Family Trust

by Amanda Brown

  Georgica Pond, an area named after a spring-fed tidal pond, had reputation for style and privacy that dated at least from the gilded 1890s. Edward’s great-grandfather, Horace Cornelius Kirkland II, was a founding member of the Georgica association, a private group who built the first homes on large lots at the pond and quickly circled the wagons to keep out newcomers. Over one hundred years later, the Georgica association had largely succeeded in its goal of maintaining exclusivity, as the pond’s grand surrounding homes still bore the old names of the great families along with a smattering of preapproved clans, such as the Stirrups. Randall Stirrup was not only super, extraordinarily rich, but also the business partner of a founding family heir.

  Edward got out of the car and pulled Emily behind him as he led her behind the house to show her the pretty pond. He stopped as he rounded the sun porch, gasping at the sight laid out before him. An invading army had landed. He stared in disbelief, unsure what he could tell Emily about this place that had always represented for him all that was open and solitary. Edward had meant to give her a leisurely walking tour of the grounds, unfolding the magical history of his old family home; he wanted to show her some of the hiding places and climbing trees, take a rowboat out on the pond, and visit the stables to feed the horses carrots and sugar cubes. He had even thought, using Emily as his “family armor,” he might avoid some of the guests he saw splashed across the front lawn like scattered dolls. But he was paralyzed by his first glance at the extravagant scale of this prewedding activity for what he’d believed was to be an intimate, at-home wedding.

  All this ceremony is for you, he thought with dread. He stooped to explain the gleaming white tent to the child, noticing when he looked at Emily her air of excitement, happiness, and wonder. She was innocent of what came next. It was beautiful to her that this stately old house was tarted up like a wedding planners’ trade show.

  “When is Becca coming?”

  Oh-oh, Edward thought. Dense as he was, or perhaps preoccupied by his own sense of impending doom, he had not thought to explain to Emily what was happening.

  The private dock and a gazebo on the water at the yacht landing had been taken over by Adrian Parish’s people, a bustling crew of men and women strutting around officiously barking orders, like a hundred spastic roosters. Commandos wearing headsets ranged the grounds dispatching directions to uniformed workers who were scattered everywhere preparing for the evening’s ceremony. A crisis had followed the collapse of something electronic at the poolhouse, which was halfway converted into a club complete with DJ for all-night dancing.

  Together he and Emily proceeded to the pond to skip some stones. In an attempt to ignore the circus that everywhere had overtaken his house, Edward straightened his neck and stared straight at the pond as if forcing his way through a storm. He couldn’t help but glance back at the garden facing the pond, where ten or twelve gardeners worked with painful uncertainty, uprooting half an acre of flowers, one stem at a time. The perennials were being removed and replaced with two-day blooms of white, framing Bunny in the purity she deemed essential for her hallowed wedding ground.

  To ensure that the wedding blooms would last through the evening wedding and full day of receptions tomorrow, they were being planted in glass vials. They would be uprooted after the ceremony, allowing Catherine Kirkland to replant her garden in any fresh manner she desired. Mrs. Kirkland had already informed the perplexed garden staff that she wanted her new garden to look exactly like her old one. She directed them to replant exactly the same flowers they were presently pulling, which made the job of pulling them agonizing, each gardener knowing he or she would have to suffer through just the opposite exercise the day after tomorrow.

  Edward’s mother joined them by the water.

  “This is my mother, Emily, Mrs. Kirkland, and Mother, this is my darling Emily.” He made certain to claim pride and loyalty for Emily right up front so his mother would hopefully follow his lead and, in doing so, reign Bunny in.

  “I am pleased to meet you.” His mother surprised him, gesturing for Edward to pick her up so they could shake hands.

  Edward must have looked astonished because his mother said, “Why are you so surprised, Edward? This child is my granddaughter, at least until my flesh and blood arrives. And I want you to call me Grandmama,” she said, turning back to Emily.

  “Okay, Mrs. Grandmama,” Emily said. And both Edward and his mother laughed.

