The Will

by Kristen Ashley

  In order to get past the pain, I decided to finish eating so I could serve dessert because the meatloaf (a recipe I looked up on the Internet seeing as I’d never made a meal for a family that included young children so I’d branched out) was quite good.

  But my pavlovas were divine.

  * * * * *

  It was after meatloaf and after pavlova.

  The children were at the kitchen table doing homework and I was doing the dishes with Jake.

  I found it intriguing that Jake did dishes. I also found it felt nice doing dishes with Jake. Then again, when I’d cook for Henry, he also helped me do the dishes and I liked that too.

  “Meal was superb, babe. That thing at the end, fuckin’ hell,” Jake murmured while drying a plate.

  “I’m pleased you enjoyed it,” I replied, feeling exactly as I told him, pleased (very) and I handed him another wet plate when he set the one he’d finished on the stack he was making.

  “Told Lydie, will tell you, need a dishwasher,” he declared.

  “Gran always said she had two. Her hands.”

  “Yeah, that’s what she always said,” he replied quietly, his deep voice amused but I could hear the melancholy.

  I decided not to reply because his tone made me feel the same, sans the amused part.

  “You have an okay day?” he asked.

  I had not.

  “No,” I answered.

  “No?” he asked on a prompt and I handed him another plate as I looked at him.

  “I visited Eliza Weaver this morning.”

  “Who?”

  “Eliza Weaver, Arnold Weaver’s wife.”

  “The attorney?”

  I nodded and his brows drew together.

  “Somethin’ wrong with the will?”

  I shook my head and turned my attention to the silverware at the bottom of the sink. “The Weavers are family friends. Eliza’s ill.” I paused, thinking of her in the hospital bed Mr. Weaver had set up in their dining room, and finished. “Gravely ill.”

  “Jesus, babe, sorry,” he whispered.

  “I…” I looked at him and handed him some rinsed forks. “It was unpleasant seeing her that way. She used to be quite vivacious.” I looked back down to the sink and searched for more cutlery. “And Mr. Weaver adores her. He always has. He’s quite obvious about it, which I always thought was charming. He’s suffering.”

  “Sucks, Josie,” Jake murmured.

  “Yes,” I agreed and handed him more clean silverware without looking at him. “I spoke with Mr. Weaver. He’s taken a leave of absence from work but he’s a partner and this is difficult too. I talked him into allowing me to come over in the mornings for a few hours while I’m in Magdalene. He says Mrs. Weaver is tired of most of her company being nurses and her friends have to work during the day, and while I’m here, I don’t. So I’m going to go sit with her while he spends a few hours in the office.”

  Jake said nothing.

  Jake also didn’t take the dripping silverware I was offering him so I looked up to my side to find him staring down at me, unmoving.

  “Is something the matter?” I asked.

  He gave his head a slight shake and took the silverware, saying, “Nice thing for you to do, honey.”

  I shrugged and turned my attention back to the sudsy water. “They liked Gran.”

  “They also obviously like you.”

  They did and I liked that. I just didn’t like it that they were suffering this way.

  I didn’t reply.

  “So, how long you gonna be in Magdalene?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I answered.

  And I didn’t.

  I had not called one auction house. I had not called a real estate agent. I had not started sorting through Gran’s things.

  What I’d done that day, after deciding the menu, going into town, getting the food and visiting the Weavers was tug on my least nice top and Gran’s wellies and go work in her garden to prepare it to be at rest for the winter. I didn’t know who planted it, as Gran couldn’t actually work out there anymore, and there was far less in it than when she tended it in earnest, but it had been worked that summer.

  I’d also made a note that I needed to go to the mall in order to acquire clothing that would be more suitable to tasks such as these.

  And then I’d been troubled that I made that mental note because making it made no sense.

  I wasn’t going to be gardening in my future.

  So why would I buy clothes to do such a thing?

  “How are you leaning?” Jake asked as I unplugged the sink in order to set the pans to soaking.

  “I need to be in Rome,” I told him.

  “When?”

  When indeed?

  Henry had flown there today so tomorrow would be the best-case scenario.

  However, that was impossible.

  And strangely, the idea of packing and boarding yet another plane, spending hours imprisoned on it, getting out and heading to yet another hotel, even if that hotel was in the fabulousness of all that was Rome, wasn’t all that appealing.

  “I need to be in Paris,” I went on, speaking to myself and not realizing I wasn’t making any sense.

  “What?” Jake asked.

  “Or, I’m thinking, I should join Henry in Sydney.”

  The job in Sydney wasn’t for a month.

  But I wasn’t thinking about Sydney, even though I adored Sydney.

  No, I was thinking more that I should join him when he was back in LA for a break.

  And that break was three months away.

  “Josie…what?”

  I turned fully to him and looked up into his eyes.

  “Boston Stone came here yesterday,” I announced.

  His presence did that swelling and heating thing again even as his eyes narrowed and he whispered in a peculiar (but somewhat alarming) sinister tone, “He did what?”

  “He wishes to purchase Lavender House,” I shared.

  “Yeah.” I heard Ethan call from the table. “He wishes it but Lydie told him to go jump in the Atlantic.”

