Scarlett Baby (The Scarletts

by Brenda Barrett

  He couldn't afford to be a part of a lucrative business venture because he was poor. He drove an old rust bucket; he lived in a cramped one-bedroom apartment in the city. He had four hundred dollars in his bank account. He didn't even know if he could afford gas to drive back to town.

  And to top it all off, he slept with his best friend’s wife.

  He was a real peach of a person.

  Maybe he should just move back home and work for Ricky. He was constantly hounding him to do that. "Come and manage the villas, Yuri. I am pretty sure the pay is way more than what you are getting now." Ricky might as well have offered for him to come and be his whipping boy.

  It was a measure of how unhinged he was that he even considered that old conversation. He loved IT, he really liked programming, and besides, to quit his job and become Ricky's whipping boy would mean seeing Marla every day.

  That alone was enough to squash the rogue thought. That and the fact that he couldn't see himself working for Ricky. And he couldn't in all conscience take thirty million dollars from him now either.

  "Yuri! There you are!" His father's eyes were blood red and wet looking. He must have done some crying today.

  "We have a meeting at the house, the reading of the will. The lawyer is heading there now."

  Yuri frowned and straightened up from the car. "Say that again. What will?"

  "That's what I said too." Lloyd shrugged. "Pops didn't own anything much, apart from the boat and the piece of land in Black River that already belongs to me and Pete. The boat—he wanted Reuben to have it. There was no need make a will for that."

  Reuben was Pete's first child. Pete was the one that had supposedly caused Grandma to have a heart attack when he ran away.

  "Okay." Yuri's curiosity was stirred now. "I am hemmed in. I can't move until one of these vehicles moves."

  "I know whose car that is," Lloyd said, pointing to the SUV. "I’ll ask her to move. See you back at the house."

  "Okay." Yuri’s curiosity was now overriding his feelings of despondency.

  Chapter Seven

  "Hello everyone, my name is Zachary Lee Chang and I am your grandfather's lawyer. Well, I wasn't his original lawyer but my grandfather passed away and I inherited your grandfather, four years ago. Are all the persons on the list here, Lloyd?"

  "Yes." Lloyd looked around. "Yes they are all here."

  The 'all' included him. There was the immediate family, his dad, his mom, Terri, Troy and his cousin Rueben. They were gathered around the eight-seater dining table while the lawyer sat at the head with a mound of papers in front of him and an opened briefcase beside him.

  Yuri knew he was hallucinating. Yes, these past couple of days were just a dream. He hadn't made love to Marla; his grandfather didn't really have a lawyer.

  Crazy.

  Why would his grandfather, a simple fisherman, have a lawyer and a will? Only people who had stuff had a last will and testament. His grandfather wore the same outfit every Sunday; he had lived with his son and daughter-in-law and had the same old boat from the eighties.

  "The lawyer is extremely good-looking," Terri whispered in his ear. "He has some Asian, you can see it in those eyes."

  "Terri." Yuri looked at his sister solemnly. "Pinch me."

  "No, you pinch me," Terri whispered. "Surely this guy isn't for real. He's a model of some sort, maybe an actor. We are being punked."

  "I know," Yuri muttered. "Pops did not have a lawyer."

  "I have literally traveled the world and never seen anyone so yummy. He is just right. Right size, right height, right everything."

  Yuri groaned. Apparently, Terri was on a different wavelength from him.

  "Okay," Zachary, said, smiling at them.

  Terri moaned dramatically.

  "Stop it," Yuri hissed.

  "Excuse me?" Zachary looked over at him and Terri and Yuri struggled to keep straight faces.

  "Not you, Zachary. My sister here is in pain."

  Zachary looked at Terri assessingly.

  Terri was grinning like a Cheshire cat, obviously feeling no pain at all. He then looked back at his papers, a small smile curving his lips.

  "As I was saying, your father," he looked at Lloyd, "was very concerned about his grandchildren."

  Lloyd nodded. "Yes, he was close to them."

  "All his grandchildren," Zachary said promptly, "not just Reuben, Yuri, Troy and Terri. He said at last count he had eight grandchildren, five from Peter and three from you."

