A Matter of Pride

by Jane Gill

  “Um, Momma said I had to call you to say it,” she said. Lu heard a tiny sob.

  “She says I have to call and tell you I’m sorry that I took your books,” Ashanti said.

  “What books are you talking about, honey?” she asked.

  “The books I got from Granddaddy’s house.” Her voice broke, and Lu heard the telephone being passed.

  “Hello, Lu.” It was Elizabeth. “I’m sorry that Ashanti is having a hard time apologizing for what she did.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, too, Elizabeth, but I don’t understand. What did she do?”

  “I just discovered that when we went down to your father’s house and stayed for the funeral… Well,” Elizabeth hesitated, and Lu heard her direct Ashanti to “go on out now and play.”

  “Sorry,” she began again. “As I was saying, when we were down at the house, I guess Ashanti found a couple of notebooks, you know, like those old composition notebooks children use in grade school? They were wrapped in paper and tied with twine. The package has your name on it, Lu, and she took it. I don’t know why.” Elizabeth hesitated again. “No, that’s not true. Actually, I do know why.”

  “Why?” Lu asked. “I’m having trouble following you, Elizabeth. Ashanti took something from the house that had my name on it? Is that it?” Lu’s thoughts immediately went to the writings Miss Pearl mentioned.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not sure how she found it, or where. But it’s proof that this trouble between you and Martin has got to stop. That’s really why I called.” The telephone line was suddenly very quiet.

  “Oh, I see,” said Lu. “And Martin’s upset over this?”

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “He doesn’t know yet that Ashanti took the package that was supposed to go to you, and I’m not sure that I’m going to tell him. But she took it, I guess because she was thinkin’ you were her mean, old Aunt Lu from up north. That’s because of some things she heard her father say that he shouldn’t have. And I apologize for that. But you and Martin are brother and sister, and these kids of ours are caught now in all this fussin’ and that’s gotta stop,” she stated flatly.

  Lu knew that Elizabeth was right and that she was right to point it out. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. Martin and I have got to work this out. And, uh, I’m willing to give it everything I have, truly I am. I was wrong for a long time and I know it. I tried to tell him that at the restaurant the night before the funeral, but well, both of us are wrong now. There are children here, and we need to set a better example and straighten this out. Is he there? Maybe I can talk to him. Can you put him on the phone?” she asked, her heart pounding.

  “No, he’s workin’ overtime today. I’m going to choose my time to set him straight even if I have to tell him what Ashanti did,” Elizabeth said. She paused so long Lu was afraid she’d hung up. Finally, she spoke again. “I just wanted to know if I can tell Martin that you’re willing to set things aside now. That’s all.”

  “Yes, yes,” Lu said blinking back tears. “So much has become clearer now. Elizabeth, I was wrong for many years. I just don’t know if Martin can forgive me,” she blurted out, “But, I don’t want little Ashanti to get in trouble over this.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry, she’s in trouble already!” Elizabeth chuckled. “But, you really don’t know your brother as a man. He’s a loving man, he really is, and I know he wants peace between you two. Ya’ll need to talk this over, okay?” she asked. “And, I’ll send those papers to you right away. I’m real sorry she took them.”

  “I know you are, and I’m sure she is, too,” Lu said. “Give her a hug and tell her I accept her apology, will you? And thank you so much for calling.”

  Lu could barely put the telephone down her hand was shaking so hard. She wanted her family back. She especially wanted a relationship with her nieces and Elizabeth. Elizabeth, she recognized now, with her quiet strength and gentle ways, was the image of her mother. Martin had chosen well. Oh, how she wanted to be close to Martin’s kids, to throw her arms around little Ashanti. More than that, she wanted Susan and William to have a family, too. Elizabeth was right, she and Martin would have to come to terms with their anger and make their peace. Their future depended on it.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lu lit the citronella candle on the patio and pulled her sweater around her shoulders. She was trying to find the words to tell Zach about Elizabeth’s call earlier that day. She heard the kitchen phone ring and guessed one of the kids would answer it. Zach came out the door with the phone in his hand.