  “She didn’t say that,” Amber contradicted with big sister superiority. “She told him over her dead body.”

  I felt my stomach twist as the air again went heavy and Ethan’s eyes sliced to his sister.

  “Jeez, Amber, be more stupid, why don’t you?” he snapped, but his voice held a small tremble.

  He didn’t need to tell her she was stupid. She was looking at me and her face was pale.

  “I’m sorry, Josie,” she said softly.

  Wonderful.

  Now the children were calling me Josie.

  “It’s quite all right,” I said stiffly and turned back to the pots and pans.

  I turned on the tap to fill the potato pan with hot water but Jake’s hand came out right after mine and turned it off.

  I looked up at him again.

  “What did you say to Stone?” he asked.

  “I told him I wasn’t prepared to discuss it with him, seeing as he showed up unannounced five days after I lost my grandmother.”

  “And are you gonna get prepared to discuss it with him?” he asked and I shook my head.

  “No.”

  I said it and I was surprised when I did because I hadn’t made that decision until right then.

  Even so, I meant it.

  “So you’re keeping the house?” Jake asked.

  “Heck yeah,” Ethan answered for me and I looked over my shoulder at him. “Lydie said the only person who loves Lavender House more than her is Josie and she’d never let it out of the family.”

  At his words, I put a wet hand to the edge of the sink and drew in breath, my mind blanking.

  “Babe?” I heard Jake call but I said nothing. Then I felt a hand warm on the side of my neck and saw Jake’s chest in my vision as I heard, “Josie? You okay?”

  I tipped my eyes up to him.

  “The only person who loves Lavender House more than Gran is me a
nd I’d never let it out of the family,” I whispered. “So yes, to answer your question, I’m keeping the house.”

  This was, again, a decision I made right then.

  And it was another decision I meant to keep.

  I just had no idea how.

  Or why.

  Lavender House did not fit my life. I couldn’t leave a huge house unattended while I traveled the globe.

  I also couldn’t let it go.

  Not ever.

  Not ever.

  Once I died, it would understandably go “out of the family” seeing as I had no children and at my age, never would.

  But it would remain in the family until that happened.

  “Cool!” Ethan cried and I started, focusing again on Jake who was staring down at me intently, his hand still on my neck. “Totally knew it,” Ethan went on. “This means we get to keep comin’ over but now Josie’ll cook for us.”

  “Yeah,” Amber replied with less enthusiasm, then again, it would be difficult to have more than Ethan.

  “Babe,” Jake called and since I was already looking at him, I nodded to indicate I was focused on him. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

  “No,” I for some reason shared.

  He studied me.

  Then he said, very quietly this time, “We’ll talk. Tomorrow. Without the kids.”

  Again, for reasons unknown to me, I nodded my agreement.

  His hand gave me a squeeze. “Go pour yourself more wine and relax. I’ll finish the pans.”

  “I can finish the pans.”

  “Babe.” Another squeeze, this one deeper as his face dipped close and his voice dipped low and serious. “What did I say?”

  I found this surprising. It was inappropriately overbearing and dictatorial.

  It was more surprising when I found myself nodding, slipping out from in front of him and doing what he inappropriately dictatorially told me to do.

  This meant I spent the next fifteen minutes before we all retired to the family room to watch TV sipping wine at the kitchen table. But only after I went to go get my phone so I could check Ethan’s answers to his multiplication homework (I was hopeless at math) on the calculator.

  He got one wrong out of thirty.

  Which meant he was also bright as well as amusing and quite sweet.

  And I felt this to be the utter truth even when I asked him to do the incorrect problem again and he counted it out on his fingers with his lips moving.

  And I felt this because, I decided, that was adorable too.

  * * * * *

  It was the end of the evening. We were standing outside close to Jake’s truck and I was addressing Amber.

  “I’ll inform your father when Jean-Michel gets back to me,” I told her as she’d cleaned her face with my face wash and I’d taken her photo. Though I wouldn’t text it to Jean-Michel until the next day as it was late, he was in New York and that would be rude.

  “Right,” she mumbled.

  “It was lovely meeting you,” I went on.

  “Same,” she muttered, lifted a hand in an awkward wave and moved to the truck.

  She barely started her short journey before Ethan darted forward and gave my waist another hug.

  This time, I dropped a hand to his shoulder and gave it a squeeze before he pulled away.

  “Super cool to meet you and the food was fah-ree-king awesome!” he declared.

  “I’m glad you thought so and it was lovely to meet you as well,” I replied.

  He gave me a big smile, a wide wave and hastened to the truck.

  Jake filled his place and when he did, he declared, “It was a good night.”

  It actually was and it appeared it was so for all of us.

  I nodded.

  “Tomorrow, nine o’clock. Meet me at The Shack.”

  I stared at him, aghast.

  I was aghast because The Shack was, well…a shack. It was on the wharf and although I’d heard of it and knew Gran had been there on occasion, I’d also seen it and it was, well…ghastly.

  “The Shack?” I asked and he smiled.

  “The Shack, slick,” he stated strangely for I couldn’t comprehend why he added the world “slick.” “Nine,” he finished.

