Seasons of the Fool

by Lynne Cantwell

  She didn’t budge. “Come on, Lance. Out with it. Why are you here? Did Tina throw you out?”

  “Ouch.” Unbuttoning his jacket, he lowered himself to the couch and spread his arms across the back. “No, actually, things between Tina and me are just fine. I just thought you and I could have a little chat, that’s all.”

  “About…?”

  “About what you’re planning to say on the witness stand.”

  That had been her second guess. “The truth,” she said.

  “Well,” he said. “There’s the truth, and there’s the truth.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, it’s all in the way you deliver the lines, isn’t it?” He sat forward. “Jules. I’ve seen your video. It’s good. You’re good.” He laughed and shook his head. “I’d forgotten just how good an actress you are. You’ve still got the chops. So I said to myself, ‘Lance, my friend, why don’t you go on out there and see whether she might use her chops to your benefit?”

  “You want me to lie on the stand,” she said.

  “No! Of course not. I’d never dream of asking you to lie,” he said. “I’m just asking you to put me in the best light possible.”

  “Given the fact that you swindled millions of dollars from a whole lot of people who trusted you.”

  He winced. “You make it sound so sordid.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “Lance. It was sordid.” She cocked her head, regarding him. “Do you feel even the least bit sorry for what you did? Because I’ve watched enough legal shows on TV to know that the judge is going to be watching you, to see whether you feel any remorse.”

  “But the jurors will be watching you,” he said, jabbing his finger toward her. “The wronged ex-wife. The famous novelist. The YouTube starlet. You could be a big help to me.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “And in return, you are prepared to offer me…?”

  “A bigger settlement. Assuming I get off scot-free, that is.”

  “Which you won’t.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you. Go home, Lance. Spend a little time looking for your conscience. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere, buried under a couple of miles’ worth of ego.” She stepped back a pace and gestured toward the open door.

  He tilted his head to one side, and studied her for a moment. Then he said, “I saw Dave a few minutes ago.”

  Her heart thudded in her chest. “What do you mean, you ‘saw’ him?”

  He shrugged. “He was outside with his kids when I drove past, so I stopped to say hello. Such a nice guy. Cute kids, too.” The calculating look was back in his eye. “But the crazy wife wasn’t with him. Is he still married to her?”

  “Yes,” she said, keeping her expression stony.

  A sly smile crept over his face. “I wonder what would happen if I had my lawyers call him to the stand.”

  “For what purpose?” she said. “He wasn’t one of your investors. Before today, you hadn’t spoken to him in at least ten years. What could you possibly gain by calling Dave to testify?”

  She knew his answer before he opened his mouth. She read it in his crafty expression. “It would be one way to impeach the reputation of my ex-wife, wouldn’t it? By calling her married lover to the stand?”

  “You son of a bitch,” she said. She wanted to punch his face to a pulp. “You leave him out of this.”

  “Then you, my dear, need to think extra carefully about what you’re going to say about me on the stand.”

  “Get out of my house,” she growled.

  He rose from the couch and sauntered toward the door. He stopped in front of her. “Be sure to think about what I’ve said, Jules.”

  “Out,” she said again, flinging the screen door open so hard that it bounced back against her outstretched hand.

  He smirked at her before strolling out the door.

  She slammed both doors and locked them for good measure. She leaned her back up against the door, fists clenched at her sides, until she heard him start his car and drive away. At the end of the block, he honked his horn.

  She groaned in frustration, throwing her hands skyward. The thing she had feared the most – Lance dragging Dave and his family through the muck – was going to happen. Because she was not going to change her testimony to try to save her asshole of an ex-husband. She couldn’t, and keep living with herself. Even if it meant hurting Dave.

  It occurred to her that she should probably call Andy to tell him about Lance’s visit. But then she would have to explain who Dave was. She’d never be able to keep him out of it after that.

  “I might as well sleep with him,” she said bitterly. “At least I’d get something out of the deal.” But she didn’t mean it. She couldn’t be that selfish.

