NATASHA A. SALNIKOVA
The Garden of Dead Thoughts
Copyright © Natalia Salnikova 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Table of content
Prologue, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, More books from the author, Dark curtain
Margo learns how to lie and manipulate from a very early age.
She grows up with a single mother who enjoys her drink every night after her shift at the restaurant and brings a different man home almost every day. Margo wants to be nothing like her mother. She wants to be rich and have a nice man in her life.
That is why, at the age of fourteen, she moves in with her grandmother, who loves her dearly and wants nothing more than for Margo to be a successful woman. She has her set of rules that Margo doesn't agree with, but she tries her best to be a good granddaughter.
One day, Margo gets ready to go on a date, but her grandma makes her stay home because Margo, being very popular among the boys, has been missing school. That’s when Margo rebels in her own way, which ends with her grandmother’s death. Margo is afraid she will go to jail, but grandma’s death appears to be accidental. Margo inherits a portion of her grandmother’s money, and moves to another state to begin a new life. She uses her beauty and her cunning personality to get what she wants.
Now, at twenty-six, with a line of men trailing behind, she is ready to settle down. She knows she can make her dream a reality. She marries a rich man, but things don’t go the way she intended.
There’s a problem. Or two. In fact, much more than Margo ever anticipated.
It’s My Party And I’ll Cry if I Want to
Lesley Gore (song 1963)
PROLOGUE
Margo waited for the last griever to leave, laid flowers on the grave, and smiled, wiping sweat off her forehead with a handkerchief. She hated to sweat, but her body didn’t care much about her desires when it was wrapped in a black dress and subjected to Florida sun. Margo couldn’t wait until the service was over to get into her car and turn on the air conditioner.
“Bon Voyage, my love,” she said, shaking flower pollen off her hands. Her last gift to him was a bouquet of lilies, the flowers he adored and gave her every week. She hated them, their smell, their color, but each time she smiled and thanked him for his generosity. She was such a good wife.
“Do you think you can get away with it?” somebody hissed next to her.
Margo rolled her eyes, ceased smiling, and turned to Dylan, the seventeen-year-old son of her husband Charles, from his first marriage. She shook her head and dabbed a non-existent tear from the corner of her eye with a handkerchief.
“Stop pretending!” the hot young man barked. He was handsome, unlike his father, taking after his mother, whom Margo hated. She saw him once at the wedding then again on her husband’s birthday, and after his father died. When the boy found out about what had happened to his father, he called Margo and accused her of all mortal sins. He called her several times after that and didn’t miss the chance to speak to her now. “I watched you during the ceremony. It’s written all over your face. You don’t care that my father died.”
“Poor boy.” Margo sighed and Dylan grimaced as if she had slapped him. “I understand. I understand. You need to find someone responsible for your father’s unfortunate fate. I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault. You have to get over it.”
“You only needed money from him!”
Margo shook her head again. What else could she do? She was seeing the boy probably for the last time in her life and it didn’t make sense to continue the argument.
“You’re a predator. I saw the way you looked at him on his birthday. You hated him!”
“I can’t talk about it anymore, Dylan. I loved your father and I terribly regret what happened to him. No less than you. I will miss him.”
“Dylan!”
Margo turned away from the boy and looked at his mother, who stood by her car with its door open. The old woman looked great. Of course, thirty-seven wasn’t that old, according to modern standards she was actually quite young to have such a big kid, but Margo was ten years younger and Charles’s first wife was old to her. Throughout the service the woman glared at her rival, it seemed like she wanted to kill her with her eyes, but Margo didn’t care. She also didn’t care about Dylan and wanted to finish this time consuming exchange of words as soon as possible. He didn’t bother her at all, but she was bored.
The boy looked at his mother then again at Margo.
“You won’t get away with it,” he murmured and turned away. Before he got into the car, he and his mother looked at Margo one more time. She smiled with sadness and then waved after the leaving car.
“Adios,” she said, turning around without giving a last glance at the grave. She wanted to get away from here faster, she wanted to get under the air conditioner and start her new life. She had a bottle of champagne at home. Charles bought it intending to celebrate their one year wedding anniversary, but now she would celebrate his demise.
“Idiots,” Margo said as she slammed the door of her car. She started the engine and a stream of cold air hit her face. Then she looked into the mirror and wiped the smeared mascara from under her eyes. She cried only if she wanted to and she knew she was going to cry, so she should have used a waterproof one, even though she looked more credible this way. Margo smoothed her chestnut hair, tinted her lips, and headed home.
It was her home despite the fact that Charles’s first wife threatened to take it away from her. Margo managed to convince Charles to rewrite his will into her name. She didn’t know how much money she had now, but Charles wasn’t a spender, his company was making a decent profit, and he had stocks and a big house in Carolina that Margo was going to sell. Plus, of course, their house in Florida, their little yacht, as well as her Mercedes and Porsche. Unfortunately, Charles instructed his lawyer to open the will only after his funeral, and even the investigators couldn’t do anything, although they wanted to open it before. Margo wasn’t afraid of the police. It was an accident that couldn’t be turned into anything else. Dylan and his mother could blame her as much as they wanted and say anything, but only evidence could say the last word and there was none. She wasn’t stupid and did her homework well. She had gotten away with it and received millions of dollars as a compensation for her hard work. She finally achieved what she sought. Just like it was with her grandmother, she won and nothing could stop her.
