The Will of Wisteria

by Denise Hildreth Jones

Then she remembered exactly what was happening. A year. No money. No travel. Working with innercity children. An entire year.

  Her stomach churned. The fabric dropped from her hands, and within fifteen seconds she was in the bathroom with her head hanging over the toilet.

  chapter thirteen

  Friday was the official registration day of the new semester at the College of Charleston. Will parked on Calhoun Street and headed toward the Lightsey Center, where the registrar’s office was located on the second floor.

  Just as he passed the bookstore, a campus police officer rode by on a bicycle and nearly ran him over. Will lurched out of the way, swearing under his breath. Rent-a-cops on bikes. How much more hopelessly out-of-date could this place get?

  Faculty and administrators were always ragging on the students to appreciate the heritage and beauty of the school, founded in 1770 and reigning as the thirteenth oldest college in South Carolina. He remembered that much anyway—it had been drilled into him often enough. But the buildings people fawned over and took pictures of and touted as “historic” felt more like musty old tombs to him, and the wandering, so-called “scenic” pathways designed to show off the architecture and flowering plants just made it take twice as long to get from point A to point B.

  The only thing Will appreciated about college was that it kept him from having to get a real job. If he actually showed up for classes this year, he might graduate. Not that graduation was a huge issue to him either. After all, college was mostly about enjoying the life he had grown comfortable living. He wasn’t in any big hurry to leave.

  Just beyond the glass doors at the entrance to the Lightsey Center, students were milling about everywhere. People he barely knew greeted him, patted him on the back. Girls whispered about him to their friends. Who would want to rush all of this?

  The elevator took him to the registrar’s office, and he greeted the registrar’s secretary. “Lucy, you’re looking beautiful today, as always.” Will grinned. Laying on the charm always worked to get him what he wanted. He was on a first-name basis with almost every staff person at the college.

  Lucy flushed slightly. “Hey, Will, I was wondering if I’d see you today.” She typed on her keyboard and then stopped suddenly. “Will?”

  Distracted by the shapely coed who had walked up to the window next to him, Will turned his attention back to Lucy. “Yeah, what’s up?”

  Lucy peered over her glasses at the computer screen and shook her head. “I’m not sure what the problem is, but it says here that your account is due in full.”

  “What do you mean? My account is always paid by my trust.”

  “Yeah, I know.” And she did. They’d been doing this same song and dance for years. “But the computer is saying that it isn’t paid. Do you have a credit card on you or something?”

  “Um, no. I didn’t bring anything with me. It’s got to be a computer error or something. Why don’t you go talk to Nancy and see what she can find out?”

  Lucy nodded and headed to the back toward her supervisor’s office. In a minute she returned. “Nancy placed a call to the bank regarding your trust. They informed her—” She leaned in closer and whispered the rest. “They informed her that your trust was frozen and that you would have to pay for this semester yourself, up-front.”

  Will leaned back, trying to reconcile this information. He didn’t get it. “Oh, Lucy, everything has been so mixed up since my father died. But don’t worry, I’m going home Sunday, and I’ll get this all figured out. I’ll catch you on Monday.”

  He gave her a reassuring wink and headed back toward the door. He might have worried more about it, but a group of the new freshmen girls looked like they needed help in locating their dorm.

  He walked them down the street. As they made their way, a lost-looking boy, obviously a freshman, came their way with a crisp new book bag draped across his shoulders. “Come here,” Will said, motioning to him and giving the girls a wink. “See that little flag in the middle of the street?”

  The boy nodded, his eyes following Will’s point toward a small pink flag attached to a red ball weight.

  “Well”—Will grinned over his shoulder at the girls—“those flags are for the new freshmen. Kind of a souvenir, you know? Everybody who’s anybody has got one.”

  The bright-eyed freshman ran out into the street and picked up the flag, cradling it in the palm of his hand and then stuffing it into his pocket. “Thanks, man,” he said, and jogged off in the direction of the registrar’s office.

  The giggling girls watched the boy go, and Will reached out, putting his arms around the two prettiest ones. “What that kid doesn’t know,” he told them with a laugh, “is that the little pink flag he’s carrying is actually a marker for the sanitation department. They put those down when a horse on the carriage tour relieves himself in the middle of the street.”

  Most of the girls laughed, all but one. “That was a mean thing to do,” she said. “You told him it was a souvenir.”

  “It is a souvenir—kind of,” Will said. “The tourism department loses about a hundred and fifty of them every year.”

  On Friday evening around seven o’clock, Jeffrey finally closed the last file. He rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Each day he had entered this room furious and frustrated at the turn his life had taken, and each evening as he closed up another folder, he had to admit that these cases were remarkable, to say the least. There were so many different types of traumas that Jeffrey had never even seen before.

  He stood up, pushed the chair back under the table, grabbed his briefcase and suit coat, and opened the door.

  Dr. Nadu stood within inches of Jeffrey’s face.

  He jumped back. “Sorry, Dr. Nadu. You startled me.”

  “I apologize for the intrusion. Are you finished?”

  Jeffrey nodded. “All done. My first week of initiation is officially over.”

  “So, what did you learn?”

