by Kelly Irvin
She’d never seen him before in her life. Liz was nowhere in sight.
“Hard?”
Liz sucked a long draw on her cigarette and let the smoke escape through her nose. She flipped the matchbook through her fingers like a card shark doing a trick. “I’m here now. I’m asking you to forgive me. Isn’t that what Christians do?”
They did. Another of Nina’s failings. The inability to forgive.
Nina’s heart beat in her ears. Her pulse pounded. Yes, she wanted to forgive. Her mother. And her father. Was she capable of forgiving? Dad had been partially to blame for their long separation. Her mother had tried, albeit not very hard, to contact them. She’d given up after her letters went unanswered. Did that mean Nina had to welcome this virtual stranger back into her life?
She tugged her Leica from her bag and slid the strap over her head. “Why didn’t you come to the reception? You could’ve talked to everyone then.”
And no one would’ve made a scene.
“I was . . . I didn’t feel good.” Liz tilted her head and smiled, suddenly flirtatious. Her teeth were stained with coffee and tobacco. The sun backlit her face, giving her an ethereal look. She was skin and bones. She looked like a biker babe without the Harley and the biker. “That’s right. You’re a photographer.”
The camera had its usual medicinal effect. It created a fortress wall between Nina and a painful past. The crashing waves in her ears receded. “What were you talking to Detective King about after the funeral? I saw you as we were driving away.”
Liz pursed her lips and formed perfect smoke rings, a technique she’d perfected years ago to the delight of two little girls who didn’t know better. “King? Oh, King the cop. He knew who I was. The guy had done his homework. I guess he recognized me from . . . you know, a mug shot.”
From one of the many arrests for public intoxication, panhandling, trespassing, pot possession, or fighting. Nina focused and snapped shot after shot. The commons created a soft, peaceful backdrop to the hard lines around her mother’s mouth and the crow’s feet around her eyes. Her denim shirt was a size too big and missing the top button so her wrinkled cleavage was displayed. She wore green Army pants and black tattered Converse sneakers. Living from the Salvation Army store or a church homeless closet/pantry.
“He wanted to know when I’d last seen Geoffrey. He wanted to know where I’m staying. Why I came back to town. If I knew some reporter named Melanie something. And if I knew Serena, which of course I did, although I barely remember her.”
“Where are you staying?”
“With a friend.”
She still had friends in San Antonio? More likely another seedy motel room. How did she feed this half brother and half sister? Where were their fathers? Same father or different fathers? A person had to have an address to get food stamps. “The church down on the access road gave me some vouchers. I have some money from a waitressing gig back in Baton Rouge.”
As if she read minds.
“What were you doing in Baton Rouge?”
“Earning money to get here.”
“Did King ask you about me?”
“Sure. Did I know what a pain you are? To which I said, if you’re anything like me, I would imagine so.”
“But you wouldn’t know because you abandoned me years ago.”
“I did one good thing. I asked Geoffrey to adopt you and Sissy.”
One good thing. It had been one good thing. And it had been her idea and not Dad’s. The letters proved that. “Did you ever get married?”
“What is this? Twenty questions?”
“I just want to know something about my biological mother.”
“Biological mother. That’s what adopted kids call them.”
“Yes, it is.”
Liz snorted. She stubbed out the cigarette on the bench and lit another one. She took her time as if concocting an answer. “No. I wasn’t into that. I don’t need to be tied down by some jerk who tells me what to do and wants dinner on the table by six. Most men are jerks in my experience.”
She never expected better so she never received it. A wave of sadness enveloped Nina. Liz wasn’t just her biological mother. She was also a woman—a depleted, sad, disappointed woman who’d never loved with abandon, never been truly loved.
Trying to hold back tears, Nina chewed her lower lip. She and Jan had pinky sworn that they would never be like their mother. Never drink. Never abandon their children. While Jan had conceived a child out of wedlock, she had loved and cherished that child and married her father. She’d asked for forgiveness and received it.
