Love and Arson

by Woods, Karen

  “Generally, I teach high school art. But I’ve also taught some accounting courses at the community college.”

  “Sounds like you really love teaching,” Beth said.

  “I do. I hope to find another teaching position before the start of the next school year.”

  “You’re unemployed?” Beth asked.

  “I’m never unemployed, because I run my own business with my art. But I’ve sent my credentials out to every public school district and private high school in both Illinois and Indiana, as well as several colleges around the country. I’ve had a number of interviews already. But, if I don’t find a teaching job, I do have other skills I can use to make a living.”

  “Then you aren’t planning to stay in Virginia?” her aunt, Althea, Thea, asked.

  “I just wanted to meet my father before I get back to real life.”

  Harry laughed. “This is real life.”

  “Your life is a world away from mine,” Dani dismissed. “This is a pleasant, I hope, interlude, while I seek God’s direction for my life.”

  “What do you have back in Illinois?” Harry asked. “You don’t have a job, a place to live, or a family there."

  “I’m quite aware of what I lack,” Dani said, hearing the tightness in her own voice. “I don’t need a list.”

  “If you want to teach, Dani, there are certainly schools here that could use you,” Harry offered, his voice kind.

  Lyn said, “I’m certain you’ll have no problem getting a teacher’s license in Virginia. It’s a matter of filling out the forms with the Department of Education, paying the fee, and submitting your transcripts.”

  “You know a lot about this,” Dani said.

  Lyn shrugged. “I sit on the board of Westfield Academy. One of my responsibilities is the hiring of teachers. Our art teacher resigned late this afternoon, after thirty years with the school.”

  “Convenient,” Thea remarked. “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you have, Harry?”

  Dani watched her father’s lips thin into a tight line.

  “What could I have possibly had to do with a teacher leaving Westfield?” her father asked.

  Somehow, Dani wasn’t convinced by his tone. Could he have created this job? How would he have done something like that, bribe the teacher to leave? I’ve certainly seen that bribes aren’t unheard of in this house. My only question is whether bribes are the normal behavior.

  “We all know you’d do whatever you’d have to do to keep Nancy’s daughter here. She’s developed into an unhealthy obsession for you,” Thea replied, more than a hint of anger in her voice. “Why else would you have cleared out and refurbished Daddy’s studio for her? How much money did you spend on that, anyway?”

  “Is what I spend on anything any business of yours, Thea?” her father replied, his voice cold and controlled.

  Dani watched her aunt shrug.

  “No, it’s not. Since Mama left the house and grounds solely to you, you can certainly do whatever you want to do with Daddy’s studio,” Thea allowed, ancient bitterness abundantly clear in her voice. “I just think it’s beyond strange you want anything to do with Nancy’s daughter after the utter hell that woman put you through, after the scandal she caused when she stole money from the business, when she left you, after the mur...”

  “That’s enough!” her father snapped, stopping his sister in mid word.

  Mur? Murder? What else starts with ‘mur’? I doubt she was talking about the European river. Murmur? Murrelet? Get real! Murder. But whose murder?

  Lyn picked back up her previous topic, as though she’d not been interrupted, “The job teaching at Westfield is yours if you want it, contingent on your licensure in Virginia. It’s a full load of seven class periods a day.”

  “Just like that?” Dani asked. “You don’t know me from Adam’s housecat, and you’re offering me a job.”

  Lyn smiled. “Families take care of one another. Are you interested in the job?”

  “It’s worth thinking about,” Dani admitted. “I hadn’t contemplated settling here. I’d planned for this to be only a summer visit.”

  Harry said, “I’d really prefer it if you did relocate here. It would give us time together. I’d like that a good deal. Please consider it. I’d certainly love having you here.”

  Dani sighed. “You’ll need to give me some time to pray about it. This is a big decision.”

  “That’s my girl,” Harry replied.

  Just then Sissy announced dinner. Everyone quickly took his or her positions around the dining room table. Harry invited, “Come sit here at my right hand, Dani.”

