Final Rights

Final
Rights

A Novel

Tena
Frank

Grateful Steps

Asheville,
North Carolina

This is a work
of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are
either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely
coincidental.

Grateful Steps Foundation

159 South Lexington Avenue

Asheville, NC 28801

Copyright © 2014 by Tena Frank

Frank, Tena

Final Rights

Photograph of the author is by Murphy Funkhouser Capps,

Kudzu Branding Co. Asheville, NC.

Photograph of the house on the cover is the Snead-Adams
House, used with permission from the North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial
Library, Asheville, NC. The Photoshop treatment of the photo is by Cheri
Britton.

ISBN

978-1-935130-84-0 Paperback

Printed at Lightning Source

first edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book

may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever

without written permission from the author.

www.gratefulsteps.org

To Linda, who taught me the
joy of learning

1962

He’s prob’ly gonna kill me.
This one thought raced a
tight track through Ellie’s mind as she huddled in the corner of her bedroom.
She hoped her ferocity would come when the moment arrived, but she knew she
lacked the physical strength to withstand the fury raging in the living room
once it reached her. The destruction of her world came to her in sounds—furniture
cracking like kindling, bric-a-brac smashing to the floor, potted plants
shattering against the walls.

Maybe I can’t save
myself, but I will protect the girl.
Ellie’s determination cemented into resolve and she
wrapped her arms around her small body to quell her trembling. She went to the
quiet place inside herself, the place that had always been her refuge, her
salvation. She hunkered down into it and rested for a bit, creating a cocoon of
safety where she could think and plan. She could not save herself, she knew
that, but she could and would take care of the girl. Just before the bedroom
door flew open, Ellie tucked a quickly scribbled note under the pillow, then
stood up and faced the inevitable.

“Where is it?”

“It’s for the girl. You’ll never get it. I
swear you’ll never get it.”

These words came from her depths, and Ellie
uttered them with conviction and forcefulness. She liked the sound of them. She
felt invincible in that moment even as the blow to her chest sent her crashing
to the floor.

She looked up at the
face she had known so well for so long but no longer recognized it. She saw a
beast there now, inhabiting the body of the son she had once loved fiercely.
Only repetitive, devastating disappointments and overwhelming grief had finally
broken the bonds created by her love.

The final kick to
Ellie’s midsection broke a rib, which punctured the atrium of her heart. She
spent the final moments of her life in the arms of her husband, extracting from
him a promise he would never keep.

ONE

2004

Tate Marlowe huffed her
way along the street, barely aware of her surroundings. She jogged until the
stitch in her side forced her to slow to a walk. Sometimes the walk slowed to a
near-crawl, but she did not stop. Once she got her breath back, she jogged
again, determined to quell the anger pulsing through her body. She had a
choice, work it out or give into it. Go on a tirade against the unknown creeps
who had egged her truck the night before, or push to her physical limits until
the adrenaline rush subsided and she could think clearly again.
 

An hour earlier, Tate
had stepped out onto her small porch, breathed in the clean air and stretched
out her sore muscles. The warm morning sun and crisp, dry air held the promise
of a beautiful day. Tate loved this weather. Last week had been cold and damp,
but now late fall ruled, and she looked forward to the day ahead.

Her mood had taken a detour as she headed
down the cobbled walk and saw the mess awaiting her. The day after Halloween,
and her truck dripped with congealed egg snot. Several garbage cans lay on
their sides along her block and the obligatory toilet paper streamers hung from
trees just down the street. Miraculously, her motorcycle, parked behind her
truck where it had been languishing for over a year, seemed to have escaped all
harm.

At least there’s always good news along
with the bad
.
Maybe it was just a typical Halloween
prank. Maybe it wasn’t aimed at me specifically.
Tate wished that were true, but she knew
better. These childish pranks could easily be blamed on a bunch of recalcitrant
teenagers, but it seemed equally as likely to Tate that she had been targeted
by some disgruntled neighbor.

She had moved to
Asheville, North Carolina, the previous year and purchased two neighboring
duplexes on the east side of Broadway, across from Montford, one of the city’s
most beautiful historical districts. Ever since she had started renovating one
of the rental units she owned, her F
or
Rent
signs routinely disappeared within hours of being posted. The
culprit even took down signs from her private property. Obviously, someone was
determined to thwart her efforts to find new tenants for the remodeled
apartment.

Rather than focusing on cleaning the gunk
off her truck, Tate had changed into her walking shoes and headed into
Montford. Intent on working off her irritation and preoccupied with who might
be targeting her, she had strayed into an unfamiliar part of the neighborhood.

