His Sweetest Song

by Victoria H. Smith

  Breathing, truly coming back, I pushed my hand over my mouth, the estate planner known as Mr. Williams, nodded his head of salt-and-pepper hair. Burly, he matched that of the general look and stature of his wife who sat beside him, the kind woman very much along for the entire conversation. Mrs. Williams, Marilyn, had picked me up from the train station a few days ago, got me settled, and in no way during our pleasant back and forth did the woman touch upon what would happen in her husband’s office today. She’d left all this, what my aunt had, out.

  And it was a lot.

  The property line literally went from the house and onward, the home itself the starting point of an actual estate, which wandered way past what I’d been ready for when I came down to accept an inheritance. I thought I was receiving a home to fix up and later sell.

  Not half of an entire town.

  She owned the land in which many of the properties of downtown Mayfield sat on, which included both businesses and even homes once hashed out. Most of what was in my aunt’s name was undeveloped land and truly beautiful by the pictures in the book the Williams’ sat in front of me. They had a whole collage of expanded woods and scenery. There was even a lake back there, a gorgeous one with glistening waters when the sun above shined through the clear sky that day.

  I ran my fingers over that sun.

  “Its estimated value I’m sure exceeds what you believed.”

  Mr. Williams had shared that with me too before his last words. What my aunt had acquired came in somewhere around six-point-five million dollars and that was just estimated, no offer for purchase. The real estate had a potential for development well past that.

  I knew because I worked in business law, knowing a bit about commercial real estate as well in my day to day.

  The tourism industry could come in and clean up here, build extensive campgrounds with the lake as its focal point. It could be something, truly something.

  “We’ll help you through the whole process, my dear,” said Mrs. Williams, smiling ever so wide at me and I was sure she and her husband would. It wasn’t lost on me she’d never mentioned any of this on the phone or when she met me for the first time the other day. She’d kept this information all to herself and later she and her husband tag-teamed me with it.

  No, it wasn’t lost on me.

  Moments later with more than enough decisions on my hands, I found myself outside, my red-bottom heels scraping the sidewalk of a neighboring town. The Williams didn’t have their office in Mayfield, the town perhaps a little small for them. Mayfield was perhaps too small, quaint, and maybe not appreciated by all.

  Pushing the small chain of my purse up my arm, I sought out my ride who lowered her Converse sneakers from the dashboard when she saw me.

  Ava beamed at me from behind big Aviator shades, the dark, ebony skin of her arms resting on the open window of a Honda I might see in a high-schooler’s driveway. The vehicle was young, rough with patchy spots and nearly bald tires, but the ride suited her. She was young at heart where many of us, i.e. myself, sometimes took themselves way too seriously. She waved viciously out the window and I couldn’t help the smile tugging at my lips. I waved back, happy for a familiar face after all that happened inside.

  I had a lot of decisions to make in the next few days, what would ultimately be done with my aunt’s property and later the logistics. It’d take a lot to prepare such a wealth of land for sale, and though my aunt and I didn’t have a close relationship, I wanted to do right by her. I felt something in her place, her home, something familiar that I knew went beyond me. People lived here and the situation needed to be treated fairly.

  One of those locals stared at me now, her head of curly, bouncy natural spirals tilting at me.

  “That was quick,” she said, getting her car started with a roughened hum after I got in. She apologized for that with a small smile and I laughed, happy she spotted me running earlier that morning and offered to take me into town today. She’d been receiving an alcohol order at the bar when I sprinted past in my athletic shorts. We got to talking and since she only had to work evenings, she said taking me into the next town for a few minutes wouldn’t be a big deal.

  It’d been nice to see someone who always radiated friendly. I made a note to read people in my day to day and had been doing so since I arrived in Mayfield, Kansas. I knew when people were being nice just to be nice to me, and with Ava, I never felt like I had to wonder whether or not she was being genuine in regards to her kindness toward me. Pretty much an open book, I felt like I got her.

  It’d been Gray who’d been all over the place for me.

  Not dwelling on the fact and still in wonder by that, I was handling one thing at a time today. My aunt’s property and my decisions about that became priority.

  “They were very organized,” I told Ava in response to what she’d said before. She pulled out into traffic at this point and I put my arm over the open window. “I have a lot to think about.”

  The statement in itself seemed like the understatement of the year. I had no idea how an older woman from Mayfield, Kansas, had come to acquire such wealth, but according to her estate planner she very much knew what she had, hence investing in his services. My aunt had apparently made some very savvy business decisions over the years, not acquiring the land in one lump sum but over time, the bulk of which had come from someone she’d been close with in town. Well, when that friend passed and the woman proved to have no living heirs all that abundance went to my aunt. Through that, she’d been able to acquire much more.

  And now it all came back to me.

  I didn’t necessarily feel worthy of such of gift, feeling really I was gaining it all by default. I just happened to be related to her, the only one who also happened to already come from an affluent family. Outside of that of my parents, I had my own money, my own job and my own mark I’d made in the business world. I never wanted to be dependent on the acquired wealth of my attorney father or doctor stepmom. I wanted my own and had gained it just like myself and my three brothers. We’d all gone to prestigious black and high-ranking colleges outside of my eldest brother, Peter, but he went Ivy League just the same, MIT. Between the four of us we had a young CEO, two attorneys, and one doctor. We were doing all right.

