A Family Trust

by Ward Just

  “Jake, the town has always been rough. It’s a tough little town, always has been—”

  “Do you see him?” He nodded at Eurich, who had moved now to Mitch’s elbow, listening. He had put down his drink and was smoking a cigar. Dana could not help thinking there was an insolence about him; the cigar’s fumes filled the room, evidence of his silent presence. “He owns half the land around here now, or options on it which amount to the same thing. And he has a piece of Joe Steppe’s construction company. Offices in half a dozen towns, you never know where he is. Funny when he needed a lawyer he didn’t come to Elliott. Elliott was the logical man but he never came near Elliott. He uses Jimmy Kerrigan, the judge’s son. Jimmy is”—Jake fluttered his fingers—“a very clever young lawyer. Look at him, he’s like a Buddha, doesn’t say much. Doesn’t say anything when he doesn’t have to, and yet he’s the man to see now. He’s the way into Harry’s bank, and there isn’t a project in this town that doesn’t bear his mark, one way or another—” He said softly, “And it surprised us when he turned up on a list of big contributors to the Democratic campaign.”

  “Oh, Jake,” she said. It annoyed her; she thought Jake Rising was beyond that. Then suddenly he gripped her arm.

  “You’re not reading me,” he said grimly “I don’t give a crap about his politics, except look at him. The pillar of the Republican establishment. I just think it’s damned odd, that’s all. But we all know what it is, it’s influence. And he’s got it. He’s going to get the spur off the Interstate and your father’s been working at that for five years, without success. Bill Eurich got it. Now isn’t it just a little bit strange and puzzling, don’t you think he’d be more comfortable with the Republicans? I do. But he isn’t. Who is Bill Eurich and what is he doing here and who are his principals? You can ask your old man. Maybe he knows.” He let go of her arm and was silent a moment. “What I meant about the other: you’ve always done exactly what you wanted to do. And in every case that collided with—peopte here. What are you trying to prove?”

  “You’re making me sound better all the time,” she said lightly. She had not completely understood what he’d said about Eurich.

  “That’s what I mean,” he said.

  “There isn’t much I can do about it now,” she said.

  Jake said, “I thought you’d like to know how it was around here.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “It isn’t all terrific.”

  “I can see that.”

  “The rest of the family, we think you have a good effect on your father. A positive effect. Sometimes he’s a little hard for the rest of us to—get through to, you understand? It’s good that you’re back, Dana.”

  She said, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Maybe you could arrange to get back more often. The point’s this. We’re all concerned about the I. It’s family, it’s Rising. And we’re all tied up with it, in a lot of ways including income, my father’s income, Mitch’s, your father’s, mine up to a point, yours—”

  “Not mine,” she said quickly.

  “You know,” he said. “You could just change your name and be done with it. Select a new identity, there would be a hell of a lot of them to choose from. Then you wouldn’t have to fight it, and us.” He pointed across the room at Eurich. “You’re just as much a stranger here as he is.”

  She said, “What I do with my life is my business.” She looked at him, his old-young face, his tired eyes, the gray suit. He was only four years older than she was but he looked much older. It would be hard for a stranger to place his age. But he seemed to see the town in a different way and that surprised her.

  He said, “You’re welcome to it. What I’m trying to say to you now is that it’s important the paper stay inside the family,”

  “Why wouldn’t it?”

  Jake looked at her a long moment. “Rumors,” he said quietly. “A rumor a day. I don’t believe any of them but in this town ... There are too many rumors, there’s talk your father might sell—”

  “Where do the rumors come from?”

