Blue Willow (43 page)

Michael wandered miserably through the rooms of the large apartment he and Kathy had shared. It was crammed with books and paintings, sculpture, and ordinary, pleasant, comfortable furniture. Even if he spent most of his time at a town house in Atlanta now, he would never sell this place. He touched Kathy’s clothes, still hanging in the walk-in closets of the bedroom, spread her perfume on his hands, and stood for a long time studying photographs of her that covered one of the bedroom walls.

He fought the urges as long as he could, and anxiety made his chest constrict. A deep drag on one of his asthma inhalers eased the attack, but he knew nothing but action could solve the other problem. He phoned downstairs to have the doorman call a cab. By the time it arrived, he had changed clothes and was waiting impatiently on the curb in the muggy air, his jogging shoes soaking up a puddle from a recent rain.

He had the cabdriver drop him off a block from his destination, preferring not to cause idle gossip. Dark, silent brownstones and small shops gave no clue that, a century
earlier, this had been a tree-lined boulevard fronting the in-town mansions of the very wealthy. But the imposing stone wall at the end of the block hinted at remaining grandeur. It enclosed an acre, a fortune in land at New York prices.

Michael retrieved a key from his jeans’ pocket and unlocked a tall, narrow gate of black iron. Stepping inside, he locked it behind him and stood still, absorbing the place’s leaden reality. Scattered among old trees like morbid playhouses were the Colebrook mausoleums.

A half-moon had come out from behind high, scudding clouds. He didn’t need the moon; he had found her crypt in pitch-darkness many times. He picked his way up a path to the newest mausoleum, a broad, stately monument in white marble, with a door made of steel grate in an ornamental pattern of overlapping Cs.

Another key unlocked that door, and then Michael was inside, sitting cross-legged on the cold floor next to her, tracing her carved name on the wall with trembling fingertips. The past two years disappeared; she was alive again. Michael laid his cheek against her name.

He tried never to think of Kathy inside the coffin, just as he struggled every day not to think of her cradled, warm and loving, in his arms, whispering his name.

“Hello,” he whispered. “I know you don’t want me to come here like this. But I have to.” He huddled as close as he could and shut his eyes. He and she had been soulmates since their freshman year at college, both of them psychology majors, she Jewish, from a family of academics, he benignly cynical about religion in general, and from a family whose name meant wealth and decadence. They had never spent a night apart until she died. There would never be anyone else for him.

He acknowledged James’s reasons for hating and distrusting Lily Porter. James sought someone to blame for every limping, painful step he would take for the rest of his life. Michael doubted James or anyone else in the family—even Elizabeth, with whom Michael had the close, intuitive bond of a fraternal twin—would approve
if they knew he had always admired and sympathized with Lily

He could never punish her for loving her husband so much that nothing else mattered. He understood that pain too well. Touching Kathy’s name again, he cried against the cold stone.

Twenty

Edward Tamberlaine bent to pet Lupa. If he ever wore anything less formal than a handsome double-breasted suit, Lily had never seen it. His skin was the color of rich chocolate, his hair short, trained into graceful waves, and salted with gray. Inky-black freckles were sprinkled over the bridge of his flaring, elegant nose. He smiled somberly as he came toward her, leaving his car parked in the yard.

Lily watched from her place in what had been the front pasture—now a muddy, flat expanse cleared by the bulldozer Mr. Estes had sent. She set a bucket of grass seed down and walked swiftly to meet Tamberlaine. The breeze made jonquils sway along the shallow ditches that bordered the drive, where they had bloomed every March as long as Lily could remember. Deep orange daylillies would take their place later in the spring. No amount of desertion or neglect mattered to them. When she had the time and a little precious money to allocate, she would reward them with mulch and fertilizer.

Her hands were chapped and scratched, her nails chewed to the quick. Aching muscles and bruises had become everyday companions over the past two months. She made long lists of tasks and began work before dawn most days, fighting the weight of grief and depression that always
hovered like a shadow just beyond conscious thought. If she stopped moving, she started thinking and sank into bleak moods.

“How are you, Lily?” Tamberlaine asked.

