“Where would you go?”
Poppy hesitates, as if she has to think for a moment, when she doesn’t have to think at all. “I’ve always wanted to see the Cayman Islands,” she says.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Banking is big there. As an accountant, I should be able to get a job, don’t you think?”
“I guess so,” Angela says softly.
Not that she would need one, Poppy tells herself. Her plan had been to milk the Taylor cash cow for another year or so before striking out on her own, but that will have to change now. She’ll need to slow things down a bit, divert Judith’s attention long enough to get her plans in place.
“Well,” she says, “better get back to work.” She leaves the office then, enjoying the feel of Angela’s stricken gaze on her the entire way out.
71
Tate
WE NAMED THE mule Elijah. It had been Kala’s choice, and it fits him. I’ve just finished nailing back a board in his stall when I glance out the open top door that faces the field where he is now grazing. He’s put on weight quickly, much faster than I would have believed possible, and his previously tattered coat is showing a new gloss.
I credit Jillie with his progress, as well as the others. She came up with individual recipes for them that include things like coconut oil and turmeric that get added to their grain buckets morning and evening. She’s spent hours online researching the most up-to-date information on how to get them healthy again. In her tenacity, I had glimpsed the Jillie who once cared for Mrs. Mason’s horses, as if they were her own. She’d had a heart for giving them the best she could then, and this group of rescues is no different.
As if he feels my gaze on him, Elijah raises his head from his grazing, spots me in his stall and lets out a long, honking whinny-bray. I can’t help smiling every time I hear it. There’s something inherently joyful in the sound, and I realize, not for the first time recently, that I’m immensely grateful to be here in this place, doing what we’re doing.
It’s not as if I’d ever thought to imagine it. Any of it, really. Jillie. Kala and Corey. Lucille. And all these thrown-away souls who seem as grateful to be here as I am.
Zippy, the pony sharing the field with Elijah, trots over and touches noses with the mule. She likes to check in with him every little while, as if she’s afraid he might disappear, and she’ll be alone again.
I know exactly how she feels. While part of me realizes Jillie has been through a lot and probably needs time to come to terms with it all, another part of me needs to know what all of this means to her. Is it real? Does she want it to last? Am I intentionally tying her to this place with responsibility and commitment so that she can’t leave?
I think about my own question for a good bit, forcing honesty into my answer.
Maybe.
72
Jillie
I PULL UP to the barn and start to unload the items I’ve just picked up at the hardware store in town. I carry a bucket and some supplements inside, setting them down in the aisle, when I spot Tate in Elijah’s stall. “Hey,” I say.
He turns around, looking surprised, as if he hadn’t heard me come in. “Hey. Need some help?”
“Sure.”
We walk outside and grab the rest of the stuff from the back of my car, taking it in and setting it next to my first load. “Everything all right?” I ask. “You look . . . unsettled.”
He rakes a hand through his hair and starts to shake his head, then says, “Actually, I’ve been thinking.”
“About?” I ask, feeling suddenly uneasy.
“This,” he says, waving a hand at the expanse of the barn. “Us. And what we’re doing.”
“And?”
“I suspect my motives.”
“What do you mean?”
He lets out a long breath, and then, “I don’t ever want you to think I pressured you into this.”
I release my own sigh of relief. “Tate. Do you have any idea what you’ve done for me?”
Surprise flickers across his face.
“Honestly, I don’t know where I would be without you right now. I guess I would still be at Stone Meadow, letting Judith bully my daughter.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“You’ve given us a place to live. And you’ve given me . . . a purpose I haven’t felt in a very long time.”
We study each other for several drawn-out seconds, our eyes saying things we’re not yet ready to say out loud. He reaches out and touches the back of his hand to my face. “Jillie.”
I close my eyes, savoring his touch. And then I feel his arm loop my waist, pull me to him. His kiss is light, testing. I’m the one to deepen it, wrapping my arms around his neck and opening my mouth to his.
Feeling licks through me like a flame finding its way along a line of gasoline. There has never been this with anyone else in my life. I knew it once with Tate and eventually came to accept that I would never know it again.
We are both heated and breathing hard when he takes my hand and pulls me to the center of the aisle where the ladder leads up to the hayloft. “Want to explore some old memories?” he asks with a nearly wicked smile.
I glance at my watch. “I have half an hour before I need to leave to pick up the girls.”
“We might even have time to make a new one or two.”
I laugh, feeling happy, as I haven’t in so long. “When you put it like that,” I say and start climbing the ladder.
73
Jillie
AFTER OUR MEMORY-MAKING session in the hayloft, Tate decides to ride with me to get Kala and Corey. We both agree to keep our hands off each other for the duration of the drive, although I’m sorely tempted to pull the car over and pick up where we left off. I’m pretty sure he knows as much because just before we get to the school, he says, “Any chance we can make a few more memories after the girls go to bed tonight?”
Recalling the feel of his mouth on mine, and the way my pulse flutters at the thought, I say, “I sure hope so.”