Nina had feared being burned by love. Being so afraid of love, she might never have it. The failure to trust in love. She would not be her mother. She would learn to trust and learn to love. All-in, all-cards-on-the-table love.
Aaron’s kind of love. God’s kind of love.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. Was it as simple as that? Aaron claimed it was.
God?
Would He understand the entreaty when she called His name?
Aaron claimed prayers didn’t have to be elaborate. He said God understood her pain.
He loved her despite her flaws.
Good thing, because her doubt was at the top of the list.
“Earth to Nina!” Liz waved her cigarette in Nina’s face. “Where’d you go? Am I boring you?”
“No. Nowhere.” Forgiveness started with Liz. At least an effort at forgiveness. Feelings of abandonment stored up for eighteen years couldn’t be erased in a day. She could try. Maybe God would give her an E for effort. Liz’s letters represented her best effort at love. She wasn’t responsible for Dad’s unwillingness to hand the letters over to Nina and Jan that proved their mother had been willing to try again. They would put their cards on the table and start over. “Did you know Dad never gave us your letters?”
“I figured as much. We agreed that no contact would be best, but I couldn’t help myself. I thought of you and Sissy every day. Every single day.”
“He kept them. I found them and read them after he died.”
“Which means you know I never stopped loving you. I did the hardest thing a mother can do. I gave you up to someone who could do right by you.”
“You make it sound so noble now. You wanted to have your life without feeling guilty about it.” Her stomach suddenly rocking, Nina waved away the stench of tobacco. “You chose alcohol and pot and men over your children. There’s nothing noble about that.”
“You have no idea what I’ve been doing since Geoffrey brought you here.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“His.”
“Seriously. You’re trying to blame him for your failings as a parent. He raised us. He loved us. He gave us a roof over our heads and food and clothing. He paid for my college education and made sure I went.”
“He was a saint, I know.” For the first time, Liz’s words had an edge. She stubbed out the cigarette smoked down to the filter and lit yet another one. Her hands shook. “I lived with Saint Geoffrey for a lot of years. Mister bachelor’s degree in three years, Harvard Law, Mister Do-No-Wrong. You never knew our father and mother.”
Grandma and Grandpa Fischer died in a car accident in New York City the year before Dad adopted Nina and Jan. Grace’s parents were divorced. Her mother died of breast cancer, her father of prostate cancer on opposite coasts.
“I know Dad loved them and missed them.”
“Of course he did. They worshipped the ground their son walked on.” She coughed, the loose hack of a longtime smoker, swiveled, and spit in the grass. “I can tell you this about them. When I got knocked up with you, they didn’t get all huggy and kissy like Grace and Geoffrey did with Jannie.”
Nina swallowed against nausea. “There was no huggy kissy—”
“They wanted me to give you up for adoption then. I said no. I wanted you. They kicked me to the curb with the clothes on my back. I was eighteen. I had enough money for a bus ticket to T
ampa.”
“Dad said you got kicked out after they caught you drinking in the cellar and smoking pot after they’d just paid for rehab.”
“It was all part of the same.” Her tone turned defensive. “I didn’t drink or smoke while I was pregnant with you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
The one thing that kept her from vices. “Why Tampa?”
“I thought your daddy was there.”
Nina wouldn’t call this man whom she never knew Dad. That was reserved for Geoffrey Fischer, whatever his failings might have been. “Who was he?”
“A guy I knew. Just a kid from my class. He and a friend drove his Camaro to Florida right after graduation. They thought they could get jobs there.”
“Did you find him?”
“Sure. Shacked up with a waitress he met at a club.”
No superhero.
“What about Jan? Who was her biological father?”
“You want the truth?” Liz’s gaze dropped to the table for a second. She looked up, her blue eyes brilliant and hard as stone. “I have no idea. Men came and went in those days.”
