The Will of Wisteria

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “What about our daddy?” Mary Catherine asked.

  “Your daddy came here ever’ Saturday night. He’d get up in here and play the saxophone of his for these here sweet people.”

  “Our father never played the saxophone,” Jeffrey said. “He didn’t even like instruments in the house. After Mom died he got rid of the piano.”

  “Your daddy didn’t hate music, Jeffrey. And despite what you’ve all gone to thinkin’, he didn’t get rid of that piano to go and torture you either. He got rid of it because every time he looked at it he saw your mother. He heard her hands running across them keys, and it made his heart ache so.”

  Elizabeth felt the pang of a long-forgotten memory rushing back to the surface. Esau turned in her direction. “And every time he saw you sitting there playing them keys with your pretty little fingers, he saw your mother.”

  He cut his eyes back to Jeffrey. “So, when I tell you something, don’t you go sassin’ me. If I tell you your daddy played the saxophone, then he played the saxophone.”

  Mary Catherine scooted her chair closer to the table. “Who taught him?”

  “One of the fellas that went with me to church started coming over a couple nights a week and teachin’ him. Your father told me how sorry he was for taking that piano out the house. He knew how much that hurt you, Elizabeth.”

  She turned her head and stared out the window. “Well, he never told me.”

  “You can’t tell people things when they don’t care nothing ’bout talking to you.”

  Elizabeth kept her mouth shut and her eyes averted. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.

  “So your daddy would come down here every Saturday night and try out what he’d gone and learned that week,” Esau continued, laughing at the memory. “They was some forgiving souls, let me tell you. He’d always pick on little Macy Simmons over there and lean down to her and say, ‘How you like it, Macy?’ And she’d just blush as much as a black person can, and he’d go to playin’ again. He’d play for two or three hours.”

  “Why do we need to know this?” Elizabeth demanded.

  Esau’s response was interrupted by Mae returning with five enormous bowls of peach cobbler. When Mae had gone, he picked up his spoon and waved it at them. “Because not a one of you ’preciate nothing ’bout your daddy.”

  Elizabeth glared at him. “Right now, Esau, the issue isn’t how we appreciated our father but how he appreciated us.”

  “I can tell that will has all you chi’ren fit to be tied, but whatever your daddy gone and done, he done for your own good. And if you got trouble remembering that, then try to visualize him down here on a Saturday night doing nothing but makin’ folks happy. No matter what you think bout your daddy, that is all he tried to do for you. Maybe he shoulda whipped your butts more and given you less. Then you might be able to ’preciate a little more than you do.”

  They all sat in silence as Will and Esau ate. Nobody else seemed to want any dessert. Mary Catherine played with hers until the ice cream melted into a puddle. Jeffrey sat and fumed, the muscle in his jaw working overtime.

  Elizabeth ignored them all and tried to process this new revelation about their father—a father who had no concern for his own children but enough for strangers to give them music every Saturday night.

  Esau picked up the ringing phone from the edge of Mr. Clayton’s walnut desk.

  “I just saw them all leave. How did it go?” The British accent made Esau smile. It sounded so . . . elegant.

  “Lord have mercy, if they survive this, the heavens ain’t yet run short of miracles.”

  “Elizabeth and Jeffrey already have private investigators. I don’t want them suspecting anything about you.”

  “The only way they’ll go and find things ’bout me is if you slip up. You got to be makin’ sure all your tracks been covered.”

  “That is what they pay me to do. Good luck in your part to play.”

  “My part ain’t so hard. Same part I’ve always played with these chi’ren. Protecting their father’s interests.”

  The line disconnected, and Esau went back to what he knew. Taking care of Wisteria Plantation.

  chapter sixteen

  Nate cursed underneath his breath.

  “I heard that,” Mary Catherine said. She opened the rear gate on the small U-Haul. “Don’t forget you’re the one who got me this job.”

