Legacy (3 page)

Ignoring the voice that told him to leave it, Wes bent down and turned over the canvas that lay on the floor.

Corinne’s style gravitated toward vivid colors, oil paintings larger than life in a palette that the natural world could never match. A midnight sky of purple, orange, green, and gold that could not be mistaken for anything other than a midnight sky. An oak tree with leaves of blues, greens, and yellows, trunks in brown, peach, and red.

But her portraits were her most striking works. Wes had seen dozens in the same style. Faces that took up the entire canvas with colors that seemed to capture the soul. Michael had told him that Corinne was earning a reputation for these and had even had some portraits commissioned.

Wes had feared for an instant that the face on the other side of the canvas would be Michael’s, but it wasn’t. He saw eyes flecked with black, gold, and turquoise, capturing the true hazel, and long brown hair lit with pink, azure, and yellow. A smile the color of lemons and cherries.

Corinne.

And she looked happier than he’d ever seen her.

But now it was marred by shoe prints, stray daubs of paint, and dirt from the floor. Wes stood up and tried to brush away the dirt and shoe marks. He didn’t think much could be done about the paint mess, but if Corinne wanted to touch it up, he had no doubt that she could.

Thinking that he had time to try to set the studio back in order, Wes grabbed the overturned easel and was placing the ruined portrait on the stand when the kitchen door opened.

“Buck? Where are y—” Corinne’s call caught when she saw him, and her wide eyes moved between him and the self-portrait in his hands.

“What the hell are you doing?!?”

“I...was just—”

“What are you still doing here?” Corinne screamed, taking a step toward him. And despite the fact that he towered over her by a solid ten inches, Wes stepped back. “Get the hell out of my house, you creep!”

“I’m just trying to help!” Wes yelled back, but he was already backing toward the door, eager to get away from the crazy.

“No one asked you!”

Wrong there, bitch!

But Wes wasn’t about to argue with his best friend’s psycho woman. He was out the back door and across the yard in about three seconds.

“What were you thinking, Mike?” he asked out loud.

But the only reply he got was the sound of the deadbolt sliding home and the clank of the chain locking behind it.

Chapter 3

C
orinne stood staring at her smiling face, the one she had thrown to the ground and trod over the day Michael died.

He’d asked for it for Christmas, a self-portrait modeled on a picture he had taken on their trip to Austin only months before. He’d wanted it for his office, saying he’d be the only IT director in town with a Corinne Granger original.

She’d brought it to the hospital on Christmas Day, two days before he died. Michael had opened his eyes for a little while, and Corinne thought by the lift in their corners that he’d seen it, known what it meant.

Hours later, he’d awoken again to find her crying beside him.

“I’m sorry,” he’d whispered, his last words to her.

Corinne turned her back to the portrait and left the sunroom. She hoped he
was
sorry because the smiling girl on the canvas had died with him.

She stepped into her clean kitchen and sighed. When she’d gotten up and couldn’t find Buck, panic had pricked through her. She worried that perhaps Wes and Mr. Roush had left him outside in the front, and when she didn’t see him there or on the street, she’d rushed to the back, hoping they’d put him in the yard. She hadn’t even noticed the emptied trash or the clean sink.

What she least expected to find was Wes Clarkson holding the last painting she’d finished.

And, apparently, he had cleaned up her house. Or Mr. Roush had. Of course, if it had been Mr. Roush, why would Wes still be here? And wouldn’t she have found Michael’s dad instead?

Still, it was hard to believe Wes Clarkson doing
anything
that didn’t gratify Wes Clarkson. The man had never done his
own
dishes when he ate at their house, much less anyone else’s. Once, about a year ago, Corinne had gone into the spare room the day after Wes had crashed for the night after a bender with Michael—only to discover that he’d puked on her sheets and left it to stew all day.

The bastard had managed to take a shower before he left and use all the hot water, but wash the sheets? Not a chance.

Corinne fixed herself a bowl of ramen and carried it to the couch. Ina Garten was making Chicken with Wild Mushrooms in Napa Valley. And then Alton Brown made a lentil soup with cumin, coriander, and something called grains of paradise. Then Rachel Ray was about to make a 30-minute shepherd’s pie when Buck gave a lone bark and trotted toward the door.

