Conundrum (18 page)

I let her toxic words crash against the seawall I built around my heart, and although over time the force of water wears down even the hardest
concrete
, I determined at that moment to shut the sea gates and keep her out. I had listened too long over too many years to her lulling statements, catching myself often in agreement and ignoring the raging in my heart that yelled “traitor.”

There was Lady Macbeth, through logical argument and persuasive wiles, convincing her husband to murder Duncan
—
in his sleep no less. They would perpetrate a ruse, setting up Duncan’s guards for the fall, and taking no blame themselves.
“
Away, and mock the time with fairest show: false face must hide what the false heart doth know.
”
Was that a false face I was looking at
across the beautifully laid-out table
—hiding a false heart? I couldn’t be sure, but could I chance
discounting
the possibility?

After my mother let slip out, “I’m surprised your marriage
has
lasted this long,” I placed my napkin on the table and stood. My mother had already paid for lunch and finished off my half-eaten slice of raspberry cheesecake. When I made no comment, she tried a different tack to
rattle
me somehow. Clearly, she wasn’t getting the response she’d hoped for.

“I’ve been putting this off, Lisa, but cash flow is tight. I’m going to have to ask you and Jeremy to start making house payments.”

My jaw dropped enough for a sound to escape. I kept my voice low as we walked toward the front of the restaurant, the friendly wait
staff and hostess nodding good-bye as we passed. “We pay the property tax. And we’re still paying on our construction loan. Those are our house payments.”

“Well, yes, of sorts. But they’re not payments to me. I paid for your property in cash, ten years ago—”

“I know that!” My words came out snappier than I’d have liked, and the tone only served to amp up my mother’s ire.

“And all this time, you’ve never made any attempt at paying me back—”

“How, pay you back? You own the property—and our house. If you would turn the title over to us, we’d be glad to set up a payment schedule, so you’d get all your investment back.” I sounded just like Jeremy.

My mother spun around as we exited the restaurant. The warm sea-drenched wind slapped me, as did my mother’s words. “How dare you?” She shook her head in
consternation
. “You’ve been letting Jeremy’s pathetic arguments brainwash you. Can’t you see what he’s doing—turning you against me, against our family—”

“Jeremy is my family.”

“No he’s not. He’s just someone you married. Someone you bumped into at the county fair and decided to live with. You don’t have a family. He hasn’t even given you any children—”

My heart clenched in pain
,
and bile rose like molten lava in my throat. I literally stamped my foot on the sidewalk where we stood waiting for the valet parking attendant to return with my car.

“That’s enough! I don’t want to hear another word.”

From the corner of my eye, I noticed a taxi at the curb three cars back. I strode over to the car and asked the driver if she was available to
take
my mother home. I rummaged through my purse for my wallet, my hands fumbling, and handed her a twenty, knowing that would more than cover the scant miles to my mother’s house. As the taxi pulled up to the loading zone, I gestured to my mother.

“There’s your ride home. I’ve already paid. Thank you for the lunch, but I’m late for work. And I better not miss out, seeing as I now have to come up with money to keep you in the lifestyle to which you’ve grown accustomed.”

For once, I didn’t regret the words that blurted from my mouth. I meant every one of them.

I turned my back while my mother huffed and got into the taxi and shut her door. As the car drove off and mine appeared at the curb, my body shook, every inch of it. Tears poured down my cheeks, but I wiped them away as I tipped the attendant. An ominous feeling came over me, as if I’d crossed some invisible line.

I was switching camps. The loyal daughter was now the adversary. I hadn’t even known there were sides until that
moment
. But it was too late for regrets or apologies.
Here’s the smell of blood. What’s done cannot be undone.

Chapter
11

I had just gotten home, weary, my clothes caked with dirt, when Jeremy drove up with the flatbed. He backed partway into the barn and started unloading the half ton of hay while I went inside and washed up. My shower could wait. I’d spent the afternoon attacking the ground, digging holes with fury,
and
planted a couple dozen large shrubs and trees in record time. I hadn’t let my mind lapse into that state of peace and rhythm
the way
I usually did when planting. I sought no healing or refreshment from my task; instead, I mulled over and over my recent conversations with my mother
and
my uncle, thinking of what questions to ask Ed Hutchinson when I saw him tomorrow. My head hurt from all my mental musings, but I kept my heart in check.

I’d had plenty of collisions with my mother over the years. We always worked through
them
. Perhaps my mother, feeling stressed over her current financial straits, was taking out her anxiety on me. She’d had such a run of success over the years, buying and selling commercial real estate while the economy boomed, that she allowed her spending habits free rein. Trips to Europe, weekly visits to her spa and masseuse, eating out nearly every day, buying clothing from expensive designer boutiques. Having to watch her bottom line was foreign to Ruth Sitteroff.

I
didn’t
know what shape her portfolio was in, but forcing Neal to sell his house in Novato to get back her investment seemed to indicate more than a minor passing problem. Why hadn’t she just taken out an equity line of credit and let him stay there? Would the payments have been too high? No doubt it had something to do with her taxes and cash flow. I never asked.

