“So you haven’t said your prayers since you’ve been old?” Jeffrey laughed. “You calling me old?” He poked Matthew in the ribs and began tickling him.
Matthew laughed the belly laugh of a child, composing himself only after he’d squirmed out of his father’s reach and sat down on the pew beside him. “Yeah, I called you old. And quit changing the subject.”
Jeffrey looked down at him. He laid his arm along the back of the pew and then dropped it over Matthew’s shoulder. He had developed an odd need to touch this child. “How did you get so smart?”
“You always said you were brilliant.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“So you don’t pray anymore?” the boy persisted.
Jeffrey’s eyes rested on the top of Matthew’s sun-streaked head. “You know, Matthew, I don’t. I haven’t prayed in years, and to be honest, if you knew my track record, you’d know that God probably wouldn’t listen to me anyway.”
“You’d be surprised. Granddaddy said he used to be a scoundrel too, but one day after Grandmother died, he realized he didn’t want to be a scoundrel anymore. And you know what else, Dad?”
“What else?”
“He said the one thing he wished he could do over was how he raised his children. I would have told you that a long time ago, but you and I never really talked much.”
Jeffrey felt his eyes sting. He reached down and took Matthew’s face in his hands and turned it up toward his own. “Matthew, can you ever forgive me for being such a jerk?”
“I forgive you, Dad.” He patted Jeffrey’s knee softly. “I forgive you.”
The silenced lingered in the small prayer chapel, but it didn’t feel odd, or weird, or uncomfortable. It was just silent.
Jeffrey finally broke it. “So, how exactly did Granddaddy say he prayed?”
“Said he just sat here and talked to God.”
“You ever do it with him?”
“Well, not with him, but whenever he would go outside to check on Grandmother’s grave, I would talk to God in here by myself.”
“Really? Like what would you say?”
“Oh, I just told him how I was feeling. Talked to him kind of like you and I are talking now. And then I’d ask him stuff.”
“Like what? What kind of stuff?”
“Stuff like—” He shrugged. “Well, kind of like what’s happening today, you know, with you and me.”
Jeffrey tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“I asked God to help you to love me, that’s all. You know, like you do now. So I guess he was listening. I always thought he was. It was like I could feel him, inside me or something. But now it’s real. Now I know he listens.”
“You believed I didn’t love you?”
“Dad, you never even talked to me.”
“I was horrible.”
“Yes, you were,” Matthew said with absolute candor. “But you’re great now. Just talk to God. It’s amazing what can happen!”
And with that he jumped off the pew and headed out the open door.
Jeffrey sat in the silence of the small room, not even trying to wipe the tears as they fell. A presence seemed to fill up the vacant places inside of him
It’s just like talking, Matthew had said.
“God, it’s me, Jeffrey Wilcott,” he murmured. “I’m not real good at this, and I’m not even sure if you remember me. I’ve been pretty pathetic for quite a while now.”
His voice echoed against the wooden walls and floor of the chapel. He stopped, feeling self-conscious. After a moment of silence, he forced himself to go on. “So, anyway, if you’re listening, I was just wondering if maybe we could start talking again. You know, whenever you’re free.”
A breeze swept through the window, and Jeffrey opened his eyes. “I’ve been a poor excuse for a father. Not to mention an even worse excuse for a husband, and a horrible son.”
His voice faltered. “I know I’ve got some other people I need to talk to about this, but I figure you’re the most important. If you can find any way to forgive me—and help my dad to forgive me, if you can—I really would appreciate it. And I don’t want to ask you for anything other than that, but there is this one big thing. My son, his name’s Jacob. He got badly burned, and he really needs a miracle. If you could help us with that, I’d appreciate it.”
Jeffrey stood up from the pew slowly, then remembered Something else and sat down again. “Oh, and thanks very much, I guess,” he amended. “And, uh . . . amen.”
As he closed the door of the chapel behind him, Jeffrey felt as if he’d left something of himself behind. The heavy part. He felt lighter, freer.
