Mason's Daughter

by Stone, Cynthia J

  “What’s wrong with Colton’s cylinders now?”

  A cool breeze wafts across the terrace as I tell Angelique about my argument with Colton and his reaction to my new goal. Maybe she can help me understand his hostility while I get my own under control.

  “All his little–what shall we call them?–accidents or incidents must give you a clue.” Angelique places her hand on my arm. “Does Colton ever tell you how he feels?”

  “He shuts me out completely. Won’t talk, except to argue with me, and won’t listen at all.”

  “Ah, kids these days. How well I know.”

  “What do you mean? You don’t have any children.”

  Angelique raises herself from the chaise and pours more tea into our cups. “Mind if I explore some parallels?”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Angelique begins to pace, and the words flow with her movements. She reminds me I was fourteen the year my mother died, and I’d never spoken to Colton about my life without her. To this day, I am still furious with my father for letting her die.

  She stops in front of me. “Nate had no control over your mother’s insanity.”

  I try to nod, but my neck has stiffened.

  “Perhaps he deserved it. But you’ve pushed your father so far out of your life, he hasn’t come back to Mason’s Crossing for anything, not even Jack’s funeral.” Angelique lights a cigarette. “Believe it or not, Nate did the best he could.”

  “It wasn’t good enough.”

  She arches one eyebrow. “Now Colton’s a volcanic mess, and with all these minor accidents lately, he’s headed for a meltdown.”

  “I simply can’t let that happen.”

  Angelique drifts to the edge of the terrace and turns to face me. “Would that be so terrible?”

  “I’m going to prove Jack’s death was an accident. It’s the best way to help Colton.” My hands shake as I set my cup down. “Besides I don’t know how much longer I can stand his . . .”

  “In Colton’s eyes, you’re really strong and tough. Possibly he blames you for not preventing his father’s death.” She sighs. “Sound familiar?”

  I stare at her until tears sting the rims of my eyelids.

  “Sally, you don’t communicate with Nate. Colton doesn’t speak to you. Do you really want another generation of this horrible rejection? Find a way to stop it.”

  “This has to do with Colton’s father, not mine.”

  “Jack is dead. Talk to Nate.”

  Angelique might as well offer me chopped worms with my tea.

  “Show Colton things can be different.” She steps forward and pauses near the foot of my chaise. “Teach him how forgiveness and reconciliation work. Make the first move.” She bends to stir her tea. “It doesn’t have to be much. Send Nate a postcard.”

  I haven’t mailed anyone a postcard for a very long while. It isn’t an easy thing to do, especially the first time.

  I waited in front of the counter of the Hot Springs Hotel and Spa and stood on my tiptoes to ask the desk clerk for a stamp. He wore a dark jacket with the hotel monogram on the pocket. His pale brown hair was slicked back, making his smooth forehead look bigger than his face. He leaned over and peered down at me. “Postcard or letter?”

  “Postcard, please.” He reminded me of a skinnier version of Ichabod Crane from my storybook, but I didn’t feel like smiling, missing two more baby teeth since last week. “I wrote a postcard to my mother.” She would like the photo. The porch with columns across the front of the hotel looked like our house, only bigger. Even their geraniums bloomed in the same colors as ours.

  “That’ll be one cent.” He passed me the stamp. “Isn’t your mother with you?”

  With a shake of my head, I reached in my pink satin coin purse and handed him the five-dollar bill my father’s assistant, Clyde, gave me before we left home.

  The clerk took it between his thumb and one fingertip, like I could pass him cooties. “Nothing smaller, I suppose,” he muttered.

  I licked the stamp and worked it carefully into the upper right corner. Maybe Mother wouldn’t notice I got it crooked. “She had to stay home. She wasn’t feeling well enough to make the trip, so Aunt Mary came instead.”

  As he counted out my change, he glanced around the lobby. “Where is your aunt now?”

  “Upstairs in bed.” I could tell this man didn’t like children, so I quickly scooped the money into my purse. “Where’s the dining room, please?”