Nina put her hand to her mouth. She swallowed bitter bile in the back of her throat. Inhale, exhale. She let her hand drop. “Why did you come back here?”
“I told you. To ask for your forgiveness.” Liz motioned with one finger with its nail chewed down to a painful nub. “Let me take your photo.”
Nina glanced at her phone. Almost time to serve dinner. “I have to go.” She stood. “Do me a favor. Don’t ever tell Jan what you just told me.”
“My lips are sealed.” Liz pulled her fingers across her thin lips, turned them, and tossed away the imaginary key. “It’s not like it’s something I’m proud of.”
She grunted, stood, and smashed the cigarette butt with her ragged tennis shoe. “I’d like to come to the house tonight. I want to see Jannie before she heads back to Afghanistan.”
“I’ll give you a tip.” Nina forced herself to soften her voice. “Call first. Make sure she’s there and she wants to see you.”
“I haven’t had a drink in three months.” Liz dug around in a coffee-stained canvas bag. “I got my chip in here to prove it.”
A step in the right direction on a long road to redemption.
“I have to get back to the kitchen.”
“I wondered if you could spot me a twenty for the bus and some groceries for the kids.”
She wanted money. Of course. Twenty bucks would be an eighteen pack or a couple of bottles of cheap wine. Nina worked to keep her expression neutral. “My shift will be over in half an hour. Wait and I’ll give you a ride. I’d like to meet my half brother and half sister.”
“Sure, sure.” Liz slumped on the picnic bench. “I got nothing better to do than sit around and wait while you feed a bunch of bums and hoboes.”
“It’s your call.” People who were homeless like Liz had once been. “If you’re not going to wait, tell me. I’ll escort you to the gate. Or you can come with me and sit at one of the tables until I get done with serving.”
“I can’t smoke in there. I’d rather sit here in the sun.” She sounded like a child who’d missed her nap. “Besides, I’ve done my time hanging around the down-and-out.”
So had Nina. Enough to feel nothing but compassion for people who were trying to dig themselves out of deep holes. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay put. Do you understand?”
“I’m not a kid.”
When she returned thirty minutes later, Liz was gone. Nothing left behind but cigarette butts.
26
The seventh-floor law offices of Gomez, Gomez, Barkley, and Benavides featured a conference room with an impossibly large mahogany table with at least two dozen leather chairs, each tucked in at the exact same angle. Nina shivered. The AC blasted from overhead vents. Glad for the warmth of the mug of coffee Tamera Gomez had offered her, Nina sipped the dark brew and tried to ignore her empty stomach’s protest. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a spectacular view of downtown San Antonio’s Riverwalk. In the distance stood the Tower of the Americas and the Alamodome framed against low-lying gray clouds.
Pulling her cardigan closer, she glanced at her phone for the fortieth time. Not a single return text or call from Aaron. He should’ve returned from San Diego yesterday. He usually worked Mondays. Why the silent treatment? It had been a long weekend without him. Two days of waiting and wondering what the week would bring. What was King doing? Where was Rick, also missing in action?
“You left the TV on again last night.” Grace had chosen a black tea-length dress for the occasion with lacy black gloves and a black box hat. Very Jackie Kennedy. She sipped her espresso with a dainty slurp. “I heard you snoring on the couch and covered you up with a blanket. A Spencer Tracy/ Katharine Hepburn movie was on: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? I love Sidney Poitier. I love that movie.” 228
Unable to sleep in her own bed, Nina had camped out both nights in the living room, watching old movies and retracing the events of the previous week over and over again. Both mornings, she’d awakened to the sun doing its best to seep through clouds outside the bay window, a crick in her neck, and Peanuts sleeping on her bare feet. Dreamless sleep. Sleep so deep and dark could only result in a grogginess that three cups of coffee couldn’t shake. “Me too. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither. I keep thinking your father will come through the door. Or call me.” Dark circles around her eyes gave Grace a hollow look. “It’s hard to know what to do next, so I seem to do nothing. I have a book deadline, but I don’t seem to be able to focus on anything.”
