Roses (56 page)

“I’m afraid the evening one will be worse,” Matt said on the drive back to Houston Avenue. “This morning’s group was from
the county. Tonight’s herd will come from all over the state, staying in motels from here to Dallas. But hang in there. By
Monday, this will all be over, and you can get on with what you’re about and… we can get on with us.” He brought his arm around
her. “That okay with you?” he asked.

“Sounds heavenly,” she said.

Her father’s early-model Dodge, kept in excellent condition by the automotive skills of his son, was parked in front of the
verandah when they arrived. Entering the hall, she heard his West Texas drawl, inflected with the slight French accent he’d
never quite lost, drifting from the kitchen. She hurried toward it, but at the swinging door, she stopped to gather her internal
forces to meet an awkward reception.

“Will Lucy Warwick be coming to the funeral?” her father was asking. “It’d be nice to see her again. I really liked her as
a boy.”

“Oh, Lawsey, no!” Sassie exclaimed. “They ain’t been no love lost ’tween her and Miss Mary for nigh on forty years. I imagine
Miss Lucy feel pretty proud of herself, knowin’ she outlive Miss Mary. First thing she ever put over on her.”

“Well, I reckon we have to take our triumphs where we can, Sassie,” her father said.

Rachel chuckled and pushed open the door. “Hello, everybody,” she said.

The members of her family looked up from the table, where they were partaking of the bounty of food contributions lining the
counter. For a heartrending moment, Rachel saw that her parents had aged in the months since she’d last seen them at Christmas.
Middle age was showing in her father’s grayer hair and the stoop of his shoulders, her mother’s thickened waist and the lines
around her eyes.

“Well, look who’s here,” William cried, pushing back from the table. “How’s my little Bunny-hop?”

“Better now that you are here,” Rachel said, her defenses sufficiently crumbling at his warm welcome, the sight of her whole
family together again.

“Well, is that any way to show it—by crying?” her mother asked, but she smiled slightly as she got up to add her arms to William’s.

“Make room for me,” Jimmy said, his mouth full of a ham sandwich he set aside to complete the family embrace. Thus bound,
they huddled in an exchange of hugs and kisses and damp eyes for a few minutes before disengaging and sitting down again at
the table. For the next half hour, they might have been back at the kitchen table in Kermit in those long-ago days when Houston
Avenue had been merely a street where her father had sent his annual Christmas card. Everybody began talking and chewing at
once, sharing gossip and news of Winkler County, passing plates of ham and cheese, and spreading mustard and mayonnaise together.
And then, as if a bomb had been thrown into the room and detonated instantly, Alice shattered the family bonhomie.

“Well, Rachel,” she said, “how does it feel to know you’re going to inherit all of this right out from under your daddy?”

At the counter, Sassie threw a shocked glance over her shoulder, and Henry, who’d come in for a coffee break, pushed away
from the pantry door. Jimmy groaned, and William snapped, “Alice, for God’s sake!”

Rachel felt the joy of the reunion dissipate like air from a burst balloon. “How could you say such a thing at such a time,
Mama?” she asked, her voice soft with offense.

“I’m only asking out of curiosity.”

“Alice…,” William warned.

“Don’t ‘Alice’ me, William Toliver. I’ve made no bones about the way I feel, and Rachel knows it.”

Rachel stood up. “Henry, have you shown my family their rooms?”

“Yes, Miss Rachel, and their luggage is already stowed.” The chimes of the doorbell suddenly reverberated throughout the house,
as shrilling as sirens in the charged atmosphere. Quickly, Henry rid himself of his coffee cup. “There’s the bell again,”
he said, sounding eager to get out of the kitchen. “We got more callers. I’ll go let ’em in, if that’s all right, Miss Rachel.”

“Thank you, Henry. Put them in the parlor and tell them I’ll be right out.” She turned to the members of her family, still
sitting at the table, her father and brother looking miserable, her mother guileless and unperturbed. “These are visitors
come to pay their respects. Do you want to go to your rooms before you get snagged down here?”

“Why? Are you ashamed of us?” Alice asked.

A groan again from Jimmy and an exasperated sigh from William. Rachel said in as even a tone as her disappointment could manage,
“I thought you might like to avoid receiving condolences from strangers on the death of a woman you didn’t like.”

