"Fifty percent of a bankrupt business isn’t worth much," I added.
Helen took a puff, held it, then blew it out the side of her mouth. "How much can we take out? And don’t try to bullshit me. Remember my decision will affect your futures as much as it will mine. Maybe more."
"Becky’s the bookkeeper. You’ll have to ask her."
"I can’t say without checking the books, last year’s taxes, things like that."
"Okay," Helen said. "In plan one, I move to Florida with Henry. In return, you give me $50,000 cash and a mutually agreed upon percentage of the business. You and Becky get the house, the remainder of the business, an eternity of loving bliss, and all the sex a man your age can stand. Is that about right?"
He frowned. "You’ve got some way with words, Helen."
"Yeah, I know. In my next life, I’m going to be a poet."
"You forgot one thing, Momma."
"What’s that?"
"The divorce. You and Frank will need to get a divorce if you marry Henry."
"We’re getting a divorce whether she marries Henry or not," Frank said. "That’s one thing that’s long overdue."
"You don’t have to sound so eager. Not after I gave you the best years of my life."
She pointed at the ashtray. "What if I decide not to move? This has been my home for most of my life. I’m comfortable here."
Frank handed her the ashtray. "In that case, we’d split everything. One would take the house and Sugardale store, and the other would get the cash and the business in Kirbyville. I think that’s fair."
Helen pushed back her bangs. "Well, I’d want the house and Sugardale store."
"No," I said. "Papa’s house is mine."
Helen shook her head. "I’m not moving into that apartment. This was my home first. Frank would still be living in that rundown duplex if it wasn’t for marrying me."
"She’s right, Becky."
"How can you take her side against me?"
"I’m not taking sides. I’m trying to do what’s fair, to do what’s best for everyone." He put his arm around me. "Can’t you see that?"
I pushed his arm away and walked into the hall. He followed. "I can’t move to Kirbyville, Frank."
"We don’t have to. We can sell the store there, move someplace new, and start another business."
"I’m not giving up Papa’s house. I can’t."
Frank retreated, the color drained from his face. "And I can’t stay. Not if it means living like we have."
I grabbed his shirt. "You promised you’d never leave me."
"I’m not leaving you, Becky. I’m leaving the insanity. This life of lies is killing me."
Frank was right. I’d always known the lies, the sneaking around, and the pretense was harder on him than on Momma and me. For us, living a double life was the norm. No one outside our family, except for Anna and Johnny, knew about the beatings, my broken bones, or Helen’s adultery. We were experts at hiding the truth. But Frank had come to us with a code of ethics, a mantle of decency, and a sense of right and wrong. Over the years, Momma had dragged him down to our level. Out of a desire for love and a need for his protection, I’d helped.
"How can I choose between you and keeping my promise to Papa?" Our eyes met briefly. Frank turned away, but not before I saw the pain in his eyes—pain I’d put there. I grabbed his arm. "Maybe I won’t have to choose. Momma might move."
"Perhaps I will." Helen stood in the doorway. "You two can fight and make up later. We’ve got business to decide on and I don’t plan to waste my entire evening on it."
"Helen’s right, Becky. You two need to make up your minds about what you’re going to do. Why don’t you show her the books? Let her see for herself what shape the stores are in. Then she’ll know we’re not trying to cheat her."
"She won’t understand the books. She doesn’t know how to read a ledger or a cash flow statement."
"The hell I don’t. I worked the store and kept the books before you were born." Helen twisted a curl around her finger. "I help Henry with his bookwork every month."
I frowned. "I don’t remember Papa saying you ever worked the store."
"Your daddy didn’t tell you everything. And what you don’t know about me could fill a library."
"Show her the books," Frank said. "Get this done."
"Aren’t you coming with us?" I asked.
"I’ve made up my mind. Whatever decision you and Helen make, I’ll learn to live with. I’ll have to." He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. "I’m going to take a shower and get some supper."