  He stepped back, moving his shoulders. “All over. They come from all over. Is he tired of it?” She shook her head. “Frank’s dead, you’re in New York—”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “But I do worry about it. So do my mother and father and so do other ... elements in town. Who are worried.” He drained his glass and smiled mechanically and left her without another word. She stood by the window a moment, allowing herself to settle. She refused to show any emotion at all with Jake Rising. She lit a cigarette and wandered over to her father and Elliott Townsend. Her father put his arm around her while he listened to the lawyer. It was legal language and she did not understand it. She moved away from them and walked to the davenport where the women were sitting. The women were discussing a specialty shop that had just opened but stopped. when she sat down. Sheila Rising asked her about New York and she began to tell them, general details about her job and the location of her apartment and the expense of living in the city. They listened politely but with reserve and Dana finished quickly and excused herself and said good night. She shook hands with all of them, Bill Eurich last.

  He said, “What did you think of the program?”

  She smiled. “It won’t hurt him.”

  He smiled back. No, it wouldn’t hurt him at all.

  “What did you think?”

  “I thought it was new,” Bill Eurich said.

  “A novelty,” she said.

  “No,” he said, very seriously. “Not a novelty. An invention.”

  “Successful,” she said, moving away into the hall.

  He took a long pull on his cigar. “Very.” Then, calling after her. “You going to vote for him, Dana?”

  She turned back; there was just Eurich standing in the door. She said, “Yes.”

  He smiled. “I thought so. He’ll win, too, despite—” He shifted his eyes to indicate the others, out of sight. She did not reply, and at that moment she quite definitely disliked Bill Eurich.

  Her room was unchanged from the time she was a teenager; there were the same stuffed animals and pictures and a few recordings and books. She stood looking out the window into the yard, thinking about her family; her mother and father and her uncles and aunts and Jake, and the thing that bound them together, the I. Then she went to her closet and reached among the things on the top shelf, searching for the silver cigarette case. She rummaged for a few seconds but it was not there. Then her fingernail touched metal and she brought it out and opened it carefully; one of the hinges was broken. It held a single Lucky Strike, years old now. The tobacco dribbled out its end like sawdust from a rotten log. She stood looking at it, wishing that she had not taken her best blues records to New York. She wished that McGee was there with her. No, that was not it at all. She wished that she were with him, in her own apartment. Lying naked in bed, listening to emu-sic; away from this town and this family and their tangled fortunes. Damn, she thought. Damn Jake Rising.

  THE NEXT MORNING she said good-bye to her mother. Her father had already left for his office. Her mother was worried about the drive to Chicago and Dana told her not to worry. She said she would worry anyway. Dana said she would be back, probably next summer; in the meantime, they should come to New York. She said, Dad said that you might and we could all have dinner together. And we two could have lunch and see a show, she said to her mother, who nodded with tears in her eyes. Diana was standing on the front stoop looking through the door to the living room, everything in sharp relief as she always remembered it, vases and end tables and the beige rug. She kissed her mother on the cheek and her mother gave her a little hug. A nice visit, she said. Then Dana moved closer to her and put her arm around her shoulders. Her mother asked, please, that she stay, only one more day. Dana answered, truthfully, that she’d been allowed only four days’ holiday She had to get back to work. Now she tried to make up for that in some way. They stood together a moment, sile
nt, and her mother tried to smile but failed and at last turned away, disguising her tears. Dana held her close, but there was no more to be said. She promised to call her soon; would call tonight when she got back to the apartment; would call her next week as well. Her mother nodded, Fine. And please write. Dana said, I love to get the news, know what’s going on ... Her mother gave her a sharp look and said, So do we. We don’t understand your life in New York, is there some man? Dana locked away; she had not told her mother about McGee, McGee was too complicated; the situation was. She embraced her mother and said it was a wonderful visit. Then something caught her eye; it was the newspaper lying in the driveway. They’d delivered it yesterday afternoon, as they delivered it every afternoon, even though her father ale-ways brought a copy home from the office. She picked it up and said suddenly, “I’m going with a man called McGee.”

  “Oh,” her mother said, brightening. “McGee?”

  “McGee,” she said. “I’m editing a book he’s written, a kind of a memoir, though he’s not actually an author. He’s a lawyer.”

  “Isn’t that nice,” her mother said.

  “He lives in Boston,” Dana said.

  “Well, dear—” Her mother kissed her again. Suddenly she seemed anxious that Dana leave.