  There had to be a way to salvage something good from this mess. She just needed to think about it, or meditate on it, or something.

  Then she remembered the labyrinth.

  ~

  As before, the older women were with her as she embarked on her journey. “Now, dear,” Ms. Elsie said as they smudged her, “don’t go in there expecting a miracle. The labyrinth will show you what you need to see, and it may not be the answer you’re hoping for.”

  She nodded. “I know,” she said. “I don’t even know what I’m hoping for, Ms. Elsie. I just need to find a way to protect Dave. And the kids,” she added, somewhat belatedly. “If the labyrinth can show me how to do that, I’ll be satisfied.”

  Ms. Elsie and Ms. Thea shared a look. “All right, then,” Ms. Elsie said with a sigh. The two women stepped back. They called on the spirits of the place, asking for their blessing, and asking them to guide Julia to the answers she sought.

  Then they nodded gravely to her, and she stepped into the labyrinth.

  She found herself on a platform high above the earth, and none too sturdy – the slightest breeze made it tremble. There was an open door at the far edge of the platform, and an old man in an ochre cloak was urging her through it. “Hurry!” he said. “You must get aboard!”

  She couldn’t see what was beyond the door; fear of the unknown made her hesitate. But as a gust of wind rattled the platform, she became more afraid of the contraption collapsing under her than she was of whatever was beyond the door.

  “Hurry!” the old man said again, the wind whipping his long, gray beard into a frenzy. He waved the lantern he was holding toward the door. She nodded and lunged for the doorway.

  Now she was in a tiny room – hardly bigger than the broom closet in her cottage – but with windows all around that afforded her a panoramic view. As the old man hung his lantern on a hook by the door, she stepped closer to the wall of windows, mouth agape. It seemed as if she could see the whole world from here: cities, snowcapped mountains, planes, even a satellite shimmered impossibly below them. A line from an old Jimmy Cagney movie occurred to her: “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”

  Then she remembered that Cagney’s character delivered the line just before he blew himself up.

  The tiny room began to move. “What’s happening?” Julia cried, groping for a handhold on the window frame.

  “The Wheel turns,” the old man said.

  Slowly at first, then picking up speed, the cabin headed toward the ground. She screamed as her hair streamed upward behind her; her feet no longer touched the floor. “We’ll be killed!” she cried.

  “Be at peace,” he said calmly. “The Wheel will turn again.”

  They were beneath the airplanes, and still dropping. The treetops just below them looked sharp, as if they could pierce the meager skin of her compartment. She shut her eyes, expecting at any moment to be impaled.

  But she was not. When at last she risked a glance, she discovered they were safely on the ground; she could see her own backyard through the tiny room’s windows. But if she had learned anything over the past few months, it was that safety was an illusion. The Wheel will turn again. She would eventually be back on top of the world. For n
ow, she was grateful for her semblance of stability.

  She turned to the old man in ochre and asked, “What must I do to keep Dave and his children safe?”

  “To take care of them,” he said, “you must take care of yourself. For now, feed your own spirit. The Wheel will soon turn.” He gestured behind her. She turned and beheld something she had not noticed before: the box of old notebooks from under her grandmother’s bed. Behind it, something else lay in the shadows. Puzzled, she stepped forward to retrieve it…

  And stepped out of the labyrinth.

  The ladies moved to support her. “Did you find the answer you sought?” Ms. Thea asked as she took one of Julia’s elbows.

  “I’m not sure,” she said as she caught her balance. “But I think I know where to look.”

  ~

  The three of them adjourned to the older women’s kitchen. Ms. Elsie made lunch while Julia talked it out.

  “I understand the symbolism of the giant Ferris wheel,” she said. “The day I published my novel, I did feel as if I were on top of the world. I remember feeling like I was on the verge of having everything I’d ever wanted. I was a published author with a bestselling book, I was about to take Lance down, and….” Her face grew warm.