"Chicken or catfish, that’s your choices," Helen said. "Don’t even think of asking her for meatloaf."
"If you mention meatloaf one more time, Momma, I’ll scream."
"You see what I mean, Frank? I’ve never known a person to get so worked up about a little meatloaf."
He sighed. "Helen, please don’t agitate her just because you can."
"I give up." She raised her hands in mock defeat. "I’m going to eat at Henry’s. You two lovebirds can have tuna casserole for all I care. But now, let’s go check out those financial records. Are you coming, Becky?"
"I . . . I’m not sure . . ."
"She’s coming, Helen."
"Good. I’ll get my purse." She sashayed out of the hall.
I tugged at Frank’s shirtsleeve. "You know I can’t handle Momma alone."
"Then it’s time you learned." He captured my face in his hands. "Just remember, regardless of what Helen says or does, you remain calm. Can you do that?"
"I’ll try."
"You’ll need to do more than try." He pulled me to him.
I hugged him. "I can’t lose you, Frank."
"Stay calm, Ladybug. If you do, Helen can’t win."
I smiled at him. "You haven’t called me Ladybug in years. I’ve missed it."
"I’ll spend the next thirty years making it up to you." Frank kissed the top of my head and worked his way down my face, planting little pecks on my brows, my eyes, my cheeks, and the tip of my nose. In between, his warm breath tickled my ears as he whispered encouraging words and endearments. Frank still wanted me, still loved me. With that knowledge, I could take on the world. I could even take on my mother.
"You two could sell tickets to this show," Helen said.
I tried to pull out of Frank’s embrace. He loosened his grip slightly, but kept his arm around my waist, kept me by his side.
"We didn’t see you standing there," he said.
She grinned. "Sugar, y’all wouldn’t have seen an elephant enter the room. Not the way you two were welded together."
My face reddened, but not Frank’s. There was no apology in his eyes.
"Are you ready to go, Becky? Or is there a second act? If so, I’ll pull up a chair." A shameless grin lifted her lips. "I’ll wait if you let me watch."
"You’re sick, Momma. Plumb sick."
She threw back her head and let loose a wicked laugh. "I’m sick? Sweetheart, you’re the one clinging to your mother’s husband."
I’d have come right back at her with my own slam, but Frank squeezed my side—his way of reminding me to stay calm.
"Why don’t you wait for me in the car, Momma? I’ll get the keys to the store and be right out." Her face fell, disappointed because I’d ended our tit-for-tat game.
"Okay." She hooked her purse over her arm and started to leave.
"Helen," Frank called.
She turned around. "What is it now?"
"For the first time and maybe for the last time, we’ve all got a real chance to be happy. You have a shot at living the grand lifestyle you’ve always wanted." Frank slid his arm around my shoulder. "Don’t throw it away in order to continue this I’ll-show-you game we’ve played for years. I meant what I said. I’m finished playing games."
I leaned into him. "So am I."
Helen sighed. "I might as well move. You two aren’t any fun anymore, and Henry is the only one who can fix my hair properly." She o
pened the front door. "I’ll be in the car."
After she left, we stood there in shock and amazement.
"It’s really happening, isn’t it, Frank? We’ve got a real chance to get rid of her."
"Looks that way." He handed me his keys. "Go on before she changes her mind."
I hugged him tight. "I’ll do a good job for us. I’ll negotiate a good deal, I promise."
He drew me close. "Give her whatever it takes to get her out of here and out of our lives."
CHAPTER 23
I tugged at my blindfold. "Is this really necessary?"
"Yes," Frank said. "It’s really necessary."
"But I’ve been here dozens of times before. I’ve seen the waterfall, the gorge, the pond. I’ve seen it all."
"Be patient, Becky."
What choice did I have? Frank had insisted we leave work early and drive out to the mountain property of his late friend, Mr. Parr. That wasn’t unusual. Frank and I often stopped by to watch the sunset at the gorge or to poke our feet into the cool stream. He’d even talked me into skinny-dipping in the pond a couple of times.