  “The screen says, ‘wireless caller’,” he said. “But it’s a Florida area code. Do you want to take it?”

  “Sure,” she said, hurrying to take the phone from him.

  She pressed the talk button. “Hello.”

  “Hey, it’s Dwight.”

  “Oh,” she blurted. “The screen didn’t show your name. We almost didn’t answer.” She mouthed to Zach, ‘It’s Dwight’.

  “I’m calling because I may have some good news,” Dwight said. “Now, I could be jumping the gun a little, but I wanted to get your take on something.”

  “Okay, what’s up?” she asked.

  “I played golf today with a friend of mine who handles quite a bit of real estate down here,” he began. “He was sounding me out about the farm saying one of the big agribusiness attorneys called him asking about buying some acreage for a sod farm here. He thinks your father’s place might be about what they’re looking for.”

  “Really? Wow,” Lu said. “That would be wonderful, but we don’t have the property listed yet, or even the appraisal, do we?”

  She covered the receiver with her palm. “Dwight thinks we may be getting an offer on the farm!” she whispered. Zach raised his eyebrows as high as he could and made a thumbs-up motion.

  “Normally, I wouldn’t take a chance of getting your hopes up,” Dwight said. “But I trust this fellow. Believe me, he wouldn’t be asking if he weren’t serious. He said he saw on the clerk’s website where I was handling the estate. I guess that’s why he called me to play golf actually—so he could test the waters.”

  “What did you tell him?” Lu asked.

  “I told him the beneficiaries lived out of state and we were expecting the appraisal on the property pretty soon,” Dwight said. “I didn’t volunteer any more information than that. Anyway, he asked me to give him a call when we had more information. That’s what makes me think he’s serious. The thing is, if an offer comes in, you and Martin need to be ready to do some compromising. I wanted to give you a heads up. As you know, the market’s in a slump, so you might have to move quickly.”

  “I see,” she said, her face aglow. “Call me the minute you get the appraisal.”

  “I will, but you need to talk to your brother and let me know if you want me to disclose any information and then how much you’re willing to bargain,” he said.

  “Okay, I’ll call him right now,” Lu said.

  She clicked the phone off and cocked her head at Zach.

  “Dwight says I need to talk to Martin,” she said. “Just so we’re prepared.” She walked into the living room, sat in her winged-back chair, and punched Martin’s number into the phone. “I hope he’s not going to be stubborn about this.”

  Zach shrugged as he took a seat in the chair opposite her.

  “Hi, it’s Lu,” she said when Martin answered. “I got a call from Dwight just now and he thinks we might get an offer on the farm from a sod company,” she said.

  “He thinks?” Martin responded. “Based on what?”

  “I guess he was approached by another lawyer, a golfing buddy of his, who’s pretty sure one of those big agribusinesses is interested. The fellow, Dwight’s friend, wants Dwight to call him when the appraisal comes in—probably next week, but he needs our consent to do that. Oh, and he said that with the real-estate market down, we might have to do some negotiating, but he wanted to give us a heads up.”

  �
��But there’s no offer right now, right?” Martin asked.

  “No, not yet. I called to ask you what you think about it,” she said.

  “I think I need more information,” he said.

  Lu sighed, making her disappointment in his reaction audible.

  “I heard that,” he said.

  “Heard what?” she asked.

  “You know, that big sigh you let out, like now you’re mad or something,” he said.

  “I’m not mad,” she said. “I just hoped you’d be as excited as I am, that’s all.”

  “I’ll get excited maybe when we have something on paper,” he said. “Meantime, I’m not going to go off half-cocked over some talk two lawyers had on the golf course. And you shouldn’t, either.”

