us all a favor if you’d just pack up and leave.”
“Rhy!” Pyne shouted. “You said you wouldn’t say . . .”
“I know what I said,” Rhy interrupted, his face transformed with his rage. “But that was then, and this is now. I’m tired of living this way. Tired of the gossip, the whispers, the smirks. I’m tired of it all, ya hear? I’ve had enough.”
Nealy bit down on her lower lip. So now she knew why Rhy had come out to the barn—not to help, but to tell her to leave. And since Pyne always wanted everything Rhy wanted, that probably meant he wanted her to go, too. But where could she go? What would she do? She was only seventeen. How would she take care of herself. How would she take care of Emmie? She tried to think but her head was too fuzzy. Tomorrow she would think about it. Tomorrow, when she was feeling better.
Fern Michaels likes to hear from her readers. You can contact her at [email protected].
FERN MICHAELS is the international New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List, Celebration, Yesterday, Finders Keepers, and many other novels. Surrounded by five children, three grandchildren, and five dogs, she shares her 300-year-old South Carolina plantation home with a resident ghost named Mary Margaret who leaves messages on her computer. Aside from writing books, (“I like writing about families and strong women who find their niche in life just the way I did”) and administering two family-run day care centers, Fern has a brand-new hobby: “I’m taking gourmet cooking lessons and, so far, the only comment from my kids is this, ‘It’s okay mom, but don’t make it again.’ The dogs walk away from the leftovers. What’s a writer to do?”
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What You Wish For Page 34