Nina squeezed her hand. “Your editor will understand.”
Jan glanced up from her phone. “Brooklyn is texting me her wish list for her birthday. It’s still two months away.” And Jan would not be here when it happened. “She wants a real stethoscope and microscope. The kid is bizarre.”
“Forward her text to me—”
The door banged open and Trevor stormed in. “You started without me?”
“We did not. Where have you been?” Grace frowned. Her muted pink lipstick stained her upper teeth. “You left after the reception and didn’t come back.”
“The police picked me up Friday after the reception and kept me in an interview room half the night.” Coffee stained the sleeve of his wrinkled white shirt. His khaki pants were a shade too long. They bunched up over his brown leather loafers. Trevor’s eyes were bloodshot and he needed to blow his nose. “King is ridiculous. He insisted I had a reason to shoot Dad. Like Vicky is a reason to shoot my own father.”
“Who is Vicky?”
“My . . . a friend.”
“Girlfriend.” Jan did her best redneck impression, drawing the word out in several syllables. “Tattoos and all.”
“Shut up. She’s an artist. She does body art. She has a master’s in Eastern religions.”
“That was two days ago—”
“Could I have your attention?” A sheaf of paper in her hands, Tamera Gomez stopped at the head of the mahogany table. She looked like a model for a shampoo ad. Every shiny black hair on her head knew its place. Her tawny complexion wouldn’t dare to have a flaw. Her blue pinstripe suit shouted professional. When she’d met them at the front door and escorted them to the conference room, she’d been cool enough to ignore the cuts and bruises on Nina’s face. “My father apologizes for not being able to be with us today. His health hasn’t been good—”
“Send him our best.” Grace interrupted. “He was always such a dear. I’m sure you’ll do fine, sweetheart.”
Tamera laid the sheets of paper in front of her and slid into the luxuriously soft leather chair. She adjusted glasses with large tortoiseshell rims and red temples and pulled at a gold knot earring. “I have before me the last will and testament of Geoffrey Samuel Fischer. It was signed with witnesses attesting to its validity, dated, and notarized on said date and placed in the care of attorney Fidel H. Gomez, whom Judge Fischer named as his executor.” Tamera�
��s voice hesitated over the date, then strengthened. “My father then filed the will with the Bexar County Clerk. Although it is not a requirement in Texas, he felt it would reduce any confusion over the legitimacy of this, his most recent will.”
This will had been drawn up six weeks before Dad’s death.
Grace’s gasp stopped the flow of words.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Fischer?”
Her skin mottled red under a layer of pale-peach foundation, Grace nodded. Nina slid her hand across the table and covered Grace’s. “Are you sure? Do you want some water?”
The words had such ringing finality. It was hard for Nina to grasp. It must be so much harder for Grace, who’d been married to him for thirty-five years. “No. I’m fine. It’s just that date. Are you sure that date is correct?”
Tamera perused the papers for a second. Her enormous brown eyes behind the glasses’ thick lenses held compassion and a touch of something else. Pity? “The records show that this will was drawn up six weeks ago. It replaces an earlier will entered into the record in 2010.”
Shortly after their argument and Grace’s decision to divorce him.
Grace’s soft sigh gave the young attorney permission to continue.
“It was Judge Fischer’s wish that the will be read immediately or as soon as reasonably possible upon his passing. We will submit it to the probate court to be probated, as required by law. I won’t read all the fine print, but rather go to that section of interest to his loved ones. That is, the bequeathals.”
Again, her gaze made the rounds at the table. Nina did the same. Jan studied her fingernails. Trevor scowled. Grace picked at a tissue until it disintegrated in a heap of tiny pieces.
“To my wife, Grace Abigail Fischer, I leave our cabin in Puerto Vallarta, the time-share in Maui, the 2015 Mercedes, and all the artwork displayed in the house. An inventory is attached as a codicil.”