  “Okay,” she said. “It’s just that I think we should be ready with some ideas about how to do all this. I mean, deeding Miss Pearl’s property over to her, and then deciding when to have a sale or an auction at the farm to sell the equipment and all. There are some details here we need to discuss.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. Lu was surprised to hear him say she was right about anything. It gave her hope. An idea quickly formed in her mind.

  “Let’s do this,” she suggested. “If we get an offer we’re ready to accept, let’s meet at the farm, just you and me. I’ll fly back down, at my own expense, but it has to be on a weekend.” The line was quiet for a long moment. Finally, Martin spoke.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I couldn’t go down unless it was a weekend either.”

  “Great!” she responded eagerly. In the back of her mind she knew then she’d be able to talk to Martin about Elizabeth’s phone call.

  “You call me the minute you hear something,” he instructed.

  “I will, I will,” she assured him. “Bye.”

  “Bye,” he said.

  She clicked the phone off, jumped up, threw her arms up in the air, and stomped both her feet on the carpet. “Yes!” she shouted.

  “I take it he’s agreeable,” Zach said, putting his feet on the ottoman and leaning back in his chair. He opened his arms as she flounced onto his lap and kissed him enthusiastically.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “I wish Dwight would call. What if we don’t get an offer?” Lu asked, closing the oven door.

  “I know it’s bugging you,” Zach said, leaning against the counter. “If you don’t hear anything by the end of the week, just list it with a realtor, that’s all. But I don’t know why you don’t just call him instead of worrying every night.”

  “Yeah, I’ll call him tomorrow,” she said more to herself than to Zach. “His office is closed now, and I don’t want to call him at home. Besides, I have to go pick Susan up from her job interview.”

  “I’ll go pick her up!” William hollered from the living room.

  “How does he hear our conversations from in there and not hear us when we’re talking to him?” Zach pondered.

  The phone rang, and Lu snatched it up as she had been doing all week. She didn’t even look at the screen to see who was calling.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hi,” Dwight said. She reached in her purse and grabbed her keys, tossing them to William who was standing in the doorway of the living room.

  “Gee, you must have mental telepathy,” she said. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Well, you’ve got a written offer on the farm!” he announced.

  “You’re kidding,” she said. “Zach, Dwight says we have an offer!”

  “I’ve sent both you and Martin a copy by e-mail.” Dwight said. “I just want to give you a few details, so you can call Martin and hash it out. Ready?”

  “Detail away,” she said, grabbing a pen off the counter and pawing in the kitchen drawer for a scrap of paper.

  She wrote numbers furiously as Zach looked over her shoulder.

  “Now, like I said before,” Dwight said. “You and Martin may want to counter this but remember, ‘a bird in the hand’.”

  “I know,” she said, “is worth two in the bush.”

  “Right,” he said. “Talk to your brother and give me a call in the morning. We’ve only got forty-eight hours to move on this.”

  “Okay, talk to you tomorrow. Bye,” she said.

  “Today is Tuesday,” she said to Zach. “If Martin agrees, I could fly down there and meet him, and we could seal the deal this weekend.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Zach grinned. “Give him a call right now.”

  She dialed Martin’s number and when she had him on the telephone she was careful to tell him each and every detail Dwight had given her, including the fact that they had only forty-eight hours to either accept the offer or make a counter-offer.

  “I think we should counter for another $20,000.00,” she suggested. “It can’t hurt, right?”

  “But,” Martin was quick to point out. “What if we counter and they walk?”

  “I’m bettin’ they won’t,” she said. “They were interested enough in the farm before we had the appraisal. They want the land, and I’m guessing they’ll either raise the offer or we can split the difference.”

  “All right, I guess,” he said. “But I know from folks down there, money’s tight.”

  Lu agreed, but she was willing to take a chance. Besides, ever since her conversation with Elizabeth, she was anxious to talk to him, even argue with him, whatever it would take, but she didn’t want to do it long distance. Besides, she wanted them to get everything lined up: the sale, removal of the furniture and equipment, and one last look at the house where three generations of their family had made a home and created a legacy.

