The Will of Wisteria

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  And it was the possession of this house that helped give Jeffrey a name in this sleepy city. When his friends from Porter-Gaud would laugh that he lived on an island and not in the heart of the city, he packed them in his car and brought them to this place. They never laughed again.

  Elizabeth opened the sunroof of her Jeep. Her head throbbed—she didn’t know if it was because she had slept so hard last night during the storm or because of the torture of having to go home.

  Elizabeth hated the plantation. Everything about Edisto Island had always felt so unrefined, so rural. Attending Ashley Hall School for Girls in the city had made her declare that one day she would be an SOB—the common nickname for the truly wealthy, those who lived south of Broad.

  Her father had money, of course. He just didn’t care if anybody knew.

  She didn’t necessarily care either. She just hated the dirt, the smell of the pluff mud in the marsh.

  Once she was finally able to leave and go to college, she never returned to Edisto Island to live. All the other island kids returned home during their college summer breaks to ride the horses, surf the waves, enjoy the marsh. But not Elizabeth. For her all the plantation held was the torment of her past. The only good memories she possessed were the Sunday dinners her mother had made for them when she was alive.

  But that was a long time ago. Too long.

  She drove past the Presbyterian Church and wondered briefly why not one of her siblings ever expressed any desire to go to church. They had to go while their mother was alive, but once she was gone, not one of them ever went back. Sunday became just another day.

  As she crossed the Dawhoo River, Elizabeth felt the old fear creeping into her bones. She fought it all the way to the dirt road that led to her childhood home. She cursed the dirt as it blew up around her car, cursed the fact that no one had cared enough to pave it, cursed the reality that she would have to get the car washed to rid it of the dust and smell.

  Elizabeth removed her sunglasses as she entered the tree-lined path. The live oaks hung with moss had always freaked her out, especially when storms would blow up off of the Atlantic. The trees would sway and the moss would move like some terrible creature out of horror movies, out of nightmares.

  At last she came back into the sunlight and squinted. The wisteria brushed against her car, and again she cursed under her breath. Her father had poured all his attention and affection on those demanding vines, and if they had scratched her car, she’d cut them down herself.

  Mary Catherine was nursing a sore back from all of the boxes she had been packing up to take to her new classroom. Once she had decided that she really was going to take the job, she was almost excited. She couldn’t wait to see the expressions on those kids’ faces when they walked into an environment that begged them to learn. The other teachers would be asking her to do a makeover in their classrooms by the time the week was over.

  She hadn’t been quite as thrilled about today’s event though. She had begged Nate to go with her. He had assured her it was better if she spent this time with her family alone.

  But it wouldn’t be the same. Daddy wouldn’t be there. She hadn’t been back to the house since the day of the funeral, when half of Charleston had descended on the hundred acres Mary Catherine called home.

  She had hated leaving home, hated leaving her daddy. In those final years he had started to say, “I love you.” He had actually been available to her. She would have moved Nate into that house in a heartbeat, but her father told her that in order to start a new life with a new husband, she should have a home and life of her own.

  Mary Catherine had left early enough to stop for a few minutes at the Presbyterian Church. She had always thought it funny that it wasn’t called the First Presbyterian Church or Edisto Island Presbyterian Church, but the Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island.

  This was the church her mother had attended—the church all the siblings attended before their mother’s death. It was an old structure—almost two hundred years old, she thought—with white clapboard siding and tall white pillars and carved wooden pews. Mary Catherine had fond memories of this church, memories only she and her mother shared. Memories that she had never forgotten, even though most of the time she lived as if they happened in another life, or to someone else altogether.

  She had picked up some flowers on her way into Edisto, as she always did, but this time the flowers weren’t just for her mother. She might have pitched a hissy fit or two over her father’s will, but he was still her daddy. She skirted the front porch and walked around to the cemetery. There was his grave, still fresh and lumpy.