  “Perhaps you should go back upstairs and get her.” He sniffed. “Change clothes while you’re at it. We don’t allow–”

  “But I always eat breakfast in my robe and pajamas. Mrs. Gussmann doesn’t mind.”

  “Is that your name? Gussmann?”

  He reminded me of a mean dog the neighbors used to have. He barked all night until my father went over to talk some manners into him. “No, it’s Sally Mason Wallace.”

  His face turned pale. “Oh, my god. Your father is Nate Wallace?”

  I nodded and reached up toward the counter and laid the stamped postcard on it. With my fingertip I scooted it toward him, in case he was the one with cooties.

  In a flash, he came out from behind the front desk. “I had no idea. Please, let me show you to the dining room. This way, Miss Wallace.”

  I followed his stinky Aqua Velva odor across the lobby, my pink bunny slippers padding over the Oriental rugs and dark wood floors, and through some thick double doors. As we entered the dining room, my mouth watered at the smell of bacon and cinnamon, and I was thirsty for orange juice to wash away the leftover glue on my tongue. The desk clerk pulled out a huge cushioned armchair for me and told the waiter to bring whatever I wanted.

  “Put it on Mr. Wallace’s tab,” he ordered. “And hurry up. She’s hungry.” He smiled, bowed, and asked if there was anything else he could do for me.

  “Thank you. That will be all.” I’d heard my father say exactly those words when he didn’t want the servants to hang around. I wondered how the man kept from tripping over an empty dessert cart as he backed out of the dining room.

  Before my French toast was half eaten, Aunt Mary appeared at my side, frowning and pressing her hand against her tummy. “Here you are. I was worried about you.”

  “Sorry. I woke up starving and you were still asleep.” I held up a piece of toast toward her mouth and felt the syrup drip down my wrist. “Want some?”

  She dodged the food like it was poison and placed a hand to her forehead. As she flopped in the chair next to me, she closed her eyes and waited. Her lips moved as if she silently counted something, and then she burped.

  I giggled. “Wow! Clyde would be proud of that one!” Last year he taught me to “burp with gusto,” as he said, but warned me not to tell anyone, especially my aunt.

  Aunt Mary squinted, and for a moment her gaze darted around the ceiling as if she didn’t remember where she was. “Sally, I can’t take you anywhere today. The medicine is making me sick to my stomach.”

  My eyes went damp in the corners and my voice shrank. “Will Daddy take me?”

  “He’s busy in meetings all day, but I’ve arranged for a babysitter. Gwen’ll be here soon.” She took a sip out of my water glass. “We shouldn’t have come along on this trip,” she mumbled from behind the napkin. “But Nate wouldn’t let us stay home alone. What with Clyde gone and all.”

  After breakfast, I changed clothes and returned to the lobby to wait. Gwen took me to the hotel gift shop and bought me a swimsuit decorated with yellow daisies, a matching towel, flip-flops, sunglasses, and a purple dragon inner tube. She picked out some movie magazines for herself. On a shelf behind the cash register, I spied a heart-shaped crystal perfume bottle. The squeeze ball was covered in gold lace with a black tassel. I asked her to add it to our purchases.

  “It’ll just wash off in the pool,” she said while signing the ticket.

  “It’s not for me.” I couldn’t remember Mother’s favorite perfume, but the clerk said ‘Summer Ro
mance’ was close enough. She’d love it anyway.

  We headed for the pool and stayed there until our hands and feet turned pruney. At lunch, the babysitter ordered turkey sandwiches brought to us poolside. For two days in a row, Gwen took me to the park, the movies, and the ice cream parlor. There wasn’t much else to do in the little town of Hot Springs for my father either, because at the end of the second day he announced we were leaving in the morning.

  “Do you like our hotel?” he asked.

  “Well enough, I guess.” I shrugged.

  “Good. Because I just bought it.”

  “I’d like it better if Mother had come with us.”

  He hid behind his newspaper.

  By the time we returned home, Aunt Mary needed a doctor, and one waited for us at the house to whisk her upstairs. I carried my shopping bag of swim gear and the special box with the perfume into the entry hall. Mrs. Gussmann had planted herself at the bottom of the stairs, ready to help with luggage. At the console table, my father shuffled through four days’ worth of mail.

