Edward continued. “I don’t need or want you arguing with your mother. Stop it.” David remained silent and still, as if was steeling himself from the brunt of Edward’s command. “Your mother’s earned every bit of what the company’s worth, and more of what ever it might bring her.” Theo, Linda and Brad lowered their heads. “I’ve not been the best husband. It’s a fact to everyone who knows me.” Seething ever more deeply, David breathed in. Edward placed his palm over David’s hand. “I need you to stand by your mother.”
David jumped up and started toward the house.
“Is this because of Heather?” Linda called to him.
“I don’t need you or anyone in this family peering into my business.” David scowled.
“Son, we’re not trying to hurt you,” Edward said.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” David’s voice cracked as he whipped around.
Theo reached over and grasped Anna’s hand. She was feeling disoriented like she had when Grant arrived minutes after Matt, both wanting to see Serine. She rubbed her temples.
David stormed to Edward. “Why couldn’t you have been better to her? Why did you have to go all those places and leave her here?” The wounded seven-year-old boy in David emerged from the thirty-three-year-old man he had become. Like Theo, David had also been sensitive to Anna’s sadness in the wake of Edward’s difficult-to-explain absences. Anna recalled him trying to comfort her as only a child and son could. They’d been sitting on her bed, and David had come in to check on her as Edward had instructed. Each time before he went away, he commanded. “Take care of your mama.”
David had stroked her cheek. Mommy, don’t you cry. I know you miss Daddy, but I’m here. A second-grader, and missing two front teeth, his face, the color of maple syrup, had borne the seriousness of a man seven times his age. Anna pulled him close. I love you, she whispered and kissed the top of his head. David then said, When I grow up I’m gonna get married. You can live with me. We’ll take care of you. Me and my wife. We’ll never let you cry.
Anna wondered about Heather, and considered how much of David’s misery was caused by his vow to save Anna, a promise he had made over two and a half decades earlier. How much of David’s commitment to Anna was squeezing Heather out of his life? Or was it a vow to fixing his family of origin, a warped attempt to right what was broken within him that was distorting his vision of Heather, and her response to the recent loss of her father?
Theo said to Edward, “What can we do to help?”
Looking to David, Anna realized that she had accomplished the first task of the gathering.
“It’s your mother I’m concerned about,” Edward said as he eyed her. His words seemed surreal. Yet Anna felt them true and sincere. For the first time since marrying Edward Gordon Manning, Anna sensed the person behind the façade of accomplishment fueled by ambition, coming forth. It was frightening and heart rending.
Anna inspected her hands and considered her newly-imposed task regarding Manning Ventures. “I’ve only run a house and man aged a family. That’s quite another thing from guiding a company.” She lifted her head.
“The two aren’t that much different,” Linda said. Brad nodded in agreement.
“Different tasks, but same set of skills,” Theo chimed. “In fact, I think you bring a fresh sensibility to the company.”
“Well, you would,” David snipped.
“And who are you?” Theo said. “The voice of reason?”
“Perhaps in time, you and Mom’ll recognize that,” David said. “Until then, I’m also the executor of this estate.” He turned to Ed ward. “If that’s what you still want me to do.”
“I do,” Edward nodded.
“What will that include?” Anna said. “You’ve given me the company. And I was going to sell the house.”
“I’ve given the house to the children,” Edward said. Anna grew furious. “You never signed the divorce documents,” Edward continued. “And if I’m correct, Henderson didn’t file the deed. The house is still held in my name.”
Anna’s face and ears burned with indignation. She felt exposed. Edward had turned the clock back to when she first asked for the divorce.
“All I ever wanted from you was to sell this house and receive one-half the sale. That’s all.” She hit the glass surface of the table, and stood.
“You own the company,” Edward said.
“I don’t want your god-damned company. I want to sell this house and be done with all of it.” She raised her hands. “Why do you have to be so doggone belligerent?” She blew out air. “You go off, live your life the way you want. Then when I—”
“I’m sorry,” Edward said. “I love you.” His words hit with sparkling clarity. Try as she might, Anna could not avoid his weakened gaze. With her son-in-law and three elder children looking on, she could not refuse Edward’s words. Yet her anger and hurt welled.
“This will not change what you did,” she said. “It doesn’t take the hurt away.” Anna touched her forefinger upon the table. “You have to live with the consequences of your actions.”
“If living were only that simple,” Edward said. “But you don’t have to live with the consequences of my actions. I don’t want you to.”
“Then why fight me on the house? Why give it to David?” Again she threw up her hands and avoided what she knew to be hurt enveloping David. “You said that I’d earned—”
“The house is not just David’s,” Edward said. “It’s the children’s to do with as they like.”
“I don’t want your fucking company. I should have divorced you when I had the chance!”
“Then do it.” Calmly Edward grasped his cane and pulled him self to his feet. “Henderson still has the papers. Sell the company.” He started back toward the house. Within a few feet from the sliding glass doors, he slumped onto the patio. David, Brad, and Theo rushed to him. Linda followed. Awash with despair at what her life had become, Anna grew more anguished at what she had revealed of herself in front of her children.?