  "Oh." Lloyd folded his hand. "I have no idea how many children Pete had. Except for Reuben here," he nodded to his nephew, "and another one, Oliver, whom we met last year."

  Zachary nodded. "That's right, but Peter had other children. Your father called them the missing Scarletts. He asked us to find them a year ago. And to find Peter too. He wanted to see him before he died."

  Lloyd sighed. "Yes, he never got over Pete's running away from home forty years ago."

  Reuben grimaced, "I was the cause."

  "No, you weren't," Lloyd said. "You can't take blame for Pete's foolish actions."

  Zachary sorted through the mound of papers in front of him and held up a photocopied newspaper article. "Have you ever heard of Hurricane Charlie in 1951?"

  "Yes." Lloyd nodded. "I wasn't born yet. Pops hadn't even met my mother yet. The way he described it, he was forty but he had never seen a hurricane like that since, though we have been getting some lately. He would laugh off the latest ones and say that they had nothing on Charlie."

  Yuri chuckled, "Pops used to tell us Charlie stories. It caught him at sea. He was in a ten footer with Thomas Hudson, who was an inexperienced fisherman then. He said he was standing in the boat when the winds and the rain started and he hollered to God to help him and it was as if a eerie calmness came upon them after the initial five minutes of turmoil, like Jesus had said peace be still like he did in the Bible with the disciples."

  Zachary nodded. "The eye of the storm passed over them and then they got a severe lashing after that. He almost died."

  "He never told us that," Yuri murmured. "He just focused on the miracle part."

  "It was at that spot they discovered the Queen Ann, a Spanish treasure ship. It sank off the Black River Coast in the 1600s. There was speculation that this ship was heading back to Spain with gold for the monarchy and sank right there. It had never been found until that hurricane."

  "Hold up. Hold up!" Yuri was the first one to speak. His family were looking astounded and quite rightly so. "Say that again."

  Zachary obliged. "Charlie revealed the wreckage. It was not unearthed until the following year, of course, because Jamaica was reeling from severe damages at the time. The excavation of the old ship and its companion ship found nearby took almost three years."

  "So Pops got some old coins and he is leaving them to us. That's cool. I don't want to be rude but I have a flight to catch today," Terri said, looking at her watch.

  "It's not exactly old coins," Zachary said patiently. "They were gold coins and some silver, but mostly gold. Real gold. And there were thousands of them. And several feet of gold chains.

  "When I say chains I mean literal chains of gold. There is speculation that that was what contributed to the ship’s sinking. It was probably overloaded and there was bad weather."

  Zachary looked at each of the Scarletts, realizing that it hadn't clicked yet. He said the rest of his statement softly. "Dolby Scarlett’s finder’s share was one million US dollars back in 1952."

  Lloyd was the first to gasp.

  Yuri knew for sure that he was hallucinating; he was in a stress-induced dream. Marla had just rejected him and he was creating an alternate reality for himself. Any moment now he would wake up. But the lawyer kept talking.

  "Dolby had our firm invest the money for him. He said he didn't want any attention drawn to him because of his newfound wealth and he pretty much ignored it. My grandfather Zachary Chang the first was quite conservative so he only invested in lon
g and sure investments, nothing extravagant.

  "That said, I just want to apologize firsthand for the seemingly small returns on a sixty-year investment. If it were up to me or my dad we would have invested in real estate or even some technology. We could have gotten some real returns from Microsoft or Apple or even oil..."

  Lloyd had his mouth hanging open.

  Daisy had her hand over her heart.

  Zachary realized that no apology was necessary to people who had no idea of just how rich they could have become.

  "So, that said, let me move on to the last will and testament of Dolby Scarlett: To my sons, Lloyd and Peter, I bequeath to you one million US dollars each to do with as you please.

  "To my daughter-in-law, Daisy, you are better than any child I may have had if I had gotten a girl. I bequeath to you one million dollars. To my eight grandchildren, Reuben two million dollars; Yuri two million dollars; Troy two million dollars; Terri two million dollars; Kane two million dollars; Lisa two million dollars; Oliver two million dollars and Noah two million dollars.