  “He was an ambassador.”

  “Oh,” she said. “An ambassador.”

  “Yes, a roving ambassador.” That would mean nothing to her mother. She said, “He quit last year.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well.” Her mother turned away, distressed. “An ambassador,” she said again. “Well, how old—”

  Dana smiled. “About thirty-five.”

  “That’s very young to have such a position.” She touched Dana’s hand, a tentative gesture. “He must be quite—something.”

  “He is,” she said proudly. “Maybe you recognize the name, his name was in the papers quite a bit two years ago.” She watched her mother shake her head slowly. No, the name was not familiar to her though of course she was not generally au courant with—embassies.

  “Well,” she said. “Dana—”

  “We’re just going together now, it isn’t any more serious than that. But I thought you’d be happy knowing.”

  Lee Rising was listening carefully and the words “going together” and “any more serious than that” had an electric effect. At once she was certain that her daughter was seriously involved with an older man from another world, and that world was in no way familiar. She said, “Boston.”

  Dana looked at her mother and suddenly wanted to tell her about McGee, everything about him; and their life together. they had been close once and could be again. It had been her mother who had forced the issue with her father and sent her east to school, and her mother who had not opposed her when she went to work in New York. This solid woman, a woman without guile or pretension, fiercely loyal; loyal to her, to her father. She had always wanted the best for Dana, always. And if that ran head-on into else, the something else would have to yield. She blurted, “Mother, he’s married but has been separated for a year, more than a year actually”

  Lee Rising said, “Oh, Dana.”

  she shook her head. “There’s nothing clandestine about it—”

  Nothing clandestine? “Dana, a married man—”

  “He was married when he was twenty, it was a mistake—”

  “It’s always a—mistake.”

  “Well, it does happen.”

  ‘And Suppose there are children,“ she said stiffly.

  Diana closed her eyes, hearing her father’s voice. Their voices, her parents’, were the same voices. No difference in tone or timbre. She nodded. Yes, there were children.

  Lee Rising turned away, her foot on the front step. “Dana, what can I say?” Dana said nothing, knowing now that she had made a ghastly mistake. How could she have done it? Not known, not remembered, that there were two worlds, her world and her parents’ world; how foolish for her to think that they could be in any way bridged. But she felt small now and unclean, not for what she had done but for what she had said, and the look in her mother’s eyes.

  “I shouldn‘t’ve said anything. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you should not’ve,” her mother said. “What are we going to do now?” Her face was still turned away.

  Dana said nothing and handed the I to her mother. She took it and looked at it sadly, turning it in her hands, and then tucked it under her arm. Dana waited a moment then smiled sadly and moved off to her car. She stopped at the sound of her mother’s voice. Then she listened.

