On The Dotted Line

by Kim Carmichael

  “I will do that, I promise.” Vincent lowered his voice. “I think everyone should want their family to be happy.”

  “I’m perfectly fine, and to ensure I stay that way have no doubt that I will be meeting with my attorney and the man who manages my money first thing Monday morning.” Millicent stood from the table and faced them. “Willow, I look forward to dining with you again. Randolph, be ready on Monday. I just don’t have any appetite tonight and I refuse to talk business until the matter is settled.” Without another word, she grabbed her purse, spun on her heel and stomped out.

  Willow shut her eyes. She craved their mattress and wanted to sink into the sheets.

  “Although I think she saw this coming, I think she chose to remain blind.” Nan took a deep breath.

  “As usual, my love, you’re right.” Vincent put his arm around Nan and kissed her lips.

  Willow lurched and dug her nails into Randolph’s leg.

  “Willow!” Randolph grabbed her shoulders and tried to turn her.

  She held up her hand.

  “What’s wrong?” He tightened his hold.

  “I don’t feel well.” She forced the words out.

  “I think this evening may have been a bit too dramatic, we have to remember Willow is a newlywed herself,” Vincent said.

  “I think Vincent is right, we need to go home.” Randolph pulled her over to him.

  “I am going to pick up the tab on this meal, and I think Nan and I will stay for a bit and finish off the wine.”

  The mention of wine made her stomach churn, as did Randolph helping her up.

  “Thank you for dinner.” Randolph put his arm around her.

  “I won’t be home tonight, Chiquita.” Nan gave her a kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Feel better.” Vincent patted her.

  Before she responded, Randolph took charge and led her out of the restaurant.

  She exhaled at the sight of Dimitri and the car at the front of the restaurant.

  Dimitri opened the car door. “Is Mrs. Van Ayers all right?”

  “I think the meal didn’t settle well with her.” Randolph kept her in his arms as he got them both in the back seat. “Would you mind rolling down the windows for her?”

  The windows slid down part way and the car took off. As the cool air wafted her over her and the heat dissipated, the nausea ebbed and she sat up.

  “How are you doing?” Randolph combed his fingers through her hair.

  “Nan is getting married to Mr. Hartford.” The news still seemed unreal.

  “It’s a bizarre turn of events. I thought they were just sleeping together.” He wrinkled his nose.

  “Please, I’m starting to feel better.” She shuddered. “Is that how you feel when you think about your parents having sex? Your mother told me—”

  “Stop!” He put his hand over her mouth. “Yes that’s how I feel.”

  “Oh well.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “At least he seems like he wants to take care of her.” There was no point fighting change.

  “He’s a very wealthy man, so she’ll never want for anything.”

  She shrugged. Wealth didn’t mean everything. All she wanted was for Nan to be happy. After all she did for her, Nan deserved to have some fun and a life free of worry.

  “Speaking of which, in my effort to take care of my own spouse, I will deposit your allowance tomorrow.”

  Money again? She pushed away from him and stared out the window.

  Randolph put his hand on her shoulder. “Willow?”

  “Is it still about the money?” The lights flickered by the window of the car in little starbursts.

  “What do you mean?”

  She turned back to him. “I don’t care about the money, I have you.”

  “How did I get you?” He shook his head.

  “Well, you tried to buy me.” She couldn’t help but laugh.

  “But you, Mrs. Van Ayers, are priceless.” He leaned down and gave her a light kiss.

  Dimitri drove through the gateway to the house, stopped the car and opened the door for her. An unfamiliar blue car was parked ahead of them. “Someone’s here.” She didn’t remember Lillian having guests. Normally, if she entertained the house was abuzz with activity.

  Randolph joined her, but didn’t speak. Instead, he simply stared at the car and his complexion paled.

  “Are you getting sick?” She hoped they hadn’t caught some bug.

  “I’m not sure.” He took a firm hold of her hand and led her into the house.

  The moment she entered an awful feeling of dread consumed her. Two staff members stood in the main foyer with wide eyes, and everything stood deathly quiet.

  “Where are they?” Randolph’s voice came out hard, demanding and angry.

  Rosa pointed toward the library.

  “Go upstairs to our suite, Willow.” He let go of her hand.

  “Randolph what is it?” Her heart pounded loud enough that she was sure she would never hear his answer.

  Before he got the chance to answer, the door to the library opened.

  “I told you I heard someone enter the house.” A young brunette woman in a tan skirt suit similar to what Lillian would wear rushed out of the room. She stopped and tilted her head. “Randy, I came to see you.”

  “Stephanie.” Randolph crossed his arms.

  Randy? Stephanie? The stomachache returned full force. What was Randolph’s ex doing here?

  Mr. Van Ayers stormed out of the room, followed by Lillian holding Jeb to her chest.

  “I waited for you.” Stephanie stepped toward him.

  Willow bit the inside of her mouth. She never put a face with the girl Randolph was supposed to marry, but the woman fit the bill as to what she expected him to be with. Beautiful, made up, perfectly coiffed. She bet if Stephanie planned the dinner tonight nothing would have gone wrong.