  The offered spot was between Harry and Jason.

  “Would you please say grace, Dani?” Harry asked her as they settled in.

  She nodded, blessed herself, and prayed, “For these and all thy gifts, give us grateful hearts, O Lord. And make us ever mindful of the needs of others, even as we are blessed by such abundance of thy good gifts, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

  Everyone said, “Amen.”

  Dinner conversation became pleasant over the soup course.

  “I’m puzzled by something, Mary Danielle,” Jase said after Sissy cleared away the soup course.

  “I doubt much eludes you for long, Jason Alexander,” Dani answered.

  “Boy! Has she pegged you, Jase,” Beth said, chuckling.

  The housekeeper placed a roast turkey before Harry.

  “Looks wonderful. Thank you, Sissy,” Harry said as Sissy gave him the cutlery and put a stack of dinner plates on the table next to the turkey.

  “Would you like dark meat or light, Dani?” Harry asked.

  “White, please, Sir.”

  “I’d prefer it if you’d call me ‘Dad’,” Harry said. “Or at least ‘Harry’.”

  She replied as she took her plate from her father, “I’m not sure I feel comfortable with either. It seems profoundly disrespectful to call one’s father by his Christian name or even a nick name. Calling you ‘Dad’ implies a closeness of relationship that just doesn’t exist between us, yet.”

  “It will,” Harry said.

  “I hope so,” Dani agreed. “I really do.”

  Her father continued carving the bird and passed plates down both sides of the table to the rest of the family, not asking anyone else for their preferences. But then again, why would he? I’m sure he’s well used to all of their tastes.

  The housekeeper returned with the side dishes and placed them in the center of the table.

  Jase took a serving of roasted root vegetables, saying, “You graduated from college with a triple major in Art Education, Sculpture, and Accounting, with minors in Management Information Systems and Secondary Edu-cation. Odd combination. Subsequently, you earned your Masters of Fine Arts in Sculpture.”

  “My heart lies in sculpture. But, neither teaching nor art necessarily pay well. I knew I could make a living in accounting. Besides, any artist who leaves her finances in the hands of others is a fool or worse. Besides, accounting is a lot like art. It’s finding order and form from chaos.”

  Thea agreed, “A good set of books has a rare beauty.”

  Jase stated more than asked, “Money is important to you, Mary Danielle?”

  “Not as important as you thought it was when you offered me five hundred thousand dollars to leave here without even meeting my father,” Dani replied.

  The serving spoon in her father’s hand clattered against the bowl of steamed broccoli. The silence in the dining room was deafening.

  “You did what?” her father demanded, his voice coldly controlled. He passed her the bowl.

  Jase shrugged. “I offered her a settlement of half a million dollars in bearer bonds in exchange for her waiving all future claims on your estate. I wanted to see if she would bite on it.”

  Dani passed the broccoli on to Jase without taking any of it and said, keeping her tone as level as possible, “But because I rejected the offer, even when he eventu
ally bid it up to a million dollars, he still doesn’t know whether to trust me or not. So, let me put everyone’s mind at ease, just in case any of you are thinking the same thing. I’ll sign any document waiving my right to inherit anything, if my father asks. And I’ll do so willingly without being paid. I don’t want any of your money.”

  “I won’t ask you to sign anything. You’re my child. You stand to inherit a substantial sum when I’m gone,” Harry stated. “God knows, that’s the least I owe you.”

  “I’ve just lost one parent. Don’t even talk to me about losing you, too!” Dani demanded.

  Jase said, “You honestly scare the daylights out of me, for Harry’s sake.”

  “I know you love my father,” Dani allowed. “So, I’m trying to make allowances for that fear. But, you’re not making it easy, Jason Alexander.”

  “It’s not easy for any of us, Mary Danielle,” Jase said.

  “No, I don’t imagine it is,” she replied as she began to eat. The food all looked lovely. But just like lunch, she might as well have been eating sawdust for all the enjoyment she had from the meal.