  Why me? Why would she give it all to me?

  I knew why, convenience and only that.

  Smiling at Ava, I tilted my head at her. She didn’t say anything after what I said, but I did notice that constant smile of hers did waver a little for some reason. She opened her mouth as if to say something but I supposed thought better of it. We drove for a while, getting back on the highway before she turned to me and I noticed her smile had suddenly returned.

  “You should hang out with my friends and me tonight,” she said, turning down the stereo a little. She’d turned it on when we got on the highway. “After my shift at the bar, we’re all meeting up for a bonfire. Actually right off the lake behind your aunt’s house.”

  Her gaze trained on me after she spoke and I felt kind of bad for what I had to say to her. Hanging out with her friends might not be so bad considering the downside of being outside and in the elements. I hadn’t really packed for anything like that.

  I sighed. “I would but I’m probably going to work tonight. I’m an attorney in the real world.”

  “An attorney? Wow,” she proclaimed, bouncing her shoulders before facing me. “That’s why you’re always so smartly dressed.”

  One could be called worse things than fashionable. Grinning, I shrugged my shoulders a little.

  “Anyway, yeah. I’ll be working. The Internet guy is supposed to come by today and get me all hooked up with service so I can get some work done.”

  I called just this morning and after the day’s events so far, I was glad to have been vigilant enough to make that call. Dealing with my aunt’s inheritance would take some time.

  And definitely more than a week.

  Ava and I chatted a little bit on our way back into
town and I found myself happy for it. She pointed out all the basic highlights like the courthouse and large library, but also more individualized establishments too. I got to see the places the town’s youth liked to visit after a long day at school and where adults liked to hang their hats after getting off from work.

  “We line dance there,” she said after pointing out a restaurant known by three words: Brown & Hobs. My brow hiking, Ava lifted her eyes in response.

  “Don’t knock it until you try it,” she told me and I laughed.

  I couldn’t see myself at all ever line dancing. I may have hailed from the Midwest such as herself but the concrete jungle of Chicagoland was very different from that of Kansas.

  Humoring her, I sat back and let her go on about all the fun things they liked to do in town, even events like a pumpkin festival the locals put on every year. She truly did enjoy living here and she had to, considering she came back after going to college.

  That made the decision on who I chose to sell my aunt’s property to that much more important. I wanted the right people to have it, the money in all this secondary.

  I didn’t speak a lot with Ava talking and she must have noticed. Stopping abruptly in her speech, she suddenly shied.

  “Did you ever think we’d be here again?” she questioned, turning my way once she pulled up in front of my aunt’s home. The drive hadn’t been far, a nice one. She rested her chin on her palm, her arm lounging on the window. “In the same town, like when we were kids?”

  I definitely gave her that one, herself and this town far from my mind before the call I got about my aunt. I hadn’t forgotten about her or my time here on purpose. I had just been so young last time I’d visited.

  “It doesn’t seem to have changed a lot,” I told her, smiling a little. “But you sure have.”

  She’d been quite different, both physically and personality wise. She’d been way shier before from what I remembered and, yes, rounder as well.

  Giggling, Ava let her curls fly in the wind when she shook her head.

  “Not really,” she said. “But I guess it can seem that way since it’s been so long since you’ve seen me.”

  Knowing the truth in the statement, I nodded.

  She pushed her hand over the wheel. “If you can make it tonight, to the bonfire, you’d have a good time. We’d all love to have you and show you some more of Mayfield. It’s a beautiful place.”

  I’d never question her about that even with the little bit I did see.

  “Also hit me up if you ever need anything while you’re here,” she went on, that smile of hers still full. “I’m just a walk or a cellphone ring or text away. I don’t live far from here, up the street and a few blocks.”

  Thinking I might take her up on that offer in the future I went to thank her, but paused when I realized something.

  “Do you happen to know where that guy from the bar Gray lives?” I asked, belting my seatbelt again. “If so I’d… well, I’d love a ride there if you have the time.”

  Chapter Eight

  Gray

  The evidence sobered me, my reality in the form of the financial spreadsheets I kept displayed in a weathered-down notebook on my kitchen table. The notebook had seen a few replacements in its day, but the general information inside remained the same. I wasn’t organized in many things, but when it came to Laura and me and our livelihood, I didn’t cut corners with that. I wanted to know what we had at all times, and right now, it wasn’t much.

  Another move would literally cripple us financially, not to mention what relocating would once again do to the currently fragile emotional state of my daughter. Laura had always been fragile and might always be, but she did tend to do better with routine. Places like Mayfield were small, intimate and that allowed for less emotional stimuli for my kid who never had a great time dealing with pretty much anything new or unexplored. She didn’t do well with change, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice.

  Josephine was no longer here, both Laura’s and my mental rock, and with Jolene Berry, Laura’s teacher, getting on me about putting Laura in school in several weeks…

  Then there was that thing with Alicia.