“Alice, Rachel is right,” William said, yanking his napkin from his shirt collar. “We don’t want to get stuck down here. Neither
of us is dressed to meet these people, and I need a nap before we go to the funeral home.”

Jimmy scrambled out of his chair with an air of apology. At twenty-one, he was tall and rangy. His reddish brown hair was
a legacy from his mother, but the origin of his Howdy Doody looks had remained a mystery. “I’m sorry about Aunt Mary, sis,”
he said. “I know you loved her very much and that you’ll miss her. She was a nice old lady. I’m sorry she’s gone.”

Sweet, uncomplicated Jimmy. Since he didn’t feel entitled to anything he hadn’t earned, he’d never understood the dissension
that had separated her from the rest of the family. She rumpled his hair affectionately. “Thanks, Jimmy, I appreciate that.
Is there anything you’d like to do while the folks rest?”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to have a look at the limo. She’s still got it, hasn’t she?”

Rachel opened a counter drawer and tossed him a set of keys. “Here you go. Take it for a spin if you like.”

The doorbell rang again. “I’m outta here!” Jimmy announced, the keys jingling as he made for the door.

Alice confronted her daughter. “Which stairs are we to use—the servants’ or the main staircase?”

Rachel faced her mother. She still wore the clothes, makeup, and hairstyle of the post–World War II era in which she was her
prettiest, but little about her now was the same as the happy-go-lucky woman who used to take Rachel to the playground and
push her in the swing, arranged vases of wildflowers Rachel had gathered that wilted by the time she got them home, read to
her at night, and taught her how to swim. Years of resentment—for which Rachel took full blame—had robbed her of her vivacity.
If only Rachel’s father would agree to share in the revenues of her inheritance, he could quit his job tomorrow and enjoy
a comfortable retirement. That’s all her mother wanted. But her father’s pride, the only trait he’d inherited from the Toliver
line, wouldn’t allow it—as her own Toliver blood would not permit her to make the sacrifice required to save her mother’s
love.

“Whichever one you feel more comfortable taking, Mama,” she said, leaving the kitchen to greet the callers in the hall.

Tension prevailed among them throughout the remaining gray, sultry, exhausting days, brightened only by Matt’s constant assistance
and support. The night before the funeral, he said, “There’s a place I’d like to take you where we can have a quiet drink
together. Want to go?”

Tired and anxiously awaiting what the next day would bring, she said, “Lead the way.”

It was to a cabin deep in the woods. Beyond its screened back porch lay a lake. The large, partitioned room smelled freshly
cleaned and cooled by a window air-conditioning unit and ceiling fans. “You were expecting me,” she said.

“I’d hoped. What would you like to drink? White wine?”

“That’s fine,” she said, drawn to an ancient Indian headdress hanging on a wall. “You have eclectic tastes.”

“Not mine. This place was built and furnished by our grandfathers and your great-uncle when they were boys. I’m the third
generation to use it as a getaway. I’ve left it pretty much the same. If I’m not mistaken, that headdress belonged to Miles
Toliver.”

“Really?” Rachel touched it reverently. “I’ve never seen anything belonging to my grandfather. I suppose because nothing belonged
to him.” She threw him a look over her shoulder. “Our families are so… interconnected. Are you sure we’re not related?”

Matt popped the cork of a bottle of Chenin Blanc. “I sure as hell hope not. As far as I can tell, you and I are among the
few good things that came from the bust-up of my grandfather and your great-aunt.”

“Well, thank God for that,” she said, taking the glass he offered.

“And Somerset,” he said with a wry smile, tapping his Scotch and water to the rim of her glass. “I don’t know whether I’m
sadder for them or happier for us.”

“We can do nothing about the past—only the future,” she said. They sat on the couch, their shoulders touching. She glanced
toward the curtained bedroom. “The tales this place could tell. Do you… suppose this cabin is where it all began for Aunt
Mary and your grandfather?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Is that why you brought me out here tonight?”

“No,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder, “but I’m not above keeping the tradition alive.”

She chuckled and nestled against him. “I’m all about tradition when the time is right,” she said, and added soberly, “How
I wish I could get my mother to understand that.”

