by J A Stone
“Of course, Ms. Corey, whatever you need, I’ll be glad to do it for you.”
“Uh . . . would you mind not mentioning to my sister that Tripp has been here for the last few days?”
Millie looked somewhat insulted by her question. “Well, of course, I won’t be talking about Mr. Tripp being here. It’s not my business to be talking about you.”
“I’m not implying that you would be gossiping about me. I’m just saying that if somehow his name comes up, I would prefer for you not to mention that he’d been here this week. Okay?”
“Okay,” Millie said, and with a huff she went to answer the door. She came back carrying a huge bouquet of fresh-cut flowers that the firm had sent. The flowers, coming after the firm’s recent betrayal, meant nothing to Corey. She felt like telling Millie to throw them in the trash. But instead, she just commented on how pretty they were and put them out of her mind.
CHAPTER 29
The day of Nancy’s funeral was sunny and extremely hot. Corey, sitting between Diane and Jack at the graveside, could feel a bead of sweat rolling down the inside of her leg toward one of her black peep-toe pumps. She wanted to lean over and stop its progression, but instead, good manners made her sit perfectly still. She felt odd sitting in the same place where she’d been just a few years ago for Luke’s funeral. Corey knew that she had smiled and responded and acted perfectly normal that day because people had remarked to her later about her composure. But she’d been operating on autopilot, mouthing words and engaging in actions without any true knowledge of what she was doing. Thinking back now, she realized she might have been on autopilot for at least that first year, maybe longer.
Now she could barely remember the day they’d buried Luke. She’d been functioning on very little sleep and on zigzagging emotions, so that by the time Luke died, she was mentally and physically spent. What she did remember was the overwhelming fear she’d felt and the question that had echoed over and over again in her head: How am I going to carry on without Luke? Luke had centered her after her parents’ deaths, providing her with direction. Because he believed she was capable of doing certain things, Corey had found the confidence to do them. He had thought she could get the job at Landon, Crane, and Forrester, so Corey had gone for the interview and gotten the job. Luke had believed she would be the first woman partner, so Corey had made that her goal as well.
Corey wondered how her life would have progressed if she’d never met Luke. She had almost not stopped in Atlanta to visit her sorority sister. Where would she be today if she’d just kept right on driving? It was strange looking back to see how her life had been shaped by such a seemingly meaningless decision at the time.
She looked around at all the people from the law firm who were in attendance: Larry and Sherri, Erica, John, and even Larry’s assistant, Barbara, stood at the edge of the tent, trying to stay out of the direct sunlight. Corey appreciated their thoughtfulness in coming, but she realized that it made no difference in her decision about her job. The relief she’d felt walking out of the law office, without worrying about what she was leaving behind or what else she needed to do, made her confident that she’d made the right decision.
The rector was wrapping up the service, so Corey brought her attention back to his words. Then, they formed a receiving line for people to pay their condolences. When Larry and Sherri, looking uncomfortable, approached her, she reached out and gave them both a big hug. Larry leaned in close to her and said in a voice that only Corey could possibly hear, “Corey, we hope you will reconsider your resignation. Come in tomorrow and let’s talk.”
“Larry, I’ve made my decision, and I’m really happy about it. But thanks for coming today. Let’s have lunch sometime.”
Larry looked relieved. “Okay, call me.”
Three days after the funeral, Corey sat in another attorney’s office waiting for Nancy’s will to be read. The lawyer, Donald Blakely, of the law firm Blakely and Blakely, appeared to be about Nancy’s age and seemed to be having some trouble organizing the papers on his desk. After a good five minutes or so, he finally began, “Ms. Bennett, unless you want me to read the will in its entirety, and knowing that you are trained in the law, I’ll just give you the specifics.”
“That would be fine, Mr. Blakely.”
