Whatever It Takes Read online

  “I don’t know if that’s possible, Daddy. I’ve always felt closer to you than to anyone else.”

  A half smile flitted across his face. “It’s enough that Kellie will take sides with her. Don’t you be guilty of the same foolishness.”

  “I see what you mean,” she said. And she did. Kellie had always wound their mother around her little finger, avoiding guidance when she needed it and punishment when she deserved it. “Have you found a place to stay?”

  “Last night I stayed at a motel over in New Market, and I don’t think anyone recognized me. If I let it be known that Cynthia and I are separated, the trustees might expect my family to move out of the parish house, and I don’t want to see you and Kellie without a home.”

  She noticed that he did not include her mother in that statement. “Let’s go have lunch somewhere, Daddy. I’m hungry.”

  “Me, too. I had a nice supper at a little inn near Lake Linga-nore last night. Why don’t we go there? Stokey’s is nice.”

  “You’re on, Daddy. Anywhere as long as the place serves food.”

  “Leave your car here in my parking space,” he told her. “There’s no reason why we both should drive. If we go together, we’ll be able to talk.”

  They drove along the boundary of Catoctin Mountain Park where leaves that once hung green and heavy on the trees lay thick and beautiful in a gold, orange, and red carpet upon the ground. It was one of the reasons why Lacette loved the autumn.

  “It’s so peaceful along here,” she said, glanced at the speedometer and then at her father. “Could you please slow down, Daddy?”

  He did as she asked. “I was only doing fifty. Whatever happened to that fellow, Reggie. Was that his name?” She took his question as a sign that he wanted a change of subject. Her father had very little tolerance for criticism, and she had just criticized his driving.

  “Reggie neither recognized nor understood the word ‘no’ so I sent him packing. That kind of man is a nuisance.”

  He turned off Catoctin Furnace Road into Parks Drive, a romantic lane overhung with branches that formed a mile-long arbor often referred to as lovers’ drive. He stopped in front of a white brick building that was distinguished mainly by the replica of a great elk astride its roof.

  Lacette made no move to get out of the car. “Daddy, I have a feeling that if we’re eating here so you won’t see anyone who knows us, you’re going to be disappointed.”

  He got out, walked around the car and opened her door. A mark of absentmindedness, she knew, because he usually allowed her to let herself out of the car. “You think so?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He took her arm and made rapid strides to the restaurant. “We’ll see.”

  Almost as soon as they seated themselves, the waitress arrived with two menus. “Lord, Reverend Graham, it sure is an honor to wait on you. This your daughter for sure, cause she looks just like you. No, sir, you can’t disown this one. She’s even got that little dimple in her left cheek.”

  Lacette rarely saw her father flustered, but he turned the pages of the menu over and over without looking at them and drank half a glass of water, although he seldom tasted it.

  “Do you go to Mount Airy-Hill?” he asked the waitress.

  “I did for a while before we moved up here. What y’all having? The ribs are out of sight today. Mouthwatering.”

  They placed their orders, and as soon as the woman left them, Marshall rested his elbows on the white tablecloth, made a pyramid of his hands and rested his chin on the tips of his fingers. “How often do you get it right?”

  “When I have a premonition like I did earlier, I know to expect something, but I never know what.” Like tomorrow, she thought, but didn’t say, for whatever came would not be welcome. She fingered the little medallion in her purse and prayed for the best.

  After lunch, he drove her back to the church. “I hope you and Kellie took your mother out to dinner for her birthday last night.” He parked the Cadillac beside her old Chevrolet. “The Bible tells us, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’ and I’ve tried to instill that in you and your sister. She’s your mother, no matter what.”

  Was he preparing her for something, or did he have a guilty conscience? Somehow, she didn’t think he was the one nursing guilt. “We took her to Mealey’s, and it was as gloomy an occasion as I have ever witnessed. I thought it would go on forever. I didn’t even enjoy the crab cakes, and that should give you an idea of how miserable an affair it was.”

