Battling Destiny (The Piper Anderson Series Book 6) (18 page)

“First off, I didn’t realize she was struggling,” Betty said curtly. “Second, whatever the hell is going on out here with your mother amounts to a pile of beans. Something isn’t right with this baby. I might not be a doctor, but I know babies, and I especially know this baby.”

“So then what do I do? Do we really go to the emergency room? I don’t want to put her through all that,” Michael croaked.

“No, we don’t have to. She doesn’t have a fever and she did eat some today, right? I’ll watch her close tonight and if she’s not acting differently in the morning then we’ll go. But I’d like to talk to my daughter. Now.”

“Ma?” Jules asked as she peeked her head into the nursery. “I just saw the doctor on the way out. He’s talking to Michael’s mother and saying some crazy southern woman threatened to give him a whooping. I should have known it was you.”

“He’s a moron. You need a second opinion, and you’ll be getting one in the morning. Now, I don’t want to leave this room until I understand what all the trouble is out here. I’ve heard drips and drabs but I want to know everything.” Betty sat in the rocking chair with Frankie tucked in her arms and waited for a reply.

“I thought maybe we had an intruder or something, but I’m guessing I can call off the security now?” Tabitha asked as she looked around the room.

“Yes, Tabitha, I’m sorry. This is my mother,” Jules said looking sheepish.

“Don’t apologize for me. There ain’t nothing sorry about me,” Betty shot back as she continued to rock and barely spared Tabitha a glance.

“Oh, it’s lovely to meet you. I didn’t realize you were coming for a visit. We’d love to have you at the party this weekend.” Tabitha’s fake smile grew another inch wider, but Betty did not return the gesture. “Is there anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable?”

“You can leave,” Betty stated flatly.

“Ma, stop it now,” Jules shouted, taking a step between her mother and her mother-in-law.

Betty shrugged. “I’m not trying to be rude. I’m just wondering how everyone got all wonky the second they got out here. I’m not getting any calls or updates at all, then Piper calls me to tell me Frankie is sick, and I better come to help sort things out. So now I’m here, and I intend to do some sorting. I’d like some time alone with my kin to talk over what kind of mess is going on out here.”

“I hardly think you’ll be able to come in here and
sort out
any of this. It’s quite presumptuous of you to think you could, actually. My family’s complex problems aren’t any of your concern.” Tabitha arched an eyebrow at Betty and pursed her lips.

“When your family’s complex problems start leaking like a rusty bucket all over my family then, yes, they becomes my concern. Now, this is your house, you don’t have to leave. But if I tell all these people to pack their bags and leave with me right now they will. It ain’t because I’m a bitch who orders them around, it’s because they know I know what’s good for them. So you can either step out of this room and let us talk or you can stay here and hope we don’t mow you over on our way out.”

Tabitha looked on in shock as Bobby, Piper, and Michael gave slight nods to indicate Betty was right. With that she huffed and turned on her heels to leave.

“Now someone shut that door,” Betty ordered as she ran a finger over Frankie’s smooth cheek.

“I can’t believe you just did that, Ma. You have no idea what’s going on here. You just assume that it’s Tabitha causing the problems. What if you’re wrong and you just insulted my mother-in-law?” Jules started with a raised voice and then lowered it to a hoarse whisper when Betty gestured toward the baby.

“You people don’t cause problems. You walk in on a mess and try to fix it, but I don’t know any of you to start trouble. Any woman who plans a party and drags the mother of a sick baby with her doesn’t have my respect. I suppose she had a tactic for getting you to go with her today. I don’t see you just leaving Frankie like that.”

“No, she didn’t have a tactic. She was upset and crying. Things are very tense here right now, and I was trying to help. I want her and Michael to have a relationship, and I’m hoping to be a part of bringing them together.”

“Crying is a tactic. I’m not blaming you for going; I’m saying she had no business putting on some crocodile tears and asking you to leave your daughter for even a minute today. So if you want to fill me in on what’s going on, I suggest you get to flapping your gums.”

“Michael came out here on his own because he thought his baggage was too much for me to handle. He and his father had a very difficult relationship, and I think now that his dad is gone he’s taking out his anger on his mother. I’m sure she hasn’t been perfect, but he hasn’t seen her in nearly a decade, and he’s not even giving her a chance.” Jules looked so confident in her response that it made Michael sad.

“Is that really what you think is going on here?” Michael asked, amazed at how out of sync he and his wife were. “I told you my mother couldn’t be trusted. She doesn’t care about you, or any of us for that matter.”

“Well, I’ve spent a good amount of time with her since we’ve gotten here, and she seems very much like a woman who’s hurting. And you seem to be acting like someone who couldn’t care less.” Jules turned toward Betty to make her case. “He stood out on the lawn and told the media he was closing up everything she’d help to build, including charities she’s dedicated years to.”

“So?” Betty answered with a shrug. “I’m sure he’s not just trying to be a mean old dog about it. Out with it, Michael; tell me why you’re trying to shut everything down and get the hell out of here.”

Michael scanned every face in the room. Bobby, Piper, Betty, and Jules were all standing there waiting to hear what it was that had him acting like he was on the warpath when, in fact, he was just defending what he’d worked so hard to finally find. “I always knew my mother and father were hungry for power. When I was younger I assumed it was a positive thing. It’s part of what made me who I am. Some of my earliest memories are of me emulating my father. He made sure I had everything I ever wanted. Then after high school he set me on a course for a law degree. We started mingling in important circles and I met contacts that would fast track me on my way to a career. That summer I started working with him on a business level and I figured out what my job would actually be once I had my law degree. I got a peek behind the curtain of my father’s world and I couldn’t believe the things he did every day all in the name of wealth.

