Final Rights
Page 34
As Cally left the cemetery, she called Tate. They now sat on the porch of Cally’s apartment, soaking up the last rays of winter sun.
“It just never occurred to me that Clayton would be buried there, too!” Cally had done her crying in the car on the way home. What remained was shock and anger. Clayton had always been a shadowy figure in Cally’s life. Rita actively avoided him, and he hovered on the outskirts of Cally’s relationships with Ellie and Leland. As far as Cally could remember, they had never even spoken to each other more than a handful of times.
Cally never thought of Clayton as father. In fact, for most of her life after Rita took her to California, Cally hadn’t thought of him at all. That is until she and Tate had discovered his role in Ellie’s death. Finding him interred next to Ellie had left Cally dizzy and nauseous as she tried to make the connection between the man who had murdered her grandmother and the one lying under the marker emblazoned with “Beloved Son.”
“How can I help, Cally?” Tate squelched her urge to jump in with a pep talk.
“You just being here is support enough, Tate. If I hadn’t met you, who knows what I would have done. I may have gone back to my condo, my job, my empty life in California. But now I have all this beauty and hope and possibility in my life.”
“You seem really happy, Cally. I’m glad you’re coming to terms with Harland.”
“Me, too. I’m going to put a new marker on his grave. Nothing so intimidating as the original. Just something that acknowledges his life, you know?”
“I do. I think Harland is finally getting what he always wanted—love and respect.”
“I told Gampa. I don’t think he’s able to forgive Harland, but he gave me his blessings nevertheless.”
Tate still joined Cally for visits to Forest Glen occasionally, but she hadn’t been in over a month. “I need to get back out to see him soon. How’s he doing?”
“He’s slipping a little. He hasn’t fully recovered from that bout with the flu last month, and they say he may not.”
“How does he feel about you moving into Chestnut Street?”
“He seems relieved. He’ll own it till he dies, but his will leaves it to me, so he said he was finally untethered from it!”
“You’ve had an eventful day, Cally.”
“That I have! I’m feeling better, though. I guess if I can find it in my heart to forgive Harland, then I’ll eventually be able to do the same for Clayton. I better, because it’s not like I won’t be seeing him again.”
“Yeah, I guess so . . . him being there beside Ellie . . .”
“. . . and eventually Gampa, too.”
The two women sat in companionable silence and watched the sun color the bellies of the clouds pink and gold before disappearing behind the mountain ridges.
FIFTY-THREE
2005
Tate left home without breakfast or coffee. She walked briskly and didn’t slacken her pace until the house came into view. Formerly so dilapidated and sad, it now bustled with activity as workers finished the final steps of the renovation.
So much had happened since Tate first stumbled upon 305 Chestnut Street all those months ago. She had learned a great deal, not just about Cally and her relatives, but also about herself. Cally had found a place to call home and transformed it into a nurturing haven. Tate had not done the same for herself, and she wondered if she ever would, if she even could.
Tate walked around the house and into the backyard. Soil had been turned and planting beds prepared for the meditation area Cally planned for the far corner of the property. The fish pond would be reborn as a water garden. Within weeks, the yard would be ablaze with color and abundant life.
Tate dropped into a deep wicker chair with soft cushions near the old fish pond and wrapped her wool barn coat snuggly around herself. She would always be welcome here, she knew that. But it would never be hers.
Still, meeting Cally and forming that immediate and tight bond, joining forces to save the house, allowing herself to develop real connections with people as diverse as Leland and Ruby and Richard Price . . . these experiences had changed Tate.
“Someday.” Tate allowed herself to sink into a vision of the life she wished for, one filled with richness and possibility. “Someday I’ll have my happily ever after, too.”
Acknowledgments
No book is written by the author alone, and this one certainly wasn’t! My initial interest in writing grew out of the high praise I received from Mrs. Palmer, my twelfth-grade English teacher, who thought my book report on Giants in the Earth far exceeded all expectations. That same interest was dashed to the ground by an unnamed professor at Miami-Dade Junior College who had no appreciation at all for the feminist perspective and told me I should focus on doing something that would earn me a living.
Many story ideas have lived in my head for years, some for decades, but until now, this is the only one that has actually been written. I owe that accomplishment largely to my dear friend Tracy Coates who has believed in Tate Marlowe since I first introduced her to Tate in 1999. It is also Tracy who told me about National Novel Writing Month in 2005. My participation led to the birth of Final Rights, which then sat untended for years.
Letting a story lie in fallow ground is familiar to many writers, especially, I think, those who attempt to produce a finished piece for the first time. There are all kinds of excuses: I don’t have time, I have writer’s block, I don’t like what I’ve written, I have great ideas, but I don’t know how to get them down on paper . . . the list goes on.
I would likely still be stewing in those excuses if it were not for my extremely good fortune in having found Micki Cabaniss Eutsler and the staff and editors at Grateful Steps. Over the course of dozens of meetings, Micki read every word of my story aloud with me sitting next to her. I saw and heard in the moment her reactions to the characters I had created and their experiences. Her feedback is the best education I could have asked for as a new author. Her encouragement and guidance have made this a much better story than it would ever have been without her.
When I needed answers to questions anchored in the real world rather than the one I was creating, I called on several people who were gracious and helpful. The staff at Pack Memorial Library in Asheville, NC, and Putnam Library in Nashville, MI, provided me with a wealth of information and memories that have influenced this story. Zoe Rhine and Ann Wright at Pack Memorial Library helped me obtain the cover photograph. My research into the workings of real estate in Asheville led me to Annika Brock, a local attorney, and Devorah Thomas of City Real Estate, a savvy broker and good friend. Kathryn Scott, architect, helped create the door that sparked Tate’s interest. Tom Ross, professor of Weather and Climate in the Blue Ridge Naturalist Program, assisted with the destruction of Harland’s grand monument.
Over the years of wanting to write, and then writing this book, I’ve had ongoing support and encouragement from my family, in particular my sister, Linda Frank Lodovice, and from a cadre of friends including Cheri Britton, Ann Paige, Kathie Schmidt and the members of my two book clubs.
My heartfelt thanks to all of those named here and many others who have cheered me on. And you can expect me to be calling on you as I dive into the next Tate Marlowe mystery!
Tena Frank grew up in a series of small towns in south central Michigan before venturing off to the big cities. She spent twenty years in Miami during which time she earned a Master’s degree in Social Work from Barry University. She completed her doctoral coursework at Columbia University School of Social Work in New York City and spent 16 years working with homeless adults on the City streets. After leaving New York, she bummed around for a year before settling in Asheville NC where she shares her home with her best canine friend, Coco. Final Rights is her first novel.
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