The Far Shore

by Paul T. Scheuring

  Especially a teenager who, at the end of the day, was not one of her own.

  Tish today: a millionaire untold times over.

  Hidden behind old growth trees on a ten-acre estate in Falls Church, Virginia.

  A widow with a four-thousand-square-foot house and a staff of three.

  The history as Lily understands it is that Tish was briefly married to Gray Allen before the War, both of them teenagers at the time, blind and All In For Love.

  But, from the brief thumbnail Lily had been given over the years, Gray quickly proved himself to be an ass, and Tish in turn soon figured this out.

  The divorce was final in no time.

  There was no harm, no foul, just one of those aforementioned ancillary fallouts of breakups: an unborn child in Tish’s womb.

  Lily’s father.

  A baby that Gray willingly turned his back on.

  Tish in time righted herself, found a good and caring man (who also happened to be the scion to a steel empire), a man who would raise Lily’s father despite the fact that the boy was not by blood his son.

  So it was that Tish left the bruising memory of Gray Allen forever in the dust.

  A youthful mistake.

  Lily’s father, from the outset, was a black sheep in the hall of the blue blood house.

  The scion just never took to him.

  Tolerated him, but never took to him.

  So, at the first opportunity, Lily’s father struck out on his own, tried to get as far away as he could from the halls of power and money that were Falls Church and nearby DC and Arlington.

  He made it all the way to South Carolina before settling down.

  Working with his hands.

  Doing his own work.

  Not outsourcing it to staff.

  (Good for you, Pop.

  You took a stand.

  Too bad it killed you.)

  Fast-forward a few decades and the scion drops dead after a long and illustrious and interest-compounding life.

  Tish is left with more money than she knows what to do with.

  Which is not quite correct: the money was in trust, designated for Tish first, then the four children she had with the scion, upon her demise.

  The scion liked his finances crystal-clear, uncluttered—25 percent for each offspring—and candidly didn’t want castoffs from Tish’s side of the family, which he considered southern landfill, coming out of the woodwork once he was dead.

  He’d earned his money, and his blood would be the only ones to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

  Tish inexorably over the years adopted this point of view, subconsciously or otherwise; always looking out for Lily, but looking down at her at the same time.

  Like she was a project.

  An inner-city kid one might mentor, but at the same time not invite into their home for dinner.

  Stiff upper lip, don’t let the bastards see you cry.

  Wisdom of the ages, that; worth more than all the money in the world.

  That was the extent of Tish’s largesse.

  Hi, Marlena, it’s Lily; is Tish around?

  The Puerto Rican voice on the other end of the line pauses, for a moment confused: Lily?

  Lily Allen.

  Oh.

  Is Tish around?

  No no, she’s at the food bank.

  Can you tell her I called?

  Oh, yes.

  But the missus doesn’t return calls so much anymore, you know.

  She’s going—how do you say—deaf.

  Any chance she’s gotten a cell phone yet?

  Oh, no.

  Said in an only-when-hell-freezes-over fashion.

  Well, tell her I called, will you?

  Yes, thank you.

  Click.

  She waits for Tish’s call.

  It doesn’t come.

  All the while she’s dutifully at work, taking fire from the Customers, simultaneously locked inside the bars of spreadsheet after spreadsheet on her computer screen.

  Wes finally talks to her on Wednesday.

  Calls out to her cubicle from his office.

  Can you fresh us up?

  Which means, get rid of the spent dregs of the last pot of coffee, and put on a new one.

  She does, even though his office is closer, and he’s playing driving games on his cell phone.

  She gets a call, though not from Tish.

  Bruce.

  You thought any more about my presentation?

  I’m already into it, actually.

  Even in the brief silence immediately after, she can sense Bruce brighten: And?

  I’m having trouble connecting with my grandmother.

  She’s up by DC.

  And deaf as a parking meter.

  Have you considered going up there?

  I don’t know.

  What don’t you know—come on, this can be an adventure if you want it to.

  No, I know that.

  Is it the money?

  You worried what it’ll cost?

  No, it’s not that.

  (It’s exactly that.)

  I’m just taking my time, doing this right, she says.

  Look, Lily, I don’t know you from Adam—or Eve, whatever—it’s just bullshit’s bullshit, you know?

  Which part of what I’m saying’s bullshit?

  Think about it, Lily.

  Basically what you’re telling me is you’re waiting on a phone call from a deaf woman.

  In the next few minutes, the sum of what he tells her is: go up there.

  She relents slightly—because she does want to go up there.

  She’s not exactly psyched to go see that fire-breather Tish.

  But the rest of it, the absurd, impossible promise of it…

  She admits that, yes, a trip to the DC area isn’t just a finger-snapper for her.

  I’ll stake you, he says cheerfully.

  She says nothing.

  (He’s coming out of pocket?

  This might be the single worst scam ever.)

  It’s a business expense for us; we do it all the time.

  We write it off, and more often than not, face-to-face time in the family yields stuff.