“His goal of me becoming a lawyer had nothing to do with his pride or his belief in me. He wanted me to protect him from all his crimes and hide all his lies. I was going to be the man he could trust. I’d be writing contracts for his mistresses to sign to make sure they didn’t disclose the affair without harsh consequences. I’d be his guy to backdate paperwork to cover up inside trading. The laundry list of things a clever lawyer can do to cover up crimes is impressive.”

“I wasn’t trying to make an argument for your father. I never met him and I didn’t have a chance to form an opinion about him,” Jules explained as she cleared her throat, looking less comfortable by the second.

“When I realized this is what my father wanted out of me, my world caved in. He was my hero. I based my entire existence on becoming the man he was. I was devastated, and when I turned to my mother for sanity and comfort she told me to stop being ridiculous. She explained this was how the world worked and if I ever wanted to be successful I’d need to do what I was told.”

“That’s ugly,” Betty said, shaking her head and mumbling some kind of prayer under her breath.

“And I asked her what would happen if I didn’t. What if I wanted to go practice law somewhere else or even expose my father and his crimes? My answer was waiting for me the next morning. My house keys were gone. My credit cards were taken from my wallet and cut into confetti. My cell phone was smashed. The tires were taken off my car, and it was put up on blocks in the garage. The only thing I had to my name was the clothes on my back and a note from my mother. It read:
You have nothing without us.
I picked that up, stuffed it in my bag, and never looked back. I was dead set on proving to them I could be a success without them. I enlisted in the Marines and used the G.I. Bill to pay my way through school. And now, all these years later I have everything I’ve ever wanted in my life. I have family. Right here in this room I have people who would do, and have done, anything for me.”

“That is awful, Michael, and I’m not making excuses for her actions. But that was a long time ago. Isn’t there any chance she’s changed?” Jules’s chin was turned up as she kept trying to make her case.

“Oh honey, that’s like finding bird shit in a cuckoo clock. Some people just ain’t real and that ain’t going to change over time. Any mother capable of not only expecting such things out of her son, but punishing him for not doing them is, excuse my language, a cold-hearted bitch. This here is your husband. You need to take his side and his hand and go home.”

“That’s very Christian of you, Mother,” Jules responded sarcastically.

“Jules, it wasn’t just that day. It’s every moment leading up to that. I saw my mother destroy staff here for supposedly stealing her earrings. She publicly humiliated two of the housekeepers and made sure they couldn’t work anywhere in this area again. Two days later the earrings turned up. They were in the pocket of a suit she’d dropped off at the dry cleaner. She never made that right. She meddled in every relationship I ever had and intentionally ended the ones she didn’t like. My mother has an agenda for everything. These charities are a way to steal money and help her friends do the same. Her wanting us here right now has nothing to do with caring about us. She’s looking for some last ditch effort to convince me to run my father’s empire the same way he did so she can continue living the lifestyle she’s accustomed to. Every conversation I’ve had with her so far has been either a threat or an attempt to blackmail me.”

“Michael,” Bobby interrupted, nervously clearing his throat as though he wasn’t sure it was his place to say anything. “Why are you still here? Why bother getting involved? Couldn’t you sign everything over to her and let her sink the ship on her own?”

“I would, but my sister’s never known enough to get out. I guess my father learned his lesson with me. He didn’t give her the chance to find out the kind of man he was. Instead, under the illusion of training her for the business world, he used her name to perpetuate dozens of crimes. Some are serious enough to land her in prison if they ever were to surface. By closing everything down I’m trying to bury that. But there are also a lot of people who benefit from my father’s crimes. I’m trying to tactfully navigate that.”

“Well if anyone can, it’s you,” Betty said with a warm smile. “That’s your gift. You can tell someone to go screw themselves and make it so they thank you for the suggestion.”

“Your sister didn’t know what your father was doing?” Piper asked, clearly trying to sort out who knew what.

“No, I plan to tell her but not until everything is done. There isn’t anything she can do at this point, and I don’t want her to worry.”

“Aren’t you worried about getting in trouble for covering anything up?” Bobby asked.

“I’m not covering anything up really. I’m closing things down and hoping no one cares enough to come digging around. If my sister gets married and goes on to live a normal life, then no one is going to care about this stuff. It will just disappear. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping.”

“Isn’t your mother the one who told you about your sister being in trouble? She obviously wanted you to help.” Jules was starting to pace the room as she spoke.

“No, at first she just asked me to take over the business and protect my father’s reputation by keeping everything that was locked up safe and sound. When that didn’t work she played the card about my sister. She knew I wouldn’t leave Josephine here to take the blame for something she didn’t realize she was doing. It’s not her fault. She shouldn’t have had to think twice about trusting her own parents.”

“Tabitha said she didn’t know what was going on. She wouldn’t have let him do that to Josephine.” Jules was starting to sound more like she was trying to convince herself rather than anyone in the room. “You don’t know for sure.”

“I don’t,” Michael admitted. “But I’m not willing to risk you or Frankie on the off chance she’s changed.”

“What could she possibly do to us?” Jules asked through a breathy laugh that told Michael she really didn’t understand.

“She can make it look like I’m having an affair so you leave me and take Frankie away. She could dig into any of our pasts and find one small linchpin that drives a stake right through our careers or our relationships. We’ve all made enough questionable choices over the last two years to provide her with some ammunition. She could spread a rumor, threaten us, or even plant evidence that makes us look like we committed a crime.”

“You sound like you’re on a television cop drama, Michael. You really believe your mother is capable of those things?” Jules scoffed.

“I don’t believe it; I know it. She’s done every single one of those things before. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

Jules pursed her lips and drew in a deep breath. She seemed to be out of arguments in favor of his mother, or at least Michael hoped that was the case.

“How close are you to being done here?” Bobby asked, still looking uncomfortable.