Lawyer for the Cat (19 page)

“Lila was like a mother to me,” he says. “My own mother—her sister—did her best to change me. She called me her ‘sissy boy,' sent me to a therapist. Lila was appalled. She was quite open-minded about such matters, for her time. That's how I came to spend so much time in South Carolina, mostly in the summertime. But I didn't get along with Randall, who teased me mercilessly.… But I'll come back to Randall.

“Lila encouraged my writing,” he continues. “Offered to pay my tuition at Columbia, but I got a scholarship. And later, after I'd gotten the job at NYU, she helped me with the down payment on this apartment. She sent me a generous check every Christmas. I had my salary, but her contributions allowed me to spend my summers traveling, writing. She was my patron, not just financially, but emotionally. So different from my parents, who wanted me to go into the law, or medicine.” He fills our glasses again. “Both honorable professions, to be sure, but not what I wanted. Lila understood that. I owe her my life, really. She gave me my independence. ‘Follow your heart,' she said when I told her about Jeremy. We were together for twenty years. But that is the irony, you see. The same woman who encouraged me to live my life as I pleased, this woman now wants to control me. From the grave.”

“I don't understand.”

He's agitated now, sweating. The cat yawns. “She knew how much I love this city. My life is here. How could she ask me to give it up? I'm retired, but—”

“Maybe she thought she'd be doing you a favor, letting you live in the house where you spent so many happy summers.” Why do I feel the need to defend her, this woman I never knew? “And besides, she named two other people, so maybe she didn't want you to feel pressured.”

“Indeed.” He smiles. “But don't you see? It's almost like a game. She sets up this trust, all this money and property tied up for a
cat
.
”

“But you like cats, obviously.”

“I like cats, yes. However, should I predecease the Sphinx here, I've arranged for him to live with one of my former students. The Sphinx, as mysterious as he may seem, is a creature with simple needs. He doesn't require an apartment on West Sixtieth with a doorman. My assets will go to charity.… No, as I was saying, Lila is playing a game with us. With
you.
”

“She didn't even know me. She left the job of choosing Beatrice's caregiver to the probate judge in Charleston, but he—”

“Yes, yes, you explained all that in your letter. But this is no accident, this conversation. If the good judge hadn't shirked his responsibility, I'd be having it with
him.
And wherever she is—granted, I'm no believer, but she's listening—Lila hears me say, ‘No, I'm sorry, I won't do it.' And she knows how guilty I feel.” He looks at his watch. “One more thing before we go to dinner—so that you don't agonize over your decision too much—in her later years, my aunt always felt unappreciated.”

“I suppose that often happens to old people.”

“No, no … What I mean is, she wanted what we all want, what is at the heart of all our striving, all our loving … perhaps all our poetry.… She wanted to be
understood.
” He stands, takes my empty glass. “This isn't about who's best for the cat, it's about Lila. She set up this legal instrument as a game, the object of which—remember?—is to find the caregiver who can provide the same ‘emotional environment'—those were her words, weren't they?—as she provided for Beatrice. So all this is really about understanding Lila. How she lived, how she loved, what mattered to her. In short,
who she was.
When you understand
her,
then you'll make the best choice.”

“But her son claims she was demented.”

Dr. Freeman laughs again. “Not in the slightest. She did all this on purpose. She was bound and determined that we'd pay attention to her, even in death!… Now, my dear, shall we dine?”

*   *   *

“This was Lila's favorite restaurant,” he says as the maître d' leads us to a table. “She insisted on sitting near the window, where she could watch the human parade. That's what she called it, ‘the human parade.' She was like a child sometimes, enormously curious. She could entertain herself just watching the passersby.… At the museum once—I think it was the Met; yes, we were in the American wing—she struck up a conversation with a total stranger, an art student, invited her to join us for dinner.”

“The usual, Dr. Freeman?” asks the waiter. “For you and Mademoiselle?”