  Now come on; do I need to buy the ticket for you?

  No no, I’ll do it; you pay me back.

  That’s a girl.

  She sees Wes coming; strangely for a moment she feels guilty, like she’s cheating on him, or the company anyhow.

  Oh, and Lily, Bruce says, we gotta draft something.

  What do you mean?

  One pager, something to make it official.

  Boss makes sure we cover our asses: twenty percent of 16.4 is a big deal.

  She takes a deep breath, eyes Wes: Yes, it is.

  Not that you don’t seem trustworthy, Bruce says.

  Send it over and I’ll read it, she says, within earshot of Wes, in a business-like tone.

  She hangs up.

  Wes hovers before her cubicle briefly, hefts his mug.

  Coffee’s not bad, he says amicably.

  He says this with an incidental shrug as he turns to go.

  Though go French Roast next time.

  Everyone else hates the Colombian.

  I don’t, I’m good with French Roast.

  But you know them, always complaining about something.

  He nods conspiratorially toward the other cubes and offices.

  Gives her a you-and-me-versus-the-world look, then heads off.

  She looks at the other workers briefly.

  They’ve all got their heads down, working or texting, in some throe of communication.

  They don’t seem vaguely interested beyond their desks or screens.

  Certainly not Lily or her coffee.

  But she sits there in her chair for a couple of moments and nevertheless wonders.

  She books the tickets.

  Blasts through the spreadsheets, Bruce’s auto-sign doc, even tomorrow’s work.

  Because she’s going up
tonight, and calling in sick tomorrow.

  She doesn’t know why she’s doing this, why she’s sneaking, but there’s a guilt in there somewhere, like she’s selfish for doing this, putting the extracurricular before the professional.

  She slips out of the office early, only an hour after closing, and bombs excitedly over to her apartment to throw together a bag.

  An hour later she’s at the airport and DC-bound.

  She calls on Tish the next morning, after a two-story latte and a rental car drive through the tony streets of Falls Church.

  She’s called ahead, let Marlena know she’s coming.

  Tish’s house: gated.

  The gate is a wrought-iron beast repainted annually over the decades and probably centuries.

  She buzzes the intercom, announces her arrival.

  When the gate opens a moment later, it makes her briefly feel Somebody.

  Driving into a place like this just because she’s said her name.

  She’s at the door a few moments later.

  (Tish.

  Here we go.)

  She knocks.

  The intense Puerto Rican fireplug that is Marlena answers.

  Hello, Liliana.

  She in?

  She is.

  But Marlena doesn’t immediately invite her in, rather dithers, and says: Let me see if the Missus is ready to take visitors.

  She closes the door to a crack, leaving Lily outside.

  Lily waits, looks at the molding and the fixtures, assiduously spit-shined, living in a meticulous mothballed state from another era.

  There could be Studebakers parked in the roundabout instead of her rental car.

  Or horseless carriages.

  Old money likes it the Old way.

  Marlena returns.

  She’ll see you.

  Tish creaks before her.

  Proud as ever.

  The backs of her hands more translucent than ever, the veins purple, in thick squiggly knots just beneath the surface.

  She has jowls like drapes.

  Neck like a turkey.

  But she carries herself like a movie star.

  Hair impeccable, an hour’s worth of make-up.

  She’s a hundred pounds of woman with four million pounds of house.

  Good to see you, Liliana.

  Likewise.

  You’ve put on some weight, Tish says.

  Maybe I’ve taken some of yours.

  Hey, that’s pretty sharp, young lady; but truth is I’ve only lost a pound or two.

  (She looks down about twenty.)

  My whole life, Tish muses, I’ve been plus or minus three pounds from my high school weight; in some ways I consider that my greatest accomplishment.

  You weren’t born when Supersize was a word.

  I wasn’t born when anything was a word!

  They both have a laugh at this.

  Lily, after a moment, decides to get to the point.

  I need to talk to you about Grandpa.

  Love of my life; I could talk to you until the cows come home.

  Lily looks at her apologetically, shakes her head.

  The other one.

  Tish crooks her finger at Marlena a few minutes later, after they’ve had a ginger ale.

  Marlena comes over.

  Maybe some Pimm’s, Marlena; a little early, I know, but we’ve got family.

  She says this with a nod to Lily.

  Marlena looks to Lily, as does Tish.

  Pimm’s cocktail?

  Lily nods sure, looks back to Tish once Marlena’s gone to the kitchen.

  Tish purses her lips; tiny vertical creases radiate from her mouth, a mouth that was pack-a-day for the better part of sixty years.

  Do we really need to talk about that man?

  You know the story: he was a fling, he died.

  I was hoping for a little more than that.

  What’re you, writing a novel?

  Lily tells her about the visit from Bruce: how she half-believes it, half-wants to believe it, and how more than anything she wants to open new vistas in her life, gain new understanding if nothing else.

  Someone down the road, she says, might want to understand the family tree.