  Catherine invited Edward with her into the house to discuss his wedding portrait and directed Emily to run along with the servant who had been assigned to watch her and dress her for the tea party with Bunny’s friends.

  Nervous at first, Emily was consoled by the thought of dressing up fancy, and went into the house uncertainly holding the warm fat hand of Mrs. Carter. She turned her fair, curly head back once at Edward, who nodded his approval to her, after which she skipped in a lighter step, with Mrs. Carter gamely hurrying to keep up. Edward’s mother rested on his arm as they took the path up the hill they must have taken a hundred, no a thousand times. In a rare, perhaps even singular show of motherly affection, Catherine stopped halfway up the hill to pat him on the arm that supported her.

  “You’re a good son, Edward. And you’ll see, this will work out just fine.”

  He said nothing and they began again their leisurely walk up the hill.

  Bunny was surprised when Emily joined them in the tea room. A guest of honor must not make herself too accessible, so she had left the reception after taking photographs with the people whose images mattered and ducked inside for a touch-up manicure. Eventually her bridesmaids and a few extras just to fill in spaces joined her. When Emily trotted into the room, alone, dressed to please in her antique Irish linen dress, Bunny read the situation at once.

  Her cloying mother-in-law had seized an opportunity to steal Edward away for a little tête-à-tête. The woman’s love for her golden son bordered on the romantic, thought Bunny, whose jealous heart hardened at the thought of her mother-in-law getting Edward’s ear to herself. She’ll criticize me, she thought, I just know it.

  Her cold blue eyes regarded the room, of which she was the focal point, in search of an escape. She said not a word to Emily, seeing her for what she was—the hot potato tossed here by Edward’s mother. Now it’s my move, Bunny thought. So involved was she in plotting her endgame against Catherine’s sleight of hand, Bunny failed to notice that Emily, who had drawn close to her when Mrs. Carter pointed out her new mother, was tapping on her arm.

  “Where should I sit?” Emily asked in a shy voice. She noticed that all of the chairs were taken.

  “There is no place for you here, Emily,” Bunny replied coldly.

  Emily squinted at her, not sure what that meant. Shrugging her shoulders, she figured she could just as well sit on the floor. She noticed a silver candy dish that had three levels, sitting in the middle of the table untouched. Immediately, she forgot about Bunny and rushed to the table for a treat.

  Mrs. Carter, who had remained in the doorway making certain Emily was in good hands, stayed put. The bridesmaids, already nervous in their obsessive focus on how they would look in their pictures, became uncomfortably silent.

  Penelope Hobnob leaned forward in her chair, indicating Emily with a nod of her head. The child was filling her arms with candy treats as if she had starved for a week.

  “Are you going to let her eat all that, Bun-Bun?” Nellie asked, her implication obvious.

  Bunny gave a cruel laugh. “What do I care?”

  Emily’s eyes traveled from Bunny to Nellie and then back to the candy tray. Confident that nobody would stop her, she shoveled more candies into her arms, smearing the linen of her dress with chocolate truffles.

  “Bunny,” Nellie protested in a loud whisper. “You are her mother.”

  “She has no mother,” Bunny replied at once.

  Emily, caught off guard by the lash of Bunny’s comment, coughed on a hard candy. She stumbled backward, her eyes filli
ng with tears. Emily choked harder, her arms waving for help, and finally collapsed forward against the coffee table, coughing and gasping for air.

  “Bunny!” shrieked Nellie. “Do something!”

  Bunny stood up hastily. “I’ve just gotten manicured for the portrait! I’m not going to stick my finger in her mouth!” She shuddered all over with distaste at the idea, looking behind her for the domestic staff. Where was the service bell?

  Mrs. Carter, who had run to the child as soon as she saw her in need, by then had dislodged the candy from her throat. She picked Emily up and hurried out of the room with her at once, throwing a fierce glare at Bunny as she left.

  Bunny smiled coolly as her bridesmaids, sitting in their polite circle of friendship, stared at her in shock.

