The Will of Wisteria

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  She felt her pulse increase, and she quickened her pace to cross the street.

  Inside Tristan’s, the hostess eyed her curiously.

  “Ms. Wilcott, are you okay?”

  Elizabeth gave one more glance behind her into the street. There was no one there. She turned back to the hostess and straightened her posture. “I’m fine. Fine. Has Ainsley Parker arrived yet?”

  “No, ma’am. You’re here first.”

  “Well, let me know when she gets here.”

  Rumor had it that Tristan’s was opened because the megarich of Charleston didn’t think there was a restaurant that truly met their dining standards. Elizabeth usually ate here at lunchtime when they had a fixed price menu for around fifteen dollars. The offerings were much more expensive in the evening, but the cuisine was well worth it. The food was magnificent and the ambience elegant.

  Until Ainsley Parker showed up anyway.

  “Did you get a load of those sinks in the bathroom?” Ainsley declared in full voice before she was halfway to the table.

  Elizabeth didn’t respond. She refused to acknowledge Ainsley until she sat down and actually came close enough for conversation.

  “I’ve never seen a sink like that in my life! The entire thing is tilted so that all the water falls into that silver trough on the floor. I need to know who their designer is. Remind me to ask before I leave.”

  “I’m sure they already know you’re interested.”

  “Well, good evening to you, Elizabeth. Waste no time in being a smart aleck, now do you?”

  Elizabeth’s jaw pulsed. “How about we just get to work? I’ve got quite a few questions so I can make sure I proceed correctly.”

  “Now, isn’t this a fine turn of events. Elizabeth Wilcott having to ask me for advice.” She turned to the server. “Oh, no lime or lemon, thanks very much, young man. I’ll have some tea, and none of that sweet stuff either. We like it hard and straight in my neck of the woods.”

  The server eyed her curiously as they ordered and then left the table to retrieve her tea. “So, shoot. What do you need my help with?”

  Elizabeth reviewed her conversations with Hazel Moses. Ainsley matter-of-factly walked Elizabeth through the course of action as their meal came and they ate. Several times Ainsley tried to change the subject, but Elizabeth kept pointing her back to the matters at hand.

  At last dinner was finished, the dessert dishes had been removed, and the necessary business completed. Ainsley leaned back in the booth and raised her coffee cup. “So tell me, Elizabeth, why is it that a beautiful, albeit tightly strung, woman like yourself has never hitched herself to a man and rode off into the sunset?”

  Elizabeth glanced at the check, placed her credit card inside, and returned her gaze to Ainsley. “I don’t bring my personal life into the workplace.”

  “That’s a bunch of malarkey if I’ve ever heard it.”

  Elizabeth shifted in her seat.

  “You know, Elizabeth, you just need to loosen up. Get out there and have a life. Meet someone. Have a couple of babies.”

  “This is coming from a woman with no children?”

  Ainsley’s expression shifted slightly, but only for a moment. “Well, you wait long enough and you won’t have to worry about it.”

  “Are you always so tactless?” Elizabeth folded her napkin and laid it beside her plate. “You have no right to judge me or my life or my choices. I’m not married because I choose not to be married. And if I wanted children, I would have them. But I won’t sit here and listen to someone like you tell me who and what I should be.” Elizabeth took the check and her credit card from the young server’s hand. She signed it quickly and stood up from her chair.

  “And quit looking at me like you’re the judge and jury of my life,” she went on. “Like you’re so much better than I am, like you have it all together and I’m some anchorless ship drifting around in the darkness. I have an amazing and lucrative law practice. I have happy clients. I have a beautiful home. I have provided well for my employees. I have everything I need.”

  “I didn’t hear the word friend in there anywhere, Elizabeth. Do you have even one friend?”

  Elizabeth leaned down into Ainsley’s space. “I don’t need friends.”

  Without looking back she left Ainsley sitting there and stalked out into the cool night. The nerve of that woman! Elizabeth had friends. She had plenty of friends. She had Aaron, and she had . . . and she had . . . well, she had Aaron. She hadn’t spent much time with him lately, but—

  She’d call him right now and prove he was her friend.