“If she'll trust my judgment,” he says, but doesn't wait for my answer. “And a bottle of the sauvignon blanc, please.”

“I'm surprised,” I say. “I had the impression she was a loner.”

“In her last years, yes, because she insisted on staying in that house—rather remote, don't you think? So many of her friends were too old and frail to visit. But in her younger days she was quite the hostess … always surrounded herself with the most interesting people. Writers and artists, as long as they weren't pretentious—she couldn't abide pretentious people—and even a lawyer or two every now and then.” He smiles. “She'd say, ‘I'm having one of my potluck parties. She'd invite six people, tell each to bring another guest or two and something for the table, she didn't care who or what, as long as the people were interesting and the dish was edible. But they were almost never Verner's kind of people.”

“Her husband?”

“Yes. Poor Verner. She overwhelmed him. He was a genius with money—commodities, I think—but socially, and in every other respect, quite unimaginative. He spent most of his time at their house in Charleston.”

“So it wasn't a happy marriage?”

“She realized early on, I think, that she could maintain the arrangement as long as they didn't spend too much time together. She had what she wanted. She had her place on Edisto and the money to keep it up. Her books and her parties. And Randall, though God knows
that
didn't turn out well.”

I tell Dr. Freeman about my encounters with Randall. “He scares me.”

“I haven't seen him in years. Have no desire to. He's made it very clear that he despises me.… But he is, like all of us, the product of his upbringing. Lila chose her life at Oak Bluff over Randall.” He sips his wine. “But I don't mean to sound so harsh. A toast to her! To Lila, who brought us together!”

I lift my glass. “Why did she have to choose between the plantation and her son?”

“By about age twelve he was already getting into trouble. Petty theft, minor vandalism. Verner realized Lila couldn't manage him, put him in private school in Charleston. She would come into town on weekends, but most of the time she stayed on the island. She wouldn't consider moving back to town. Who knows, perhaps if she had … Randall would be different.”

“You know he's threatening to set the trust aside?”

“I'm not surprised. I'm sure he's furious.”

“But it would be an uphill battle,” I say, “and if he loses, he forfeits his share.”

“You should be very wary of Randall. You know about the incident with her bank account?… No, how could you—she didn't take any legal action against him. Some time ago … after Verner died, about fifteen years ago, I think, Randall offered to help her with her bookkeeping. It wasn't that she was incapable, just that financial matters always bored her. She should have hired someone, but she didn't want to spend the money. She was so generous toward others, but when it came to her own needs, she could be irrational.… In any event, Randall convinced her to add his name to her investment account, her checking account. He paid her bills. I suppose she was relieved to have someone handle things, and perhaps she was pleased that Randall was paying some attention to her, after all those years of emotional distance. But it was an extremely unwise decision. By the time she caught on, Randall had withdrawn almost a hundred thousand dollars. He had the gall to claim she'd agreed to pay him a salary!”

“How do you know she didn't?”

“Because she told me she didn't, and there was nothing wrong with her memory. Nothing at all. She should have taken him to court, but I think she was embarrassed. That was the end of their relationship.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“Her stockbroker, I suppose. Perhaps that lawyer of hers, on Edisto.”

“He's dead.”

“Then maybe the judge.”

“He hasn't mentioned it.”

“As I said, she was probably embarrassed. She wouldn't have wanted a scandal. And I think she felt some guilt about Randall, about not being much of a mother to him. I hope you like the fish. Always her favorite. But my dear, you seem troubled. Perhaps I've told you more than you wanted to know.”

He doesn't wait for me to answer. “When you're as old as I am,” he says, “you'll understand that everyone has a secret history. The woman I knew, when I spent those summers on Edisto, was so charming, so witty, with such a wide-ranging intelligence, enormously open-minded. But in the end she was essentially alone, an unhappy old woman … living with her cat and her regrets.”

“She had Gail, the caretaker.”

“Gail can run a tractor, but she couldn't have been much of a soul mate for someone like Lila.”