  “Look what I got!” I squealed. I pulled out the box to show Mrs. Gussmann my gift for Mother. I opened the lid so the crystal could catch the light from the chandelier.

  “Oh, how perfectly lovely!” she said. “Did your father give you that fancy bottle for your birthday?”

  Blinking, I looked at him. He stopped sorting the mail and stared first at Mrs. Gussmann, then at me.

  Mrs. Gussmann picked up my suitcase. “It’s too bad you didn’t have a little friend along to help you celebrate yesterday.” She began her lumbering climb up the stairs. “I bet you had a nice cake at the hotel. How many candles on it this year? Six or seven?”

  Without a word, my father turned and went into his office and closed the door. I held my breath. Surely he disappeared for a moment to get my present, the one he forgot to bring along on the trip. After several minutes, I realized he was not coming out. He had no idea yesterday was my birthday, and I gave up expecting him to remember what day I was born.

  Angelique jiggles my foot with her hand. “Will you at least think about what I’ve said?”

  “Sorry, what was it?”

  “Get in touch with Nate.”

  “I . . . I can’t.”

  “When the situation with Colton gets painful enough, you will.” She stretches out her hand to take hold of mine. “How about some lunch? I made turkey Waldorf salad.”

  She leads me into the kitchen and I plop down where she points. Our conversation turns casual, about Raúl’s new restaurant on the lake and her gallery reps in Santa Fe and La Jolla. We agree Big Jack’s periodic belligerence elevated my late mother-in-law Trixie to sainthood, and Angelique expresses interest in the workings of my new sprinkler system.

  I explain how to set the timer. “But something odd happened this morning.”

  Chewing slowly, Angelique listens to my story of the appointment book. She never even asks a question.

  “Unless Colton moved it, I can’t imagine how . . . like magic.” I sigh. “Either that, or my mind is going. But thank goodness, otherwise the book would have been ruined. It’s got all the clues I’m going to follow.”

  “Trixie certainly would have reason to want her son’s named cleared of suicide, but she was never sharp enough to manage a rescue of such magnitude. It had to be your clever mother. She’s your guardian angel, you know.” Angelique makes it sound easy, like checking last night’s scores in today’s paper.

  “Now I believe those far-fetched rumors about you.”

  “Which ones, dear?”

  “That you are descended from a gypsy who married into Polish nobility. Supernatural events strike you as perfectly normal. Not so much, the rest of us.”

  “Do you have another explanation?”

  “Colton is trying to hide Jack’s book from me.”

  “Why would he do that?” She laughs. “Of course, keeping it safe isn’t the same as deciphering the information inside. You can rely on your mother only for so much. The rest is up to you.”

  I start to protest, but the doorbell rings. Angelique returns to the kitchen with her arm linked through Officer Avery’s. “Look who’s come to see you, Sally. Don’t you just love a handsome man in uniform?” She waves him to a place at the table.

  “Thanks, I’ve already eaten.” Mike squeezes the brim of his hat and nods at me. “Hello again.”

  I smile up at him. “How did you know I would still be here?”

  “A sudden funny feeling. I dunno . . . can’t explain it.”

  While Angelique shoots me a knowing wink, he twirls his hat and stares at his loafers. “Big Jack’s had a nasty fall in the warehouse.” Mike raises his head to look me full in the face.

  “How badly is he hurt?” I can’t make sense of the words. Big Jack is too cantankerous to let himself be injured.

  “They’ve taken him to the emergency room. He’s in pretty rough shape.”

  Before I have a chance to ask further, Angelique bustles us out the front door, and I follow Mike’s squad car and its wailing siren to the hospital. When we arrive, the ER doctor informs us Big Jack has gone into surgery, but I lose track of whether it was for the broken hip or the head injury. “Don’t expect too much, ma’am. Mr. Edwards wasn’t breathing at the time his secretary found him.”

  I clutch Mike’s hand and let him lead me to a seat in the lobby.

  Some guardian angel Saint Trixie turned out to be, if she became one. She can’t even keep her husband from falling off a ladder.