  She had dragged him and one of his friends out of their beds almost before the sun was up. She needed time to renovate her classroom before the kids got there. She wanted to take their breath away as soon as they entered the room.

  Nate and his buddy unloaded a beautiful carved antique bookcase, the sofa she had made the slipcover for, and a leather ottoman she had put in storage. She arranged each one neatly in the back corner to make a reading room and put huge throw pillows on the floor for extra seating. She hung children’s artwork she had purchased from a charity event all around the room and a bulletin board collage of book jackets from all her favorite childhood books. When that was done, she arranged valances made from leftover throw pillow fabric and brought in an antique chair to sit by her desk just in case any of them needed extra attention.

  Grumpy and sweaty and still half asleep, Nate left her with a peck on the cheek.

  Mary Catherine was surprised at her own excitement. She laid her lesson plans for the week in front of her on her desk. Over the weekend she had done research on appropriate reading lists for middle schoolers and gone over the curriculum that Mr. McClain had sent her. She even gave her best shot at lesson plans, but hoped no one would ever see them.

  A deep, rich voice filtered in from the hallway. “Good morning, ladies.”

  “Good morning, Mr. McClain,” came the singsong response. Three young girls entered the classroom giggling, with the principal right behind them.

  Mary Catherine’s pulse began to race. She breathed in and out several times, then stood up, straightening her skirt and running her hands through her ponytail.

  “This is your new teacher, Mrs. Bean,” Mr. McClain said.

  The threesome didn’t even notice her. They were too busy taking in all of the new decorations that had appeared overnight. “Is this like Extreme Home Makeover or something?”

  “Nice job,” the principal said. “Hope you didn’t bring anything too precious.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “What did you say your name was again?” one of the girls finally asked. “Bean? Like butter bean?”

  Mary Catherine was suddenly certain that changing her name to Nate’s was the biggest mistake she could have made. She should have kept Wilcott. Elizabeth would keep Wilcott if she ever got married.

  “You mean somebody named you bean?”

  “How about you just call me Mary Catherine.”

  Their eyes widened.

  “Um, Mrs. Bean, I’m sorry, but we don’t allow our students to call their teachers by their first name. It’s a matter of respect.” He turned his gaze on the three girls.

  “Yeah, we have to show respect to our elders,” one said grudgingly.

  Mary Catherine had officially become an elder.

  “Mrs. Bean, I’ll leave you now,” Mr. McClain said. “We’ll talk later about your lesson plans.” He turned to go, then looked back. “Oh, one more thing. We teach the children here respect, Mrs. Bean, but it’s not something that can be forced. You have to earn it. Good luck.”

  He left her there standing in the doorway. The three children eyed her oddly, then simply abandoned her as they went to the back of the room to check out the books in the bookcase.

  Other students began to file in. She recognized Terrance, the boy whose girlie magazine had been confiscated. “What happened to this place?” he asked as he tossed his books on his desk.

  She tugged at the edges of her denim jacket, as if straightening it could make her more of an educator. “I did some redecorating.”

  “I’d say. This place doesn’t even
look like a classroom.”

  “Well, it’s supposed to make you feel more at home. You know, relaxed. I think you’ll learn better that way.”

  “Lady, I don’t come to school to relax.” He plopped down on the sofa, tossing his hands behind his head and putting his feet up on the ottoman. “You got a name?”

  She began writing today’s lesson on the dry-erase board. “Uh-huh.”

  His two friends came in through the door and stopped at the entrance. He laughed at their expressions, but he didn’t lose track of his conversation “So what is it?”

  She kept her back to him. “Mrs. Bean.”

  “Mrs. Bean?” One of Terrance’s buddies hooted with laughter. By the time the rest of the class entered, she didn’t have to repeat her name again.

  “Class, I want you to get out your English books and turn to page 45.”

  She heard the commotion of the turning pages and felt a small sense of accomplishment already. Mrs. Bean or not, she was still the teacher.