Often, we’d visit Starview Mountain just to soak in the grandeur of the scenery, to be refreshed by the pristine honesty of a land untouched by man or machine. The serenity of Starview served as a counterbalance to the deadlines, financial dickering, and the never-ending lies required to sustain our mock image of the perfect family. For Frank, the natural beauty and unspoiled integrity of the mountain helped repair some of the contamination to his soul, contamination caused by his collaboration with expert sinners like me and Momma.
"We’re here," he said. "You can take off the blindfold."
Eagerly, I removed the cloth. Before me lay the pond, the stream, and the woods. "Everything’s the same."
Frank shoved a fist full of papers at me. "Read this. Then tell me this place looks the same to you."
The papers were from an attorney in Atlanta. The first letter explained how Mr. Edmond J. Parr had passed away two months earlier.
"But we knew your friend died, Frank. You went to his funeral."
"Read the rest of the letter."
"Okay." As I continued reading, my excitement grew. "This is unbelievable. It’s too . . ."
"Too incredible," Frank said as he picked me up and twirled me around.
"Why would Mr. Parr leave this wonderful property to you?"
"He wrote me a letter," Frank said, between ragged breaths.
I looked through the papers until I found the letter. In it, Mr. Parr thanked Frank for the years he’d worked for Parr Construction. Mr. Parr also wrote about his love for the mountain property and his fear that, if left to his children, the property would be sold to developers. Thus, he was leaving the land to Frank, the one man who appreciated its natural beauty as much as he did.
"Aren’t you pleased, Frank? You’ve tried to buy this property for years."
"Buying it is one thing. Being given it is another. It doesn’t seem right, Ed leaving something this valuable to me instead of to his kids."
"But he explained his reasons. He knew you loved this land and wouldn’t try to make a quick buck off of it."
Frank bent down, rinsed his hands in the clear water, and wiped them on his jeans.
"I was seventeen, just married, and as green as they come when Ed gave me a job. I worked for him until I married Helen and took over the store for her. Everything I know about running a business, I learned from Ed Parr." Frank picked up a few pebbles, skipped them across the water. "When April was dying, he gave me time off with full pay so I could be with her. I’ve never been able to repay him for his kindness."
"This is your chance."
He threw the last of the rocks into the stream and stood. "I always figured parents should leave things to their own children."
"His children are grown, and I’m sure he left them the construction company. It’s worth a lot, isn’t it?"
"Millions."
"Mr. Parr’s children won’t exactly starve if you accept his gift. Will they?"
Frank shook his head.
I slipped my arms around his waist. "Then take it. Think of it as a sign that things are turning around for us."
"When Helen called yesterday, did she say when she’d be back?"
"In a week or so. Now that she’s got the divorce, Momma and Eva want to visit some of the other islands."
A quiet miracle had occurred in Sugardale three weeks earlier. Helen had agreed to divorce Frank and marry Henry. Despite all odds and without us coming to physical blows, she and I worked out an agreement about the business. After the divorce, she’d receive $50,000 cash and thirty percent of the net profits from the stores, plus any wholesale business we might develop. Afraid that I might manipulate the books against her, Momma had insisted on a guaranteed monthly minimum check of $2,000. Any month her percentage didn’t come up to the minimum, Frank and I would have to make up the difference out of our own salaries.
She’d made her position very clear. "No guaranteed minimum, no divorce."
While it galled Frank and me to give into her blackmail, we’d have gladly lived on beans and cornbread if it meant getting her out of our lives.
Henry had done his part. He’d convinced Momma of his undying love and had showed her the detailed business plan he’d developed to assure his success in Palm Beach. Even so, she had still insisted on reviewing his bank statements, investment portfolio, and the projected revenue from the sale of the Sugardale beauty shop and his ancestral home.