  The funeral home told her it would be another couple of weeks before the footstone with her father’s dates would be back, and then it would take its place next to her mother’s. She placed the flowers in the bronze plate attached to the large Wilcott headstone.

  She wiped some wet mowed grass from atop her mama’s marker and told her how much she loved her. She scolded her daddy for the craziness he was forcing her to endure. Then, when there was nothing more to say, she kissed her palm and laid it on the flowers, and took her leave. As much as she wanted to resent her daddy for what she was enduring and how her life had been turned upside down, she missed him more than she could hate him.

  She passed The Edisto Bookstore and momentarily had to catch her breath. She’d never not gone inside. Her foot pressed the the accelerator . . . Hard.

  When she turned on to the dirt road that led up to the plantation, Mary Catherine found herself thankful once more that, even though her daddy had as much money as God, he still hadn’t paved this road. The rawness of it made the character of her home that much more majestic.

  The beautiful plantation house came into view, inspiring the same awe it had always brought her. No wonder movie directors used these old Southern homes as the setting for a bygone era. A house like this begged people to immerse themselves in its story: the large wrap-around porches that surrounded the first floor, the powerful white columns, the crispness of the white wood siding against a backdrop of green. Even portions of The Notebook, her favorite movie, had been made on this land.

  Mary Catherine turned her car into the driveway and smiled at the beautiful blooms still hanging on the wisteria in the late summer. Her father took such care of that wisteria—pruning it after the first bloom so that it would continue to bloom all summer long.

  Before the final stages of cancer confined her to bed, her mother had loved to get out and walk in the sunlight. Mary Catherine remembered how she trailed the petals of the wisteria through her fingers as if she were trying to memorize them for the moment when she wouldn’t be able to touch them.

  She had touched Mary Catherine’s face in much the same way.

  Will decided it might be best if he took a shower before he went down to his folks’ place. His mother had always insisted on them dressing up for Sunday dinner. That was one thing he remembered. And one thing he always did. Even if he was going out to a bar with the guys, if it was Sunday he put on a tie. It might look like an accordion, but he’d have a tie on nonetheless. He slipped on a moderately unwrinkled pair of khakis and a pink button-down shirt.

  He hadn’t drunk as much yesterday, so he felt relatively normal, whatever normal was. And relatively in control. It was a good thing; he had thirty minutes for an hour’s drive.

  The Porsche hummed beneath him as he sped past the Presbyterian Church in record time and across the Dawhoo River. He did slow down slightly so he wouldn’t completely destroy his front-end alignment as he swerved onto the dirt driveway. Then he hit the accelerator again and flew past the live oaks, past the draping moss, past the gardens, past the wisteria in front of the house, at last careening to a stop in a cloud of dust next to Mary Catherine’s Volkswagen.

  He jumped out and took the stairs two by two, grateful that he’d get a good meal and some cash.

  “Come on, children, dinner’s a-ready,” Esau announced in what was left of his singsong Gu
llah, the Geechee dialect. It was a Creole language, beautiful and musical and still widely heard in the Low Country. As a little girl, Elizabeth had loved it and tried to imitate it, and even now it still had a way of bringing her a brief fondness for her childhood. Esau had Americanized his language through the years, but he could still break into a mean Gullah when he was with his friends. Elizabeth loved to listen to him in those moments, hearing the flow of the language, feeling the pleasure its familiarity brought.

  She followed her siblings into the dining room, and everyone took their usual seats, as if their parents still existed. Jeffrey at the head of the table—or the tail, depending on who you asked. Will on Jeffrey’s left and Esau on the right, with Mary Catherine next to Esau and Elizabeth on Will’s side. The deeply etched habits of life were not easily erased.

  Her father had always insisted that Esau eat at his table. In the deep South, in the early years when the Ku Klux Klan was still burning crosses on yards, Clayton Wilcott paid no attention to the social expectations of his class and status. “If you’re good enough to prepare it, Esau,” Daddy would tell him, “then you’re good enough to sit at this table and enjoy it with me.”