  He didn’t answer.

  She ran through the numbers on her BlackBerry.

  “Hello? Cynthia?”

  “Sorry, you must have the wrong number. There’s no one here by that name.”

  “Oh, really? Well, that’s odd, I just talked to her—” She searched her memory banks, but couldn’t recall the last time they had spoken.

  She found another name. The phone rang. A male’s voice answered.

  “Yes, hello. Is Diane there?”

  “Who is this?” The voice grew slightly irritated.

  “This is Elizabeth. Elizabeth Wilcott.”

  “Diane and I divorced over a year ago. She doesn’t live here anymore.”

  “Oh. Sorry about—”

  The line went dead in her ear. “So we obviously haven’t talked in a while,” she muttered. “But she could have used a good divorce attorney, if he got the house.”

  She’d find a friend before the night was over. Of that Ainsley Parker could be certain.

  Matthew’s warm weight nestled against Jeffrey as the credits for Spider-Man ran up the screen. He had never known what the real presence of a child felt like, until now. Tears burned at his eyes. He had lived for years with no emotions at all except selfish ones. Now he felt as if something had been unplugged inside of him and he couldn’t stop the feelings from leaking out.

  He leaned over and smelled Matthew’s head. Claire had always told him that nothing smelled better than a baby, but he had never stopped long enough to discover if it was true. Tonight he breathed in the aroma of Matthew’s hair, so clean and fresh from the shower. He kissed his son’s head gently and laid his cheek on top of it, feeling the silkiness underneath his skin. His senses had somehow come keenly alive.

  Jeffrey shifted Matthew’s head to the pillow on his lap, stretched the boy’s curled legs out from underneath him, and covered him with an afghan. And somewhere in the early hours of the morning, after he had memorized every freckle and angle and curve of his little boy’s face, he leaned his head back and fell asleep.

  chapter twenty-three

  Terrance’s mother and father were the first to arrive Thursday morning for their parent-teacher conference with Mary Catherine. They were, as Charmaine had indicated, warm and engaging and very intent on their son’s academic success. She talked with them about Terrance’s lack of focus, which produced grades far below his capabilities. They assured her they would address the issue, and his attention would improve come Monday. And they left her feeling as if she might actually be a teacher after all.

  Not so with Nicole’s mother. When Mary Catherine had called to set up their appointment, the woman promised only that she’d “see what she had going on that day.” Mary Catherine had scheduled her for an appointment and hoped for the best.

  About forty-five minutes into the designated hour, the door swung open. The body was about thirty years old; the face fifty; the clothes seventeen. The woman’s skirt barely reached midthigh, and her blouse showed far too much cleavage and bare belly. Her hair was bleached blonde and overprocessed, and a cigarette dangled from her heavily painted pink lips.

  “You Nikki’s teacher?” She flicked her ashes onto the floor.

  Mary Catherine wondered if holding out the trash can would elicit the same reaction from Nicole’s mother. She didn’t figure it would.

  She stretched out her hand. “Yes, I am. I
’m Mary Catherine Bean. I suppose you’re Nicole’s mother, Annette.”

  The woman stared at the hand as if it were intruding into her space. Mary Catherine withdrew it. The woman pulled up a chair, sat down, and crossed her legs, letting the heel of her shoe flap madly against her swinging foot. She held her cigarette out from her body. “So, what you got to tell me about Nikki that I don’t already know?”

  Mary Catherine retreated to the chair behind her desk. Now she knew where Nicole got her intimidating and brassy manner. “Well . . .” She cleared her throat. “Your daughter, Nicole, I believe, has a lot of potential.”

  The woman gave a mocking laugh. “You don’t know my Nikki. Nikki ain’t got no potential. That child is going to end up just like her mama, playing lap dog to anyone who is willing to pay next month’s rent. She don’t need no more than that anyway. This education stuff is nothing but a load of crap. She’s only here because the law says I have to send her to school. The real education she’ll get is out there in the world.”