  “I can imagine, and I’m sorry, but I’d have been a liar if I’d had dinner with her. I’m going to run by and see Mama Carrie for a couple of minutes. Then I’m going back to the motel till time for evening prayer.” He wrote his telephone number on the back of his business card and handed it to her. “Call me if you need me,” he said, got into his car and headed to his mother-in-law’s house.

  As she drove home, it occurred to her that she should look for a place of her own. Her father had discouraged her attempts to move out of his house, claiming that nice girls stayed home until they married, but he was no longer their family anchor. Besides, she had remained with the family because he would consider it an affront if his unmarried daughters lived alone in a town in which he resided, although he would have accepted their moving to another locality. Male pride was a thing she didn’t think she would ever understand.

  The next morning, Lacette awoke suddenly and sat up in bed, startled by the banging on her door. Seconds later, Kellie rushed into the room.

  “Ginga just called. She found Gramma unconscious, and the ambulance is taking her to Frederick Memorial.”

  Lacette slid off the bed and struggled into her robe. “I’d better call Daddy. He went to see her yesterday afternoon. Where’s Mama?”

  “Getting dressed. You talked with Daddy yesterday? Oh, that’s right; you went to church.”

  Lacette telephoned her father and gave him the news. “How was she yesterday?”

  “She looked great. When I got there, she was watching the Ravens on television. We had a good visit, and I promised to see her next Sunday. I’ll get over to the hospital to see how she’s doing.” An hour later, he approached his mother-in-law’s hospital room as Lacette, Kellie, and Cynthia emerged from it.

  “How is . . . What’s the matter?’ he asked, rushing forward, his face ashen. “Is she . . .”

  “She’s gone,” Lacette said. “She had an embolism. Nothing could be done.”

  He gasped. Then, in a quick recovery, he took her mother’s hand. “I’m terribly sorry, Cynthia. Mama Carrie was a mother to me for more than thirty-five years. When I left her yesterday, her spirits were high, and she was in a good mood. Happy. I’m thankful for that.”

  He parked behind Lacette’s car when they reached home, went in with them, surprising Lacette, and sat with them in the living room of what, until the previous morning, had been his home.

  She gazed at the people around her, sitting together in total quiet as if they were still a family. Unable to bear it, she rushed from the room, explaining that she would make coffee. After forcing herself to settle down, she made the coffee, for she knew Kellie wouldn’t do it. She let enough time pass for the chill to lift from the living room, put the coffeepot, four mugs, sugar, and a half pint of milk on a tray and took it to her family.

  “I know it isn’t easy for you, Cynthia,” her father was saying when she walked back into the living room, “but we have to talk about the service. It’s best to have it Saturday morning and the interment directly from the church that afternoon. I’ll have my secretary take care of bulletins, media announcements, ushers and so on, and she’ll E-mail all of the parishioners who are on-line. One of you girls write out a short page on Mama Carrie’s life and E-mail it to Mrs. Watson.” He looked at his estranged wife as if gauging her attitude. “You want to go with me to the funeral home to pick out the casket, or do you want to leave that to me?”

  She wiped her eyes. “You’re doing all thi
s after what—”

  He cut her off. “This isn’t about you, Cynthia. I’m doing it for Mama Carrie and for my daughters.”

  Lacette sucked in her breath and stared first at her mother and then at her father, looking for a clue, anything that would tell her what had gone wrong between them, but the most experienced actors couldn’t have covered their feelings more adeptly.

  “Well, for whatever reason you’re doing it,” Cynthia said, “I certainly do thank you. And . . . I’d rather not go pick out the casket. Lord, I can’t even believe she’s gone.” She covered her eyes with a handkerchief, but only for a second. “Don’t worry, Marshall,” she said, sitting up straighter in the chair and crossing her knees, “I’m not going to break down. At least not now.” Without another word, she left them and went up the stairs to the room she once shared with her husband.