Chapter 31
David left the next morning before dawn. Linda and Anna were eating a mid-morning breakfast on the patio, the very table where last evening sunset had moved to dusk before the darkness enshrouded them. And the blowout had taken place.
“David went in Dad’s room and sat with him a couple of minutes right before leaving,” Linda explained to Anna. “I looked in on them. He leaned down and kissed Dad’s cheek and forehead. David seemed so hurt and lost.” She shook her head. “He’s got a lot of work to do with Heather.”
“That much is clear. And of course there’s the house.” Anna lifted her hands as if to the heavens. “This house.” She crossed her arms. Linda reached over and patted Anna’s hands, massaging her shoulders. “Let the house go. David needs something to lord over. Overseeing the sale of the house will give him something to do.”
“You’re going to sell it?”
“Why shouldn’t we?” Linda asked. “Besides, I thought that’s what you wanted.” Once again Anna was hit with her ambivalence. “We could all use the money,” Linda said. “Besides, who’s going to live here?”
“But David’s talking about moving back here to Oakland.”
“Then, he can buy it from us.”
“You’d make him do that?” Anna asked.
“I have a child on the way.” Linda rubbed her stomach burgeoning ever so slightly with each passing day. The child Linda carried reflected the one clear hope of Anna’s life, something she could look forward to, hold and love, without feeling guilty as she did when considering Inman.
“I’ll give you and Brad money,” Anna said.
“And we wouldn’t take it.” Again Linda reached over, and this time patted Anna’s knee.
“I don’t want you fighting David on my account.”
“He needs to calm down,” Linda said.
“There’ll be time for that after your father’s gone.” Anna grasped her temples. “I can’t believe I spoke
to your father like that in front of all of you.” She covered her face.
Linda embraced her. “This is family. And we’re all adults.” Linda brushed Anna’s neck like Anna had done with her on so many occasions when she had been unable to hold a clear perspective on life, and accept the love Anna held for her.
Anna said, “My behavior last evening was atrocious.”
“You were hurting and confused.”
“That’s what I used to say to you.” Anna recalled how she had comforted Linda in the weeks and months after each of Linda’s three attempts to end her life. “I was always afraid you’d succeed, and that we’d lose you,” Anna said. “I don’t know what I would have done.” She began to cry.
Again Linda drew Anna into her chest. Anna let go of her emotions and wept like a child. When she was calmer, Linda cupped her palms around Anna’s face. “You don’t have to worry about that now. I’m okay. And so is my baby.” A peaceful smile enveloped Linda’s sienna face. “You were there when I couldn’t be present for myself.”
“You were that way because your father was unfaithful,” Anna said. “And I was trying to act as if nothing was going on.”
“You were there.” Linda shook her shoulders. “That’s all that matters. Even Dad says so.” Anna looked down at the cement surface of the patio. “We counted on you, and you never let us down,”
Linda said. “And when Dad’s gone, we won’t let you down. Not me, Brad, or Theo. That includes David and Serine. You’re stuck with us.”
“That’s what frightens me.” A smile formed on Anna’s lips despite her fears. With thanks and praise, she envisioned through her wash of tears, the young and beautiful woman her elder daughter had become. Again Linda pulled her close. Anna laid her head on Linda’s shoulder and wept some more.?
Chapter 32
Anna was on the patio when Theo came to her.
“Dad told us to leave,” Theo said. “He doesn’t want us to re member him this way. He also said he wants time with you.”
“Time with me?” Anna laid her pen on the glass table and stared at it. She was making a list of things she needed to attend to in preparation for Edward’s death. She also had yet to open the folder Bryce had given her detailing Manning Ventures and its assets. Theo touched her shoulder. She stroked his arm.
“Brad and Linda are packed and ready,” Theo said. “They want to say goodbye.”
Anna rose and went to them in the driveway where they wait ed. She hugged both Linda and Brad several times, not wanting to them to leave.
“Promise you’ll call the minute you or Edward needed anything,” Brad urged as he helped Linda into the car.
“I will.”
After helping Linda into the car, Brad got into the driver’s seat and they headed off. Anna continued waving until the sedan disappeared at the end of the block.
Minutes later she hugged Theo. He lingered longer than what Anna was comfortable with.
“You need to go.” She kissed him.
“I love you, Mom.” Theo embraced her then after placing his bags on the front seat of the rental car, he got into the driver’s seat, and turned on the ignition. “I’m just a phone call away.”
“I love you, too.” Anna mouthed the words and stepped away from the sedan. Theo backed out of the driveway and started off. Again, she waved until she could no longer see the car.
Anna returned to the house and set about removing sheets from the beds. She was in the laundry room upstairs, removing shirts from the dryer, and folding them when Edward stepped inside.
“Seems like old times,” he said.
“Are you hungry?”
“Time’s out for that.” Ignoring her question, he gave a half smile. “The kids are adults and gone.”
Anna looked at Edward’s dress shirts that she had neatly folded. “My mother used to starch and press my father’s shirts every Saturday night,” she said. “It’s the one thing she seemed to freely give him. She said there was an art to it.” Anna added, “Folding clothes calms me.”
