Leota's Garden (68 page)

Fred touched her shoulder. “Are you all right, Annie?”

She straightened. He must think she was going to drink the fountain dry. “I’m trying hard not to say anything I’ll regret.”
Lord, give me strength. And a case of laryngitis.

Fred put his hand on her shoulder. “The last few days have been very hard on your mother.”

Annie could see just how hard. Annie wished she’d explained weeks before what had been going on all those years ago. “I should’ve had it out with her long ago.” Perhaps then there would have been time for her mother to be restored to Grandma Leota. But she had been silent and patient, just as Grandma Leota had been silent and patient all those years. Now Annie wondered if her mother would ever get over the guilt and sorrow for all the years she had stayed away, nursing her grudges and refusing to seek the truth.

Will she go back to blaming Grandma, Lord? Will my mother start thinking Grandma Leota cheated her from a chance of reconciliation? Like death was the last dirty trick . . .

How she wished Grandma Leota had felt free to speak up years ago!
I know your reasons for keeping silent, Grandma, but what good did it do? Oh, Father, even if she had told Mother and Uncle George the truth, would they have listened?

Fred looked troubled. “Your mother had the feeling we should go back to the hospital the night your grandmother died, but we didn’t act on it. I wish we had, Annie. Now it’s going to be like a raw wound. One more burden for your mother to carry, along with all those years of bitterness.”

“I’m afraid for her, Fred. Grandma loved her. I know she did.”

“I’ve no doubt of your word, Annie, but I wish Leota had had the chance to say it for herself. As it stands, I don’t know if your mother will ever be able to believe it. Especially considering the guilt she carries now.” He looked tired and sad. “We’d better join the others.”

Charles Rooks greeted Annie when she entered his office with Fred. Her mother was already seated in a brown leather wing chair. Uncle George had taken the other in front of the attorney’s desk. Annie and Fred took the sofa against the wall. The attorney introduced his secretary, who offered everyone coffee. They all declined. Uncle George was in a hurry, as usual. He had a business appointment in San Francisco in two hours. People who moved fast didn’t have time to think about their losses.

The secretary closed the door quietly on the way out.

Charles Rooks passed out copies of Grandma Leota’s will. Annie wondered why he gave her a copy, until he started to explain that there was no property to dispose of in the will. It had merely been drawn up to make sure Leota Reinhardt’s wishes were not thwarted.

“What are you talking about? What wishes?” Uncle George was clearly confused—and getting angry. “There’s an estate. Granted, it’s not much, but she had a house, free and clear. That’s worth something in today’s market.”

“Anne-Lynn Gardner owns the house.”

“What?”
Uncle George turned toward her, his face reddening. A bubble of laughter came from her mother, quickly choked back by a soft sob.

“No, I don’t!” Annie stared at the lawyer, disbelieving. “You’re mistaken, Mr. Rooks.”

“There’s no mistake, Miss Gardner. We discussed it at length when I met with Mrs. Reinhardt at her home. I have a copy of the deed right here, which your grandmother mailed to me.”

“But that’s impossible!” Annie felt all the warmth draining from her.

“Yeah, right,” Uncle George said, his face mottled. “I should’ve known.”

“She must’ve had you sign the papers,” Charles Rooks said calmly. “I imagine she said they were for something else. She made her wishes clear to me when we talked last. She wanted you to have the house and the garden. The garden seemed to be the most important thing to her. She said you tended it the way she once did.”

Uncle George glared at Nora. “I should’ve known this would happen. I thought it was Corban Solsek who was after something. I should’ve looked closer to home!” He glared at her again. “Were you a part of this scheme?”

“Think whatever you want, George. What does it matter now?”

“Mom wasn’t part of any scheme.” Annie didn’t even try to keep the outrage out of her voice. “There wasn’t any scheme. I’m telling you both, it’s a mistake! Grandma asked me to sign some papers, but that was only so that I could handle paying her bills.”

Uncle George stood up and faced her. “Tell me straight out you don’t want her house!”

Tears welled. “I would never have asked Grandma for the house, Uncle George. Not in a million years. You should know me better than that.” Clearly, he didn’t know her at all.

“It’s fair, George,” her mother said in a broken voice. “It’s exactly what we deserve. It shouldn’t surprise us that Mama disinherited us. We abandoned her years ago.”

“Speak for yourself, Eleanor. I’ve never held on to grudges the way you do.”

“No, you just didn’t care one way or the other. You’re just like our father.”

He went white and then red. “That house belongs to
us
!” He looked back at Charles Rooks. “I’m going to fight you on this.”

“I’m afraid you don’t understand, Mr. Reinhardt. None of this was
my
decision.” His voice was cool now. “However, I’m not finished. Please, sit down and we’ll get to the rest.”

“The rest of what?” Uncle George took his seat. “Mother didn’t have anything except the house.” He looked weary and sick. “What about savings? Or a checking account.”

Annie blushed, sick at heart.

Charles Rooks explained quietly. “Anne-Lynn Gardner’s name is on both accounts.”

“Why should I be surprised?” Uncle George’s voice was riddled with enough sarcasm to tear Annie’s heart to shreds. “How much was in those accounts? Are we allowed to know what’s been stolen from us?”

“Grandma was living on Social Security.” Annie couldn’t keep her voice from wobbling. “There was never more than a couple hundred dollars in her checking account. She told me she’d arrange for a transfer of funds from her savings whenever insurance or taxes came due.”
Oh, Grandma Leota, how could you do this to me? Is this retaliation for all the years of neglect? I can’t believe it! I won’t!
“I’ll sign everything over to you and Mother. I didn’t stay with Grandma Leota because I wanted something from her. I stayed with her because I
loved
her.”