  Esau grinned at them as he took his own seat at the table. “Now say you some grace and get filled up with you some ba’becue.”

  Elizabeth bowed her head awkwardly. The others followed suit. No one spoke. The silence lengthened. Someone coughed.

  “My Lord, mercy, mercy. Ain’t nobody know how to pray?” Esau shook his head. “Lord, thank you for your blessings this day. Bless this food and these here chi’ren. Amen.”

  Will snatched the barbecue from the center of the table and scooped out a serving big enough for an entire congregation at a covered-dish dinner.

  Elizabeth glared at him. “Will, quit acting like you’re from a third-world country and have never eaten.”

  Will bugged his eyes at her as he spooned up a big helping of rice and covered it with hash. “You know, I’ve got some friends who actually went to a third-world country one time. They said they couldn’t find any food to save their life. Said they nearly starved to death.” He sucked down a forkful of rice and hash.

  “So, Will, what are you going to do? Work for Habitat for Humanity or something?” Jeffrey was baiting him, and Elizabeth knew it. She found his transparency irritating.

  Will, however, seemed clueless. He laughed, took a mouthful of barbecue, and still managed to answer Jeffrey’s question. “You mean that Jimmy Carter group that builds houses for poor people? No way. I’ve got a couple more good years of school, I figure—except that something’s gone screwy with my trust. I’ve gotta get it straightened out next week so I can pay my tuition and register. But after school, who knows? I might get a real job.”

  Elizabeth felt a string of barbecue lodge itself in her throat. She might need the Heimlich maneuver before this dinner was done. “You? Get a real job?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a hookup with some fraternity brothers who are working on this big deal with somebody at Microsoft or something like that. And once this whole farce is over, and I get my inheritance, then I’ll be able to give them the funding to create something bigger than even Bill Gates could imagine.”

  “I’ve got a new job,” Mary Catherine interrupted.

  Elizabeth saw the shock register on Jeffrey’s face. Obviously he hadn’t thought Mary Catherine would play this game.

  “What kind of job?” he asked.

  “I’m going to be teaching. Actually using my degree.”

  “So you’re going along with this too?” Will asked through a mouthful of cornbread.

  “You really don’t think Dad’s telling the truth?” Mary Catherine shot back. “You just said yourself your tuition isn’t paid for. Of course I’m going along with this, Will. I don’t have another choice.”

  “You’re an idiot, Mary Catherine. You’re going to get to the end of this thing and be kicking yourself around the block for throwing away a perfectly good year on what? Some underprivileged snot-nosed brats?”

  Mary Catherine’s lower lip began to tremble. Nobody paid any attention.

  “What about you, Elizabeth? What are you doing?” Jeffrey asked.

  Will shoveled another mound of hash into his mouth. “Yeah, Elizabeth, how are you making it through?”

  Elizabeth turned her gaze to Jeffrey. “Everything is working out fine, exactly according to plan. How about you, Jeffrey? What’s it like not being able to Botox something?”

  “Don’t worry about my practice. It’s in exceptional hands, and I’ve already been at my new position for several days. I can’t wait to see how many lives I impact through this incredible experience.”

  If it were Oscar night, Jeffrey would have walked offstage with a little gold naked man. Elizabeth turned on him. “You’re such a pathetic liar. How are you really doing, working with Dr. Nadu?”

  His cornbread stopped midway to his mouth. “Perfect. He’s an exceptional physician.”

  Mary Catherine interrupted them both. “Has anyone wondered if someone put Daddy up to this?”

  Jeffrey turned pale. “What makes you think that?”

  “It’s just odd. I came out here a lot on Saturdays to spend time with him, and it seems—well, unlike him. What if he was blackmailed? What if he had a love child or something?” She whispered it, as if that would make it more believable.

  Nobody responded to this ludicrous idea, and after a minute of silence, Mary Catherine got the message. “Well, Tony Randall had a baby when he was in his seventies. Disgusting, I know, but no less doable.”

