by Peggy Webb
But to be mooning around because she didn’t have somebody to put his arms around her and hold her close and whisper, “Everything’s going to be all right, I’m here,” branded her as a hopeless romantic, and maybe even a shameless vixen besides. Lately she’d been prowling around the house like a cat with her fur on fire, something wild and restless clawing at her insides trying to get out.
The single romantic gesture in her whole life, including everything that had happened with Taylor, was David’s gift of pearls.
She took them out of their velvet box and put them on. She would wear them today. For good luck. For a reminder. Perhaps even for hope.
Facing the mirror, Elizabeth studied the way she looked in pearls. Like a woman cherished. She knew it was an illusion, but what was the harm if she clung to it?
With the pearls gleaming against her bare skin, she picked up the box on top of the pile and put on her new clothes. The dress was pink linen, elegant, expensively cut, and exactly her size. She wondered if David knew pink was her favorite color.
o0o
David was proud of the actions he’d taken on Elizabeth’s behalf, encouraged by the speed with which Joseph Whitcomb of Whitcomb, Jones and Riley had made things happen. Joseph was sitting in a wing chair on David’s left, and Peter on his right. The chair facing David was empty, Elizabeth’s chair.
Today, though, the draperies were open, the lights were on and the lamp beside her chair was gone. He’d had it sent to the third floor storeroom. He wouldn’t be using it anymore. Elizabeth had seen his face, and she was not afraid. As far as he could see, she was not even repulsed.
And that’s why he found himself watching the doorway, waiting for her as if she were Christmas and he was six years old.
“Elizabeth is here,” his secretary said, and all three men stood up when she entered the room. She was wearing his pearls. It was a small detail, a natural thing for a woman, probably, to gild the lily with jewels; but for David it wasn’t simple at all. That single gesture sent a shiver of hope through him that no matter how he tried to rationalize wouldn’t go away.
“Please sit down, Elizabeth,” he said, then belatedly he remembered that husbands should do more than invite their wives to make themselves comfortable. And because they had to make their legal union real for everybody outside their inner circle, including her new attorney, David went to her and held her hands and said the first thing that came into his mind.
“Everything’s going to be all right.” It was the same thing he’d told his sister many times over the years when McKenzie needed a big brother’s shoulder to cry on.
The only difference was that he didn’t feel brotherly toward Elizabeth. Not the least bit. In fact, with her soft boneless-feeling hands swallowed up by his, he felt almost heroic and somewhat confused. She had a disconcerting way of looking directly into his eyes. She smelled good, too. And looked even better.
“Thank you, David.” She made his name sound intimate and filled with memories, as if they’d spent the night in a marital bed and shared things too delicious to keep inside.
All of a sudden he realized he was staring at her, still hanging onto her hands. And when he sat down, a little self-consciously, he noticed that Peter was grinning. David cleared his throat, something he didn’t do in meetings for it was a signal of uncertainty.
“As you all know, in an hour Helen Parkins and the director of the Department of Human Services will be here to review Nicky’s case, thanks to Joseph.”
Joseph acknowledged David’s praise with a nod and a smile. From what David had already witnessed and what he was seeing now, Peter had made an excellent choice in attorneys.
Joseph Whitcomb was silver-haired and aristocratic, but his courtliness was tempered with steel. If he were an actor--and of course he was, for all good courtroom lawyers had to be good actors--he would have been cast as Moses. He had the look of a man who had been to the top of the mountain and received edicts directly from the Almighty. Furthermore, he looked capable of parting the Red Sea.
“Joseph, why don’t you fill us in regarding the Department’s case?”
“They don’t have a leg to stand on, and when I’m through with them, they’re going to know it.” He smiled at Elizabeth. “Dear lady, I can safely promise you that your son will be home by nightfall.”
“Oh.” Elizabeth covered her mouth with both hands, and her eyes brimmed with unshed tears.