To clinch the negotiations, he’d reminded Helen that he stood to inherit most of his Aunt Velma’s fortune. Being a proud man and accustomed to earning his own way, Henry cared little about his aunt’s riches. But he believed his "Peaches" would find the possibility of owning a mansion bigger than Eva Whitcomb’s too tempting an opportunity to pass up. He knew his woman.
Whenever Helen decided to do something, she wasted no time getting it done. She called Eva, informed her about the move to Florida, and asked her advice on how to obtain a fast divorce. Three days later, the two women boarded a plane for the Dominican Republic where foreigners could obtain a quick divorce as long as both spouses agreed to it.
The gurgle of the stream, the intermittent knocking of a determined woodpecker, and the muted roar of distant thunder rolling toward Starview Mountain serenaded us. Frank and I hugged each other, swaying to the tempo of an accelerating breeze sifting through the cottonwoods.
"You think I should keep the land?" he asked.
"Definitely."
"Okay. I’ll go to Atlanta next week and sign the papers."
"Then Starview Mountain will be yours, Frank."
"Ours." He kissed me. "That reminds me, I need to make out a new will, one that leaves everything to you in case something happens to me."
I pushed him away. "Don’t say that."
"Everything is in my name, Becky. The stores, the house, this land. I’d sleep better knowing you’d be taken care of in case something unforeseen happened."
"It makes me nervous to talk about wills and such. Do whatever needs doing. Just don’t talk to me about it. Okay?"
"Okay." Frank kissed me several times. "I’ve got something in the back of the truck to show you."
An olive-green tarp covered the truck bed. He untied it, then yanked it off.
"What’s all the gear for?"
Frank let down the tailgate. "We’re going to camp out on our new land this weekend."
He pulled out two fishing poles, leaned them against the side of the Ranchero. "Tomorrow, I’m going to teach you to drive my truck."
"If I learn to drive, I won’t have an excuse to ride with you all the time."
"Soon, we won’t need excuses to be together. Will we?"
"Okay. But I’ll only drive when we’re here. That way the only thing I can run into is a tree."
"Just make sure you don’t drive off the cliff."
I laughed. "That’s a reassuring thought. By t
he way, what if we’re needed at one of the stores? Won’t they wonder where we are?"
"Gordon and Neil are capable of taking care of things, and they’d never question me about our whereabouts." Frank slid a large cooler off the tailgate. "Bring those poles. Let’s get camp set up. Looks like it’s going to rain."
I laid the fishing rods across the top of a cardboard box filled with metal dishes and a drip coffee maker. "Gordon might not ask, but Reverend Murray will if we miss church on Sunday. What are you going tell him?"
"I’ll tell him the truth. We went out of town."
"He’ll want more information than that, especially since everyone thinks Momma’s visiting a sick friend in Charleston."
Frank plunked the cooler down under a huge oak tree. "I’ll tell him we went camping, and that I chased you all around the woods and did you-know-what every time I caught you."
"You can’t tell the preacher that. He’d sandblast our names onto his heathen prayer list. Then half the people in Sugardale would be knocking on our door, bent on saving us from the fires of Hell."
"Everyone will eventually find out about the divorce, Becky."
"Do you suppose we’ll lose a lot of customers when word about us gets out?"
Frank shrugged. "They’ll be back when it’s planting time or when the grass starts tickling their rear ends and they need a new lawn mower."
"Momma thinks we might actually get new customers."
"How does Helen figure that?"
"She says people may hate sin, but they like to see sinners up close. Some people might start a garden so they’ll have an excuse to come into the store to see the dirty old man who robbed the cradle and the young hussy who bops her momma’s leavings."
"The dirty old man and the young hussy, huh? Helen does have a way with words." Frank took my hand as we walked back to the truck. "She could be right."
"You think so?"
He nodded. "When it comes to sin and sinners, Helen is the world’s expert."
That was a true fact.
"Anyway, you’ve got bigger problems to worry about." Frank heaved a long box up on his shoulder. "You’d better get on your running shoes because as soon as I get this tent up, I’m coming after you."
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