  “Irish,” she said dismissively of the maid. “Probably has eight kids herself. They’re always surrounded by children and animals.”

  Tina’s little laugh was followed by a small chorus of titters.

  Smiling, Bunny stood next to her chair. She had been looking for an exit. It was time to repossess Edward from his mother.

  CHAPTER 30

  The October Revolution

  At the gate, wrapping her soft plump arms around her, Arlene let Becca cry. As they stood embracing, passengers and security people moving past them, Arlene tried to think of the last time she had seen Becca cry. Grandma’s death—she had been nine years old.

  “Cry, my baby…”

  Becca came up for air, blew her nose and started the sobs which, like labor pains in reverse, would hurt Arlene in her soul, first with very little time between the gut-wrenching pain, and then with longer and longer time between them. Arlene took the opportunity to look her daughter over. What was she wearing?

  As Becca’s sobs slowed, Arlene led them to an empty waiting room.

  “I don’t—I have to—where’s Philippe?” Becca said, finally, her first complete sentence.

  “Calm down. He went to get you coffee and to leave us alone. Now, tell me the story—all of it. Did something happen in Brazil?”

  Becca shook her head. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

  Philippe found them and gave Becca a Grande cup of Starbucks Cappuccino. “What is with that dress?” he asked her.

  Arlene bit her bottom lip so she wouldn’t laugh. Becca looked down at herself and, starting in her belly first, silently, then moving to her throat, she began to roar with laughter. And also she cried. So she laughed and cried and then, looking at her watch, she stopped abruptly and said, “I gotta go.”

  “Becca—no—not until I know what’s what.”

  “I’ll fill you in. You’re coming with me and Philippe.”

  “Where to?” Arlene placed her hands on her hips while Becca pulled her along. “As if I didn’t know.” Arlene caught Becca’s eye and kept it in her sights for a moment or two. “As if I didn’t know everything.”

  Very few words had to be said. Arlene knew early on what Becca didn’t—how her daughter’s heart had found its home. She had just waited until Becca caught up—but then, this wedding thing happened and Arlene was devastated for Becca. But she didn’t believe that the picture was at all clear. More would be revealed about this marriage between “the chemical heir and the equestrienne.” Hah, she thought to herself. Every time she remembered the Times headline she wanted to brecht.

  Philippe led Becca and Arlene to another terminal where they boarded the helicopter Philippe had arranged for. It took forever for them to get clearance for takeoff, or so it seemed to Becca.

  “What?” Arlene asked, because the clicking of Becca’s fingers on her seat’s arm was driving her crazy. “What are we doing here?” Arlene put her hand over Becca’s, restraining her, forcing her to stop and think.

  “Okay,” Becca said. “It’s like this.”

  And so she told them her plan.

  Edward’s father had arrived from the Kazak territory, where he was negotiating the construction of a pipeline, to much adoration and fanfare from the shadow government—that is, the corporate execs, who really ran things. His helicopter, which freed him from traffic concerns that burdened other poor Manhattan souls, touched down on the landing pad by the chapel. Catherine had rushed out at once to greet her king. Dozens of wedding consultants raced to the scene with a traipsing trail of floral provisions. They had been forced to await Mr. Kirkland’s landing before decorating the chapel, as the wind from the helicopter’s rotary would have strewn their church bells, flower sprays, and lanterns in its cyclone.

  Edward found himself alone in the room with the portrait artist, who was mixing his oils. He and Bunny would sit, this afternoon, for their engagement portrait. Bunny had enough restraint to honor the superstition that she should keep herself—or anyway her dress—concealed from him today. At any rate her dress was a secret to all but Jo-Jo and Adrian; even the bridesmaids didn’t know how much of her abdomen would be revealed by its modern design. And Bunny was thrilled that Catherine had approved a small private reception, of even more select intimates, to gather for cocktails in the sitting room while they watched her and Edward sit to be painted. She had never considered herself an artistic muse, but found herself rather well suited to the role.