“When I’m through with them, they’ll wish they’d never heard of a little boy named Nicky Jennings, let alone tampered with him. They’ll wish they could dig a hole straight to China, then crawl in it and pull the dirt behind them.”
“That’s exactly what we want to hear.” David was sounding like a businessman again, and autonomous, besides. “Elizabeth and I are deeply grateful.”
“For what you’re paying me, you don’t have to be grateful. You don’t even have to like me.”
“Oh, but we do.” Elizabeth looked and sounded completely sincere. And probably was. “In the last two minutes you’ve become one of my favorite people.”
Joseph bowed in her direction. “Dear lady, you are the exception, of course. I want you to like me...if you can clear it with your husband.”
“Is it all right if I run away to Tahiti with this man, David?”
Her unexpected humor delighted him. “Of course. As long as you’re back in time for supper.”
She hadn’t laughed with such rich abandon since David had first seen her in the park. Something deep inside him wanted to protect that laughter, to make it grow, to make it last so that when he was too old to live and stretched out in the same bed where Grandfather Snead had told all his family goodbye, he could still hear the peal of Elizabeth’s laughter, like distant bells.
“...and as long as you behave like a lady,” he added.
Elizabeth didn’t miss a beat. Batting her eyes at him, she drawled, “Why, Rhett, ah wouldn’t dream of bein’ anythin’ else.”
“It’s always a pleasure to see newlyweds flirt,” Joseph said.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Peter said, deadpanning.
David was going to tell him, he was wasting his talents at Lassiter, he should go into vaudeville. He was somewhat embarrassed by it all, but elated, too. He would probably spend a sleepless night thinking about today’s exchange.
“Back to business,” he said. “Bring us up-to-date on the custody case, Joseph.”
“The case is specious, ripe on the surface and rotten to the core. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many trumped-up charges in my life. Unless one parent or the other is dealing drugs or carrying on prostitution or involved in some other heinous activities, where a child lives is no more pertinent to custody than how much money the parent makes. And as for him being left unsupervised, I say bah, humbug. Taking a child to work for one day because your granddaddy is sick, then watching him while you sell doughnuts does not constitute lack of supervision.”
David watched Elizabeth’s face while her lawyer talked. He’d never known hope to be so beautiful.
“As for Papa,” the lawyer added, “I say what better place to leave a child than in the care of a loving grandparent, someone with the wisdom of years in his favor. It helps, of course, that Nicky’s circumstances will be greatly improved by your marriage.” He took his glasses off and polished them. “Then there’s the matter of the judge.”
“I intend to use the full power of my resources to expose him,” David said. “You can tell that to Belliveau’s lawyer.”
“Gentlemen...and dear lady,” Joseph bowed in Elizabeth’s direction then put his glasses on with a flourish. “I predict that this case will never come to court. Any questions, Mrs. Lassiter?”
She blushed at hearing her new title, but otherwise she did nothing to give away the true state of their marriage. The pride David felt in her was all out of proportion to the circumstances, and he knew he’d spend considerable time pondering that, too.
“I’m speechless
,” his wife said, “and deeply, deeply grateful.”
“Well, then. If you will excuse me, I’m going to take a few minutes to prepare for our meeting with Miss Parkins and the director.” Joseph left with his bulging briefcase.
Peter stood up, too. “David, do you need me for anything else?”
“No, Peter. Take a break. You deserve it.”
“I’ll leave you alone with your wife, then.”
“Don’t forget to come back and escort her to the meeting.”
“Did you think I would forget?”
“No. McKenzie says your name should be changed to elephant.”
“Was she referring to my memory or my anatomy?”
“What does she know about your anatomy? Should I get the shotgun?”
“Not as much as she should, to answer your first question, and unfortunately no, to address your second...I hope we haven’t embarrassed you, Elizabeth.”
“Not at all. Entertained, is more like it. The exchange between you two was right up there with listening to Nicky belt out I’ve found my pill on Blueberry Hill.”