The girls are clamoring into the car then, each of them talking over the other in getting out the highlights of their day. Tate asks them both about the quizzes he’d helped them study for the night before, high-fiving them when they say they’d gotten A’s.
We roll down the driveway of Cross Country to the soundtrack of their laughter when Tate tells them how he thinks Elijah proposed to Zippy this afternoon and that he’d caught them rubbing noses again.
“You’re silly, Tate,” Corey says on a giggle.
“Well, he does cut an imposing figure,” Tate says. “I can see why she’s so taken with him.”
He glances at me, and I see he’s teasing me with the double entendre.
“But he’s a mule,” Kala says. “And she’s a pony.”
Tate shrugs. “What can I say? When it’s right, it’s right.”
“Was he funny when y’all were young, Mama?” Corey asks.
I smile at her in the rearview mirror. “He had his moments.”
“Hey,” Tate says. “Sitting right here.”
“What’s that?” Kala asks, pointing at the mound of boxes in front of the little house.
“I don’t know,” I say, stopping the car and cutting the engine.
Kala and Corey are out first, running to the boxes. “There’s a note,” Kala says, waving it in the air. She looks at it, her face instantly crumpling. I walk to her, taking the note when she holds it out to me.
I read the words. “You have no reason to ever set foot at Stone Meadow again. I have made sure that anything that belonged to you or the girls has been returned in these boxes.”
Anger bolts up from nowhere, and I have to close my eyes to force back the river of red fury rolling through my veins.
“What is it, Mama?” Corey asks, and in her voice, I hear that she is afraid.
I fold the note and put it in my pocket. “Everything is okay, honey. Grandma just sent over our things so we can have them here with us.”
&nbs
p; Kala meets my gaze, and I can see that she wants to call me out on the varnishing of the truth, but she doesn’t, clearly wanting to spare Corey the hurt as much as I do.
74
Jillie
TATE INSISTS ON carrying the boxes into the house and storing them in the small room off the kitchen. I let him do so, only after he promises to let me fix him dinner.
Once he’s done bringing them in, the four of us head for the barn and get everyone fed. Seeing the animals content and happy, munching away at their hay, diverts my thoughts from Judith’s latest slam, and I try to focus on what it means to see the girls happy the way they are here. While the animals eat, they brush each one until they’ve all been attended to, their coats glossy, their manes neatly combed.
“It’s something to see, isn’t it?” Tate says when we stand back to take it all in.
“It is. I can’t tell you what it means to me to see the girls care so much about them. It makes my heart full.”
Tate puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes softly. “Mine too. That’s one of the tricks to life, I think.”
“What?”
“The ability to keep refocusing. Turning away from the bad, finding the good again. It’s there. And there’s always the temptation to let it be overshadowed by what can seem like a never-ending flood of yuck. We just have to keep turning back to the good.”
I reach for his hand, lace my fingers through his, and say, “You’re part of that good, you know.”
“So let’s just keep looking back to each other. Deal?”
I nod once, tears in my eyes. “Deal.”
75
Poppy
IT TAKES SOME doing, but she is patient when it comes to executing a plan.
When it finally fully lays itself out in her mind, she puts pen to paper and maps out every possible step needed to cover all her bases. She writes down everything she knows about Judith’s weekly schedule, based on things she’s learned from both Jeffrey and Angela throughout the years. Fortunately for her, she also knows that Judith rarely diverts from her schedule. And that’s the case on Wednesday morning when she pulls out of the driveway at Cross Country and heads to town for her weekly book club meeting.
Poppy waits for her to disappear from sight and then drives right up to the house, as she has many times in the past to deliver company papers that need to be signed. She was able to find out through Angela that Judith has yet to hire a new housekeeper. She doesn’t expect to draw attention from anyone who happens to be working at the barn as it is a good distance from the main house.
She pulls around back and gets out of the car with a stack of folders in her arms. She knocks repeatedly at the door off the kitchen. There’s no answer, so she lets herself in. Once inside, she calls out hello, and when it’s clear no one else is in the house, she runs up the stairs to the bedroom at the end of the hall.
The door is open, and she walks quickly through to the bathroom.
She drops the files on the counter and opens drawers until she finds Judith’s toothbrush and toothpaste. She picks up the tube, removes the lid and then pulls the syringe from her jacket pocket.
She pops off the cap and inserts the needle inside the toothpaste, slowly pushing the syringe forward so that the liquid antifreeze has time to blend with the paste. It’s a very small amount, actually. Not enough to kill her. Just enough to sidetrack her for a bit and maybe make her wish for death.
Once it is empty, Poppy puts the syringe back in her pocket and replaces the lid on the toothpaste. She puts the tube back in the drawer exactly as she had found it, neatly lined up next to the toothbrush.
She catches her reflection in the mirror, staring at the color in her cheeks and recognizing the glimmer of satisfaction in her own eyes. Problem-solving has become a real strength of hers. As solutions go, this one might be her best yet.