I had wanted to make Jeremy a nice dinner, but with the day’s aggravations, I had no energy left. I threw together some burritos, which he always loved, and popped open two Coronas. I heard him on the front porch, pulling off his boots, as I put food on plates. A smile rose on my face, listening to him mess with the dogs, roughing them up and talking silly to them. Buster and Angel were his babies too. What would happen if Jeremy decided to divorce me? Would he fight over custody of our dogs? The thought sent an ache straight to my stomach
,
so
I pushed the whole
mound
of fear back behind a concrete dam I erected in my heart. I would not go there.

“Do you want to eat on the back deck?” I asked. “The bugs aren’t bad yet.”

Jeremy nodded and took his plate from my hand. He open
ed
the
French
door
s
and I followed him out. His manner was unusually tense, a contrast from the day before, when he had seemed pliant.

We ate in silence until I just couldn’t take the strain. “Jer, I want to apologize.”

“For what? What did you do?”

“Well, I’m always stuck in the middle between you
and my mother
. And I’m always siding with her. You know how I feel about that. But I realize now I haven’t been very compassionate
about
your side of things. Seen it from your point of view.”

Jeremy made a little sound. His face turned thoughtful. I could almost hear him think the words
about time
.

When he didn’t respond, I continued. “I’m at a loss right now. The more I try to make things better with my mother and my brothers, the more I seem to feed the fire. Everyone’s so worked up.”

“Yeah, well. With Raff dealing with his issues, it’s affecting everyone.”

“It’s not just that. I
.
 
.
 
.
” My words lodged like a clod in my throat. It hurt to get them out. “I love you so much, Jer. I hate what’s happening with us. I feel powerless to stop our relationship from disintegrating, but I don’t know what to do—”

Now Jeremy snorted. “I know just what to do. Get your mother off our backs. Draw the line.”

“You’ve already done that, sending her those legal papers. She just brushed them away
as
of no account. I’ve tried to talk to her—”

“Talking to her doesn’t work. Like talking to a brick wall. You always let her win. She bowls you over every time. We have to do something, be firm.”

I bit my lip. What? How? Frustration
shifted
into annoyance. “Well, what do you propose we do? You’ve already insisted she sign the devise. She said no. We’ve tried to set up a payment plan to pay her back for the property, but she won’t budge. Refuses to change the title.”

“You’re just now realizing this?”

I cringed at his chastisement. “So, what’s your new plan? How do we draw the line?”

Jeremy tipped his beer back and finished it off. The dogs chased each other over by the pond
,
and the
farm
animals watched the antics from the pasture between taking bites of hay from the feeders. A flock of songbirds warbled in the tall fir next to the house. I yearned for the peacefulness of our home to descend and coat our conversation, but it seemed to scream in dissonance at me.

“I’ve been talking to a lawyer friend of mine. He says we can file a lawsuit and take legal action against her—”

“What!”

Jeremy threw his hand up and his tone grew harsh. “Just hear me out, Lis. We have ten years of letters
—
papers from her trust
—
stating this property is essentially ours. We have folders of receipts showing the amount of money we’ve invested here. There’s something called promissory estoppel,
a way
we can press the issue for ownership based on the assurances and promises your mother has given us over the years. We can prove we poured our money and labor into this place based on her promises, and she has to concede to us.”

“Jeremy, there’s no way I’m going to file a lawsuit against my own mother.”

“Then I’ll do it without you.”

Heat flushed my face
,
and I h
e
ld back a strong urge to scream. “Why
?
I don’t understand what you’re doing. We’ve lived here all these years, without my mother making any demands on us—”

“Until now.” He slammed his hand on the patio table and startled me. “Or don’t you know about her latest scheme?”

“You mean, about us making payments on the property?” At that moment I felt about three inches tall, like a mouse about to be squashed under a mighty
boot
.

Jeremy’s glare bored a hole through me.
“Well, at least she had the decency to tell you. I got this in the mail, delivered to my store.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his back jeans pocket and threw it at me. He started pacing the deck behind my back as I read. It was a letter from my mother’s attorney, stating that
,
in order for us to remain on the property, we were required to begin making monthly payments of twelve hundred dollars beginning on July 1. My breath hitched when I read the next paragraph.

“What? She’s expecting us to pay back rent?”
That
was unbelievable. She wanted what her lawyer
called
“a reasonable compromise,” considering the work we’d put into the place—four payments of twenty-five thousand dollars each, over the next four years. At that point a negotiation could be ensured to transfer the property into our names.

“And not one legal guarantee that, after all those payments, we’d even get clear title of the land. Not one.”

I didn’t want to look in Jeremy’s face. I just listened to him pound the Trex decking with his boots while I calmed my breathing. My voice came out papery
thin
. “Where in the world could we get that kind of cash? We can’t afford to take out another loan.”

“And I sure as hell am not going to borrow against the store. No way.”

“I’ll talk to her, Jer,” I said, trying to let him know I meant business.

“Yeah. What good will that do?”

I pictured what would happen if we brought in lawyers. The costs would destroy us; we barely got by each month. But not only that, the dynamics with my mother would shift irreversibly. There would be no turning back once we started down that path.

“At least let me try.” I sighed in resignation. “And if doesn’t work, then maybe we should meet with your lawyer friend and let him outline all our options.” I took a chance and looked at Jeremy. Anger
seared
his features. He stopped pacing and glared at me.