  “I’m guessing you’re looking for a different answer than the one I gave you the other day?”

  “That is correct.”

  Jeffrey laughed softly. “You want an honest answer?”

  Dr. Nadu narrowed his eyes. “Are there others?”

  Obviously this man didn’t live in Jeffrey’s world. “Well, I can honestly tell you I’ve seen a lot of different cases come through the doors of my practice, but I’ve never seen anything like what I’ve seen going through your files this week.”

  Obviously this appeased him. Dr. Nadu sat down in one of the conference room chairs and removed his glasses. “I will see you on Monday, then.”

  “See you on Monday.”

  Jeffrey walked to the garage, his step a little lighter. But when he reached his parking space, a haze seemed to be rising from the hood of his car—the car he had just had inspected to make sure it wasn’t bugged.

  Acid. Someone had poured acid all over the hood of his beautiful Mercedes—obviously some nutcase who had rented Fatal Attraction recently. He cursed himself, cursed his life, cursed his father and his sister and his crazy wife.

  He called a tow truck and a taxi, and while he waited, he called Littleton Detective Agency. “Don’t worry,” Frank Littleton assured him. “We’ve got a lot more digging to do. We should have some solid answers for you by the end of next week.”

  Jeffrey slammed the phone shut. By the end of next week there could be far more to investigate.

  Elizabeth clipped her Bluetooth on her ear as she walked out the front door, then paused on the stoop. The new paint job on the pink stucco looked good, even if it was hard to see in the dark. She hardly ever saw it in the daylight.

  The night air was invigorating. She’d been closed in and working like a dog all week. Getting out for a run would do her good, even if she didn’t look forward to what she had to do first.

  She dialed her client’s number, then hooked the phone safely back at her side once the ringing came through her earpiece. It was only seven o’clock
in L. A. She had dreaded this call all week, and so she had put it off until the latest possible hour on Friday.

  “Elizabeth Wilcott, you work too much.”

  “Hey, Mr. Everett. Getting ready for the weekend?”

  “Of course not. I work too much too. I’m still at the office.”

  “I figured you would be.” She paused.

  “Something going on with our land acquisition?”

  “No, no. That’s all running smoothly, actually. We should have a counteroffer by the end of next week. No, there’s something else I needed to talk with you about.”

  “Something I need to come to town for?”

  “No, nothing like that. Mr. Everett, you know there is nothing I desire to do more than to service my clients as effectively as possible.”

  “You’ve never disappointed me, Elizabeth. You’re like your father in that regard.”

  She tried to remain focused, even though any mention of her father’s sterling reputation made her want to jerk him up from the grave and shake him into reality. “Well, thank you, sir.” She breathed deeply.

  “Elizabeth, are you all right? Are we running into trouble here?”

  She laughed. “Thankfully, no. But I’m just going to have to shoot straight with you and ask you to trust me. I’m taking a leave of absence from the firm for the next year.” She slightly rushed the next part. “But before you jump to conclusions, I need you to hear me out.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I have the opportunity to work for an organization for a year that could offer us great insight into what you and I are trying to accomplish together. I have people who are more than capable of handling your contracts while I’m gone. The whole operation will be managed by Aaron Davis.”

  “From your father’s company.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s him. Everyone understands that my absence is only temporary. I promise you, sir, in the long run it will make what we do more effective.”

  “Can you tell me what it is?”

  Elizabeth was dreading this question the most, but it would be all over the city by the end of her first day. If she told it, she could maintain some control over the information.

  She felt the unevenness of the cobblestones under the soles of her Nikes and suppressed the desire to start running. Now. Run and run and never look back.

  “I’m going to spend a year working for the Benefactor’s Group.”

  “I see.”

  “I know it sounds insane, but I haven’t gone off the deep end. I’ve actually seen an opportunity, and if you will trust me, keeping this in confidence, I believe this will give us insight into what we are dealing with in the majority of our land acquisitions.”

  “There’s no other reason than the fact that you’re going to acquire information.”

  “No other reason.” That he would ever know of.

  “You’re a great lawyer, Elizabeth, but you’re not replaceable.”

  She paused, balancing herself on a cobblestone, trying to manage her anger so that she didn’t lose before she had technically made it to the field. “I have the best people in the country working for me, Mr. Everett. And if you’re not taken care of, I’ll pay you back personally.”

  “Do you know how much that is?”

  “I wrote the contract.”

  “I like you, Elizabeth, you know that. You’ve worked hard for me, but I’m not in business to lose money.”

  “Neither am I, sir.”

  She could hear him pacing. “Well, if you’re convinced this Benefactor thing will reap us some rewards in the future . . .”

  “Thank you for understanding, sir. And as in all things, I ask you to hold this information in confidence.”

  “Well, I’m not legally bound, but there’s no reason for me to do otherwise. I’ll look forward to hearing from your team next week.”

  “They’ll have the counteroffer on your desk by Friday.”

  “Can I call you if anything happens?”

  She felt the sweat running down her back, and she hadn’t even started running. “No, sir, I’m sorry, but I can’t be in touch with any of my clients during this period that I am working for the Benefactor’s Group.”

  “This better be worth every day.”