Peter left laughing, but her disclosure jolted David. He started fiddling with some papers on his desk to hide his expression. What had Nicky told her?
“That’s an unusual song for a little boy of four, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Nicky picks up snatches of songs everywhere he goes. There’s no telling where he heard Blueberry Hill.”
He didn’t know why he should feel such relief at not being found out. What would it matter if Elizabeth knew he had visited her son in the hospital? David answered his own question. He was afraid for her to know he cared.
“Do you think I’ll really get Nicky back today?”
“Yes. Peter says Joseph is a straight-shooter. He says what he means and means what he says.”
“You aren’t going into the meeting?”
Did that mean she wanted him to? Funny how the smallest little thing could give birth to hope.
“No, Joseph said the marriage would help your case, but I don’t think seeing the bridegroom would advance it.”
“Oh, David... I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t you ever feel sorry for me.” She stiffened, and he felt like a cad. He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh.
“I didn’t mean that as pity. I only meant that I’m sorry for the pain you’ve endured, both physical and emotional. I can’t bear to think how you suffered. How you must suffer, still.”
“Don’t we all?”
“Yes. We all fall down and get hurt.” She put on that brave smile he’d seen her wear when she didn’t want anybody to think she was aching inside.
“That’s life, I guess.”
“I suppose. It helps, though, if you have somebody to kiss it and make it better.” She blushed. “That’s what I do to Nicky’s hurts.”
“He’s lucky to have you.”
And so was David, even if the possession was only temporary, even if she would never kiss his hurts and make them better.
Peter knocked, then stuck his head around the doorframe. “Time to go, Elizabeth.”
Her smile wavered, and the look she gave David nearly broke his heart.
“You’re going to get your son back,” he told her. “One way or another, you’ll get him back.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Elizabeth had never attended an evisceration. That’s the best way she could describe what her lawyer was doing to Helen Parkins, and while she’d always considered herself a kind and compassionate woman, she couldn’t help but feel a bit of malicious glee at the way the woman was squirming. She felt vindicated, too. It served Helen right for the sneaky, hateful, high-handed tactics she’d used in taking Nicky, and for the disdainful way she’d treated Papa.
Sitting there in her wedding pearls, Elizabeth was suddenly a woman to be reckoned with.
“Let me see, now, Miss Parkins. You rode into this woman’s house on your high horse and destroyed her life with no more thought to her child than if he were a sack of marbles. Have I missed anything, eh?”
With anybody else eh would have been an affectation, but coming out of the mouth of Joseph Whitcomb it was a sledge hammer, driving home his point, pounding it straight into the cranium of his unsuspecting victim.
“That’s not fair.” Helen was inarticulate with rage and fear. “You can’t just...just make out like somebody doesn’t have a case, when...when I had papers. A complaint had been filed. And I investigated.”
Where had Elizabeth heard that type of intonation before? Suddenly it struck her. Anna Lisa Belliveau.
“Ah, yes. The complaint. Lodged by the Belliveaus.” Joseph rubbed his chin as if he’d just remembered something. Elizabeth knew it was an act, but she admired it anyhow. “By the way, Miss Parkins, where did you say you are from?”
“I didn’t say.”
“It would behoove you to say now.”
“The Mississippi Delta.”
“Whereabouts in the Mississippi Delta?”
“Greenwood.”
“Ah, yes. Greenwood. The De Lareus live down there. That name ring a bell?”
“That’s my maiden name.” Helen Parkins looked as if she’d swallowed a piece of rotten fruit and was sorely in need of relief.
“Let’s see now, that would make you, what? First cousin to Anna Lisa De Lareu Belliveau?” Helen clamped her mouth shut and refused to answer, refused to look at anybody or anything except her ugly brown shoes. “I smell something rotten in the Delta, and it’s not the fruit left on the ground in the orchard. Blood’s thicker than justice, eh?”