“Don’t worry about your mother,” he said, his lips against her hair. “All you have to do to get back on track with her is
to give her an offer she can’t refuse.”

“And what would that be?”

“Grandchildren.”

She laughed and snuggled deeper. “Sounds like a plan.”

On Monday, the funeral service seemed interminable owing to the many eulogies Aunt Mary would have hated but that Rachel had
permitted as a fitting tribute to the woman who had meant so much to the town, county, and state. The grave site rites were
mercifully brief, and the crowd dispersed quickly to the reception to get out of the cloying heat. Because of Amos’s instructions
that refreshments not be replenished once everyone had made a pass at the table, people did not linger, and the Tolivers were
freed to leave for his office at the expected time.

He had driven on ahead and stood watching for their arrival from his office window. Rachel spotted him through the slatted
blinds, his dark-suited, cadaver-thin figure reminding her of a forbidding bird of omen. Once again, the odd feeling flitted
through her that had begun when the textile agent had shown up empty-handed. Percy’s Mercedes pulled up shortly, and Matt
gave her hand a reassuring squeeze as they all filed into the law office. He said quietly in her ear, “Granddad wonders what
in hell he’s doing here unless Mary left him Ollie’s box seats at Texas Stadium. But who knows? They may stay in the family.”

“Who knows?” she said, jabbing him playfully in his ribs.

The air-conditioning had not been on long enough to cool Amos’s private office. “Lord, it’s hot in here,” Alice complained,
fanning herself furiously with a funeral program. It was the first time she’d broken her sullen silence since leaving the
reception.

“It will be cooler in a moment,” Amos apologized, patting his face with a handkerchief. He indicated they were to take chairs
arranged in front of his desk, ceiling fan spinning at top speed, and took his position before them.

“Surely we won’t be here that long, Amos,” Percy remarked, apparently knowing something about the cooling system that the
others did not.

“Uh, no… this shouldn’t take long at all.” Rachel noticed that he studiously avoided their eyes, as if he were a juror coming
into the courtroom to deliver a guilty verdict. “First, let me say,” he began, joining his hands over a legal folder on his
desk, “that Mary Toliver DuMont was of sound mind when she dictated and had duly witnessed as genuine the codicil before me.
It is extremely unlikely that any part of it is contestable.”

“A codicil?” Rachel repeated, her skin prickling. “You mean she added something to her original will?”

“The codicil
invalidates
the original will,” Amos said.

The room went pin-dropping silent.

William coughed dryly into his closed hand. “None of us would want to contest Aunt Mary’s wishes, Amos. You can be assured
of that.”

Percy’s look had sharpened. “Perhaps we should get to it,” he said. “It’s time for my Scotch.”

Amos sighed and opened the folder. “Very well, but before we go on, there is a second matter I should mention. Mary brought
this codicil to me a few hours before she died. It was a heart attack that claimed her life, but you should know that she
was already dying from cancer and had only a few weeks to live.”

Another stunned silence filled the room. Percy was the first to speak, his voice sounding like a dried corn husk rattling
in the wind. “Why didn’t she tell us? Why didn’t she tell
me
?”

“She planned to tell you upon her return from Lubbock, Percy… I’m sure to give you a few more days of peace.”

Rachel swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “Was that why she was coming to see me, Amos—to inform me of her cancer?”

“Well, yes, and to explain the reason for the codicil.”

Her fanning halted, Alice said, “What about the codicil, Amos?”

Amos removed a document from the folder. “I will be brief and summarize. There’s a copy here of the codicil for each of you
to take with you and read in its entirety. You will see that provisions have been made for Sassie and Henry along with several
other minor recipients. Now, in regard to you, the main points are these: Mary sold Toliver Farms last month in highly secret
transactions. Details of the sale can be learned by contacting Wilson and Clark, the firm in Dallas that handles her real
estate ventures. Somerset was not included in the property sold. The total of the sale was…” He glanced at another sheet and
stated a sum that drew a breathless exclamation from Alice in the astonished silence. “The proceeds are to be divided equally
among the three surviving Tolivers—William, Rachel, and Jimmy.”

No one spoke. No one moved. Percy shook out of his shock first. He frowned at the lawyer. “Is this a joke, Amos?”