That was when Corinne heard a car door out front.

“God, no,” Corinne pleaded, still curled up on the couch. One round of visitors had been quite enough for the day. Buck looked at her and back at the door, wagging. Clearly, he disagreed.

A knock sounded, and Buck’s tail wagged even harder.

Maybe if I just sit still, they’ll go away.

“Corinne?” Morgan called through the door. “Are you awake?”

Corinne contemplated feigning sleep and hoping her sister would give up and go home. It probably wouldn’t take too long for her to slip into another nap anyway.

“Corinne? I’m coming in...”

To her surprise, she heard a key in the lock and only had an instant to wonder how Morgan had gotten her hands on it before the door opened. Her sister spotted Corinne on the couch and frowned.

“Were you asleep?” she asked, waddling in and closing the door behind her. Morgan placed a hand on her pregnant belly and waited for an answer.

“No.”

Morgan raised a brow.

“Were you going to let me in?” she asked, irritation clear in her voice.

“I hadn’t decided.”

“Corinne! You were just going to leave me out there until I left? I’m six months pregnant!” Morgan complained. “I have to pee every five minutes. I’d never make it all the way back to Sugar Mill Pond.”

I don’t recall inviting you...

“Well, what are you doing here? And how is it that you have a copy of my key?”

Morgan looked uncomfortable and shook her head.

“I’ll tell you in a minute. First, I need the bathroom.” And she was gone.

“Fine,” Corinne said to an empty room.

She pushed herself off the couch and picked up her soup bowl and spoon. In the kitchen she contemplated just setting the dishes in the sink, but since it was empty, she almost felt bad about undoing the work that Wes—or whoever—had done, so she turned on the hot water and scrubbed the dishes herself.

Morgan came in, heaving a sigh of relief.

“Thank God.” She pulled out a chair from the dinette in the kitchen and sunk into it.

Corinne regarded her over her shoulder as she rinsed the spoon.

“How did you get the key?” she asked again.

Morgan dropped her eyes and pursed her lips.

“It’s Michael’s. You gave it to me to pick up his suit...remember?”

Corinne closed her eyes. That afternoon was a blur of hospital and funeral home and the living room at the Roush’s. But she did remember now.

She took a deep, slow breath, wanting to move away from the memory, so she repeated her other question.

“And why are you here now?” she managed on the exhale.

Morgan was silent.

Corinne put the spoon with the bowl on the draining board and turned to face her sister.

“Don’t get mad, okay?” Morgan pleaded, tucking her chin the way she did when she was nervous.

Corinne folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the sink.

“Why would I get mad?”

Morgan rolled her eyes and pushed a honey-colored curl away from her face.

“Wes Clarkson messaged me on Facebook about an hour ago,” she said, watching Corinne for a reaction. “He said you seemed a little...overwrought.”

Corinne felt the sting of shame, but she threw her head back in mirthless laughter.

“
Overwrought
is not a word in Wes Clarkson’s vocabulary. What did he really say?”

“Well, if you must know,” Morgan said, giving an impatient shrug and digging her phone out of her purse. “He said...
‘
Thought you should know that your sister is a whack job. Just left her place. Total CF. I don’t think she’s showered in days.’”

It felt like a blow to her gut.

Actually, you look like shit.

Humiliation bowed her shoulders, leaving her unable to look at her sister. She never should have let him in. Hell, she
hadn’t
let him in. She should have thrown him out as soon as he came in for the stupid bike.

“Corinne...?”

“He’s such an asshole,” she hissed. “He doesn’t know what I’m going through.”

Morgan was silent again. This time, Corinne’s eyes shot up to hers in defiance.

“What? What are you not saying?”

“Nothing...Just that he lost his best friend, honey,” Morgan stood up and made a move toward Corinne who held up her hand, insisting on distance.

Morgan sighed.

“All I’m saying is that he may not know
exactly
what you’re going through, but he knows what it means to miss Michael.”

“He doesn’t know what
I’m
going through,” Corinne stressed, rapping her fist against her chest, grateful for the anger that tightened her throat. “Neither do you.”

“Fine. We don’t know. But he’s obviously worried about you, and, frankly, I am, too.”