“And so does giving.” Edward drew close then of the art on which Anna’s mother had pontificated her ideal, he said. “I never was much for having you iron.” Edward had always taken his shirts to the cleaners. “I always liked the way you packed them in the back, right-hand corner of my suitcase.” He lifted a white shirt from the pile on the dryer. “You never let them get tattered.”
“I got rid of them and bought you new ones.” Anna stared at the shirt Edward was examining. She had bought it on a whim as a gift to welcome him home. As always, his arrival brought drama. He arrived home early only to leave again, so Anna never presented him the shirt. She began to wear the shirt when he was away. The white shirt became her robe of mourning worn during his absence. Anna mused on the shirt as it had been when first purchased, pristine and white like the nightgown Elijah had bought for Elena a few days before she died. Naive and untainted, Anna thought, just like she had been when agreeing to marry Edward.
Edward’s eyes retreated against Anna, treading the emotional waters wrought by his absences too numerous to count.
“I wish we could have spent more time together and gotten to know each other better.” His words startled Anna. “You’re better than I could ever be,” he said. “I’ve ruined your life.”
“You give yourself too much credit.” Anna slammed shut the door to the dryer, and lifted the pile of folded towels and shirts. She left the laundry room and headed for Theo’s room. Edward followed.
“I’m not trying to be difficult,” he said.
“Well you are.”
“I’m dying. How much more difficult can I make it for you?” She whipped around. “By saying the very thing I’ve fought against acknowledging throughout this entire marriage.”
“I’ve been a bad husband, unfaithful more times and in more ways than I can count.”
“I don’t have to be reminded of that.” Anna gritted her teeth. “You’re the last person I need telling me what a big mistake I made in marrying you. Mama warned me. Elise warned me. I warned myself.”
“Why didn’t you listen?”
“Because I loved you,” Anna said.
“Why?”
“And why are we talking about this now?”
“I’ve lived my life according to my own laws, the best I could make of those laid down before me. Now, a new set of rules has taken over,” Edward said.
“Those rules, the ones you call new, have always been. You just chose to ignore them.”
“I don’t want to do that anymore. I can’t.” Edward’s words shocked and surprised her yet again. “My life has been a lie. I want to set it straight. Now.”
“And you think giving me your company does that?” Anna said. Edward’s eyes blared red. A misty film overtook them. “I know nothing about running a company. David thinks I’m incapable of managing it, and believes I’m a horrible wife for wanting to divorce you. The way he speaks to me leaves little hope that he’s any better with Heather as a husband than the one you were with me.
“Oh, and by the way, he’s told me that he and Heather haven’t slept together in a year. As for Theo, it seems he’s married to a female replica of you. And we won’t even go into Serine and the mess she’s about to make of her life.” A burning sensation swept across Anna’s cheeks and engulfed her ears. “This is what the truth, or as you say, lie, of your life has wrought.”
With his weakness apparent, even in the darkness surrounding the patio last night, she again refused to take in Edward’s withered body covered in a brown and white striped bathrobe. She wanted to knock the ankle socks from his feet, push him to the floor, and scream into his face, “How could you do this to us?” The anger had returned. Yet, it could not satiate her need to know. She felt empty, culled, and hollowed out. Anna desired Edward and wanted to hold his soul, massage his body, and never let him go. She would take back what he had robbed her of, what death now sought to claim, and what he would fight in these last
days to create between them, but ... “I’m doing the best I can,” Edward said.
“Well it’s not good enough.” Anna began speaking the thoughts she had bottled inside for so long. “Where’s the Edward Manning that could fly across the globe and carry out a deal that would make money for all concerned? Where’s the Edward Manning with his goals and the tunnel vision of his one-track mind toward achieving them? Where’s the Edward G. Manning that I glimpsed only in between trips home? Where’s the man your whores saw more than me?”
“He’s right here,” Edward said wearily. “This is what he’s come to. This is what has become of me, the person I was, and have always been. They’re one in the same.”
“I don’t believe that. The person I see before me is considerate. He acts with a rational mind. He’s weak and afraid and says so. He does not lie or hold back. The person that you were never gave way to his feelings. The Edward Manning I know would never give away his company.”
“That person died a year and half ago when his wife asked for a divorce.”
“You’re not about to tell me that I caused your cancer. I won’t have it.” Anna shook her head.
“My sickness was there long before you asked for the divorce,” Ed ward said. “I won’t have you blaming yourself. You’re not the cause.”
“Then why are you doing this to me? Why are you saying these things?” Anna placed her palm over her trembling lips.
“Stop defending.” The energy of the old Edward flickered amid the tiredness of his amber eyes. “I was wrong. And I’m paying for it.”
“Is that what you think?” Anna was shaking. “This is not what I wanted.”
Edward drew near, and embraced her. Carefully he placed her head upon his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Slowly he began to cry.
“Oh, my God,” Anna whimpered. Her body shook more, stronger, harder. Edward was trembling too. She was overcome with grief in being vindicated. Edward was dying and like her, he was also scared. He was the person who had to go forward. Anna felt slivers of Edward’s demise encroaching. Death was summoning him, not Anna, and yet she was dying too.
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