  Ah, but that’d require you to have children, says Tish, and that’s an impossibility now, isn’t it?

  It could be a dagger—this territory Tish unceremoniously is stepping into—but Lily refuses to react.

  She’d learned a long time ago not to react.

  Fate deals you the cards it deals you.

  You’re the last of that bastard line, Tish says with a warm, cynical smile.

  And I don’t say that pejoratively.

  You were always sort of the loose end, you know?

  Through no fault of your own.

  Just like your father—the odd one out in the litter, the one without a place—though compared to him you’re St. Teresa of Avila.

  Never know, might surprise you.

  You mean by having a baby?

  Tish laughs at this.

  That’d be the miracle of all miracles; at least Mary had a womb.

  You do call things as you see them, don’t you, Tish?

  Have you ever known me to prevaricate?

  Besides, even if you were somehow physically capable…you hate men too much.

  I do not hate men.

  Oh yeah you do; I schooled you well in that.

  There are a few good ones, like my David, but they’re exceptions to the rule.

  I don’t hate men, Grandma.

  Mm-hmm.

  Lily considers her for a moment.

  Tell me about him, Lily says.

  I’d really rather not talk about that man.

  Even if there was a chance—the tiniest chance—that what this heir finder’s saying is true?

  Marlena brings the Pimm’s cocktails.

  Lily and Tish touch glasses.

  Tish offers: To family.

  To family, Lily quietly returns, and they drink.

  Tish savors the liquor, sucks on her teeth briefly, then nods: the good parts of family anyhow.

  Come on, Tish, if there’s sixteen million dollars out there, don’t you want to go after it?

  I’m not entitled to it; when we divorced he was broke.

  Besides, Tish says, money doesn’t mean much to me at my age.

  (Easy to say when you’re sidestroking through a sea of it.)

  But still, Lily says, I’d think you’d want me to succeed; stiff upper lip, remember that?

  Bulldog tenacity?

  Get what’s yours and don’t let anybody tread on you?

  Tish savors another sip of Pimm’s, nods inwardly, pleased at those words: I did say that, didn’t I?

  She eyes Lily.

  Look, you’re on your way up—you’ve got that corporate job, don’t you?

  Lily opts not to disabuse her of this gross interpretation.

  Instead, she says: What if this is what I want, to follow this thing and see where it goes?

  You told me to lock in and never stop, keep my head down and not listen to the naysayers; that that was the only way a woman could succeed.

  Yes, but not at the price of that man.

  Oh, you’re not telling me something, Tish.

  Tish darkens, and for a fleeting moment Lily thinks the old woman’s going to hit her.

  Leave it be.

  He was bad as they come.

  A man who should never have been born.

  Lily sits back, gets a little deeper into her Pimm’s.

  Sensing for the moment that her job’s done, that she’s opened a door.

  And Tish will fill the air with things that have long needed to be said.

  He abandoned me, abandoned a pregnant woman.

  Is that enough for you?

  He put his hand to me a few times, too, Lily, before he left, even with a baby inside me, but I didn’t know—I thought that was men.

  It was the forties.


  Women weren’t empowered then.

  You just thought that was part of the deal in marriage.

  Part of the deal with men.

  You fall in love with the idea of them, but the truth outs, it always does—they’re feral things, men, Neanderthals in disguise—if it weren’t for razors, clothes, and language—they’d still be in trees.

  But that one, the letter he sent me.

  Tish crooks her finger to Marlena, hefts her glass; another one.

  A month in, I get this dark, evil thing in the mail.

  Page after page of hate.

  Maybe the War did it to him.

  You have to understand, this was the same man that’d taken his hand to a pregnant woman back home.

  Bad enough, right?

  But it was as if a whole new level of darkness had come out in him.

  It was as if he was unleashed on the world, all his sadistic desires set free because they’d put a rifle and a twelve-inch bayonet knife into his hand and given him free license to use them.

  It’s a horrible thing to read such blackness coming out of a man, a man you think you love, especially reading it with the confusion that your shared genes growing in your belly gives you.

  You’re joined by a child.

  Irrevocably linked.

  And yet, the things he said he’d do to the enemy.

  To women.

  Women?

  I’m going to skip to the part that really matters.

  The picture that he sent along in that envelope.

  It was a woman.

  A French whore.

  He’d married her.

  The man wanted an annulment; he wanted to be free.

  And this woman let him.

  She was a real and true whore, Lily.

  I’m not just calling her that because she was the other woman.

  She was a prostitute.

  A real one.

  Who in her French-ness and whore-ness welcomed “open” relationships, and wasn’t into the fetters of children.

  Who wanted the enemy dead—every last German.

  Who wanted their women raped—just as she and countless others had been at their hands.

  Gray called her his avenging angel.

  The ultimate fantasy for a man like that, isn’t it?

  A woman who wanted to fornicate and kill and was horrified by the prospect of a mundane little home life.

  I’ll never forget the last lines of that letter.

  Consider us divorced; you will never hear from me again.