According to her mother, Margaret showed her character even before her birth. She jostled and kicked so much that her mother asked her doctor for some pills to tame the unborn baby, but the doctor replied that it was normal. He gave her the same answer when Margo turned over in the uterus and the doctor had to perform a cesarean section to take out the vicious child. The same thing was said when Margo screamed and fell on the floor each time something didn’t go her way starting from the age of two.
Margo’s mother didn’t think any of this was normal and she sent her daughter to her maternal grandmother at every opportunity. They lived in the same city and it wasn’t a challenge to do that. Margo’s grandmother was more accepting and she adored her only granddaughter. She accused her daughter of not being patient with such a perfect child as Margo. The girl obeyed her grandmother, ate everything that was put on her plate, and didn’t demand new toys when they went shopping. When Grandmother said ‘no’ it meant no and there was no further d
iscussion. However, when Grandmother decided to spoil her granddaughter and bought her a Barbie or some other expensive and unrealistically beautiful dolls, she always found them broken shortly after the purchases. The dolls had their hair cut off, or the heads were torn off, or even all the limbs. The granddaughter told her grandmother that she didn’t do it and didn’t know who would do such a thing. Sometimes she blamed the boy next door who was two years younger, but her grandmother doubted that because the boy had never been in their house. However, she loved her granddaughter and only shook her head instead of catching her at her lies or punishing her.
Margo’s mother worked as a waitress as long as Margo could remember. Mother couldn’t answer who her father was with confidence, but Margo didn’t particularly care. Margaret didn’t have time to remember the names of her mother’s boyfriends because there was a new one almost every week. One of them tried to molest Margo and she complained to her mother, but instead of protecting her daughter, Mother slapped her face and told her to stop lying. Margo was fifteen at that time. She had already lost her virginity, tried cigarettes, but hadn’t tried weed yet. Mother didn’t know about her daughter’s experiments and wasn’t interested in her life at all. Margo watched her on the nights when she didn’t work or have a boyfriend in the house, but sat in front of the TV with a bottle of beer in her hand. She looked at her and thought that she would never be like her. She would be beautiful and rich, she would have men of high class who made money and would never associate herself with white trash as her mother did.
She thought that, but understood that she wouldn’t be able to get out of this apartment, this area, this circle, and this life if she stayed with her mother. Margo didn’t hate her, but she also didn’t love her. Her mother annoyed her and Margo decided at one point that it was time to begin building her life in her own way and for that she begged her grandmother to let her live with her.
“Your mother will never agree!” the old woman exclaimed. It was her second year living alone. Her husband, Margo’s grandfather, died of a heart attack.
“Oh, I don’t give a shit. Go whenever you want!” Margo’s mother yelled when Margo announced her decision. “Get out! You’re such an ungrateful pig. I gave you everything: life, a roof over your head, and you act like this. You should have left a long time ago, so I wouldn’t have had to waste money on you!”
And Margo left.
Grandmother gave her the guest room, which Margo already considered her own, because she stayed there every time she came to this house. Only now she threw away her grandmother’s lamp (“Tiffany!” her grandmother said) and got rid of the stupid striped carpet on the floor (“I made it myself!” her grandmother said with pride). Margo bought all new decorations for the room, in dark colors, with money received from her grandmother for her birthday. She didn’t have to spend money on household things, but she wanted to be surrounded by beautiful items that she could enjoy. She loved beautiful things.
Margo’s grandma wasn’t rich in her granddaughter’s understanding of wealth, but she lived a quite prosperous life despite the fact that she didn’t work a single day in her life. Her husband worked for a pharmaceutical company selling medication and earned enough money to provide his wife with a comfortable lifestyle before and after his death. Margo watched her grandmother’s life: tons of free time, shopping, girlfriends, and realized this was the only option that suited her. She thought that people who should work were men and fools, smart women should enjoy their lives and Margo certainly wasn’t one of the first. She also wondered why her mother turned into this low-life whore, but she wasn’t really interested in it.
Margo examined herself in the mirror and confirmed that she was too beautiful to work. Someone would worship her and provide for her. She didn’t look like her ugly mother, so whoever her father was, he wasn’t horrible at all. She had thick brownish-red hair, huge brown eyes, and a slim figure with curves in the right places. Thanks to him for that.
Three months had passed since the day Margo moved in with her grandmother. She had only spoken with her mother once since then and only when her grandmother insisted. Her daughter had a birthday and she couldn’t allow her granddaughter to forget about her mother’s celebration, although her mother didn’t even ask how her daughter was doing. Margo didn’t need her concern. She didn’t need her mother or even her grandmother.