He saw Matthew over by his parents’ graves and headed in that direction.
“I miss him,” Matthew said, wiping his eyes. “He and I had a really good time.”
“Yeah, I know, son. I miss him too.” The truth was, he had missed his father for most of his life. And now, for the first time, he was willing to admit it to himself.
Elizabeth could have sworn that was Jeffrey’s car in front of her, and it had just pulled out from the church.
“There’s no way,” she muttered to herself. “Jeffrey Wilcott’s the last person they’d let into a church.” The thought made her laugh, and she hadn’t laughed in a while.
Elizabeth dreaded this day, as she dreaded its arrival each month. But every month it seemed to get more and more torturous, like everything else in her life.
The dust stirred behind her car. She pulled up to the front of the house, where the wisteria had now lost its blossoms to autumn and to the cooler temperatures. She watched as a young boy got out of Jeffrey’s car. You coward, she thought. Having to bring one of your kids here just to get through the day.
Esau stepped out onto the front porch. The boy let out a shout and ran into Esau’s arms. It was something Elizabeth hadn’t seen in years. A child being loved.
Elizabeth had never understood how someone like Jeffrey could have so many children. He wasn’t a father; he was a sperm donor. Surely there ought to be some deity upstairs controlling how children were divvied out: three to a good home here, two to a good home there. Some people didn’t deserve children at all. But then, her father had sired four of his own. Obviously no God in heaven cared.
Jeffrey watched Elizabeth as she exited the car. She looked tired, similar to the way Claire did in the birthday photo. For the first time in years, Jeffrey felt sorry for Elizabeth.
For most of their adult life, he had simply avoided her, because avoiding her allowed him to avoid his own shame. But today he didn’t want to avoid her. Today, seeing Elizabeth’s face the way he saw it now, he wanted to apologize to her. Gone was the hatred, the bitterness. All he felt was an overwhelming sympathy for this woman who was his sister.
Elizabeth’s hand froze on the door handle of the car. Jeffrey was talking to her. To her.
She hadn’t registered the words. “Excuse me?”
“I said, I was wondering if you and I could find some time today to talk. Just the two of us.”
She looked into Jeffrey’s face. Something there had shifted, changed, distorted. His expression was open, expectant, even vulnerable. Instinctively she knew what he wanted to talk about. All the feelings came back in a rush. An old fear swept over her, the fear of a thirteen-year-old girl.
She did the only thing she knew to do. She ran. Calling Esau’s name, she ran to the porch and hugged him. “Esau! It’s so good to see you! And oh my goodness, is this Matthew?”
“Hey, Aunt Elizabeth,” Matthew replied. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“It’s been too long. Entirely too long.” She wrapped her arm around him and led him inside, never looking back into Jeffrey’s eyes.
Mary Catherine pulled up in front of the house; her mind had already tuned out Will’s incessant droning. She climbed out of the car leaving him to entertain himself. She noticed the wisteria had all but bid adeiu until next year. She ran her fingers across one of its lim
p leaves and looked forward to when spring would bring it back to life. Maybe she’d be back to her life by then too.
Esau always cooked the night before, because he never worked on the Lord’s day. He would set the table, put out the food, and put the left-overs away when they were done. That was the extent of Esau’s labor on Sunday. But he certainly outdid himself on Saturday.
“This is great,” Will said, digging into a piece of ham. He had shown up with Mary Catherine and hadn’t yet volunteered what happened to his Porsche. Jeffrey had his suspicions.
“Put your fork down, Will. Nobody’s even said grace.”
Will chewed slowly and nodded, finally placing his fork down on the edge of his plate. Jeffrey tried to catch Elizabeth’s eye, but she avoided his gaze
“Can I pray, Esau?”
“Go, sweet boy.”
Jeffrey braced himself for “God is great, God is good.” But his son surprised him. “Dear Lord, thank you for this wonderful meal we are about to receive. Thank you for the hands that prepared it. And thank you that we are together as a family, even though Granddaddy can’t be with us. Amen.”