  “When your father and I were first married, it couldn‘t’ve been more than a couple of months, a friend asked me to serve on the hospital board. I was flattered, your brother wasn’t born yet and I was a young woman with a lot of energy and a feeling I should ... contribute. Something. I almost agreed on the spot—what possible objection could there be?—but then told my friend I’d have to check with Charles first. Some small voice told me to do that, and thank God. Your father told me that of course if I really wanted to do it, if it were a matter of life and death, it would be all right. He would support me in anything I really wanted to do but his father felt very strongly that no family member should be involved in any community activity He insisted it was harmful to the newspaper. A family member on the board of the hospital or the Red Cross or the Boy Scouts or any orphanage or service club would signal the community that the newspaper endorsed it and it was therefore protected. That was the reason your father never joined Kiwanis or Rotary. It would compromise the integrity of the I. I asked your father if he believed it, and he admitted that he did. It seemed to me a silly rule and I argued with Charles. I said that there was a difference, I held no position on the newspaper. I hurt him with that remark and he didn’t reply. Then he said again that if it were really something I had to do, well...” She paused and looked away. “So of course I didn’t join the hospital board. I didn’t ‘have’ to do it and I didn’t want to do it badly enough to make an issue out of it. it didn’t seem so very important, in the light of your father’s concern. Instead I became involved with the church.” She smiled suddenly, moving her locked hands. “For some reason your grandfather did not believe church membership compromised anything; God was neutral. That is what I have done for thirty years, run the bazaar to raise money for the First Presbyterian Church of Dement. Twice a month for thirty years Horace Greismann and I have met for tea; planning the bazaar. This is a church that no one in our family cares about. Your father attends when there’s a wedding or a funeral. Neither you nor your brother showed any interest. It’s an odd little community, Dement. We’re conservative people here. Law-abiding, slow to change, tree of scandal. We don’t divorce and our personal lives, we keep to ourselves. And we are not religious in any formal sense. I’ve spent thirty years of my life raising money for a new church building. I’ve given myself, gotten Charles to give, run the bazaar. The bank account grows and grows, and the church membership declines; it has declined every year for the past five. And it will decline again this year. How do you like that?” She smiled sadly and moved across the driveway to the front step. Then she looked back at Dana, who had not moved at all. “But we care about our reputations. That was what your father was saying to me thirty years ago about the newspaper. Its reputation was more important than anything I might want to do, however innocent or innocuous it might seem. That’s all there is, Dana. Reputation. Yours, your father’s, mine, the newspaper’s. It’s all one. It’s indivisible.”

  “Mother—” Dana began.

  “Write me,” her mother said.

  Dana looked once more at her mother, then moved to the steps. Her mother leaned down to kiss her briefly, then stepped back. Dana withdrew toward her car, waved once, and slipped behind the wheel. She left her mother standing in the open doorway, holding yesterday’s newspaper and angrily blinking back tears. Dana drove out of the driveway and for no reason at all turned right, away from town. She had time to kill; she’d pr
omised to stop at the office to say good-bye to her father, but her plane did not leave until five. She began to cry then, smelling the fall air and noticing the trees and their brittle leaves, just beginning to turn. The day was warm, almost sultry. My God, she thought, all of that, bottled up for so long. Wrong, she was so wrong; what a waste. But there was something splendid about it too; a splendid sufferance and strong sorrow. Well, she thought, what did you sexpect? A pat on the back and a hearty “Well Done!”? No, she did not expect that. She expected that somehow her mother’s excitement would match her own. No, the truth was she wanted to tell. They kept asking her about her life ... It was what happened with parents when you spoke what you felt, without editing your emotions. Damn, she said aloud. She was passing a new housing development, a cluster of split-level houses surrounded by as chain-link fence. A mile beyond that, a crew was narrowing the highway. Suddenly she knew exactly where she was going. She made an illegal U-turn and retraced her route, past her parent’s house toward the center of town.

  The cemetery was set back from the road, seen through a grove of high elms. A ragged privet hedge marked its boundary and beyond was farmland. She parked her car and walked through the entrance, touching an ancient wrought-iron gate that hung drunkenly from rusty hinges. Black paint flaked at the touch of her fingers. Grave-stones and marble obelisks spread out before her, the silhouette of a miniature city. She stood very still for a moment, then began to stroll down the path, taking her time, feeling the warmth of the sun, dry leaves crunching underfoot. This was the best time in Dement, early autumn, the earth going to rest and the aroma of burning in the air, fallen leaves everywhere. The dry air touched her skin, McGee’s touch, and she stopped and breathed deeply, raising her face to the sky. Then she resumed her search, though she believed she knew the exact spot; she would know it when she saw it. The cemetery was empty, with only a few fresh flowers to indicate that there were occasional visitors. Here and there an American flag was placed next to a grave-stone. Some of the names she recognized, fewer than she believed she would. Most of them were family plots, Reilly, Haight, Evans. She smiled; Aces Evans had his own polished obelisk. If there were any wit left in the world it would be decorated with an inside straight—but there was just the name, and the dates of birth and death, and a tattered corsage, looking like something left over from a dance. She said a brief prayer for the repose of the soul of Aces Evans and moved on to the farthest corner of the Garden of Faith.