  “Last time I checked, it was you who kept me waiting.”

  “It looks like everything worked out though.” At last the woman dared to glance in her direction. “I heard you got married. Did you make it on time?”

  “What does that mean?” Lillian leaned over to her husband.

  A lump of anxiety formed in Willow’s throat.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I didn’t want to leave you, I was forced to.” Stephanie came closer still.

  Lillian shook her head.

  “I hardly think that anyone could force you to do anything.” The anger in Randolph’s words came through with every syllable.

  “Someone can when he is the one person more powerful than you.” She turned toward Mr. Van Ayers.

  “What do you mean?” Randolph lowered his arms.

  “Stephanie, I told you we would talk privately.” Mr. Van Ayers stepped forward.

  A spectator in her own life, Willow wrapped her arms around her shoulders.

  “I told you, I was forced to leave in the only way the Van Ayers know how to make everyone do what they want.” The woman lifted her chin.

  Wanting to run, but needing to stay, Willow put her hand over her mouth.

  Randolph’s face turned absolutely red. “So Father, how much did you pay her to leave?”

  Lillian gasped. “What do you mean?”

  “I did you a favor.” His father shot back.

  “It was the last step, the very last thing on the very last day! What you call a favor I call a conspiracy for me to fail!”

  “Is this about Randolph’s goals?” Lillian rushed over, her heels clicking on the marble floor. “He finished that.”

  Rather than addressing Lillian, Stephanie walked over to her. “Right. As long as he got married on or by his thirty-third birthday.”

  Willow straightened and stared her down.

  “That’s insane, his marriage had nothing to do with it.” Lillian scurried over. “His goals were met when he took the job at the bank. It’s a Van Ayers tradition.”

  “Lillian, why don’
t you and Willow take Jeb upstairs?” Mr. Van Ayers pointed in the direction of the stairs.

  “No, Van, we won’t go.” Lillian stepped away from her husband.

  “Don’t try to keep your wife from the truth, Randy.” Stephanie looked between them.

  “I know the truth.” Willow’s instinct told her to try to stop the scene before her.

  “You knew he had to get married? That his father added that to his strange little contract?” The woman put her hands on her hips. “Did you also know Randy here resisted? I was the fall back plan until I was paid to go away. Did you also know that every Van Ayers for the last four generations did the same thing, and no man wanted to get married?”

  “What?” Lillian screamed. “What’s she saying? Is this true?”

  “Lillian, I said go upstairs,” Mr. Van Ayers barked.

  “Did you know that Randolph had the contract revised so the marriage only had to last a year?” Not able to stand Stephanie’s vile words any further, Willow spoke up. “I can only assume he added that because of someone like you.”

  In the background Lillian cried, truly cried, real tears that smudged her makeup and she didn’t even try to fix the mess.

  “So what did he promise you to get you so fast?” Stephanie jutted her jaw out.

  She rushed to Lillian, took her hand and glanced at Randolph.

  “I paid her, and I made her sign a contract.” Randolph swiped his hand over the room. “Look around, everything here is a product of some sort of document, made legal by signatures.”

  Nothing good came of secrets, nothing. Her knees threatened to give out but she managed to remain standing.

  “You obviously came here for more money, but you have nothing to offer in the deal. Everything is already on the table.” Randolph walked up to her. “You were right about one thing, though, everything in the house of Van Ayers is fake, everything.” Without a glance at anyone else, he walked out of the room.

  Except for the sound of Lillian sniffing, silence draped the room once more. For several moments she waited for Randolph to call to her or come back for her, waited for him to return and tell everyone that even with the contracts and the craziness he found his wife and his love. It simply happened backward for them. She waited.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Randolph glanced around the library. Here with the dark paneled walls and shelves and shelves of finance books, he was given his task list once he was old enough to understand. It was right here where he found out his SAT results, and he sat in the chair behind the huge desk when he waited to find out if he got into Stanford.

  He walked over to one of the walls and ran his finger along the spines of the books. Lest he forget, he sat on the opposite side of the desk when his father dropped the bomb on him about his final task, the marriage requirement.

  “I don’t think you ever loved me.” His mother continued to cry.

  “Lillian, how can you say that?” His father’s tone was that of a man lying to get a loan.

  “I can say it because it’s true.”

  Randolph turned at his mother’s voice, what was the inflection he heard? Was it strength? Suddenly the crying stopped, and the fun, flighty woman he always knew sat up in the chair to stare her opponent down.

  “You know I love you, we built a life together.” His father leaned back in the chair as if he were chastising his mother about some purchase or trip she wanted.

  “Your life was pre-planned, and I simply fit into that one slot you could check off.” She shook her head. “What was your end goal?”

  “What do you mean?” His father jutted out his jaw, clearly annoyed he couldn’t make this go away with money or a contract.

  His mother looked up to the ceiling and dabbed her finger in the corner of her eye. She cleared her throat and addressed his father. “When you took me on the beach and asked me to marry you, were you envisioning our life together, our son, being with me? Or were you only concerned that you didn’t lose this?” She swiped her arm around the room.