“Fine,” she lied. Feeling a little awkward, she tucked a jonquil into a buttonhole on his lapel, then stepped back. “Now you look ready for spring.”

“I came up to the estate to see the progress. I couldn’t help stopping by here. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, of course not.” He was here on Artemas’s behalf, to see what she’d accomplished so far. She was certain of it.

She followed his curious gaze. The mountain of garbage was gone, though a pile of discarded shag carpet and torn paneling lay in the front yard, waiting to be hauled away. She wanted every hint of Joe Estes out of the house. Mr. Estes had looked dour but said nothing when he’d noticed her intentions.

A long concrete foundation had been poured toward the front of the cleared pasture, with a smaller pad nearby. She pointed toward them. “The little one is for an office and shop, eventually. The other one is for a greenhouse. The rest of the clearing will be used for nursery beds.”

Tamberlaine nodded. “And you’ve had the lane from the paved road widened a bit and graveled, judging from the looks of it as I drove in.”

“The road was washing away a little more every time it rained. And little trees were trying to take over.”

“It’s a fine road now.”

His solemn praise made her slide her hands in the back pockets of her khaki trousers and try to appear nonchalant. “So what’s the news, Mr. Tamberlaine? Has he moved in yet?”

“Yes. The house is functional, but hardly comfortable. He moved into a suite of rooms his grandparents had occupied. It’s rather spartan.”

“I’ll tell you the truth. I slip through the woods sometimes and stand just out of sight, by the lake, to watch the work. There must be a hundred people around the place.
He’ll need to hire a top landscaper to restore the gardens. I could give you a list of names, if you won’t tell him where you got ’em.”

“He doesn’t plan to renovate the gardens anytime soon.”

She frowned. “But he’s had everything cleared around the mansion. And on the hill above the lake.”

Tamberlaine said softly, “I expect the gardens are more personal to him than the house. Perhaps he doesn’t like the idea of having some stranger design them.”

An invisible hand pressed on her chest. She looked at Tamberlaine. She’d almost forgotten that he rarely contacted her without dropping some bit of information—and usually for a reason.

“I’m gonna start calling you Machiavelli, if you keep scheming like this.”

A pensive smile crooked the corner of Mr. Tamberlaine’s mouth. “I’m afraid I’ve grown too fond of my role over the years. I would like to see this heartache resolved between you and him. And the others.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” She linked an arm through his. They walked down to the creek. “They’re like family to you, aren’t they?” she asked gently.

“Yes. But then, so are you.” They stopped under an enormous willow. He sighed and caught one of the draping tendrils in his free hand, studying the tiny new leaves. “Dusky blue-green, even in infancy,” he mused. “What a marvel.”

“I could dig up one of the saplings for you.” She nodded to the small trees spreading out around the grove’s edges. “These willows are hardier than most kinds. And they breed like mice.”

He cleared his throat and said gruffly, “I’d love to have a blue willow at my house.”

“I’ll send you one.”

“Would you believe that I bought a twenty-room Italianate villa near the governor’s mansion? I believe I’m the first black man my neighbors have seen who isn’t wearing a butler’s uniform.”

“Aw, it’s not like that anymore.” She tugged at his coat sleeve. “Get yourself a white butler named Billy Bob.”

He laughed. “Perhaps I will.” Tamberlaine studied her with somber amusement from under bushy brows. As he continued to look at her, a pensive look replaced his smile. “He has never directed me to explain his behavior to anyone, on his behalf. His actions often speak for themselves. Forgive me if, in this case, I step over the boundaries of my duties and speak on a personal level.”

“I’d appreciate that. Go ahead.”

“He may appear aggressive and even self-serving to you, but he is
not
someone you should consider an enemy.”

Her hands shook. She wound them into her pockets and stared at the creek, seeking answers in the ever-moving water. “I know that. But he’s trying to fix my problems for me, and he considers my loyalty to Richard something that needs
fixing
along with the rest.”

“The desperate state of his family never allowed him to choose between
taking care
and
taking over
. There was simply no gray area for him. There still isn’t.”

“He’s going to know where the gray areas are with me.” She gestured at her land, including herself in it. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons I came back here. To prove that he can’t take care, take over, or ignore me.”