“Very well. Your mother-in-law has put her entire estate in a trust for her granddaughter, Stella. You are designated as the trustee, and the money can be used however you see fit in order to care for your daughter. She has made a few special gifts, one for the perpetual care of the cemetery lot where she and Luke are buried, and another to the family of her longtime housekeeper. But that’s about it. Currently, the estate is valued at just a little under a million dollars, which should be plenty to provide for your daughter’s care and education.”
Corey sat speechless. She had no idea that her mother-in-law had accumulated that much wealth. She’d known that the Buckhead house had been worth a lot of money, but she’d also known that living at Peachtree Wilden was extremely expensive. Corey supposed that after Luke died, she should have gone over Nancy’s estate with her. After all, she’d done that sort of thing for other people every day in her job.
“Ms. Bennett, do you have any questions? Everything’s here if you want to review it.”
“I’m sure everything is in order. But if I have any questions after I look at the documents, I’ll give you a call.”
Corey walked out of the Blakely law office into the sunshine, feeling another type of relief. With this money from Nancy, and the nest egg Corey already had established, she wasn’t going to have to worry about how she would make the next mortgage payment. Now finding another job wasn’t nearly as important as it had been just a few hours before. She felt humbled and grateful to Nancy for her incredible gift to them.
A few minutes later, Corey’s mood had darkened considerably. She sat in a traffic jam on Peachtree Street and hadn’t moved for ten minutes. A gang of rough-looking youth hanging out on the corner by a bus stop noticed her and began making crude gestures at her. Corey’s heartbeat quickened, and she felt vulnerable and scared. One of the guys approached her car and tapped on her window. “Hey, lady, wat ya got in there? You got any moneeeey? I need some money.” Just as another boy was about to knock on her passenger window, the traffic started moving forward, and Corey let out a deep sigh of relief.
Her hands were still shaking when she pulled up to her condo. Corey thought, I don’t want to deal with situations like that anymore. And then her next thought was, I don’t have to deal with situations like that anymore. I can move anywhere I want to move. It was an exhilarating and liberating feeling. She went inside. Millie was giving Stella some juice, and neither of them seemed to notice how rattled she was. “Millie, do you plan on moving back to Cairo one day?”
Millie looked up at her in surprise at this totally unexpected question. “It’s funny you should ask that, Ms. Corey. I had a meeting at Deborah’s school last week. She’s learned just about all they can teach her. They think she’s ready to take the next step, to get a job, maybe something working with plants ’cause she loves watering them and taking care of them. You know, she’s done right well at that school, and they have taught her how to take care of herself and to be more independent. But if she’s done with school, it would be easier for us if we moved back home.” She shook her head. “I sure hate the thought of leaving Stella. I was going to talk to you about this as soon as things settled down a bit. I just hated to put one more worry on your shoulders.”
Corey felt like she was receiving a message from the universe that was loud and clear. She was not meant to live in Atlanta anymore. “Millie, I’ve been having some of the same thoughts myself about moving home. I’m beginning to see that it would be a lot easier for Stella and for me if we were to move back home too.”
“Well, I’ll be . . . I know Ms. Diane is sure gonna be happy about that!”
Corey smiled. “I’m sure you’re right about that.”
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CHAPTER 30
It was a typical Indian-summer day in November. Corey enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her face while she waited in the parking lot of the First Baptist Church of Port Saint Joe. One of the best things about Corey’s new job at the legal-aid office was that it was across the street from the church-sponsored Mother’s Day Out program Stella was attending. If Corey had to work late, all she had to do was pick up Stella from next door and let her play for a while in her new kid-friendly office. After only two weeks of work, Corey felt as if she’d already made more of a difference in people’s lives than she had in all her time working at Landon, Crane, and Forrester.