  Randolph ran his hand through his hair, thankful Willow wasn’t the wife doing the asking. Then again she knew the answer. He married her for the money and never even tried to hide it. Willow didn’t get a beach or any semblance of a romance. She got an alleyway.

  “Lillian.” His father toyed with a paperweight in the shape of a diamond. “You don’t understand.”

  “You didn’t love me when you asked me to marry you, did you?”

  Randolph crossed his arms. For the first time he watched his mother fight for something, and she chose a big thing, her dignity. He stole Willow’s the second he made her sign a contract.

  His father remained silent.

  “Why would you do this to our son?” She shook her head.

  “I tried to save him.” His father stared down at the desk.

  “Save me?” Randolph spoke his first words since his parents joined him in the library.

  “I knew Stephanie wasn’t right for you, but I knew you would do what you had to in order to succeed.” His father wouldn’t look him in the eye.

  “You sabotaged me.” He came forward and put his hands on the desk, closing in on the enemy.

  His father shut his eyes. “I didn’t want you to get married. You insisted on that year cap and I knew it wouldn’t work as it should.”

  “You set me up to fail.”

  “The failure would have made you stronger.”

  The man in front of him spent years pounding into him how he couldn’t fail. Failure was for losers. While his friends in high school played video games, he studied. While others partied in college, he made sure his résumé was as perfect as he could get it for schools and awards. While his colleagues started their lives with choices, he had to bribe a woman to be with him. Instead of displaying his art, he hid it.

  He pounded his fist on the desk. “How strong did you want me to be?”

  His father lifted his head and stared at him. “I never knew how strong you were until you came home with Willow. I knew then without a shadow of a doubt what you were made of. Even though no contracts or payments were specifically outlined, in light of the monkey wrench I threw in your plans, you were as magnificent as I always knew you were. I’ve never been prouder. You earned everything and more.”

  “Now you’re proud!” He ground his teeth together and took a breath. “You allowed me to get an innocent, incredible woman involved in this insanity.”

  “Oh my God.” His mother whispered. “Willow.”

  “You said yourself she knew about the deal.” His father sat back and tented his fingers.

  The pressure stacked up on his chest, the weight of every contract he ever signed or penned weighed down on him. He did to her what had been done to him all his life. What he hated, he created.

  Randolph stood up straight and took in the scene before him, his mother, his father. After over thirty years of marriage, his mother sat on the opposite side of a desk questioning his father’s love. Thirty years from now would Willow be asking the same thing? “It shouldn’t be like this.”

  “What?” His mother reached out to him.

  “What is your trouble?” His father rocked his chair back. “She loves you now. It’s written all over her face. “You love her. I heard you say the words only the other night.” “The Van Ayers men are too busy for such things as dating, so that’s why your great, great grandfather started this little tradition for fear his son wouldn’t carry on the Van Ayers name.”

  “What is your definition of love?” He stared his father down. Something major was wrong.

  “The same as everyone else’s.”

  His mother made a small noise at his father’s answer.

  “You don’t know. I don’t know. I look around and all I see are two men who craved power and a lifestyle above anything or anyone.” Randolph hung his head and laughed. “Damn it, even after it’s all said and done, I was still relieved when you said I earned everything. It shouldn’t matter if I
have the woman I love, right?” Willow could be happy with where the wind took her, while he would forever be tethered here, fighting for the one thing that made him miserable, but he couldn’t give up.

  “Van, you wouldn’t give it up for me.” His mother announced.

  “Lillian.” His father’s voice came out strained.

  Willow would give it up. At least he thought she would. Even at dinner she mentioned the money wasn’t important. What would she fight for? She seemed to bend and flex with what happened around her.

  “You think I’m stupid, you always thought that. Don’t think I don’t know.” As she stood she pointed at him. “Obviously, I am stupid, I never caught on after all these years.”

  “You are not stupid.” His father decreed as if his words could change his mother’s opinion.

  “I am. I’m stupid and weak. I let you do this to our son.” She crumpled the tissue in her fist. “I let you play your little game with the goals, let you ruin his life and my life. I let this happen.”

  “Look at him now.” His father pointed at him.

  “You look at him.”

  In a move he never thought he would see, his mother threw the tissue on the floor.

  “Look at him. He’s miserable.”

  “He has it all.” His father held his arms out.

  “That’s how stupid you think I am. You think you can say the words and I’ll believe, and I always did.” Her tears started anew. “Just like you made me love you.”

  Neither he nor his father said a word.

  “You made me love you.” His mother repeated. “Not because you loved me, but because I was a means to an end.”

  Randolph’s stomach bottomed out. His mother’s words said it all. Willow went with the flow, and he made her love him.

  “Lillian, you know I love you.” His father held his hand out to her.

  “I don’t know anything.” She backed up toward the door. “Everything I thought I knew disappeared tonight and I won’t be as stupid to think that I can go to sleep and it will be fixed in the morning. It would have been better if you wrote everything down like our son.”