“And perhaps to prove to yourself that you don’t want him to succeed?”

She was silent, shaken by his insight. “Yes,” she admitted finally.

After he left, she returned to spreading grass seed on the stripped earth of the old pasture, but a new, indefinable darkness hovered over her. She found herself studying the dense woods across the road that fronted the pasture. Artemas had come back, as steadfast as the jonquils and daylillies along the driveway. So had she. Both of them had kept some part of an old promise. The rest was hopeless. Her hand wavered, halted. She shut her eyes against sorrow and dread.

On the other side of those woods, so close that when
the wind was right she could hear the sounds of heavy trucks and bulldozers, saws and jackhammers, Artemas woke, slept, and dreamed his own memories at Blue Willow.

Artemas set the Blue Willow teapot on a crude table made of sawhorses and plywood in the center of the upstairs gallery, stood back, lit a cigarette, and studied the small, delicate vessel grimly It looked as if it were waiting for interrogation under the harsh light of a construction light clamped to the top of a stepladder by the table.

Last week Lily had sold it to Svenson’s Fine China and Crystal Shop, an elite Atlanta dealer, for five thousand dollars. Artemas had suspected she’d go to Svenson’s if she ever disposed of the teapot. His discreet inquiries into her life over the years had revealed that she’d bought all her china and crystal from the dealer. Not Colebrook china, no. She had never bought any Colebrook china.

So he’d had Mr. LaMieux, who handled all such secretarial chores for him, leave word at the dealer’s that he’d pay top value should anyone ever bring in a piece of old Colebrook Blue Willow.

He’d bought the teapot back.

Artemas understood how much she needed the money. What hurt was knowing that she’d rather sell something of such sentimental value to strangers than ask him for help. Despite some of the things he’d said to her, he wanted to be part of her life. That need was a constant torment.

Restless, he left the large, empty gallery with its high ceilings and mahogany bookcases waiting to be restored and opened one of the towering glass doors to a balcony. Pulling a heavy terry-cloth robe closer around his bare chest, he stepped onto smooth stone tiles. They were cold and damp with dew under his bare feet. The sky was salted with brilliant stars. He mashed the cigarette out on a wide stone balustrade, then carefully brushed the ashes off the edge and dropped the butt into a pocket of his robe. Abruptly he realized how ridiculous his concern was, considering the rough state of most of the mansion’s interior,
the clutter of drop cloths, dust, debris, and materials scattered throughout three stories of rooms and hallways.

He leaned against the balustrade and looked at the newly cleared terraces far below. Gardens had once stair-stepped down the hill toward the distant, starlit mirror of the lake. He remembered Lily writing to him once, as a teenager, that there had been trellises filled with roses. She had said that even after the trellises rotted and fell down, years passed before the roses were choked out completely by briers and pines. The last few clusters of pink and red blooming in the thickets had made her think of elegantly gowned ladies displayed in a prison. She had wanted to rescue them.

Now, the terraces waited for her attention. He knew it could never happen, and that he shouldn’t put off hiring a landscapes With every day that passed, he would look at the cleared spaces around the house and only think of the impossible. It was reckless, like buying the teapot. For once in his life, he verged on losing control over selfish obsessions, a dangerous indulgence.

He lit another cigarette. The pinpoint of red flared then disappeared, its invisible heat merging with the darkness.

The man was a stranger. Strangers usually came to Hopewell’s door to sell, beg, or preach, all of which he despised. Well-dressed strangers stepping out of late-model foreign cars with leather briefcases were twice as suspicious.

Hopewell moved quickly out of a rump-sprung armchair in front of the television. Anger was the only thing that made him move this fast anymore. He slapped at his creaking knees and stomped through a living room strewn with dirty clothes and the remnants of frozen dinners. He had the front door open before the stranger reached the porch.

Hopewell didn’t bother opening the outside screened door. He waited behind it, glaring through fist-sized holes in the mesh. Beyond the stranger, a weedy meadow large enough for a baseball field stretched between Hopewell’s big clapboard house and the road to town. He liked his
privacy and didn’t care for appearances, dammit. Couldn’t the stranger tell from this ailing, secluded house and the scowl on his face?