  “I, uh…perhaps I can make you breakfast,” I suggested.

  “You could, but if you did then I wouldn’t get to introduce you to their seafood omelets that are so good they’ll knock you on your ass. And I want you focused on tellin’ me all the shit that’s goin’ on behind those pretty blues and not on cookin’ breakfast.”

  Pretty blues?

  Was he referring to my eyes?

  Just the thought made my stomach again pitch.

  “So nine. The Shack,” he ordered.

  I sighed before I agreed, “All right.”

  He gave me another smile, leaned in and gave me another brush of his lips on my cheek and then he moved back nary an inch before he whispered, “Thanks for a good night.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  Even in Lavender House’s dim outside lights, I could see his eyes light with amusement before he shook his head and moved away, saying, “Later, babe.”

  “Uh…erm…later,” I called.

  I watched him swing up into his truck.

  I waved back when Ethan waved at me from the backseat.

  I only moved to the house when the truck started growling along the drive.

  Once inside, the door closed and locked behind me, it wasn’t until I hit the kitchen to turn off the lights that I felt it.

  The house felt strange.

  As in, strangely empty.

  It had never felt that way. It always felt the opposite, even with only Gran and me.

  Vibrant.

  Alive.

  Now it felt quiet.

  Lonely.

  “Or maybe that’s just how you feel, buttercup.”

  The words were said by me and not only the fact that I’d utter them, but the words I uttered were so startling, and troubling, I instantly shoved them out of my head and moved to the light switch.

  But I reversed directions and instead of turning out the lights, I went to the stoppered bottle of wine and poured myself the last of it.

  Carrying it with me, only then did I turn out the lights.

  And I headed to the light room.

  Chapter Six

  Fierce

  The house mostly dark and totally quiet, a bottle of beer in one hand, Jake reached his other hand into the drawer he’d unlocked in his desk.

  He pulled out the tall stack of envelopes tied in a blue satin ribbon the color of Josie’s eyes.

  He drew in breath, set the stack on the desk and tugged on the end of the ribbon until it slid apart. Then he ran the tip of his index finger down the stack until he found it.

  His favorite one even if it was the saddest.

  The envelope was pink.

  Setting the beer aside, he turned the stack on top of the pink envelope over and nabbed it.

  Then he shifted up the stack and slid out the blue one.

  He grabbed his beer and moved to his chair at the window. The standing lamp was already on so he sat in the chair, put the beer on the table beside him and pulled out the often handled letters, carefully opening them.

  He grabbed his beer again, sat back and lifted the letters, the blue one on top, his eyes moving over the small, tidy, yet somehow delicate and definitely feminine writing.

  Dearest Gran,

  We just got off the phone and I’m concerned about you. I know that sounds strange since our phone call was about how you were concerned about me.

  Please don’t be. Please?

  I’m happy, Gran. I truly am. Honestly.

  When we were talking earlier, I wanted to say this but I didn’t know how to say it. Perhaps I couldn’t get my mouth to say the words because I didn’t want to admit it out loud or say it to you and upset you more.

  But you should know—I’m fine with being alone. I want it to b
e that way. Honestly, I do.

  You know I’m not alone most of the time regardless. But I do think you know what I mean.

  My first memory is him and her in the kitchen, she was on the floor, you know how it was. I told you. And there were more memories after that that were even less pleasant. You know of those too.

  And yes, the truth is, this affected me. Yes, it made me shy away from connections. And I know you don’t think this is healthy, but truly, it’s fine.

  There are people who need people, sometimes a great many people. And I understand that what happened made me not that kind of person. But it means the connections I make are actually meaningful, not a collection of souls in order not to feel lonely. I don’t need that for I never feel lonely.

  If I were to have a man, he would need to be very gentle and understanding, patient and kind, thoughtful, softhearted, and yes, maybe dashing and refined, definitely intelligent and successful.

  All of these things and the last mostly because I would wish him to have his own diversions for I wouldn’t wish him to need to spend too much time with me. This is because I like being alone. I like my own company.

  This isn’t to say I didn’t sometimes long for a gentle touch, a man’s eyes falling on me appreciatively, building a shared history where we might one day simply gaze at each other, understand and smile.

  But I long ago gave up these yearnings. I meet many men and this man, this man that I would need to share my life with, he doesn’t exist, Gran. I’ve come to understand that and it’s settled in me. I’ve built a life I enjoy, one that keeps me busy, and I’m happy with that.

  Truly.

  I find it remarkable, after all that you endured, that you’d still believe in love. In romance. In all that heady possibility. And I adore it that you want that for me.

  What I wish you to understand in your heart is that, although it feels lovely you wish for me to have all kinds of beauty, I’m perfectly happy without it.

  I have your love and that’s all I need.

  And you have my love too.

  Forever and completely.

  Yours,

  Josie

  Jake took a sip from his beer, set it aside and brought the pink paper to the front.

  He tagged his beer and tipped his eyes down to the untidy, scrolled girlish letters.

  Granny!

  Oh my goodness! You would not believe!

  Alicia heard it from Tiffany so she told me and I didn’t believe her and then he came up to me at lunch!