“Wes doesn’t worry about
anyone
or
anything
,” Corinne scoffed, choosing the easier target to attack.

“Let’s forget about Wes,” Morgan said, swiping her hand like she could brush him away. “Why don’t you take a shower, and we’ll go see Dad?”

Corinne blinked in shock.

“Dad?...Why?”

Morgan raised a self-congratulatory brow.

“Because he does know
exactly
what you’re going through.”

An hour later, Corinne had showered, dried her hair, and dressed in a pair of clean jeans and a sweater that Morgan had somehow found in her closet. The hot water and droning hair dryer had made her sleepy and ready for a nap again, but Morgan insisted on leaving, so Corinne found herself riding shotgun in her sister’s Camry on their way to Emeritus, their father’s retirement community.

Clement Granger had suffered two strokes before his 60th birthday. The first, six years ago, had left him with a slight limp on his right side and an almost undetectable slur. The second, three years after, had left him in a wheelchair at first, the paralysis claiming most of the function on his right side. For two years, he’d lived in the assisted living complex, but with continuous physical and speech therapy, he could use a walker now and had graduated to the “Senior Independent Living” section of the campus.

No one could argue that Emeritus wasn’t the best facility in town, but Corinne still saw the place as a kind of end-of-life processing plant. Healthy old folks who didn’t want to take care of their yards anymore—or whose kids didn’t want to feel guilty about them cleaning out the gutters—got an apartment or patio home in Senior Independent Living where they could enjoy the exercise classes and bingo and still drive to the Grand to catch a movie. Inevitably, a fall or the slow and steady onset of Alzheimer’s sent residents to Assisted Living, where they could count on being bathed and babysat. Next stop was Skilled Nursing with its catheter and colostomy care and Medicare-certified beds. Finally, there were the beautiful Hospice Rooms with fresh flower arrangements and never-ending morphine.

Corinne had once teased her father about how he’d bucked the system by moving back a level. His barely intelligible reply—her dad was still embarrassed by his speech—was that he’d always been a rebel.

“Have you been to see him lately?” Morgan asked as they pulled into the complex.

“No,” Corinne responded, refusing to feel guilty for the filial lapse. She’d been too busy watching her life fall apart.

Morgan parked the car and turned toward her.

“When was the last time you left the house?” she asked, her brows coming together.

“I don’t know!” Corinne snapped. In truth, she did know. She had gone to the store 10 days before because she was out of toilet paper and dog food, but she didn’t think Morgan would be impressed with this accomplishment, so she kept it to herself.

The afternoon sun was waning as Morgan regarded her sister with a sad frown. Corinne couldn’t take it, so she opened her car door.

“C’mon. We wouldn’t want Dad to miss the 5 p.m. dinner gong,” she said with sarcasm.

Corinne strode away from the car, leaving Morgan to struggle with her pregnant belly. As she rang her dad’s doorbell, she realized it would be a race between the Venus of Willendorf and
Cocoon,
and she almost found herself laughing.

As it happened, Morgan won, making it to the door just before her father opened it, and this made Corinne sad somehow.

“Sorry we’re late, Dad,” Morgan said, crowding his walker to give him a kiss.

Late?
Had he been expecting them? Corinne was beginning to feel as though she’d been played. First, Wes Clarkson’s intrusion, now this?

“Hey, Corie,” her father said. It didn’t sound like
“Hey, Corie,”
of course. It might have been
“acorn”
or
“a gory”
, but Corinne knew what he meant.

“Hey, Dad,” she said, stepping into the apartment and attempting to skirt his walker to take refuge in the living room.

Her father’s good arm shot out and grabbed her by the elbow, and he pulled her to him with a strength she didn’t realize he had. In an instant, she felt the warmth of his chest and the bracing of his arm around her as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Without warning, tears pooled in her eyes and spilled over onto his shirt. She didn’t want it. Didn’t want to go down like this in front of them, but the softness of his roughness, the scrape of his stubble on her forehead, the scent of Irish Spring at his collar was so familiar that she felt about six years old again, and her defenses caved.

“I know…I know, my girl,” he whispered as she came apart against him. For what seemed like hours, the only thing she heard was the squeak of her sobs and his steady breath.