At first, everything was fine, but eventually the old woman had changed. She was no longer as forgiving as she used to be. She became stricter than Margo’s mother and demanded that her granddaughter go to bed at a certain time, do her homework, and help around the house, explaining that it was the only way to grow up as a decent human being. She mentioned a couple of times that if she hadn’t given so much freedom to Margo’s mother, maybe she would work at an office now and have a normal family. Margo doubted that. Her mother was stupid and lazy and she would never be different from what she was now.
Grandmother also stopped giving Margo any money. Margo had to beg for everything: jeans, sweets, new underwear. She didn’t need money for movies or cafeteria because she didn’t have any friends in her new school and didn’t try to gain any, but she still asked for money and spent them on clothes. Margo was crazy about fashion and boys. Boys, in their turn, didn’t deprive her of attention.
After almost a year of grandmother’s tyranny, Margo realized that she couldn’t bear it any longer and the decision came quickly, instantly, in a flash. And so did the execution. Circumstances developed in her favor, changing her fate forever, and not only her fate, but also the fate of people she met in the future.
It was a Friday night. Margo wanted to meet her boyfriend, who worked at the ice cream shop after school and who promised her a gift on the upcoming Valentine’s Day. He earned his money instead of begging his parents, like the others. He wasn’t up to Margo’s standards, but he was all right for now. She had to start somewhere. Margo had already done her makeup and was about to leave when Grandma said someone called and told her Margo was skipping school and also she was smoking in the restroom. Margo denied everything, but her grandmother was uncompromising and threatened Margo. She promised not to give her granddaughter any pocket money if she disobeyed and did the things she was forbidden to do anyway.
While they were arguing, Grandma was preparing dinner and asked her granddaughter to get flour from the top shelf of the pantry. Margo wasn’t going to help after the old woman interfered in her life. Grandmother asked again, but then pulled a chair to the pantry, climbed up on it, and started to fumble around on the top shelf. Margo didn’t think about what she was doing when she reached the chair in two steps and kicked it with all her might. Grandma only grunted briefly before falling against the shelves with all her weight. She broke two of them, fell to the floor of the pantry, on the jars and boxes of provisions that stood below, and came to rest in an unmoving heap. Margo didn’t think the old woman had died. She didn’t really mean to kill her, she just wanted to teach her a lesson, punish her for being annoying, but when she realized that was exactly what had happened, she got scared, burst into tears, because she could go to jail, and when she called the ambulance, she said that her beloved grandmother fell from a chair and wasn’t breathing.
She didn’t breathe, all right. The police detectives arrived and found her granddaughter covered in tears and snot, crying like crazy, telling the police that she had no one left in her life, she was all alone. She asked the policemen and the emergency doctors how she should live without her beloved grandmother. The police asked her just a few questions and never bothered her again.
Margo thought she would get several years in prison, but what she received was a fourth of her grandmother’s fortune. The rest was shared between her son (Margo had seen him a couple of times before), her daughter, Margo’s mother, and a charity organization helping young mothers. Margo, of course, was mad at her grandma for donating a big chunk of money to some strangers, but what could she do? When her grandmother’s son, Marg
o’s uncle, arrived and started a fight with her mother over the house, she collected everything that belonged to her and left Cleveland, which she hated, as well as her ice cream selling boyfriend, and went to Chicago to seek her happiness.
PART 1
MARGARET TRACY DOUGLAS
CHAPTER 1
Two days after her husband’s funeral, Margo put on her black dress again, applied a modest amount of makeup, and arrived at the lawyer’s office, where she was going to meet her husband’s first family to hear the reading of his will. When she entered the office, Charles’s first wife was already there along with his two sons: elder Dylan and younger Aidan. There was also his sister and her ten-year-old daughter. All of them were wearing black, except for the girl.
A few chairs stood around the lawyer’s table and Margo sat down in the center, considering her position well deserved. She was the last love of the deceased, the most important love of his life. Margo watched as the lawyer straightened out the papers on the table, his face full of sympathy, and thought about visiting the most expensive restaurant in the area and ordering a bottle of Dom Perignon. Two days ago she celebrated freedom, today—wealth.
“I, Charles Logan,” the lawyer began to read. Margo wanted to smile. She wanted to look at Charles’s family, at their faces when they heard that everything went to her. She resisted the temptation. After all, she couldn’t even know what was in the will. No one was supposed to know.
“All my monetary assets are transferred to the trust fund,” continued the lawyer. “The trustee of the trust is Darla Logan. Beneficiaries are Dylan and Aidan Logan.”
Margo froze. She was sure she misheard. What this nasty lawyer just read couldn’t be in the will. She wanted to jump up, snatch the documents from his hands, and read everything for herself, but couldn’t move. There was a strange noise in her ears and she listened to the remainder of the testament through a low rumble. When the lawyer stopped and looked at Margo, she didn’t do anything, she couldn’t even blink. She heard the chairs move, she saw the lawyer shake the hands that were stretched out to him, she heard voices, but she couldn’t make out the words.
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