  On the other hand, I wonder if my mother would be capable of an even more difficult assignment.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I have two choices. Sit at the hospital until Big Jack gets out of surgery, which could take all day, or finish my errands and return later.

  When Mike Avery leaves to resume his obligations in town, I pace in the empty hallway. Jack was right. Years ago God pitched out virtues, and patience flew right past me. After several minutes, I pick up my purse and head toward the exit, but realize it isn’t lack of patience that prods me. I cannot force myself to stay in a place that reminds me of my mother’s unhappy last years. Besides, I have other matters to resolve.

  Detoured to the ladies room, I splash water on my face. If Saint Trixie wants to scold me for deserting her husband, her words will fall on deaf ears. No way will I trade my own sanity for camping out at the hospital, however undutiful to my father-in-law it might seem. On my way out, I hand the ER doctor my business card and drive home.

  On the kitchen table, I spread out the telephone directory, a yellow legal pad, three No. 2 pencils, and Jack’s appointment book. I call the first two names listed on March sixteenth last year and get some vague answers. Jack wanted to borrow money, engage a partner, plan an expansion or relocation of the business, and make a deal with someone besides his father.

  Which deal? Jack’s plans included a second deal, which never got airborne, perhaps because he died. If the second one had failed, too, I knew him well enough to believe he would have tried to launch a third. He was that cheerful and persistent, but also that unrealistic.

  I clutch the crumb of evidence. Jack couldn’t have killed himself. Anyone could see he hadn’t given up. Maybe his optimism will rub off on me.

  The next call gives me hope and points me toward the potential mother lode, the name of the man in the midst of each deal. For once, Jack’s scribbles prove useful. A moment after I scrawl “Dr. Brett Kennedy” at the top of the page and underline it, my phone rings.

  Oh, hell! It’s Big Jack’s secretary. The pique in her voice blames me for something besides forgetting to call her.

  After she summoned the ambulance, Harlene couldn’t leave the office and later the hospital staff informed her only family members can be privy to patient information. I apologize for my lack of communication and hope she blames it on anxiety.

  “I’ve never seen Big Jack so spitting mad,” Harlene begins. “When he got here after breakfast, I t
hought he would break something.”

  Already I can picture Big Jack’s scowling face.

  “I couldn’t even get his signature on this stack of checks. He stormed out to the warehouse, and I could hear him cussing and shoving cartons around.”

  I detect sniveling. Her lacquered face must be streaked with black.

  Harlene blows her nose. “I didn’t go hunting for him until he didn’t answer my page, maybe twenty minutes later. Customers had started to come in, so I never heard the crash when he fell off the ladder.”

  “It’s not your fault, Harlene.”

  “What happened this time to set him off like that?” She says it like she has the answer already. According to her, nothing is ever Big Jack’s fault. Goodness knows, he could part the seven seas all at once.

  “Don’t blame yourself. You did everything you could.” Harlene had a rough early life, not much education, and raised a son while tending a disabled veteran for a husband. Without admiring her, I acknowledge her fierce loyalty to Big Jack, something I had never achieved with anyone. But she treated Jack like a bothersome salesman instead of her future boss. Biased robot that she is, she couldn’t have failed to notice how much the store meant to him. “The rest is up to the doctors.”

  “Oh, but if you’d seen him, all pale and unconscious. He wasn’t even breathing.”

  Her words throw ice water on my heart. In place of Big Jack, I see his son’s face, ashen and still, as if he had fallen asleep in our garage, frozen against the driver’s headrest. I shudder and pick up a pencil, doodling to distract myself, pressing down as I draw.

  When the lead tip of my pencil snaps, my mind shakes off its inertia, as if I just woke up to an alarm. “Tell me something, Harlene.” I wait for her to stop sniffling. “Who is Brett Kennedy?”

  She gasps. “Don’t mention his name around Big Jack.”

  Not that it would make any difference to him right now. “Why not?”

  “He sold some company stock to that Dr. Kennedy last year, about this time. But something happened afterwards, I don’t know what, and Big Jack has been furious about it ever since.” She begins to whimper. “If he doesn’t pull through, I don’t see how . . .”