  “And?” Ms. Elsie prompted.

  She ducked her head and began to pick at a cuticle. “I thought Dave and I were going to get back together.”

  “You thought,” Ms. Thea repeated.

  Julia glanced up at her. “It’s not that he’s not willing,” she said, before looking down at her hands again. “But of course, he’s married. And he’s too honorable to divorce a sick woman. And I….” She shook her head. “It’s hard to explain. Look, my own marriage ended due to infidelity. I know what it feels like, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Least of all, Dave.” She began picking at a different finger. “I don’t want to be the catalyst for that. But I’m selfish, too.” She looked up at Ms. Thea. “I don’t want just a part of him. I want all of him. And it’s not going to happen until Nina’s out of the picture, and he’s not going to divorce her because she’s sick.” She put her hands flat on the table and sighed. “Round and round we go. And we keep ending up back in the same place.”

  “You poor dear,” Ms. Elsie said, placing sandwiches in front of her and Ms. Thea. “There. You two go ahead and start.” She went back to the counter to fetch her own plate.

  Julia took a bite and gave Ms. Elsie a thumbs up. When she had swallowed, she asked, “Who was the old man? You seemed to recognize him.”

  “The Hermit,” Ms. Thea said. “He could either be a guide, or a suggestion that you go into hermit mode yourself, or both. Tell us again what he said.”

  Julia put down her sandwich. “I asked him what I could do to keep Dave and his children safe. He said that to take care of them, I needed to feed my own spirit. And then he pointed to a box of old notebooks of mine.”

  “Interesting,” said Ms. Elsie.

  Julia frowned. “The odd thing is that I went through that box just a few months ago, and I don’t remember anything in any of them that would feed my spirit. Except….” Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “Oh?” the older women asked in unison.

  “There was one notebook I didn’t open,” she said. “The journal I kept during the summer that my parents died. I wrote a lot of sappy stuff about Dave in there. And I was pretty angry at Mom and Dad for forcing me to go to college instead of letting us get married.” Her eyes refocused on the women, who were listening avidly. “I just wasn’t interested in reliving all of it that day, so I put it away again.”

  “So you still have it?” Ms. Elsie asked.

  “Yeah. It’s in a box under the bed in Grandma’s….” She grinned self-consciously. “I keep doing that. I can’t seem to stop thinking of that bedroom as hers, even though I’ve been sleeping in it for the past six months.”

  “Maybe she’s still there,” Ms. Thea said.

  Julia’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. “What?”

  Ms. Elsie looked first at Ms. Thea, and then at Julia. “Is there anything else under the bed, dear? Besides your box of notebooks, I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “That’s a good question. I’ve never actually looked. I cleaned everything else in the house when I moved in, but I didn’t really touch anything in her…in my room, other than to put my own linens on the bed. You think she left something behind?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Ms. Thea said. “Sounds like it’s time to do some spring cleaning.”

  Ms. Elsie patted her hand. “Finish your sandwich, dear. If whatever’s under there hasn’t moved in the seven years since your grandmother died, it’s not going anywhere in the next fifteen minutes.”

  ~

  With some trepidation, Julia led the way to her grandmother’s bedroom.

  “Seems a bit fussy in here for a young person,” Ms. Thea said, eyeing the floral wallpaper and ruffled lampshade as she leaned against the closet door. The delicate pink palette didn’t go with the duvet, with its giant cartoons of elk in bold primary colors.

  “Yeah,” Julia said, looking around with fresh eyes. “It’s not really my thing. There’s probably pine paneling under the wallpaper, like there is in the rest of the house. I figured I’d strip it eventually and see about restoring the paneling. But I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  “You can’t do everything at once,” Ms. Elsie said, easing herself onto the end of the bed. “But maybe when we’ve gotten to the bottom of this, you’ll feel more like tackling this room.”

  “Maybe,” said Julia. She felt nervous, and wasn’t sure why. Maybe because she had an audience. Or maybe because her grandmother had hidden something away and hadn’t meant for it to be found.

