Entangled (6 page)

“I just need to eat something.” I had no idea
if that was the case but it seemed to be the logical explanation.
Although, I rarely ate breakfast and had never fainted because of
it. I walked back to the desk and picked up my purse from the chair
where I’d left it earlier, opened it and rummaged for the package
of airline almonds I’d stowed in there. “Ah ha! Food.” I opened
them and shook out a handful.

“If that’s really the case, then I’ll take
you to lunch,” Handel offered. “At least hunger makes more sense
than grief.”

“Very funny.” I resumed my seat across from
his desk and popped some nuts in my mouth.

He followed, sitting down and staring across
the desk at me as though I were a high-risk flight and he was
debating whether to put up my bond money. “Would you like a cola to
go with that?” he asked.

“This will suffice for now. Lets get this
over with. I have my return flight booked for two o’clock tomorrow
afternoon.”

“Oh yes. Inherit a winery one day and fly
home the next. How do you expect to run the place two thousand
miles away?” he asked, leaning back in his chair. “Charlie is a
good manager but he needs direction. Someone to guide him to put up
foil to fend off the birds, get the grapes in at the appropriate
time, make sure the place is making money rather than losing it,
etcetera.” He folded his hands on the desk before him. “I thought
maybe you could be that guiding hand. There are a lot of people
counting on you. From what Jack said, you used to love the winery.
Maybe you would again if you gave it a chance.”

“I already have a lot of people counting on
me—at home.” I crossed my legs and folded my arms, realizing
belatedly that my body language was speaking volumes. “Now can we
get on with it?”

The will was simple. I was now the proud
owner of a winery, vineyard, house, and everything that went with
it, including a sizable nest egg in stocks and bonds. Jack left
large bonuses to his trusted employees and a ten thousand dollar
donation to the church where his funeral was held. That was all.
Except for a sealed letter, to be opened by me only if I decided to
keep and run the vineyard. Which at this point, I saw no such thing
happening. But Handel insisted I take it with me anyway, just in
case I changed my mind before my flight left for Minnesota.

*****

I pulled the BMW into the garage and climbed
out. The letter was in my purse. I imagined smoke coming from
beneath the flap as it tried to burn a hole through the lining to
me. I was having second thoughts about the wisdom of allowing
Handel to talk me into keeping it. Like a doomsday prophecy, the
sealed envelope cried out to be read. Was it a list of instructions
on how to run the winery, or a detailed who’s who list of employees
and their various idiosyncrasies? I imagined a revised will
revoking everything Uncle Jack stated in his earlier will and
telling me it was all a cruel joke. I wasn’t sure if that last
would be a blessing or a curse.

My mother was in the kitchen making a pot of
fresh coffee and toasting a bagel. I smiled and took two cups out
of the cupboard. “I’ll have what you’re having.”

She popped another bagel in the toaster. “How
did it go? Are you still an attorney or have you traded in your law
practice for the wine business?” she asked, sitting down in a chair
at the kitchen table. The small dining set was too old and beat up
to be merely retro. The chrome-plated legs of the oval table had
begun to peel and the cobalt blue vinyl-covered chairs were
scratched and faded. I wondered if Uncle Jack bought it in the
fifties or found it in a junk shop after giving the rest of his
furniture away.

I sat down across from my mother as we waited
for the coffee, propping my head up on my hand. “I’ll always be an
attorney, Mother. Never fear. If I have anything to say about it,
divorce will continue to be the number one choice for warring
couples in America.”

My caustic humor brought a frown to her
normally smooth forehead. “You shouldn’t joke about such things,
Billie,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “I’ve often wondered
why you chose such a negative area of the law to work in. Divorce
is so depressing, so painful, and so final.”

I raised my brows. “And so lucrative,” I
added. “You know how they say, death and taxes, well they should
add divorce to that. Make it a threesome.”

“Do you really believe that, honey? That
marriage ultimately ends in divorce?”