  "My children and grandchildren, do not let money master you. You should be her master. I hope this will make a difference in your life in some way. If you think you will be better off without it, invest it and give it to your grandchildren as I have."

  Zachary cleared his throat. "One million dollars is divided among his many extended family members and friends. We will inform them of their inheritance in the following weeks."

  Yuri was stunned and he felt as if he couldn't move.

  The rest of the family were dazed too. Nobody but Zachary was moving. He starting packing up his papers.

  "We are still investigating, trying to find the whereabouts of Peter and his children, Kane, Lisa and Noah.

  "Oliver Scarlett is on medical missionary work in Africa. We have notified his mother of his inheritance. I must say she was as shocked as you all are now. Our office has taken the liberty of setting up the funds in the names of the beneficiaries in an off-shore account. It makes it easier to access your funds.

  "I have your security codes here somewhere. If you want to move money around, say if one of you want to invest in a business, we can easily handle that for you as well. Be assured that we are here, ready and willing to offer advice."

  *****

  Shortly after Zachary drove away they all sat on the veranda. They moved slowly, as if the news was a ticking bomb that could blow up in their faces at any moment. There was a surreal feeling about the whole thing.

  "Pops could have been a secret agent," Terri whispered, "or a spy. He hid the fact that he was rich for sixty-one years. Who does that?"

  "I can't believe this." Reuben leaned back on the veranda wall and swung his leg slowly.

  "Same here." Yuri said to Reuben. "Same here."

  "Say something uncle Lloyd." Reuben prompted Lloyd gently.

  Yuri sat on Pops' favorite veranda chair beside his father and patted his back. "It's okay Dad, I think all of us are sufficiently shocked too."

  "We still owe the doctor for his medical bills," Lloyd said, his voice whispery thin. "I guess now we can pay it off."

  "Now what am I going to do with a million dollars?" Daisy asked, walking around Yuri and plunking herself down in her husband's lap. "We waited years to finish this house, we sent our three children to college, we scrimped and saved and did without so long that I don't think I can even imagine having excess or even want it. Money would only make me dizzy now."

  "I have never seen a group of people act so dejected after finding out that they are rich," Terri murmured. She had changed out of her funeral outfit and was now in jeans and a black t-shirt that had her company logo on the front.

  "I don't see you acting any different," Troy said from the steps. "You look just as shocked as the rest of us. Did you see her face, Yuri, when the lawyer said, ‘Well, it's not just old coins’? She looked like she was going to pass out."

  Yuri smiled. "I saw."

  Lloyd started chuckling and then it turned into a full-blown laugh.

  "My father got married to the woman of his dreams at forty-five. He met her in a bank in Black River. He said he had all but given up on love when the newest teller Marilyn Sunders smiled at him and asked him, ‘How is your day, Sir?’

  "He said that he instantly knew. She was way younger than he was and brighter and delicate—a completely different specimen to him, a seasoned bachelor. Two months after the first meeting they were married. One year later I was born."

  He wiped his eyes as the others watched him. They had heard the story several times before, sometimes told by Pops himself, sometimes by Lloyd.

  Today gave it new meaning.

  "We grew up in Calabash Bay in a house that leaked every time it rained. Pops would climb up on the top of the building to patch it and then he would come back down with a satisfied smile on his face and declare that anything that came too easy was never good.

  "That was his philosophy." Lloyd shook his head. "We were never dirt poor but we were never rich, not by a long shot. I could have gone to university, bought lands and farmed it and yet my dad watched me struggle through all of it. That's why I was so adamant about you three going to university. I wanted you to at least do more on a grander scale."

  "But if you had grown up differently," Terri said, "you might have turned into a guy like Ricky. You wouldn't have met a lovely woman like Mom and the three of us wouldn't exist."

  "There is that," Lloyd said on a sigh. "We can't know, can we?"

  "Nope, we can’t," Troy said

  "You know what?" Daisy said, lowering her voice to a whisper. "I think it would be best if nobody knew about this. Please. Everyone. Just do whatever you are doing quietly. Let this stay in the family."