  Harry asked, after a short silence, “You’ve planned to return to the midwest. Is there a man back in Illinois?”

  “Millions of them,” she dismissed with a smile. “And they can stay there for all I care.”

  “You no longer like men?” Jase questioned.

  “You commissioned the private investigator’s report, you tell me,” Dani replied.

  Jase shook his head. “No, you tell me,” he demanded. “Who’s Aaron Young to you?”

  “Ron has been a very dear friend, for many years,” she told him.

  “Your ‘very dear friend’ spent some time in jail three years ago,” Jase said.

  She nodded, tightly, “Yes, he did.”

  “Why was he in jail?” Harry asked.

  She sipped her water before replying, “A terrified student asked for help concerning a drug ring operating in the child’s neighborhood. The child trusted Ron to handle the situation.”

  Beth asked, “So, how did…Ron end up in jail?”

  “He passed the objective information on to the police, but refused, and still refuses to this day, to name the student who gave him the information, feeling a strong obligation to protect the anonymity of the child, for the child’s own safety. The judge didn’t like that.”

  Harry nodded, “Sounds like a man who has his priorities straight.”

  Dani nodded. “I respect him for that.”

  “Respect?” Harry asked. “Is that all that’s between the two of you?”

  Dani shrugged. “Ron has been a good friend to me. But I’m not in love with him and am unlikely to ever be in love with him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “You sound like you don’t believe in being in love,” Beth observed.

  Dani sighed then sipped her water. “Of all the things I’ve experienced in my life, romantic love and arson have been the two most dangerous, painful, and destructive.”

  Jase broke the silence that followed that statement. “You’ve had a fair amount of contact with people who have been in trouble concerning drugs, one way or another. You want to tell us about how that came about?”

  “I don’t think you’d like to hear what I’d like to tell you.”

  Jase laughed, but the look in his eyes was anything except amused. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”

  “A warning. Frankly, I’ve just about taken all the abuse I’m going to take from you, Jason Alexander Wilton. If I ever walk out of my bathroom again to find you in my bedroom ransacking my things, I’ll chop you off at the knees and beat you about your head and shoulders with the bloody stumps!”

  Lyn looked at her son, clearly aghast. “You did what?”

  “What?” Harry simultaneously demanded.

  “I took the pass key and went into her suite this morning,” Jase admitted. “And I searched her rooms.”

  “While I was in the shower,” Dani added in disgust. “I’m just glad I was securely wrapped up in a big towel when I left the bathroom. Otherwise, he would have been singing soprano, permanently.”

  “You might have found that more difficult to do than you think,” Jase offered. “Besides your hair would have covered you, in any event. I swear I’ve never seen any woman with hair as long as yours.”

  Dani felt her face flame.

  Jase looked at her for the longest moment. “It’s amazing you can still blush.”

  She glared at him. “Don’t keep pushing me or I’ll push back. That won’t be pleasant for you, I guarantee it.”

  He smiled, but it was an empty expression. “Don’t fight me. I could ruin you.”

  “Jason Alexander, you are being profoundly rude,” his mother chided.

  “Ruin me?” Dani echoed his words, talking to him at the same time Lyn admonished him. She laughed. “You haven’t the power to ruin me.” She sipped her water before continuing, “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I don’t underestimate your ability to spread gossip and innuendo, or your mastery of the art of the snide cut. I don’t underestimate that at all. You’re quite proficient at those particular skills. Then again, most bullies are.”

  “I am not a bully!” Jase countered.

  “Couldn’t prove it by me at this point! The one thing I’ve learned in my life is the only person with the power to ruin me is me. So, do your worst, I dare you. If your report on me is as complete as you purport it to be, you already know this one thing — I’ll always get back up fighting, no matter how hard I’m knocked down. I always have and I always will. It’s a Devlin and O’Brien characteristic. So do your worst.”