76
Angela
IT’S LATE WHEN she arrives at Stone Meadow. She had deliberately stayed at the office long past the time when she’d wanted to leave simply because she had no desire to field off another confrontation with her mother. And so, it’s after ten when she lets herself inside the house, walking softly to the kitchen to make herself a sandwich.
The lights are still on, which is surprising, since her mother has a rarely-veered from habit of shutting them all off before she goes upstairs at nine o’clock. Wondering if she has waited up for her, Angela tamps back the surge of dread instantly inspired by the thought.
She drops her purse on a chair and opens the refrigerator when something catches her attention on the other side of the island in the center of the room. The hairs on her arm stand up, as she turns to see her mother lying on the floor in a fetal position.
“Mother!” she screams, running to her. She drops onto her knees and shakes Judith’s shoulder. “What’s wrong? Mother! Wake up!”
But she doesn’t. Angela takes her wrist to feel for a pulse and finds it barely detectable. She stumbles to her feet and grabs her phone from her purse. She punches in 911 and waits for the operator to answer. “It’s my mother,” she says. “Please. Send an ambulance.”
77
Jillie
ONCE WE’VE COMPLETED the morning routine at the barn, Tate heads to the house to put in a couple of hours of writing. It’s the first time he’s done so since we moved to the farm, but I don’t make a big deal out of it, telling him I’ll see him when I get back from picking the girls up at school.
At the little house, I decide to unpack some of the boxes Judith had sent over. The first two contain clothes that still fit Kala and Corey, so I put them away in their individual drawers. There’s another with some of their favorite books that I used to read to them. I put those in the keeper pile.
The next box contains some of my winter sweaters. I decide to leave those in storage, because I really don’t have room for them here in the small closet.
Sunshine beckons through the window, and I decide to deal with one more box before saving the rest for another day. I pull off the tape and open the lid, surprised to see some of Jeffrey’s familiar clothes inside. I can only assume this box was a mistake. Judith would never have knowingly returned any of his things to me.
There’s a suit jacket on top. I lift it out, instantly recognizing the faint scent of his cologne. I think how sad it is that he is gone and yet this lingering trace of him still exists.
I can’t manage to feel indifference to any of it, even though that would be the most comfortable place to get to. I start to refold the jacket when I feel something in a side pocket. I squeeze the fabric and hear paper crumple. I reach inside and pull out a white envelope.
The logo of our local bank is on the outside. There’s something hard inside. The envelope isn’t sealed, so I turn it up, and a key falls out.
I stare at it for a moment, wondering what it could be for. I tap the envelope again, and a receipt slides into my hand. The date is the day before he died. The paper acknowledges a visit to a safe-deposit box.
He’d never mentioned having one to me. But then during the last few years of our marriage, that would not have been surprising. Between the time he spent at the office and our mutually increasing desire to avoid acknowledging that our marriage had become a hollow shell, this wasn’t likely to have come up.
It’s probably nothing.
I put the key back in the envelope and slip it into my pocket.
I DRIVE TO the bank as if on autopilot. As if some part of my brain has made the decision for me. As if I don’t have the conscious courage to do it on my own.
I show the bank manager the necessary credentials, proof that my name is on the account associated with the safe-deposit box. The young woman who helps me makes small talk about the weather, while she leads me to the vault-enclosed wall of boxes. She points out the number to the one I’m looking for and then leaves me alone.
I stand for a minute or more, key in my hand, feeling as if I am about to open Pandora’s box. Do I really wan
t to know what’s inside? If it’s something I will regret learning about, can I close it back up and walk away as if I never learned of it?
Of course not.
I stick the key in, turning it to the right, and the small door swings open.
A single, white envelope occupies the narrow box. I reach for it, notice the name of the law firm Jeffrey had used in the left corner. The back isn’t sealed.
Cautiously, I ease the document from the envelope and unfold it. Last Will and Testament. Jeffrey Dentworth Taylor.
I have to reread the words at the top of the page, absorbing each one on its own wave of shock. The date below Jeffrey’s name is the day before his death.
My heart starts to pound, and I force my eyes down the rest of the page.
Again, I read through them in disbelief.
Judith had shown me Jeffrey’s will, and it had been dated six months before he died, renewed apparently on some whim I had never understood. But this. This. In addition to the trust established for Kala and Corey, the bulk of his stock in TaylorMade Industries had been left to me.
I do not understand how there could be two wills. Would the date of this one invalidate the other?
I close the door to the safe-deposit box and walk quickly through the bank and to my car. Once inside, I call the number at the top of the letterhead, ask the polite receptionist who answers for the attorney I know Jeffrey had dealt with. I give her my name when she asks.
Lawrence Taubman answers with a note of surprise in his voice. “Ms. Taylor,” he says. “How can I help you today?”
I draw in a deep breath and respond with, “You can begin by explaining the existence of a will dated the day before my husband died.”
He doesn’t answer for several seconds, and I can hear him weighing his response. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Ms. Taylor.”
Fences: Smith Mountain Lake Series - Book Three Page 20