  "Fat chance of that happening," Reuben snorted. "I am sending my sisters to college. And I am going to go big with the farming."

  "I can't either," Yuri said, shaking his head. "I am going to Kingston to invest in a business. I am going to buy a new car. It's long overdue—and I am moving out of my apartment into some place bigger. But then again, I am not living in a small community like you guys are. Nobody knows or cares what I do in Kingston."

  "So what are you going to do with your money, Troy?" Reuben asked, looking over at his cousin.

  Troy sighed. "I don't know, go back to school finish up my degree. I have always said that if I was not in the ministry I would love to do therapy. I had six months left in the course."

  "Fix your house first," Terri coughed.

  Lloyd looked at him sharply. "What is she talking about?"

  "Long story," Troy sighed. "I will tell you and Mom some other time. I promise. Right now, I have to go and pick up Dahlia and then go home to hell."

  "I need a drop to the bus stop," Terri said, straightening up from her slouched-over position. "Until I figure out what I am going to do, I still have a job that I need to go to. I won't burn my bridges and all of that just yet."

  They waved goodbye to Troy and Terri. Reuben said his goodbyes and headed down the road to his house.

  Daisy looked at Yuri sadly. "You are the last to go, huh. The house will feel empty with just me and Lloyd. No Pops, no children. I never knew that we would ever say that this house is too big, but it is now."

  Yuri grinned. "You grow them and then you have to let them go."

  Daisy came over and hugged him. "That's true. If only I had grandchildren living close by."

  "Mom," Yuri pulled away from his mother, "I am too young for that speech but I am not too old to beg. Can I borrow some money from one of you rich folks? I have no gas to take me to Kingston."

  Chapter Eight

  Thump, thump. Ricky's stick hit the hardwood floor like a rhythmic drum. "Marla, get in here!"

  Marla flinched. She looked at her father, who was trimming the hedges in a stricken panic.

  "Dad, I can't take this for one day more. Ricky came back from his therapy really confident that he is making progress and accordin
g to him, he has plans for me. You should see his face when he said it. I am not going to stay around to know what those plans are!"

  Her father's shoulders slumped slightly. He was a thin, wiry man, a little taller than she was. These days he was looking almost sickly. Marla hadn't realized just how much he had let himself go. She only saw him sporadically these days. He preferred to spend his time after work hanging out at the Poison Pirate bar and then after that he would pass out on the beach somewhere.

  His fair skin sunburned to a leathery brown texture but she could see his spidery green veins through his too-thin skin. He looked much worse than usual and she had seen him through some really tough times.

  She sometimes wondered how he had coped with handling a newborn by himself when she was a baby because he was not doing too well these days, though he was just forty-nine.

  He looked at least two decades older. The excessive drinking and smoking were not doing him any favors.

  Marla suddenly felt a shaft of compassion for him and she bit back the criticism that was on the tip of her tongue. Instead her voice had a slight whine to it.

  "Yuri asked me to go to Kingston with him six weeks ago! Dad, I am wasting my life here. I am too young for this. I want to be with Yuri."

  John turned bloodshot eyes to her and growled grumpily, "Marla, stop complaining, you live in luxury. He is an evil blackmailer but at least he is not abusing you. Many people would think that this is better than prison."

  Marla swallowed. "I am sorry but that argument is wearing thin."

  "What do you want me to do?" John hacked a huge chunk of bougainvillea viciously. "Kill him? I would, but the last time I tried, he was merely paralyzed."

  "Dad!" Marla squealed, her eyes widening in shock.

  "Yes, I tampered with his fancy Porsche. I wanted him gone. Maybe you could poison him?" John said hopefully. "You have access."

  Marla backed away a few steps. "Dad, stop it. Yuri was in that car."

  "How was I to know that he would allow Yuri to drive his precious car?" John spat. "Listen, if you want to get rid of Ricky you have to kill him. You better do it before he starts walking too. I saw him out of his wheelchair this morning. You might not have much time left. His kind of evil should not be strutting around on two legs."