“Amen,” Esau offered.
“Amen,” Jeffrey said softly.
Elizabeth busied herself with passing the ham and vegetables and resolutely avoided her older brother’s attempts to get her attention.
“Where’d you learn to pray like that, little bro?” Will asked as he headed back to his ham.
“I heard a lot of praying around here, whenever I’d come over.”
Elizabeth gave a sarcastic little grunt. “I always remember hearing you pray, Esau, but I don’t ever remember hearing Dad pray.”
“I heard him pray every now and then over those last few years,” Mary Catherine said. “I just figured he wanted to make sure he made it wherever Mother was going.”
“What are you insinuating, that you were the only one around here taking care of him?”
“Elizabeth—” Jeffrey’s voice held a note of warning.
“Leave it alone, Jeffrey. Everybody at this table knows you brought your child along because you’re too much of a coward to face us alone.”
“Yeah, Jeffrey,” Mary Catherine said. “Why did you get to bring Matthew? Isn’t that against the rules? I could have brought Nate.”
Elizabeth gave a mocking laugh.
“What?” Mary Catherine demanded. “You have a problem with Nate?”
“Mary Catherine, you’re the only one who doesn’t have a problem with that freeloader. He doesn’t want anything but your father’s money. I’m surprised you’ve even been able to keep him around, since he is having to wait a year to get his hands on it.”
Mary Catherine’s bottom lip began to quake. “You are mean, Elizabeth. Mean and bitter and sad!” She pushed her chair out and stood up, staring across the table at Elizabeth. “Nate never did anything to you, and he loves me! He loves me!”
“Now, I’ll not have it,” Esau interrupted. “Mary Catherine, go on and get to sittin’ yourself down, heah. Matthew, go fetch the pitcher of sweet tea out the refrigerator.”
Matthew obeyed immediately.
“Now, no more disgracin’ this house or your parents’ legacy any more than you already have,” Esau went on, glaring at the lot of them. “You’ll each one of you sit down and not speak if you can’t speak with kindness to one another. I won’t have none of it. I won’t let you back through that there door no matter what you’ve been told you have to do. You heah?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “Y’all need to straighten up, because I only get food like this once a month.” He reached for the butter beans.
Mary Catherine excused herself and headed for the back door, not bothering to keep it from slamming as she exited.
Matthew returned with the tea. “Fill ’em up, son,” Esau said.
He walked around the room and filled up each glass. When he got to Jeffrey, Jeffrey gave him a wink and a soft smile, and touched him lightly on the shoulder. Elizabeth noticed and found the whole interchange very telling. Jeffrey thought he was winning and was flaunting it. She ate nothing else and simply sat smoldering in silence.
When Will finally laid his fork down, Esau looked at him. “Dessert, Will?”
“Oh yeah, Esau, bring it on!”
Without a word she got up and left and didn’t even say good-bye.
She had almost made her getaway when Matthew’s voice arrested her. “Aunt Elizabeth?”
She turned toward the strikingly beautiful young boy. She saw elements of Jeffrey in him. The rest must have been his mother, but she couldn’t even remember what the woman looked like.
Matthew didn’t deserve her rage. She stifled it. “Yes, Matthew?”
“I’m really sorry you had such a lousy time today. Maybe the next time I see you, you’ll be feeling better.”
“Sometimes adults just have lousy days.”
“Yeah, well, my dad’s had lousy years, but he’s been different lately.”
“Different?”
“Yeah, he’s just been being, like, a real dad. We’ve been spending a whole bunch of time together, doing stuff. It’s been very cool. So maybe whatever has been happening to him can happen to you, and you’ll feel better.”
She touched the top of his head. She hardly knew this child, wouldn’t have recognized him on the street if she’d passed him. “Maybe, Matthew. Maybe.”
“I hope so.”
Elizabeth inhaled sharply. He was too observant for his own good. For her own good.