  “It’s not totally crazy,” Will chimed in. “I have a fraternity brother who has a five-year-old sister that’s his daddy’s love child. I hear it happens all the time. Didn’t think our old man had it in him, but who knows about people nowadays?” The great philosopher dug back into his coleslaw.

  “But couldn’t it be possible?” Mary Catherine looked straight at Elizabeth as if she expected a response.

  “You know what, Mary Catherine,” Elizabeth snapped, “you may want to worry less about our father’s phantom love child and more about what that husband of yours is up to.”

  Mary Catherine’s face registered the blow, and her voice went up half an octave. “Don’t talk about my husband.”

  “Quit your whining, Cat!” Jeffrey said, throwing his napkin down beside his plate. “You need to just grow up. If you want to be whining or crying to somebody, why don’t you go out there to that grave of your dear old sweet daddy and cry to him! Because I frankly don’t give a flip about hearing it.”

  Elizabeth took note of Jeffrey’s anger. She hadn’t expected it from him. He was a better actor than she thought . . . or else he wasn’t behind this at all.

  “You know, I have a friend whose dad is a family therapist. It might not be a bad thing for all of y’all to consider,” Will said. He reached over for another whopping spoonful and let the barbecue splatter across his plate.

  Esau started to chew at the inside of his jaw. He didn’t have to know the details to understand what was going on. The competition around his dinner table was enough to prove that boundaries and conditions had been set on their daddy’s fortune.

  At last he’d had enough.

  “Get up!” he shouted as he pushed his chair back. “Get up each one of ya!”

  Mary Catherine’s whining ceased. Will’s fork fell to the side of his plate. Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and Jeffrey stared in shock.

  “Get up and out that door and away from this table. I’m gonna take you ungrateful children on a trip.”

  chapter fifteen

  What is this place?” Elizabeth asked.

  It was a tiny blue house all the way on the other side of Edisto Island, facing Highway 176. Dozens of vehicles were parked all around it, at odd angles, and Esau wedged his car in, just barely, between an old pickup and a battered Chevy.

  “This here, Elizabeth, is where me an’ you chi’ren’s daddy would
come most every night of the week, but ’specially on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoon for dinner.”

  A tattered sign out front read “Gullah Home Cookin’”—a redundancy, Elizabeth thought, to anyone who knew what Gullah cooking was.

  Jeffrey slammed his door. “What’s this about, Esau? I’ve got things to do today.”

  Esau’s coal-black eyes stared through Jeffrey as he spoke. “This is about learning somethin’ ’bout your daddy. Somethin’ you never took time to do. Believe it or not, you don’t know everything. Now get to steppin’.”

  “Esau!” a heavy black lady hollered as she came out of the kitchen, still carrying her spatula. “Haven’t seen you since Mr. Wilcott passed, God give rest to his sweet soul.”

  “I know. Haven’t felt much like getting back to the normal.”

  She patted his lean back. “We misses him too, Esau. We misses him so much.”

  Elizabeth stared at the stranger and was struck by her apparent intimate knowledge of their father.

  “This here is Miss Mae Jacobson,” Esau said. “Mae, these is Mr. Wilcott’s chi’ren.” He sat down at a long table covered in a white vinyl tablecloth. “Can you get us some of that there delicious cobbler you fix?”

  “Gotcha fives a-comin’!” Mae headed back toward the kitchen.

  “There is somethins you chi’ren need to know ’bout your daddy. Your daddy wasn’t selfish like you fours have turned out to be. The way your mama raised you, I can’t believe you come out this way. But apparently this here is how you are. Your daddy was a fine man. I know he didn’t dote on you like you deserved after your mama died. But he loved each of yous. And I’m not gonna let you disrespect him no matter what you think he’s done to you.”

  Elizabeth tried not to roll her eyes. She folded her hands and placed them on the tablecloth, where they stuck fast to the vinyl.