She hadn’t meant to cry, but she was. She wanted to get up and run out of the room, but Fred moved closer and put his hand on her knee as though to hold her there. She’d have to crawl over his lap or the coffee table to escape.

“I’m going to fight this!” Uncle George said again.

Charles Rooks lifted his hand. “Your mother thought you might. So she made stipulations to make sure you wouldn’t be able to do so. She only had to give you one dollar to prevent you from contesting the will. She made it one hundred dollars each.” Uncle George started to speak. “I will say again, Mr. Reinhardt, I have
not
finished. Allow me the courtesy to proceed. All of you. Once you do, you’ll find you have nothing to contest,
nor would you want to do so.” He looked squarely at Uncle George. “The more you say now, the more you’ll have cause to regret later.”

“Get on with it then.”

Annie was shaking violently.

“Very well.” Charles Rooks nodded. “Your mother made provisions for both of you.” He looked from Annie’s mother to her uncle. He lifted two manila envelopes and held them out, one for each of them. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the provisions your mother made for you.” He leaned back in his chair, saying no more, just watching them.

Uncle George opened his envelope quickly and slid the contents out. He leafed through the documents, his face paling, then filling with color, then paling again to a pasty white. He went back and looked at them again more slowly, studying them one by one.

Annie’s mother held her envelope as though it had a snake inside it. Annie had never seen her look so uncertain, so frightened. Uncle George said the Lord’s name under his breath. Trembling, her mother opened her envelope and began to go through the contents, one document at a time. A frown. Confusion, then comprehension. She looked utterly devastated as tears slipped silently down her white cheeks.

“Your mother was a remarkable woman,” Charles Rooks said quietly. He leaned forward again and clasped his hands on his desk mat. “She told me she purchased those stocks years ago on the advice of a good friend. A very wise and astute friend, I would say. She had those documents in her house up until a few weeks ago. She had no idea what they were worth. When I told her, she asked me to keep them with her will.”

Uncle George started reading aloud. “Exxon, Proctor & Gamble, Coca-Cola, DuPont, AT&T.” He shook his head. “IBM, General Motors . . .” He looked as though he’d been poleaxed. He stopped reading, but he didn’t raise his head. He shut his eyes for a long moment and then said, “We should get Mother a headstone. Something really nice.”

Nora gave a hoarse sob, dropped the papers, and covered her face.

Uncle George winced. “I didn’t mean that to sound so . . .” He looked up at the attorney. “How did she do it? I didn’t think she ever made that much money.”

“I imagine she invested a few dollars at a time during the years she worked for a living.”

Grandma Leota had worked a long time.

Annie watched her mother tuck the documents back into the envelope as though she couldn’t bear to look at them. Her hands were shaking. She scrubbed the tears from her face like a child. Annie ached for her. Grandma Leota had tried to show how much she loved her daughter. But Annie could see this inheritance had only added to her mother’s burden of guilt.

Oh, Lord, will she ever understand?

Uncle George rose first. He extended his hand to Charles Rooks, thanking him as though he were the one who had poured the bounty upon him. Then he turned and looked at Annie. She saw the flicker of shame cross his face. “I’m sorry, Annie. I was out of line. I should’ve known better.” He checked his wristwatch. “I have to run.” He took a step toward the door, then paused. “Do you need me to go to the funeral home and help you make arrangements for a stone? I could meet you tomorrow.”

“Grandma told me what she wanted, Uncle George. I’ll take care of it.”

“Tell them to send me the bill.”

Her mother rose. She didn’t shake hands with Charles Rooks. She held the closed manila envelope in her left hand as she turned toward Fred. Still trying to take it all in, Annie started to follow them out of the office.

“Miss Gardner,” Charles Rooks said. She paused in the doorway and looked back at him in question. He came around his desk. “These belong to you.” He handed her the file containing the deed to Grandma Leota’s house and a short note in her grandmother’s writing with the savings account number, location of her safety-deposit box key, and a Scripture reference: Isaiah 40:27-31. She thanked him and went out, catching up with her mother and Fred at the elevator.

They rode down in silence. Fred kept his arm around her mother. Annie didn’t know what to say. Her car and Fred’s were parked side by side in the basement lot.

“I’m sorry about the house, Mom,” Annie said. “I never intended for Grandma to give it to me.”

“Don’t apologize, Annie. You loved her. That’s far more than I ever did.” Her mother raised her head, and Annie saw the anguished look on her face. “Don’t ever apologize.” Her mother’s heart had been softened, then completely broken.

“Oh, Mom,” Annie said. Weeping, she embraced her, feeling her mother’s anguish as though it were her own.

Annie was shocked when she saw the small, wooden box that contained Leota Reinhardt’s remains. It wasn’t much bigger than a shoe box and weighed only a few pounds. The funeral home proprietor informed her that George Reinhardt had called and said he would take care of any expenses for a stone or urn or whatever Annie told the proprietor she thought her grandmother wanted. Annie had already paid for the “Direct/Budget Cremation (Noncommemorative)” before Uncle George had decided to be magnanimous.

“We should get her a nice stone.”

Grandma, how would you feel about having a gigantic stone cross on top of you? Or some marble angels with great big wings? They could be playing harps!
A bubble of laughter came from her unexpectedly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, mortified. What was wrong with her? She wanted to scream and cry and laugh at the same time. She stared at the papers.
Direct/Budget.
She felt so guilty looking at those words now. Since the doctor had been aware she had the power of attorney, all the arrangements had been left to her. She hadn’t known what to do. It had cost eight hundred and fifty dollars, almost everything Grandma had left in her checking account. That had taken care of everything: filling out official documents, sanitary care of Grandma’s remains, removing Grandma’s body from the hospital to the mortuary, refrigeration, use of facility and equipment, transportation to the crematory, and inurnment of cremated remains. All the things Annie wished she had never known about but had to under the circumstances.