  “Yes, sir, it better.”

  chapter fourteen

  Astorm had swept through on Saturday night, bringing a break in the hot and muggy summer weather. Esau Brown welcomed the change.

  He didn’t welcome what he knew he was going to face this afternoon.

  He loved them kids; he really did. But nothing had been the same since Mrs. Rena passed, and now Mr. Clayton was gone too. Life kept going on, he reckoned, and death along with it. But sometimes the changes just seemed too much for a body to bear.

  He stood on the front porch and shaded his eyes, waiting to see the rolling dust that signaled a car coming down the long dirt drive-way. Lining both sides of the drive, the wisteria Mr. Clayton loved so much still bloomed and gave off that sweet fragrance, like they were honoring his memory.

  Esau was well-nigh eighty years old, and there was a limit to what he could do these days. He tried to keep the wisteria pruned so they’d bloom all summer long, but he couldn’t reach the high places anymore, and the plants were beginning to look a tad scruffy in the upper regions.

  He chuckled and rubbed a gnarled hand over his head. He reckoned lots of things around here were getting pretty shabby, himself included. But as long as he had breath in his lungs and blood in his veins, he would take care of this place the way his daddy had done, and his daddy before him.

  Esau had often talked about the slavery days with Mr. Clayton—what life had been like for Esau’s granddaddy, and what possessed old Colonel Wilcott, three generations ago, to be so different. When everybody else was running their plantations on slave labor, the Wilcotts had never owned a single slave. According to family legend, Colonel Wilcott had said, “As long as a man knows he’s free, he’ll have a heart to serve anyone.”

  And he was right. Esau’s family had worked faithfully for the Wilcotts all these years because they knew they were free to stay or free to leave. Colonel Wilcott gave them dignity, and that heritage was passed down through all the generations.

  Esau had been born on this plantation, played here as a boy, worked here as a man. It was the only home he’d ever known. When he grew up and married Bernice Clark, she came to live and work here too.

  Esau and Bernice had both been devastated when Mrs. Rena passed. Before she died, she had made them promise to spend the rest of their years looking after her husband. She believed if he could be salvaged, then so could her children.

  But Esau thought maybe she had been wrong. Mr. Clayton was dead, and from what he knew and saw and had been told, the children’s lives were in shambles. Even the successful ones had no real character. What kind of people would they be, he wondered, if he had tended to them with the kind of love and devotion he gave to Mr. Clayton?

  But it was too late now. Too much water over the dam. All you could do was play with the hand you were dealt. And Esau meant to do that. And now that hand required monthly dinners together.

  Over the years Mr. Clayton had treated Esau more like a brother than an employee. He’d built Esau his own fine house right on the grounds. Gave his wife the funeral of a queen. And now had put him in charge of the plantation during the interim year before the inheritance would be divided.

  Even dead, Mr. Clayton still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

  Jeffrey was grateful for last night’s storm and the lower humidity; it was the only positive aspect to what he was certain would be an otherwise torturous day. His week had already been a nightmare. Nothing much felt like his anymore—including his life.

  He had pawned Matthew off on a friend for the afternoon. He had really wanted to bring him, for the sake of adding more parties to the conversation, but the guidelines of the will hadn’t made it clear.

  He leaned his head back
and let the warm wind blow through the sunroof. Returning to Wisteria Plantation always called up memories of the life he once knew.

  Jeffrey had always appreciated the plantation—its rich heritage, the heritage of Edisto Island. He would come back each year when the house was on the Edisto Island plantation tour. That was about the only time he and his father would even see each other, but he had once thought of this as home.

  At least until his mother had passed away. Sunday was her favorite day. She’d dress them all for church, and when they returned, she and Esau had a big Southern dinner waiting for them. Dad wouldn’t go to church, but he always sat at the dinner table with them. They’d talk about their week, their lives, their joys and challenges.

  It was the only time Jeffrey ever felt as if they were a family.

  Jeffrey cast a glance toward the Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island and grunted. But as he eased across the Dawhoo River and “Edisto time” set in, his tension eased as well. Edisto held something for him he couldn’t explain.

  He pulled onto the old dirt road that led to the driveway of his family home. A nondescript sign announcing “Wisteria Plantation” hung at the base of the black iron mailbox. He had tried to tell his father a more ornate sign would be fitting for the majesty of this land and home. But his father didn’t do grand. He simply did business.

  There was no gate—another source of conflict with his father. Jeffrey pulled into the drive, its pathway overhung by a canopy of live oaks and hanging moss. Wisteria was always the most popular home on the tour. He loved to hear the whispers, see the dazzled expressions and childlike wonder as visitors took in the beauty and wished the place was part of their heritage, their memories.

  At last he emerged from the tunnel of live oaks and onto the circular driveway. The sun broke through again, illuminating the wisteria that ringed the driveway. Even before Jeffrey’s birth, his father had begun cultivating it, binding it on large stakes until eventually each woody stalk was able to stand on its own. On the spring garden tour, when the blossoms first filled the air with fragrance and color, he charmed all the ladies with his knowledge of the beautiful vine. It was the beauty of the wisteria that had finally given this place a name other than the Wilcott house.