  But when she turned to face the class, an auburn-haired girl in the middle of the room sat slumped in her desk, blue eyes glaring at Mary Catherine, her book closed and her expression daring Mary Catherine to say a word.

  Terrance’s voice interrupted the flutter of pages. “We already done these pages.”

  “Excuse me?” Mary Catherine asked, turning her attention to Terrance’s interruption.

  “I said, we already read this. With that substitute woman who filled in before you got here. We ain’t going to waste our time rereading a bunch of stuff that was stupid the first time.” He flipped his book shut.

  “Yeah!” others around the room echoed.

  Mary Catherine tried to collect herself. She had done practice teaching, but it didn’t prepare her for anything like this. Kindergarten kids only talked back to each other, never to their teacher. These kids were like a pack of circling animals, and she was sure they could smell her fear.

  “You’re not suppose to say ain’t,” a girl’s voice spoke from the middle of the room

  “Shut up, Charmaine! You ain’t the teacher.” He emphasized the ain’t.

  The auburn-haired girl stood up from her seat and approached Mary Catherine’s desk. The child had to be at least five foot six. What kind of fertilizer were these kids fed anyway?

  “You know, lady,” she said, “if all you gonna do is waste our time with stuff we already learned, we ain’t going to sit around here just staring at you.” The girl laid her pale hands on top of another’s student’s desk in the front row and tossed her hair to one side.

  “Leave her alone, Nicole!” Charmaine said.

  Nicole flung her head around. “Charmaine, you need to mind your own business and quit trying to be such a suck-up! Mrs. Jarvis ain’t here this year, so your days of being the teacher’s pet are over! You got that?”

  Charmaine’s steady and confident gaze never left Nicole’s glaring look.

  “Isn’t,” Mary Catherine corrected. “Mrs. Jarvis isn’t here this year.”

  Nicole cut her eyes in Mary Catherine’s direction. She put her hand over her mouth and said mockingly, “Oh, excuse me. Isn’t.” She turned a sneering gaze on the decorations in the classroom. “You bring all this stuff from your house?”

  Mary Catherine took a step toward Nicole. “That ‘stuff’ is antiques. And, yes, it is from my house.”

  Nicole ran her hand across the carving at the top of the antique bookcase. “So you don’t want it messed up, right?”

  “You need to get your hand off of that.”

  “What? I can’t touch our new stuff?”

  Now Mary Catherine remembered why she hated teaching. Her eyes darted to the red Magic Marker in Nicole’s hands, but she couldn’t stop it. As if in slow motion the red marker made its way across the first row of books, down the matte finish of the bookcase, and back up again. Every ounce of air was sucked from Mary Catherine’s lungs.

  Nicole snapped the cap back on the marker and strode toward the front of the class like a commander addressing her new recruits.

  “Now, I say we all go make the best of a lovely morning.”

  A groan escaped Mary Catherine lips.

  “What’s that?” Nicole scooped her hand around her ear. “Ladies and gentleman, our little butter bean has spoken. We are to go explore the day and have us a free period.”

  And with that, every single child but one exited the room and made haste to the playground.

  Mary Catherine never even turned her head toward the door. She simply walked over to her bookcase and stood there, running her hand over the marked spines and ruined wood.

  Charmaine came over and stood beside her. “Mrs. Bean, don’t let the uniforms fool you. We’re not a nice clean bunch of prep schoolers. You’re going to have to get a grip if you’re going to control this group of kids.”

  Mary Catherine tried to respond, but couldn’t. The tears were too close to the surface.

  “Let me tell you about Nicole,” Charmaine went on. “That girl’s been through more foster homes than you can count. She’s hard and mean and ornery. You’ve got to show her who is boss. And Terrance?

  Trouble follows him like cockroaches to dark places. But his mama and daddy are tough on him. I promise you he doesn’t talk like that at home. Just tell him you’re going to call his parents—it will scare him to death. And if you keep a tight rein on the two of them, you won’t have to worry about the rest. They don’t have minds of their own anyway.”