  Mary Catherine tried to keep her face expressionless, but it obviously didn’t work.

  “What? You think there’s something more? You sittin’ here all high and mighty in your fancy shoes and your fancy little dress. You don’t know nothin’ ’bout women like me or my daughter. So unless you got real stuff to tell me ’bout my daughter, you don’t need to be wastin’ no more of my time.”

  Three months ago, Mary Catherine would have climbed under the desk and pretended she was checking for chewing gum. But teaching had given her a backbone. There would be no hiding today.

  “Do you know that Nicole comes late to class every day? Do you know that she refused to take her test yesterday?” She stood up and came out from behind the desk. “Nicole is one of the smartest kids I’ve come across. Her IQ is higher than anyone else’s in this school. She could make something of herself if you’d start helping her think she could do more in life than spend it on her back.”

  The woman flicked more ashes on the floor.

  Anger rose up in Mary Catherine, and she advanced on the woman a little more aggressively than she had even intended. “Maybe the life you’ve chosen works for you. I would beg to differ, but that’s beside the point. Nicole is twelve years old. She deserves to be a child, and there isn’t anything childlike in her eyes, in her demeanor, or in her spirit. If you want to destroy yourself, that’s your problem. But if you decide to take Nicole down with you, that becomes my problem as well.”

  “You threatening me, lady?”

  “It’s not a threat. I simply promise to do everything in my power to educate your child for more than dog duty. I have a dog, by the way, and from everything I can see, she makes out far better than Nicole.”

  They stared each other down for a moment. Then, without a word, the woman exited the room.

  On his way into the hospital, Jeffrey checked the messages on his phone. Littleton, the private investigator, had called. “You’ll want to hear what I found out. You’re going to be ecstatic.”

  “To delete this message, press seven,” the mechanized feminine voice instructed. Without a second thought, Jeffrey pressed the button to delete and closed the phone. He never returned the call.

  Dr. Nadu was in the boardroom when Jeffrey arrived. “Is Something wrong with your face?”

  Jeffrey closed the door. “What do you mean?”

  “In all the time you’ve been here, I’ve never seen you smile. A grimace now and then, occasionally a sarcastic laugh, but never once a real genuine smile. And trust me, I know the difference. Did you get good news on your son today?”

  “Actually, I haven’t heard the latest on Jacob. I’m going to check in on him now. Is there anything you need me to do before I go?”

  “No, we can discuss the rounds when you get back. Go check on your boy.”

  The bells of the elevator chimed his ascent while his mind tried to recall the last time he’d really smiled. He smiled at Pamela whenever she walked through the door. But he didn’t figure that was what Dr. Nadu had seen.

  He hadn’t heard from Pamela in a while. Few women he had known were like her, using him pretty much the way he used her. The realization brought with it an unsettling feeling—shame, he thought. Or maybe guilt. He had so little experience with either.

  Jeffrey pushed the thought aside and turned his mind instead to Matthew and their time together last night. He woke up this morning feeling truly alive. He hadn’t felt that way since . . . since . . .

  He rounded the corner and pushed through the doors into ICU.

  “Claire’s not here,” his lookout nurse informed him. “But she won’t be gone long. Some friends made her go downstairs for a few minutes to get a cup of coffee. No one can get her to eat.” Jeffrey went into Jacob’s room. The boy’s inert body still lay there, hooked up to monitors and machines and IVs. Flowers were not allowed in ICU wards, but there must have been at least a hundred get-well cards taped on the wall directly in front of Jacob’s bed. There were pictures of Claire and Jacob and Bobo too, and he wondered briefly if she had kept those at her office or if she had managed to salvage them from the fire.

  He leaned over slowly and let his face touch the edge of the gauze that surrounded the face of his son. “I’m so sorry, Jacob,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry for not being there for you.”