I shrugged. “The ones I’ve known,” I said.
The coffee maker stopped sputtering and I pushed my chair back and
stood up. “I’m sure there are a handful of super-humans that can
put up with each others quirks until death parts them, but they are
few and far between.”

“Marriage is not for the faint of heart,
certainly, but it’s much more than putting up with someone, it’s
about loving someone in spite of their flaws, or maybe because of
them. We may not always like them, but we continue to love them,
because without love we’re all lost.”

I poured the coffee and carried the cups back
to the table, my hands shaking slightly as I set them down. Coffee
sloshed over the side and I turned to find a dishrag. “Yes, I know.
Love makes the world go round.”

She lifted the cups and let me wipe the spill
under them. “You say it, but you don’t sound like you mean it. Did
you break up with Kent?” she asked, as though the two went hand in
hand.

The popping up of the bagels saved me from
meeting her gaze. I turned to fetch them. When I brought them to
the table, she peered at me across the rim of her cup, the question
still posed in her expression. She sat perfectly straight in her
chair as though she was the queen of England, and of course posture
is very important to royalty and mothers, it gives them the edge in
authority.

“What does that have to do with anything?” I
finally asked, piercingly aware that she could see behind my walls
like no one else.

Mother released an exasperated sigh. “You
know perfectly well what it has to do with our conversation. You
won’t commit to a real relationship and you always find some excuse
to break up with a man when things get a might too serious. We all
have flaws whether we marry or not, Billie. Are you going to
divorce me as your mother because I tend to be too nosy sometimes?”
She reached out and patted my hand lying on the tabletop.

I laughed, trying to keep things light. “If I
were, I would have done it a long time ago, mother.”

“Perhaps. Is that what you did to your father
- divorce him, after the thing with Paul?” Her voice, usually so
strong and decisive, was soft and unsure.

I couldn’t respond for ten long seconds, an
eternity for a lawyer. When I spoke I looked at the bagel on my
plate, unable to meet her gaze. “I never filed against my father,
he filed against me. I only went along with the clauses that he set
forth.”

I drew a deep breath and finally looked up.
She nodded, her eyes pooling with tears. “Something happened to him
that night; a door to his soul closed. I’m not sure what was going
through his head, but he was never the same.”

“Yes, well I know what was going through his
head. He thought I deserved what I got and that Paul was only doing
what any red-blooded young man would do in his situation with a
girl throwing herself at him.” I ground out the words, feeling the
blade twist in the unhealed places of my heart. The bitterness I
still felt was so sharp I could taste it on my tongue.

Mother shook her head now, tears slipping
quietly down her cheeks unheeded. “You don’t know what you’re
talking about. He never blamed you. He loved you more than you dare
love a child — knowing that God can take them at any time.” She
pushed the bagel and coffee to the side and leaned across the table
with both hands outstretched, weaving my fingers with her own. “It
was as if he gave up. He realized that no matter what he did,
ultimately he couldn’t keep you from harm. He was not in control of
other people and their actions, the spinning of the earth on its
axis, or whether or not the sun would rise the next day. He was
just a man, and for some reason that made him feel inadequate to
continue being your father in the way he’d always done. In fact, he
was no longer the same husband either.” She sniffed and gave me a
watery smile. “But I never stopped loving him, or demanded a
divorce. He did the best he could until the day he died.”

I pulled my hands away and scraped my chair
back. “Well, you can forgive and forget if you’d like, but it’s not
that easy for me.” I stood up and crossed my arms in the defensive
mode I used when I started feeling closed in. “He should have come
to my defense! I was the one wronged, not him!”

Mother swiped the wetness from beneath her
eyes with the pads of her fingers, slow, careful, movements that
felt drawn out. I could see that the subject had opened old wounds
for her too, and she desired closure, but I wasn’t ready for that
yet. Only red-hot fire could cauterize a wound and I still needed
to burn a few degrees hotter.