  Charmaine patted Mary Catherine on the shoulder. “And don’t you worry about your name, Mrs. Bean. Eventually they’ll find some-body else to make fun of. But when they come back in here—and trust me, they’ll come back, because once Mr. McClain finds them, they’ll all be serving detention for a week—you’ll need to take charge pretty quick. The longer you let them control this classroom, the worse they’ll be.”

  Mary Catherine looked up into the girl’s dark, intelligent eyes. If she only had a few more Charmaines, she might get through this year without running out of Prozac prescriptions. But she had her doubts.

  Elizabeth sat at a small table in the Starbucks on King Street, waiting. She had to see Aaron one more time just to make sure he was ready. By the time he arrived she already had two large cups in front of her.

  “What did you order?” he asked, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  “I got you a regular old Joe Schmoe coffee. I got a double espresso.”

  He laughed. “I can only imagine why. So how was the family dinner yesterday?”

  “I’ve had pap smears more enjoyable.”

  “Spoken like a true Southern lady.”

  “I can get past Jeffrey and his pompous attitude, even past Will and his ignorance or Mary Catherine and her miserable personality. But what I can’t get past is how my father had time to make other people’s lives enjoyable, play music on a saxophone, but he had no appreciation for me. Did you know this? Did you know that every Saturday night my father would go down to the Gullah restaurant with Esau and play for the people while they ate?”

  Aaron took a drink of his coffee. “Actually, I did.”

  She stared at him. “You did not.”

  “Yes, I did. I went to see your father quite often on Saturdays. Then he, Esau, and I would go to the Gullah place and eat some of the best shrimp you’ve ever put in your mouth. Usually finished it off with either peach cobbler or blackberry cobbler. Mae Jacobson is one of the best cooks in the Low Country, you know.”

  Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open.

  “What? Elizabeth Wilcott is speechless?”

  “You knew?”

  “I believe that is what I just said.”

  “How did you know? Why did he let you know?”

  She hadn’t intended it to come out as if Aaron wasn’t good enough to know, but that’s how it sounded. He didn’t miss the insult. His face flushed and his eyes shifted, but he did not comment on the slight.

  “You want to know how I
knew, Elizabeth?” He leaned in across the table. “Because unlike you, I took time to listen to your father. And unlike you, my life doesn’t revolve around me. That’s how I know a thousand things about your father that you don’t.”

  Since the kidnapping and the reading of the will, Elizabeth had felt a red-hot fury simmering just below the surface. Now it threatened to erupt. With some effort she pushed it back down.

  Aaron went on. “Do you remember that your father would call you every week, Lizzy?”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “That’s okay, you can sit there and pretend you don’t remember. It was on Saturday—every Saturday morning, as I recall. Why do you suppose he called you on Saturday, Lizzy? You think maybe your father might have wanted you to go with him? Show you what he had learned? Maybe try to make up for some of the lost years in the process? But you never took his calls, did you?”

  He stood up and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Now, I’m leaving you to sulk because that is what you’re best at. You might not want to waste a great deal of time on it, because you do have a new job to start tomorrow. And who knows, if you let yourself, you might learn a thing or two in this process. Becoming less self-absorbed might be a good place to start. Because it wasn’t your father who never had time for you, Lizzy. You never had time for him.”

  She watched him walk away knowing they hadn’t covered one thing. Not one thing of importance anyway.

  Elizabeth fumed on the way to her car. She flung her briefcase into the passenger’s seat. It was much lighter than usual—another reminder of all that was missing. Gone were the folders filled with pending cases. Gone were her beautiful office and her parking lot. Gone were her employees and her developers. Gone . . . gone . . . gone.

  She had to find the Executor and his cohort and get this fraud of her father’s will revealed and reversed. None of it made sense. Jeffrey was playing his own game. And because Jeffrey was playing, she was forced to play.

  She wished she could put it all aside, empty her mind the way she had emptied her briefcase, and let it all go.