  He tried to brush the tears away, but a few landed on Jacob’s pillow, spreading as they hit. The chart dangled from the foot of the bed, and Jeffrey took it instinctively. They had upped his morphine in the middle of the night, and they had scraped his scabs. That explained the morphine; the necessary scraping caused excruciating pain for a burn victim. He could only imagine how Claire’s night had been.

  He replaced the chart and stood for a few more moments at the edge of his son’s bed. His son’s bed. His son’s bed. Either way he said it, it reminded him of what a miserable failure he had been at being a father.

  His lookout gave him a smile as he left. He returned it.

  Unfortunately, he should have posted someone at the elevator door as well. Because when the doors opened, Claire stood in front of him, arm in arm with a strange woman.

  She looked so tired. Not like the picture he had found back at the house—no, this was a different kind of weariness. He had seen it often enough during his years of residency, particularly in ICU. People with no sleep, little hope, and no control.

  And yet she shouldn’t be this way. She should have had him by her side, carrying the load. He should have protected her. Held her. Helped her.

  Her fire toward him was gone. “What are you doing here, Jeffrey?”

  “I went in to see Jacob, Claire. It’s important for me to know how he’s doing.” The words sounded false and pathetic in light of his absent years.

  “So you can rid yourself of guilt?”

  Her friend walked down the hall to offer them a little privacy. He was grateful. “Maybe.”

  She gave a mock laugh. “I didn’t think you were capable of feeling guilt.”

  “I can feel guilt.” He felt his indignation rise, then recalled the unfamiliar emotion he had felt earlier that morning—one that had not visited him in thirty years. “Well, anyway, whether I have in the past or not, I’m feeling some now, and I don’t know what to do with it. I just want to come and see him, Claire. Can you at least give me that?”

  “Give you that?” A light kindled in her dull eyes, a tiny flicker of an ember. “This isn’t about you, Jeffrey. Or are you incapable of thinking about yourself for one moment?”

  His old defenses kicked in. “Is this about money, Claire? I know this has to be hard for you. Don’t worry about these hospital bills. I’ll take care of all of them. And where are you living after the fire? I’ll give you money so you can pay your bills and get back on your feet.”

  The ember became a blaze. “You self-righteous jerk! I’ve never wanted your money. I’ve never asked for your money. And I don’t need your money now.”

 
The emotion died as suddenly as it had come. “All we needed was a husband and a father,” she said wearily. “It was never about your money. It was always just about you.”

  When the alarm clock went off, Elizabeth pulled the pillow over her head and let out a moan. No. She couldn’t do it. Not today. Not any day. She’d rather take a leap from one of Charleston’s many bridges than have to go anywhere near Ainsley Parker and her incessant condescension and judgment.

  She dragged herself out of bed and into the shower, and while the hot water ran over her, she formulated a plan to keep herself out of the office for the day. She had a meeting with Hazel, some research to do, and a number of phone calls to make. That could constitute a day of activities outside of the office. Then she’d have the weekend.

  The weekend. Oh, God help us, the weekend. “I can’t do Sunday. I can’t do another lunch with my family.”

  She leaned her head against the stone shower wall, hoping the water could pound out the frustration in the pit of her gut. There were padded cells for people who felt like this. They sat in front of the TV watching The Price Is Right, babbling and drooling. The frightening thing was that it almost felt like a better option.

  Aaron assured her that her clients were happy, that everything was running smoothly, that she would be able to walk back into that office and never even know that she had spent a year away. She didn’t believe him.

  Besides, he didn’t know what she was being forced to do. Ever since the morning Wade Bennett dropped Hazel Moses’s case into her lap, she had been trying to formulate a plan to get herself out of this without losing her inheritance or her mind.

  Every morning she had to fight the urge to laugh in Ainsley’s face and return to her job. Every morning she had to remind herself that she had two other siblings who continued to show up at their new positions every day. And every day they showed up, it became easier for them to show up the next day.

  She got out of the shower, toweled off, and pressed the new number on her speed dial. The new PI, the one she hired to replace the inept Cavanaugh.