“You ever going to have any kids, Aunt Elizabeth?”
She felt the bristling beneath the surface of her skin. She’d never been rude to an eight-year-old. Never had the desire until now. She took the only escape she could think of—a lame one, but an option nevertheless. She jerked her watch upward toward her face. “Oh, look at the time! Well, great to see you, Matthew. But I’ve got to get going.”
She reached for the door, but he got to her first. He grabbed her by the waist and held her tightly. She patted him awkwardly, and when he finally let go, she climbed into her car and left them all behind.
Mary Catherine walked through the back gardens, inhaling the salt air and trying to let it wash away her anger. The flowers were dormant now, and she wished that her sister would go into hibernation as well. Instead, she just got more irritating.
She headed past the old barn and down to the long wooden bridge that led to a dock sitting in the saltwater marsh. This place was just as beautiful as any of the other historical places Charleston offered. Yet this one held her history.
She looked out over the marsh, the reeds swaying against the breeze. One reed among the others was bent down and hanging as if it were holding on. That’s how she felt, so many times, in the face of Elizabeth’s demanding attitude and Jeffrey’s arrogance.
From somewhere deep inside, a memory surfaced: A bruised reed, he will not break. She couldn’t remember where the words had come from, but she let them resonate as she watched the reed swaying in the wind, its head bowed down. She could only hope the same for herself. To bend, but not to break.
Esau had loaded Will up with the leftovers and put them into Mary Catherine’s car.
“Jeffrey, you got twenty dollars I can borrow?”
“Borrow?”
“Okay, have?”
“Where’s your money, Will?”
“It’s all gone crazy. I can’t get to my money, and they just took my car.”
“And you still think this whole thing is a joke?”
Will slugged Jeffrey on his arm. “You still think this whole will thing is real ?”
Esau sat down in the rocking chair and took Matthew in his lap as the sounds of Will’s laughter drifted back from Mary Catherine’s departing convertible. Jeffrey sat on the porch and rocked awhile, and then the two of them left as well.
Esau waited a good thirty minutes after Jeffrey drove away before he reached for the telephone. “I know you were probably watchin’, but
they all showed up again.”
“I honestly didn’t expect as much from them.”
Esau stared out the back windows of the kitchen, where light from the setting sun poured in like liquid gold. “You underestimate their wills. Their father counted on ’em.”
“We’ll see if he counted correctly. I left some money in your hiding place outside. You really should let me get you a safety deposit box.”
“I don’t need no safe deposit box. That money doesn’t stay in these ole hands long enough to need one.”
“It’s still not safe.”
“It’s safer than a bank. They’d trace this money quicker than you could get to high tailin’ it out of Charleston. And with the tempers flaring around this dinner table, there is honestly no telling what they’d do to either one of us.”
“All right, Esau. I defer to your wisdom. Spend wisely.”
“Will spend as needed, you rest assured.”
chapter twenty-six
Mary Catherine dropped Will off and gave him a hundred dollars out of her grocery money. He had asked her to go buy him a car, but apparently he had forgotten that she couldn’t touch any money except for necessities—her necessities. She told him to get himself a bus pass. He laughed.
“Hey, baby girl,” she said as she greeted Coco and set her bag on the kitchen counter. “Nate! Nate!”
Nate didn’t answer.
“You know, that’s it. I am sick and tired of him not being home.” She flung open the French doors overlooking the backyard and the pool and took the stairs two by two until she hit the beach. Coco followed with delight.
As she walked, Mary Catherine scanned the beach for any sign of him. His car was in the garage, but he was nowhere to be found. She returned to the house and sat on the bottom step, watching as Coco played in the ocean. If she was a smarter woman, she’d admit to herself that something was up in the land of wedded bliss, and it sure wasn’t bliss.
“I am a smart woman,” she murmured to herself. “I’m a very smart woman. I’m so smart, I’m going to let him enjoy an evening on the sidewalk until he decides to tell me where it is he’s been.”
The Will of Wisteria Page 21