“I don’t care what they think. It’s my
property and I’ll do what I damn well please with it.” Tate exhaled her
declarations along with her breath as she propelled herself past the elegant
homes gracing the street lined with towering trees dressed in late-fall color.
“They’ll just have to adjust.”

The stabbing pain in her
left side finally forced Tate to stop. She stood hunched over, hands on knees,
eyes pinched closed. Her breathing restricted by the spasm in her rib cage, she
swayed gently and willfully slowed her breathing. Once she could stand up
again, she arched her back, hands on her hips and expanded her chest to allow
in more air. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a huge
abandoned house sitting at the top of a sloping hill and surrounded by a weed
patch that had once been an expansive lawn.

“What the hell is that?” Tate gasped at the
sight of the derelict house.

“That’s our local eyesore.”

Not expecting an answer, Tate whirled around
and took a step back when she heard a man’s voice coming from directly behind
her. “Whoa! Where’d you come from?”

“Around the corner. Saw you about to take a
nosedive onto the sidewalk. Thought maybe you needed some help.”

The best defense is a good offense.
Tate leaned in toward the man a bit and
adopted a slightly menacing tone of voice. “I was not about to take a nose
dive, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Coulda fooled me. Have it your way then.”
The man retraced his route and disappeared.

The threat of being the recipient of a
random act of kindness having subsided, Tate turned her attention to the old
house at the top of the hill. It could only be described as a dream in ruin.
Both outlandish and beautiful at the same time, the house exhibited a
hodgepodge of styles from Asheville’s architectural history. It somehow managed
to reflect its era while ridiculing it at the same time. Tate guessed the house
had been constructed in the early to mid-20th century. The pebbledash exterior
walls of the first floor crumbled in spots. The soft green of the original
paint, now gray from age, looked the color of mold. The second story boasted
the cedar shingles common on old Montford homes. The upper-story windows had
Tudor-style sashes and trim, now peeling and rotting. With the turrets and
gingerbread trim that had been added, the house appeared clown-like, yet sad in
its disrepair. In spite of all this, Tate immediately resonated with this
disheveled behemoth sitting at the top of the gentle hill at 305 West Chestnut
Street.

She walked up the shallow and graceful
stairs cut into the fieldstone retaining wall decorated with cheap pieces of
colored glass. This appealing touch from an earlier day now looked tawdry.

Though mismatched as a whole, elements of
the house radiated beauty. A spacious porch belted three sides of the first
floor, and the second story sprouted large balconies on each end.

Stepping onto the porch, Tate continued her
exploration, peeking through the windows to see the inside, frustrated with the
closed drapes that allowed only the smallest glimpses around the tattered
barrier they created.

The back section of the wrap-around porch
overlooked a large, quiet garden and a dry fishpond overgrown with weeds. As
she did at times like this, Tate began talking aloud as she continued her
exploration. “This would be a perfect meditation spot! How beautiful. How
nurturing!”

She spied a long set of
uncovered windows spanning some thirty feet and peered into a massive kitchen
at the back of the house. She gasped. The room looked like an abandoned set
from a movie, everything perfectly in place and neatly ordered, but now covered
with decades of dust. Still, its beauty could not be denied.

“Amazing! This kitchen is fantastic. I want
to cook here. So much space! I love the tiled countertops, and those cabinets
are incredible! Look at the craftsmanship!”

Whoever had created this house and this
kitchen had clearly loved it, she knew for sure.

Tate imagined all the wonderful parties she
could host in a house like this—a place to be proud of, with no need to wiggle
out of inviting visitors by doing a fine balancing act between welcoming and
warning them off.

Tate allowed herself unfettered daydreams as
she walked around the entire house again. After half an hour in reverie, while
heading back across the lawn, she turned back for one last look. What she saw
shocked her. How could she have missed it?

This grand old dame of a house, obviously
once a showpiece of the rich owner, had a distinctive front door that so
closely echoed the dimensions and design of the door on her simple house in the
working class section of town that it left her stunned. There were subtle
differences—each had two panels, hers with windows in the top half, this one
without windows, and this door had a triangular panel above it that hers
lacked, giving it a more imposing appearance. The main exception seemed to be in
the craftsmanship. The wood was heavier and more rough-hewn here, and the
detailing in the oversized hardware lacked the finesse of that on Tate’s house.
Still, she knew instinctively that whoever had made this door had crafted the
one on her house as well.

Tate heard what sounded like a whisper. Then
a flash of light flickered through the autumn foliage of a huge maple tree and
bounced off the grimy upper windows. She shuddered as a sudden gust of cold
wind swirled through the crackly leaves gathered in a corner of the wide porch.