  “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s dangerous to dare people, especially people you don’t know,” Jase replied, a degree of heat in his voice. “And I am not a bully.”

  “That stung, huh? I find the truth frequently does,” Dani offered, her voice way too quiet.

  Beth chuckled. Dani saw Jase glare at his sister.

  “Of course you will survive,” Harry said, obviously trying to diffuse the situation. “You’re a Devlin.”

  Thea said, “That’s what the DNA tests said. But there’s more to being part of a family than genetics.”

  “Yes. There is. For now, I think it would be best if I took a hotel room someplace,” Dani replied.

  “Nonsense,” Harry replied.

  “I’d call it common sense. When certain people can accept me as your daughter, I might be back,” Dani replied. “It is profoundly unreasonable of you to expect me to stay in a place where my motives and morals are being actively questioned. You wouldn’t put up with it. Why do you expect me to?”

  “I don’t see how you can blame us for being cautious. The fact is your mother bedded everything in pants, before and after she married Harry,” Thea complained, old hatred obviously boiling over in her tone.

  Dani glared at her aunt. “That’s a damnable lie!”

  “Thea,” Harry warned at the same time of Dani’s denial.

  “Excuse me,” Dani said, standing in preparation for leaving the table. She heard the ice and control in her tone, and knew she wasn’t far from totally losing her temper.

  Dani saw Jason and Beth exchange looks, but didn’t understand the meaning of the silent exchange.

  “You aren’t excused. Sit down,” Harry ordered. Then he explained, in a calmer tone, “My family worries about me.”

  “And I’m an unknown quantity about whom the private investigator’s report was not favorable,” Dani offered her voice dry, not taking her seat.

  “Then you understand?” Harry asked.

  “Understanding doesn’t mean I like it. Frankly, I don’t like anything about this situation,” she replied.

  “Please sit back down,” Harry asked her.

  The plea in his eye was something she couldn’t resist.

  Beth unbent a little after Dani resumed her seat. “You lost everything in the fire?”

  “Nearly,” Dani repl
ied, as she fingered the pearls at her throat.

  “That must have been awful, losing your mother like that, and everything else too,” Lyn offered.

  “Things are largely replaceable.” She swallowed hard and blinked back the tears before continuing, “Mother was another matter. She was resolved to fight the cancer. She’d been through so much, becoming so terribly frail, there at the last. Chemo was the worst. She’d lost her hair. She was sick all the time. She weighed less than ninety pounds when she died.”

  “That had to have been horrible for her,” Lyn said, “and for you.”

  She bit her lip and looked down at her plate for the longest moment trying to compose herself.

  “I have a canvas Nancy painted. The portrait is of Beth and Jase,” Lyn offered, her voice kind. “I’ve always cherished that portrait of them as children. Beth was a toddler when it was painted. Jase was seven.”

  She forced a smile as she looked at her stepmother. “I’d like to see it.”

  “Anytime,” Lyn said. “It hangs in my workroom.”

  “I’ll look forward to viewing it.”

  Harry cleared his throat.

  “Do you paint in oils?” Lyn asked, care in her voice.

  “Yes, I paint, at least well enough to teach painting. Sculpture is my preferred medium of expression. I work in almost every media, two and three dimensional, but there’s nothing quite as satisfying as turning a block of wood or stone, or a pile of clay, into a work of art.”

  “You designed and made the dress you’re wearing,” Lyn stated more than questioned.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I have a well equipped sewing room here. You’re welcome to use it anytime you want. Quilting is my hobby. But I’ve done enough dressmaking to recognize your skill.”

  “An elderly neighbor taught me to sew when I was a child. I designed this dress several years ago so I had something to wear to chaperone school formal dances. It’s been a long time since I’ve had more than one formal dress in my closet at a time.”

  “Chaperone,” Jase echoed. “You?”

  “The people who have known me longest trust me. Most of the high school faculty are pressed into service for either formal dances or the after dance overnight lock-in party. Lucky me, I usually get to do both.”