  Ten days later, Kellie sat in a lawyer’s office along with Lacette, her parents, and Ginga, her grandmother’s friend and cleaning woman, to hear the reading of Carrie Hooper’s will. To her mind, only Lacette, their mother, and she should be there, because they were her grandmother’s descendants and rightful heirs. Instead of dividing what was left by three, it would be shared by five people. She didn’t really object to her father having any of it, but why should he?

  Eighteen years earlier, Carrie Hooper would not have had a will; she was poor, a thirty dollar a week cook in Rosewell, North Carolina, a widow who depended on the one hundred and fifty dollars that her son-in-law sent her every month. After a fire burned her wood-frame house beyond repair, Marshall—her son-in-law—brought her to Baltimore where she became a member of his family. Her love for Marshall was obvious to anyone who cared to observe it. Cynthia complained that her mother only cooked foods Marshall liked and favored him over her in many ways. Carrie would reply, “You should be half the daughter to me that he is a son to me. You’re too self-centered.”

  No one would have believed that Carrie played the lottery until she hit it for a little more than a million dollars. Everyone who knew her and who heard about it wanted some of it, but Carrie announced that she would give ten percent to the Lord’s work, finance her granddaughters’ college educations should they decide to go, and repay Marshall the thirty thousand dollars he’d sent her in monthly subsidies over the years.

  Within a week after Carrie hit the lottery, Marshall received the call to pastor the Mount Airy-Hill Baptist Church in Frederick, Maryland, and moved his family into the church’s parsonage. Carrie bought a Victorian style house, furnished it and lived comfortably about a mile from the parsonage. She often boasted that her son-in-law didn’t let a week pass without dropping by to see her, and complained that she received a visit from her own daughter about once a month, twice if she was fortunate. Rocking in her bentwood rocker, she would almost always add, “Cynthia’s gonna regret her ways, but unfortunately, I won’t be around to see it.”

  “This is straightforward,” the lawyer said as soon as he sat down. “You’re all here. Now, let’s get started.” He read the will:

  To my daughter, Cynthia, I leave my car, my fur coat, and any of my clothing that she wants;

  To my granddaughter, Kellie, I leave my diamond ring and what money remains in my account at Frederick County Bank;

  To my granddaughter, Lacette, I leave my diamond brooch . . . He paused at Kellie’s loud gasp. And all the money in my account at First United Bank & Trust, except twenty-five thousand dollars, which I leave to my friend, Ginga Moore;

  To my son-in-law, Marshall Graham, I leave my house and all of its contents, except my clothing.

  He passed a copy of the will to each of them. “That’s it. Accept my condolences and my best wishes.”

  I don’t believe this,” Kellie said. “She knew how I love that brooch. I told her a hundred times that I wanted it, and she gave it to Lacette.”

  “Come on. Let’s go,” Cynthia said. “I’ve had enough for one day.”

  “I’ll bet that account she left me doesn’t have half as much in it as the one she gave to Lacette.”

  “At least she left you some money,” Cynthia said. “How do you think I feel knowing she cared more for my husband than she did for me?”

  Kellie rolled her eyes. “Spare me, Mama.” She glanced around, hoping to cast an accusing look at her father, but was deprived even of that small pleasure, for at that moment he and Lacette walked out of the office.

  “She’ll get that brooch over my dead body,” Kellie muttered. “Don’t you care that she left that house to Daddy? It must be worth two or three hundred thousand dollars.”

  Cynthia pulled out of Kellie’s grasp and walked ahead of her. “I don’t want to talk about that right now. I’m still dealing with the fact that she’s dead.”

  “But they’re getting everything!”

  “Leave me alone, Kellie.”

  Kellie leaned against a chair, gaping at her mother’s departing back. On an impulse, she crossed the room to where the lawyer spoke on the telephone and waited.

  “Do you have the ring and brooch?” she asked him after he hung up.

  “I’ll have them tomorrow. Be here around ten.”

  “Thank you so much,” she said, softening her demeanor. “It hurts. Like somebody stabbed me. She was my favorite relative, and I loved her more than I loved my parents or my sister. It’s . . . it was so sudden.” She let her left hand graze his forearm. “Gramma was a wonderful person.” He believed her; he had to believe her because she meant to have that brooch, and he was going to help her get it.