  Caging my face with my hand, the incident itself had caused me to open up the books and see if moving was an option in the first place. I had given up. I literally saw nothing for us here anymore with Jo gone. I couldn’t possibly go back to Alicia and do any more work on the house with her in town, she might not let what happened at her aunt’s house go. She might question.

  They always do…

  My hand fell from my face and hit the table, a noise from an adjoining room getting my attention. Laura always watched afternoon cartoons around this time, Bugs Bunny messing with Daffy Duck on the screen in her bedroom. I went ahead and set her up with her own small television set, the box sitting on her dresser while she watched cross-legged on her bed.

  Head tilted, the braid I did for her this morning draped across her back. The entire image of a young child watching afternoon cartoons completely normal.

  She was normal. In there, inside her, was a kid just wanting to be a kid. I think she was just trapped and didn’t know how to express herself.

  I wish she’d just talk to me…

  I stopped wishing that long ago. I guess I got tired of disappointing myself in dreaming and wishing.

  My arms crossed over my notebook and my gaze severed from my daughter at a rumble clunking down the road. I didn’t hear many, Laura’s and my trailer on the outskirts of town.

  My hand hit my knee and I rose as the sound suddenly stopped. It hadn’t passed by or moved on.

  That sent me on red alert.

  Standing tall, I peered across the room as well as I could through my trailer’s sheer curtains. A car had stopped in front of my house. Tilting my head, movement from inside the car could be witnessed, clear and distinct, as well as the sound of distant voices. The door of the car slammed suddenly and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

  What the…

  Not thinking, not doing anything but acting, I got a visual on my daughter still at her position on the bed. She hadn’t heard the activity outside and if I had my way, she never would.

  Quickly, I moved around my chair in the open kitchen, which joined with the living room. Our trailer basically only had four rooms, the living room/kitchen area, my daughter’s bedroom, my own, and then the bathroom. I knew the schematics of this place like the back of my hand, our bags—our lives tucked away in the closet could be moved with a single grab. We could literally pack up and leave at a moment’s notice if need be.

  And sometimes there was a need.

  I slid my notebook off the table, traveling across the room with gentle steps. Whoever was moving outside the house was getting closer, too close.

  A glance in Laura’s direction told she hadn’t budged or made any type of movement at all and I crossed in front of her open door, pulling it closed a little. Letting go, I grabbed the handle of the closet door next to her room.

  I’d cracked it open just a little, my attempt to get our single bag in there and grab my kid next when I caught a glimpse of someone.

  A woman who seemed vaguely familiar.

  My palm sliding off the closet door, I lowered, inching closer to get to the living room window. Getting there, I pushed the curtains open, which had been the very moment the visitor had closed our chain-link fence behind herself.

  Alicia…

  Feeling as if I was seeing things, I pushed the curtains fully open, an unease prevalent and deep within me as I watched stiletto heels stamp and sink in the earth outside my house. They actually slowed her a bit and she had to stop for a second.

  What is she…?

  But she was coming here for some reason in her short skirt and top, which flowed gently in the wind. Every soft stride exposed a sliver of the creamy brown skin at her waist and I immediately let go of the curtains. She couldn’t knock.

  I couldn’t risk the repercussions
of the sound.

  The presence of sudden visitors generally lacked at my home. People didn’t come here. People didn’t see either of us and that’d been a general understanding by both my daughter and me. People weren’t usually seen unless planned. That’s how I preferred it.

  My palm covered the trailer’s living room doorknob and I pulled it open to a pair of wide eyes and red painted lips. Alicia’s hand had been poised to inflict that very knock I sought to prevent. I moved between her and the door, pulling it with me a little. Even in her heels, Alicia barely reached that of my chin.

  “Hi,” she exclaimed, a shot of breath escaping her lips when she took a step back. I’d clearly surprised her, which hadn’t been my intent. I just didn’t want anything unnecessary happening today if I could prevent it.

  I told her hello, gazing above the top of her head at the car she’d arrived in. Powder blue, the Honda could beat my truck with its condition, but that spoke of nothing of the way it drove. My truck was very sturdy considering the road and miles it had experienced.

  Upon squinting the driver appeared familiar and when she bounced her head of full spiral curls once at me in acknowledgement, I remembered the owner worked at the bar in town. She’d always been nice, causal and didn’t linger to talk when I took my business there.

  I nodded back to her, my hand still firmly on the doorknob. Closing the door wasn’t an option and neither was keeping it open, the door lingering somewhere in the middle between open and closed.

  Noticing my hand, Alicia ventured a little more away from my personal space though she’d already taken a healthy step back.

  “I, um,” she started, not ever seeming like someone to lack words. She’d been quite confident around me in the past.

  Your daughter hadn’t freaked her out before.

  My palm warmed the door handle. “What can I do for you?”

  My voice sudden, her lashes lifted up and she took another step back.

  “Nothing urgent. I just…” Pausing, she played with the ends of her skirt. “I wondered if you had a moment. I’d uh… I guess I’d like to talk if possible.”