  Edward turned toward the window, wondering if Emily had been taken yet to the stables. He had heard someone mention a riding lesson for her this afternoon. His head was foggy, absent-minded, and tired, and he wished Emily would return to him soon. They had begun reading a new series of fairy tales, and he looked forward each day to the peaceful half hour of putting Emily to bed. He would watch her eyes drop closed as he read the words slowly, drawing them out in a whisper, then folding the book together and replacing it on her nightstand. Her cheeks would be gently flushed and her lips pursed as she rested, a peaceful little rose closed up until morning.

  The luxurious sitting room, in which he had spent hours of time as a boy reading a tattered copy of Treasure Island by the fireplace, held no comfort for him. He made conversation with the portrait artist, but was thankful that the man seemed content to turn back to his work. Edward’s soul was uneasy. He breathed deeply, staring out over the fields toward the stables.

  He thought he heard a second helicopter land, but that couldn’t be right. Anyway, trailers, sound stages, tents, limousines, parquet dance floors, folding tables, helicopters: What was this place, Las Vegas? Press people crawled the grounds like ants, but his mother had assured him, as if he cared, that all the doors to the house were solidly locked.

  So this was the end, he mused, trying to take a detached air. His thoughts turned to his parents. Out on the grass, in front of his helicopter like Patton before his great flag, his father had a crew of fellow club members howling with laughter as he read them the dinner speech he had prepared for the wedding.

  Catherine turned her eyes down at her husband’s words, but said nothing.

  “Some might consider this an occasion of the release of a debt: Edward paying his family back for the effort of raising him as he resolutely commences this new chapter of his Kirkland manhood with the lovely Roberta Stirrup by his side. I say”—he paused, laughing in red-faced cheer as he downed a sip of scotch—“I say, this day is no such thing. For Edward could never repay his debt to the Kirkland family. All that he is, we have given to him.”

  At this comment, Horace’s contemporaries yelped and howled, their eyes shining as they reflected on their own ungrateful sons and daughters. The great man laughed uproariously, waving them down as he continued reading from his page, his huge fleshy hands rocking as he laughed. “I won’t keep you by relating everything Edward owes to his family,” he said, pausing as his eyes took on a devilish gleam. “We’d be here all night!”

  Hurrahs and laughs went up in a great manly bellow, as if Horace had announced a pay raise at the meeting of his company’s pipefitters union. As he traveled back toward the house in the pack of his acquaintances, relating from his list the top one hundred things Edward Kirkland owed
to his family, the club fellows contributed additional suggestions, one by one, in a chorus that had everyone full of uproarious glee.

  “The yacht!”

  “The private car!”

  “Don’t forget the job!” piped up one fellow with a nose for the obvious. “The job! The job!” thundered a chorus of approving cheers.

  “What about Harvard?”

  “Forget Harvard. Remember the marina you built for St. George’s?”

  Finding himself rollicking in enjoyment of his club members, Horace had his bags sent up to the house without him, and agreed to join the inner circle at the scotch and cigar tables set up beside the pond, to relate the enviable success of his Kazak venture.

  While his father chewed his cigar, Edward paced back and forth, his hands at his sides, his eyes traveling over the carved oak paneling of the room where he had been told to wait. There was no place to go from here. It was beautiful today, a warm seventy degrees, unseasonably sunny with a salty breeze coming in off the water. But every refuge he could see outside the house was animated with guests and decorations; his exit would be an entrance, requiring false cheer he did not feel able to muster. He caught a reflection of himself in the gilded mirror that hung over the mantel, a drawn, unhappy figure, starched, hemmed, and tucked into his morning coat and tails, his bow tie the absurd grace note of his formal captivity.

  And so he remained, ignorant that help was on the way.

  Becca was the first out of the helicopter. She did not pay any attention to the small group of people who ran from the chapel, implements in hand, to let her know how much trouble the helicopter had caused for the decorators. She did not notice the pack of older men, an army all dressed alike and all smoking cigars. Behind her she heard Arlene and Philippe running and the helicopter taking off.