Corey knew the Mother’s Day Out routine by now. Stella’s class would come out of the building slowly, each child dutifully holding on to a loop attached to a long rope held by the teacher. The class looked like a giant caterpillar with the teacher as its head, meandering toward the place where the parents stood waiting. Sometimes Corey’s precocious toddler came hopping or skipping from the building. Sometimes Stella stumbled out looking exhausted from a hard morning of play. But regardless of how she looked coming out of the building, when Stella spotted Corey, her eyes lit up, and only the teacher’s most severe warnings kept her from letting go of her loop on the safety rope and running across the parking lot to Corey’s side. Each day, Corey experienced a moment of pure unadulterated joy when she saw that look on Stella’s happy face. And at that precise moment each day, Corey had no doubt that she’d made the right decision in moving her child from Atlanta to here.
Their move from Atlanta hadn’t been without a few bumps. As Corey had promised, she continued to work at the law firm until all her clients had been transitioned to another lawyer. However, she’d been amazed by how happy she felt going in to work each day knowing that the number of days she had to spend there were limited. It had been challenging getting the condo on the market. However, it had sold within days of being listed. Romeo and Gary had at first been furious with her about her moving. But when the condo sold to a young gay couple, they suddenly didn’t seem nearly as sad to see Stella and her leave.
Corey had arranged for movers to help Millie and Deborah with their move back to Cairo. And she surprised Millie one day with a car, which Corey said was a gift from Nancy. It wasn’t true, but Corey knew Nancy would have given it if the idea had crossed her mind. Corey almost gave the ficus tree to Deborah, since she loved plants so much, but then decided that she and the ficus had too much history together for her to let it go. In fact, she felt almost superstitious about the ficus tree; somehow its renewed health and vitality seemed connected to the renewed health and vitality of her own life.
Leaving Kathryn was definitely the hardest part about moving from Atlanta. Yet, Corey knew that since her friend had just started a new married life with Will, things probably wouldn’t have been the same between the two women anyway. She made Kathryn promise her that they wouldn’t allow their friendship to die after the move.
Corey’s original plan had been to move in with Jack and Diane in Marianna. It was to be only a temporary stay until she could find a place of her own. At first it had been great fun being surrounded by family. But after a few weeks of constant attention, Stella had started acting like a spoiled brat, and Corey began to feel like a visitor overstaying her welcome in their home. In addition, none of the jobs that Corey considered in the small town seemed quite right. She began to wonder if she’d made a mistake moving to Marianna at all until she saw the advertisement in the Sunday issue of the Jackson Country Floridian for a part-time attorney at the legal-aid office in Port Saint Joe. Why she even considered going on the interview, she didn’t know. But when she got there and met the people, she realized it was a special place. And when she saw the children at the church school next door being picked up after school, she knew it was the perfect place for her and Stella. Unfortunately, Diane hadn’t agreed.
“You don’t know anyone in Port Saint Joe. Why would you even think about taking a job and living there?” Diane chastised her.
“I wasn’t thinking about living in Port Saint Joe. I want to live at our beach house. The fifteen-minute drive to Port Saint Joe will be nothing compared to my commute every day in Atlanta. I’ll get a feel for how I like living at the beach without too much of a commitment.”
“Well, in that case, I guess it sort of makes sense. You can try it out, and I’ll keep looking for something for you here. That way, when you realize your mistake, we’ll have a plan.”
“Why does it have to be a mistake? The people next door in the yellow house live in Mexico Beach year-round. And Fran and Mark have retired there. I may decide I never want to live anywhere else.”
“We’ll see,” Diane said, which meant she totally disagreed with Corey.
Corey realized that Stella’s class had reached its assigned spot on the sidewalk. Once there, the children were allowed to release the rope, and parents were allowed to fetch their children and take them home. Corey walked over to claim Stella, who seemed more animated than usual today.
“Beach, beach, beach,” Stella sang in a rhythmic voice.
“Yes, we’re going to the beach.” Corey took Stella’s hand as she sang and danced her way delightedly to the car.