“She's very good with Beatrice.”

“Lila read to that cat every day. I know it seems ridiculous, but I saw it myself, the last time I visited—Beatrice in her lap, purring away as Lila read to her. Theirs was a rare companionship, creatures of different species, but with similar sensitivities.”

“What about Katherine Harleston? The librarian.”

“I met her only once. My impression was that Lila did more for Katherine than Katherine did for Lila. A lopsided friendship.”

“But Lila obviously trusted her.”

“I know this will sound preposterous, but it's another example of Lila's desire to control. She never liked Katherine's husband.… I've forgotten his name.”

“Hugh.”

“Yes. Never met him, but I know that Lila advised her to leave him. Perhaps if you choose Katherine, she will.”

We're silent as we finish the main course, watching the human parade: a woman in fake fur and five-inch heels lugging two huge shopping bags; a grizzled old man, barely moving, back bent, pushing a cart full of empty cans; a twentyish girl in a black T-shirt and tights, arms covered with tattoos, oblivious to the cold.

“I'm afraid I haven't helped you much,” he says.

“You've been very generous with your time. By the way, she left a box full of personal things. Letters, a diary. Someone in the family should have it.”

He smiles. “But we were talking about the cat—”

“I'll make sure she's safe and cared for.”

“Perhaps you should take her yourself,” he says.

“I can't do that.”

“But didn't she leave open that possibility … not
you
specifically, of course, but ‘any other suitable person'?”

“I have a law practice. I can't move to Edisto.” The waiter removes the dinner plates, describes the desserts, but I decline. “It's so strange. I never met Lila Mackay, but … I have this awful feeling I'm letting her down.”

“My aunt broke many hearts! Even dear Simon, who understood her better than anyone, couldn't—”

“Simon?”

“Her first love.”

“That must be the one whose letters are in the box. But why would she—”

“She could be quite sentimental, my aunt, even about her failures.… No, of course not, this is my treat.” He pays the bill, helps me with my coat. “We'll have some coffee, back at my place, and I'll tell you the story.… What a smashing dress! That red!”

It's only as we're stepping outside that I realize he isn't talking about some stranger in the human parade. He's talking about me.

 

Simon

Dr. Freeman makes a pot of coffee, strong. I drink two cups—I shouldn't, I'll be up all night—while he talks. The Sphinx lies between us on the sofa. Every now and then Dr. Freeman reaches out to stroke his back, a gesture the cat acknowledges with a blink or a twitch. It's clear he's accustomed to long stories.

“I'll never truly understand what happened between them—Lila and Simon Witowski. I once accused Lila of anti-Semitism, which she denied, of course—you know, the old ‘I have many Jewish friends' defense—but I think, to give her the benefit of the doubt, it was more a matter of class. If that's more forgivable. In any event, his father was a tailor, Polish-born, I believe. He had a shop in downtown Charleston; that's how she met him—Simon, I mean. Her father sent her to pick up some trousers he'd left to be hemmed, but she got there half an hour after the shop had closed. She saw this boy inside—a teenager, sweeping. She was determined to pick up the pants, and banged on the door. He opened up—what else could he do? She was a
force,
my aunt, not to be ignored. Of course, she struck up a conversation. They were both seniors in high school, he at the public school, she at … what's that girls' school? Ashley something. Yes, Ashley Hall.

“Simon had a relative here in the city, who owned a bookstore on East Eighty-third. It's long gone now, but Simon spent several summers working there. That's how he ended up at City College. And from there he got a job at a small press, also long gone, swallowed up by some conglomerate. Lila was at Vassar by then, and she would come into the city on weekends. He introduced her to his literary friends. I have a photo of them somewhere. He was tall and bony, curly black hair, always a serious expression.… She wasn't beautiful, but pretty enough in an unself-conscious way, and she had those spirited, dark eyes. She was intellectually … how shall I say it? Immensely curious about everything and everybody. And so vivacious. I'm sure Simon found her irresistible.