Elizabeth saw Helen Parkins’ boss blanche. He looked like the kind of man who would pussyfoot around an issue, and in fact, he’d watched the entire exchange between Helen Parkins and Joseph Whitcomb in a detached sort of way, his head swiveling back and forth between the two sparring, his face set in permanent perplexity as if they were playing a game he couldn’t quite understand.
Walter Mitford was his name. Elizabeth thought it suited him. She’d bet that his friends called him Mitty.
“Ah, well, ah...Mr. Whitcomb.” Walter actually raised a timid hand to get the lawyer’s attention. “Could. . could you excuse us a...a minute.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and he looked as if he might be going to pass out. “Ah, Miss...Miss P...Parkins and I have to...to confer.”
“That’s an excellent idea. I was going to suggest it myself.” Joseph offered his arm. “Mrs. Lassiter, may I escort you?”
Peter showed Elizabeth and her lawyer into a sitting room that could have fit right into any of the fancy houses she cleaned. The Lassiter Building seemed to be full of them. If she hadn’t been so nervous, she would have taken note of every single piece of furniture, every knick knack and doo dad. She’d have asked for a tour of the building. It amazed her how fancy some folks lived, even at their workplaces.
David had probably hired an interior decorator to do up his whole building. Everything matched just so. The only thing that didn’t was an antique radio. She wondered who had put it there, if it had been David.
She wondered what his farm would be like. Would it have a barn? Animals? She hoped so, for Papa’s sake. And Nicky’s. If he would be there.
She wouldn’t let herself think that way. Negative thoughts sent out negative energy and somehow influenced events to go wrong. She’d read that somewhere, and it made sense to her.
Restless, Elizabeth moved about the room, and all of a sudden the sound of music stopped her in her tracks.
“Lean-ing, lean-ing, safe and secure from all alarms.”
Peter jumped up and turned the radio off.
“You must have bumped into it,” he said, but Elizabeth knew she hadn’t.
She remembered the first time she’d ever heard that song, clear as day. Mae Mae had been in the apple orchard filling her apron with knotty little red apples and singing.
“How come you’re singing that song?” Elizabeth had asked her.
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“Because it helps to know I’ve got Somebody I can always lean on. And you do, too, honey.”
Mae Mae untied her apron and put the bundle on the ground, then sat down next to it and selected two for them to eat. Elizabeth took her first crunchy bite, then kicked off her shoes and sat there with the sweet juice running down her chin.
“Will I always have you to lean on, Mae Mae?”
“As long as the creeks don’t rise and the good Lord’s willing.”
Now, with her future in Joseph Whitcomb’s hands, Elizabeth sank into a chair and closed her eyes, remembering the comfort of leaning on Mae Mae and wondering if she dared lean on David.
“Can I get you something to drink, Elizabeth?” Peter was bending over her, one hand on her shoulder, concern written all over his face. He was a sweet man, a good man. You could tell a lot about a person by the kind of friends they had. Didn’t it speak well of David that he’d chosen Peter Forrest as his right-hand man?
“No, thank you. I’m too nervous to drink anything. I’d spill it all over my new dress.”
“You look nice,” Peter said.
“Pshaw! She looks stunning,” Joseph said, grinning. “Now there’s a great word. I’m in love with the English language, you know.”
Walter Mitford poked his head around the doorframe. “Ah, Mr. Whitcomb, could...could you come in here a minute?” He was a timid Piglet approaching a dangerous heffalump in the Hundred Acre Wood.
“What could that mean?” Elizabeth asked Peter.
“Nothing bad, I’m sure of it. Don’t worry. Everything’s going great.”
Within minutes Joseph was back, all smiles. “Mrs. Lassiter, you may go and reclaim your child. This treacherous business is over.”
“Thank you, thank you.” She launched herself at him, hugging and crying. She probably should have been embarrassed at her display of unbridled emotion, but she wasn’t. He didn’t seem to mind. Nor did he seem to mind that she was getting the front of his shirt wet.
He patted her shoulder the way Papa would have. “We’ve won the first battle. Now, we march triumphantly to the next.”