Corey fed Stella lunch, put the dreaded sunscreen on her, and then grabbed a few sand toys and a couple of beach towels. The process went much faster now that she’d learned to travel lighter. Once at the beach, Corey watched Stella play tag with the waves. She had a vague memory of playing the same game herself as a child while her mother sat watching her. Finally, Stella lay her slightly sandy body down on a beach towel and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Next to them, seagulls floated up and down on the breeze effortlessly, and Corey felt an unusual connection to them. Like the seagulls, she’d found a breeze. Everything she did these days seemed easy to do, from taking care of Stella to working at the legal-aid office. Corey’s life felt effortless. In Atlanta, even before Luke died, even before Stella, Corey had never felt this carefree. In Atlanta, she’d been more like a duck. She might have looked serene floating on the pond that was her life, but underneath the water, she’d been paddling like hell just to stay afloat.
On an intellectual level, Corey knew this tranquil feeling wouldn’t last forever. Life would throw her some curveballs, and Tripp was likely to be the first one coming at her real soon. Corey hadn’t seen him since the night he’d left Atlanta, and she’d talked to him only twice: the night she called to tell him Nancy had died, and then a week or so later, when Tripp called to tell her that he owed it to Lucy to try to make their marriage work.
“I’m going to stay in Dothan for a while,” Tripp had said, “and Lucy and I are going to go to marriage counseling. Until I figure out this part of my life, it’s probably better if I don’t see Stella, even though it will kill me not to.”
Since then, Corey had heard nothing from Tripp. As rapidly as he’d returned to her life, he was suddenly gone again. She’d moved to Marianna and then to Mexico Beach, and now had been living at the beach for two weeks, and she’d still heard nothing from Tripp. Every time she looked at the MacKinnon house, she wondered how things were going between Tripp and Lucy. A shadow suddenly covered Corey, and it was almost as if she’d conjured Tripp with her thoughts, because when she looked up into the bright sunshine, he was standing there in shorts and a faded fishing shirt.
“She looks pretty comfortable.” Tripp motioned toward Stella, who was sprawled out on her side with her thumb in her mouth.
“She ran in and out of the waves for about an hour and then just collapsed. I guess it’s as good a place as any for an afternoon nap.” Corey put her hand to her forehead and squinted up at Tripp.
“Do you want me to go up and get an umbrella to cover her?” he asked.
“No . . . thanks. I think she’s fine. I covered her in sunscreen before we came down, and I’m not going to let her sleep too long anyway, or she won’t go to bed tonight. I wi
sh you’d sit down. The sun is blinding me when I try to look at you.”
Tripp sat down on the sand beside Corey. “I suppose she’ll be taking more of these beach naps, since I hear from Jack that you’ve moved to Mexico Beach.”
“For now,” Corey replied.
“Was I one of the reasons you decided to move here?” Tripp asked quietly.
Slowly, Corey turned to face Tripp. “Honestly . . . no.”
“That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for,” Tripp said raggedly.
“Well, you weren’t a negative to moving here.” Corey gave him a slight smile.
“I guess that’s something.”
“Where’s Lucy?” Corey studied Tripp’s face carefully.
“She’s probably halfway to Ohio by now,” Tripp said grimly.
“Marriage counseling didn’t work?” Corey asked softly.
“Our counselor was a big proponent of honesty in relationships, but I think Lucy may be thinking that the whole honesty thing is a bit overrated.” Tripp looked straight ahead as he spoke, still as a statue.
“So she knows about Stella?” Corey swallowed.
He nodded. “The news didn’t go over very well, but by that time, I had pretty much decided that our relationship wasn’t going to end well anyway.”
“I’m sorry.” Corey avoided looking at Tripp when she said it.
Tripp turned to her and placed a hand on hers. “Corey, it was hard for me to work on my marriage when all I could think about was you and Stella, but I tried. I swear I tried.”
Corey gently pulled her hand away. “Were you thinking about Stella and the fact that I’m Stella’s mom? Or were you thinking about the three of us together as a family? Or were you thinking about how you wanted to be with me?”
“How about all of the above?” Tripp’s voice sounded strained.
“What do you want, Tripp?”
“I want you and Stella. I want a family. It’s hard for me to believe that I’m approaching forty and that my life is as screwed up as it is right now.”