  But that was silly. Any family skeletons would be buried, not shoved under a bed where anyone armed with a broom might come across them.

  Buoyed by that realization, she dropped to her hands and knees and flipped up the edge of the duvet. “Here are my notebooks,” she said, tugging the box out and scooting it out of the way. Then she dove under the bed again. “Hmm. It looks like there’s something in the far corner.” She pulled her phone from her jeans pocket and turned on the flashlight app.

  It was a white box, long and not very deep, with pictures of chocolates on the side. “Oh,” Julia said. “It’s Grandma’s stationery box. I wonder what it’s doing way back there?” She got to her feet and dusted off her knees. “I’ll be right back.”

  She went to the broom closet to fetch something with a long handle. As she grabbed the dust mop, she glanced around the inside of the tiny closet to reassure herself that all the walls were solid. Exhaling softly, she retrieved the mop and closed the door.

  It took a little doing, but eventually she maneuvered the chocolates box close enough to grab. As she pulled it out, both of the older women chuckled. “She grew up in the Depression,” Julia said with a grin. “She reused everything. And she saved everything, in case it would be good someday. You wouldn’t believe the junk Jen and I pulled out of this place after she died. We had to rent a dumpster.”

  Ms. Thea and Ms. Elsie laughed. “Oh, we remember the dumpster,” Ms. Elsie said.

  Julia grinned at them, the chocolates box on her lap. “Grandma would have been mortified.” She looked down at the box. “It must have been Jen who shoved this so far back. I’ll have to e-mail her and ask.”

  “How is your aunt?” Ms. Elsie asked. “You never talk about her.”

  Julia shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. She’s been in assisted living in Crystal Lake since shortly after Uncle Frank died. My parents thought they were foolish to move so far away from everyone else, but Aunt Sally and Uncle Frank loved it there.”

  “It must be hard for her, with both of her children so far away,” Ms. Thea said.

  “She did it to herself,” Julia said. She looked up to see the women’s surprised looks. “I know that sounds harsh, but it’
s the truth. Aunt Sally and Uncle Frank did everything they could to control their kids’ lives. They pushed Tim toward being a plumber, of all things. And Aunt Sally tried everything she could think of to keep Jen from moving more than two doors away from her. Both Tim and Jen felt so stifled by the roles their parents wanted them to play that they each got as far away as they could.” She chuckled. “I always thought Aunt Sally’s shenanigans made my parents look like saints.”

  “What’s in the box?” Ms. Thea asked.

  Julia slid the top up and off, and set it next to her on the floor. An envelope lay angled across the contents. “It’s addressed to me,” she said, surprised. “Looks like Grandma sent it to me at my college address, but it came back.” She looked at the postmark. “Well, no wonder. She must have sent it right before she died. Lance and I were living in Evanston by then. I wonder why she thought I was still in college?”

  “She got a bit forgetful toward the end,” Ms. Elsie offered.

  “I know, but wow. I didn’t know she’d gotten that bad.” Julia set the rest of the box inside its upturned lid and slit open the envelope.

  Age had not improved Betty Morton’s handwriting, but Julia had no trouble deciphering it.

  Dear Julia,

  I hope this finds you well. After you read this letter, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for what I’ve done.

  Not long before your parents died, I received a phone call from your father. He told me that he and your mother had discussed your relationship with David, and they were coming around to the idea that you two should be allowed to marry, even if it meant that you changed your plans for college. He asked me what I thought, and I told him I thought it was crazy. You had always struck me as a child with her head in the clouds, and one who was too eager to please. I had overheard David pressuring you, and I was afraid for you.

  Your father and I argued. You know how headstrong Jimmy could be. He was very like your grandfather in that way. Anyway, the more I advised him against it, the more he dug in his heels. In the end, he told me he and your mother were going to talk to the two of you when they came out at the end of the summer, and intended to give you their blessing.