  Kellie knocked on Attorney Lawrence Bradley’s office door at ten the next morning and, in response to his greeting, pushed the door open and walked straight to his desk. She hoped her gray suit and white blouse with a Peter Pan collar made her appearance suitably prim and ladylike. She extended her hand.

  “Thank you for being so kind, Mr. Bradley. I’m still reeling from the shock of my gramma’s death.”

  “I can imagine. Have a seat.”

  She sucked in her breath and nearly sprang from her seat at the sight of the two-karat, pear-shaped diamond ring banked by four sizeable diamond baguettes.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said, “and very expensive. She insured it for ten thousand dollars. Sign here, please.” He smiled, and she thought his expression wistful. Although her mind was on Lawrence Bradley, she managed to sign the receipt and resist the urge to grab the ring. He handed it to her, and she slipped it onto the third finger of her right hand.

  When Bradley returned her smile, she decided to test the water. What could she lose? “I’ll take the brooch to Lacette, if you like,” she said.

  He leaned back in his chair and looked at her until she felt herself shrinking by the seconds, for he wasn’t cataloguing her feminine assets, but judging her.

  “Sorry,” he said after letting her squirm for a couple of minutes. “The brooch wasn’t in Mrs. Hooper’s effects. I’ll have to search for it.”

  She forced a smile. Maybe he was toying with her and maybe he wasn’t, so she had to bide her time. “What a pity. My sister will be anxious about it.”

  If his shrug was meant to disarm her, it was wide of the mark. This time, she didn’t smile. With his gaze boring into her, he said, “Somehow, I doubt that. She didn’t seem the type to get bent out of shape over a piece of jewelry . . . or much else, for that matter. I’ll call her.”

  Make it subtle, girl. This one’s no pushover. “You’re kind. You know, Lacette and I don’t look it, but we’re twins.” She made the comment as a switch from business to personal topics in the hope of getting on intimate terms with him.

  “I know. Your grandmother told me.”

  Carefully and deliberately, she pushed back the left sleeve of her jacket and the cuff of her blouse and looked at her watch. “I’ve kept you too long, and I have to get over to Walkersville by noon, or I would be very brazen and ask you to have lunch with me.”

  He pierced her with a steady gaze, and she couldn’
t read him. “Yes,” he said at last. “Another time.”

  He walked with her to the door, and she extended her hand. When he took it, she clasped his tightly and looked him in the eye. “I hope to see you again. Soon.” She turned and walked out without giving him a chance to answer her. Her instincts told her she was ahead, and she meant to stay that way.

  After leaving the lawyer’s office, Marshall drove Lacette home, parked, and stepped across the street for a visit with his sister, Nan. Maybe she could help him deal with the shock of inheriting one of the most attractive properties in that part of Frederick. Some would say that it rightfully belonged to Cynthia, but he knew how Mama Carrie felt about him and didn’t doubt that she had a reason for distributing her property as she had.

  “I’m trying to figure out why Mama Carrie left me her house and everything in it except her clothing,” he said to Nan after telling her about the will. “Nan, that house has to be the bulk of her estate. My Lord, she practically ignored Cynthia. A four-year-old Mercedes and an even older mink coat. I don’t understand it.”

  Nan stood and braced her hands against her hips. “Come on in the kitchen with me. I’ll fix us some lunch. Won’t take but a minute.”

  “What do you think?” He sat on a stool beside the kitchen window and parted the yellow curtain to get a clear view of the world outside. “Shouldn’t Cynthia have been angry or upset the way Kellie was about Lacette getting the brooch?”

  Nan wiped her hands on the apron she wore and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Cynthia is loaded with guilt. Besides, I suspect Miss Carrie told her she was getting practically nothing. She let her poor old mama slave in those white folks’ kitchens for peanuts down there in Rosewell, and didn’t send the woman five cents.” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “And she did that even when she was teaching and making money. A perfectly good mink coat and that nice car are a lot more than she deserved.”