“You can’t stay mad at him forever, honey.
You’ve got to let it go. Try to remember the good times you
shared,” she said, her voice pensive. She slipped out of her chair
and came around the table. “But no matter what, I’ll always love
you.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek and I felt a section of the
wall crumble beneath her touch. I opened my arms and pulled her
into them, my chin resting snugly against her shoulder.

“I love you too, Mom.”

She laughed, a sound rent from tears and
surprise. “You haven’t called me that for years,” she said.

“Sorry,” I said, pulling away.

“Don’t be. I like it.” She took my face in
her hands. “Are you sure you’re ready to go home tomorrow? Maybe
you should stay here a few more days and think things over. Living
in sunny California might be kind of nice, you know,” she said, her
smile wistful. “I could stay too, if you want me to.”

I made a face and shrugged. “I don’t know.
Life in Minnesota’s not so bad. Besides, I don’t know how to be
anything but a divorce attorney. It’s what I am.”

She shook her head. “You’re a beautiful,
kind, compassionate, loving woman. And my daughter. Divorce law is
what you do, not who you are. You can do anything you want to do,
even become a wine vintner. Don’t sell yourself short. You have
depths of talent you haven’t even begun to plumb.”

I grinned. “And I suppose they were all
inherited from you.”

“Of course. My genes are top-notch.”

“Yes, they are,” I agreed.

She went to the sink and poured her cold
coffee down the drain and refilled it with fresh from the carafe.
“You never did say what happened with Kent,” she stated over her
shoulder.

“Didn’t I?” I picked up my purse and dropped
the car keys on the counter. “I’ve got some thinking to do. I’ll
see you later. Feel free to take my new BMW for a spin if you’d
like.”

I hurried to my room before she could press
me further. I still didn’t want to get into it. Mother never really
liked Kent, but I knew she wanted me to find someone to settle down
with and eventually get married so I could procreate and give her
half a dozen grandchildren. She would make a wonderful grandmother,
spoiling them and filling them with treats, then turning them back
over to me to deal with the repercussions, but doing it all with
love.

My cell phone broke into a rendition of
Beethoven’s Fifth as I climbed up on the edge of the bed, the ring
tone informing me that it was a call from the office. I took it out
of my purse and flipped it open. “Hello, Jody.”

“Hey. Just wanted to touch base with you
before I went home for the day,” she said. I could hear young
voices arguing in the background and wondered if her kids had been
there all day.

“Okay. How’s it going?” I lay back on the bed
and stared at the ceiling, imagining the office being used as
daycare for three teenagers. Hopefully they didn’t break any
windows or get gum on my wood floors.

“Everything is fine,” she said, although her
voice sounded strained and tired, probably from yelling. “Well,
Mrs. Booth did call three times today. She said her husband has
been making threats.”

My grip tightened on the phone. Violence was
one of the things I dealt with as a divorce lawyer, since many of
the women that came to me were in abusive relationships and needed
to get out. I didn’t advertise for these women, but through word of
mouth a continual trickle of mentally and physically wounded walked
through my office doors looking for a savior. I was perhaps the
only person willing to fill those shoes. They very seldom could
pay, but the relief and gratefulness in their eyes were
compensation enough.

“What sort of threats?”

She must have placed her palm over the
receiver because I could hear her muffled voice as she spoke to her
kids. Then she was back on the line. “Sorry about that. The girls
are here.” She cleared her throat. “He threatened her bodily harm.
Told her he would see her dead before he would let her go.”

“I see. Well, you know what to do. Make sure
she files a report with the police. I want every threat well
documented.” I pushed up on one elbow and faced the painting above
the headboard. A motley assortment of objects pressed out from the
canvas as though trying to escape. I thought I saw a cat, an ax, a
giant ant, and a pitchfork amid the blotchy colors, but it could
just be my over-active imagination. Everyone probably saw something
different in this sort of art.

“I already did.” Jody coughed lightly, and I
knew she was running her hand through her short brown hair as she
always did when she talked on the phone. She paused. “The building
manager came by this morning right after I got in,” she said, her
voice quieter.