  “Regardless of what happens,” she said. “is there any chance you could meet me at the farm if I flew down this weekend?”

  Martin didn’t answer right away. She heard him cover the phone with his hand and say something to Elizabeth. He came back on the line and said, “Yeah, I guess I could get down there sometime Saturday. I’d have to leave here pretty early, but yeah, I could meet you.”

  Lu felt her pulse racing. “Great! I’ll make arrangements and meet you there Saturday.”

  She hung up the phone and saw the stunned look on Zach’s face.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I just now realized I’m going to be alone again this weekend,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she tried to rein in her excitement. “But you know how badly Martin and I need to talk. Remember, I told you about little Ashanti’s call? This may be my only chance to bring our families together. I don’t want to miss it.”

  “Honey, I understand and it’s okay. It’s just I’m not sure I can handle another weekend of golf, golf, golf,” he laughed.

  “No,” she said, looking him directly in the eyes. “You can’t stand another weekend of eating your own cooking.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Well, there is that, too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Lu’s plane touched down in Jacksonville right on time. She heaved her carry-on down from the overhead and hurried to pick up her rental car. Fortunately, the MapQuest directions were accurate, and she whizzed through Jacksonville, connected with the Interstate without incident and arrived at the farm earlier than she expected. Martin was already there, and she could see he’d been hauling shovels, rakes, and hoes out of the overhead of the pole barn and standing them up wherever he could find a place. He looked up when he heard her slam her car door.

  “Hey,” she called.

  “Hey,” he answered, walking toward her.

  “What are you working so hard at?” she asked. He grabbed the brim of his ball cap and slapped it against his knee, brushing dust from it.

  “I’m just trying to organize some of the tools,” he said. “But I’m not so sure now that’s the way to tackle all this.”

  “Won’t the auctioneer bring people in to do that?” Lu asked.

  “That’s what I was just thinkin’.”

  “Have you
been back through the house yet?” Lu inquired, her gaze on the front porch. She was pretty sure there wasn’t anything in there she wanted. After all, she’d already gone through every drawer and cupboard looking for papers. Still, she wanted to take one last look around the home she’d known as a child. She just didn’t want to start bawling, least of all in front of Martin. She bit the inside of her cheek against the wave of finality.

  “Naw, I didn’t want to go in until you got here,” he said. “You ready to say goodbye to the old homestead?”

  “I guess,” she began, “I’m just not sure I’ll be able to do it without breaking down.” There, she’d said it.

  He reached an arm out and hugged her shoulder. “Me, neither,” he said, guiding her toward the front porch.

  The house was dark inside. They went straight into the kitchen, and Martin switched on the light.

  “I’m glad I didn’t have the power cut off,” Lu told him. “I didn’t think that would be a good idea, especially if Miss Pearl and the ladies from church come over to take things for their yard sale before the auctioneer comes.”

  “Yeah, I think Jerome is going to bring her over here this afternoon,” Martin said. “Least that’s what she told me on the phone. So if we want anything we need to take it now.” He leaned up against the sink.

  For all the world he looks just like Daddy, Lu thought. She watched him adjust his ball cap and cross his arms. Tall, thin, and looming. She knew that even though she had manipulated the circumstances so they could be here alone, she didn’t know where to begin, or how, but it was time for them to be brutally honest with themselves and with each other.

  “You’re being awful nice to me,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

  “Hey, I’m doin’ my best here,” he said.

  She immediately bristled. “What?” she asked. “I just paid you a compliment, and suddenly you’re on the defensive?”

  He pulled himself up to his full height and stared across the kitchen at her. “Let’s just get on with this, okay?” he asked. “I got Elizabeth at home tellin’ me how I got to be nice and ‘try to be understandin’. Well, I’m tired of all this pussy-footin around and ‘being nice’. It’s phoney, and we both know it.”