Last Will

  ISBN: 9780984907038

  CHAPTER ONE

  WHILE YOU WERE OUT…

  When Joel reached toward the van door, I said, “Don’t open it,” just the way my book on lucid dreaming told me to. The book said to contradict anything I didn’t like, but Joel ignored me.

  “Well, hey, Bernie, what say we give you a ride home?” he said.

  “Shut up and go away.” That didn’t work either. Amy stood next to Joel, her white-blond hair fluttering in the breeze. Joel’s fingers closed around the pitted chrome lever. Before I could protest, the door rolled open, and the back of the van gaped like the mouth of a hungry cave. He was in there.

  “I’m not doing this, and if this doesn’t stop, I’m going to wake up,” I said. Then I did.

  In that sense, the lucid dreaming worked. It kept away the nightmares, but it cost me sleep. Half an hour later, when my mother called, I had just fallen back asleep.

  “Did I wake you?” she said.

  “No,” I said, even though I knew my voice was gravelly with sleep.

  “It’s not even ten o’clock.” She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid I’m calling with some bad news, Bernie.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She sounded fine, but in Boston it was nearly eleven, late for her.

  “Yes, I suppose, but Virginia just called to tell me Pen is dead.” When I didn’t answer, she said, “Did you hear me? Your grandfather Pen has died.”

  I got out of bed, opened the closet and turned on the light. Looking for my suit, I fumbled through the clothes at the back. I saw already where the conversation was going: a trip to Oklahoma.

  “Did she say what happened?” I asked.

  “A heart attack. He was nearly ninety.”

  “I know. When’s the funeral?”

  “You’ll need to make that decision, unless you’re going to leave it all to Virginia, which I think is hardly appropriate. You really ought to decide.”

  “Okay,” I said. There I was at the end of a long line of Raleighs; whatever decisions there were to be made for my grandfather, I would have to make them.

  After I hung up with my mother, I felt myself drifting. The floor seemed less firm, and the bathroom tiles had already lost their tangibility. Afraid of drifting further, I brewed a pot of coffee and popped a few white crosses—enough speed and caffeine to keep me awake for two days, or give me a stroke. I spent the night cleaning house and making lists, until my eyes felt cooked in their sockets. By six I was on the phone buying my plane ticket, and at eight, I was standing at the Overland Park post office filling out the paperwork that would commit me to having my mail forwarded to my grandfather’s house.

  I went into work two hours late, and stood at the front counter watching Ellen, the second assistant librarian, check a customer out. The only sounds in the library were the creaking of book spines, the discreet bleep of the scanner, the reassuring thump of the book cover, the intimate whisper as she slid the books across the counter to the customer. Under the counter, the printer chattered briefly. Ellen tore the receipt off and slipped it into the top book. I let it wash over me, a little balance of pleasure to get me through the funeral, and whatever came after.

  My boss, Beverly, was shuffling papers at her desk, and when I told her about my grandfather, she gave me a gentle smile of condolence. She never spoke when a look would have the same effect. It was the thing that made her a superior librarian.

  “It’s probably going to be a month at least, maybe longer,” I said.

  “Why so long?”

  It wasn’t a simple matter of an old man’s house and car and checking account. I described the monumental nature of the task, the largeness of the estate, and when she still didn’t understand, I told her that my grandfather was Pen Raleigh. Then I told her to read the front page of the Wall Street Journal. I saw the elements fall into place for her, like a Tetris game at work.

  “I imagine a thing like that could take some time,” she said. “It’ll be fine, however long you need to be away.” I read in her look the thing she would never say to me: they didn’t really need me. Probably they never had.

  I went back to my apartment to get my suitcase and told the apartment manager I would be gone a while, leaving my car parked. He offered to start it and drive it occasionally, then said, “Hey, you related to the Raleigh family in Oklahoma? The old guy just died and left a ton of money, my dad said.” It was the most he’d ever said to me, including the day I’d rented the apartment. After twenty blissful years as a nobody, I was somebody again.

  My grandfather’s death didn’t exactly leave me prostrate with grief, but at the funeral reception, I tried to be a dutiful grandson. Unfortunately, Meda Amos was a constant obstacle to my mournful sense of duty. I believe the polite word is domestic—she was one of my grandfather’s domestics. She was always on some innocuous errand: bringing clean plates for the buffet or cleaning up a spill. At that moment, she opened the pantry door, crossed the dining room, and came into the formal parlor, where the dense Aubusson rug absorbed the sound of her footsteps. Conversation ground to an uncomfortable halt. Meda Amos began to gather up some of the dirty dishes, ignoring the stares of hushed admiration.

  Clearly she was aware of the problem, because she’d done what she could to minimize it. She wore a featureless dress with an apron over it. Her hair was pulled back in a severe, black knot, and she wore no make-up, no jewelry, none of the artificial trappings women use to beautify themselves. Honestly, she’d been disfigured, and still we couldn’t look away. That was the root of the problem: there wasn’t any angle at which she was other than breathtaking and her allure wasn’t diminished by the triptych of faded scars around her mouth. Two of them were more accurately the distinct halves of a single scar separated by her mouth, as though she’d had her lips tightly closed when the injury occurred. Her upper lip was sensually bowed, her lower lip a voluptuous invitation to a variety of obscene thoughts. I was grateful for the intervention of that scar; it slowed me down a little. The other scar was less dramatic, a secondary brush stroke above the left corner of her mouth.

  When my mother cleared her throat, I wanted to protest. No one else was shamed out of looking at Meda Amos by my mother’s disapproval. Taking the cue, Aunt Ginny said, “You can leave that until later, dear. We don’t need anything else just now.” Meda nodded almost imperceptibly and left. The spell broke. People went back to telling stories about my grandfather. I imagined my brother Robby remarking, “Ideally, the male of the species is the eye-catching one, because he has the numerical advantage of being able to reproduce with every female he can attract. For the female to hold that kind of magnetism—there’s no benefit to the species.”

  My mother leaned toward me and murmured, “You know what Pen’s will contains. He’s left it all to you. You must consider that there are a number of very rapacious people waiting to take advantage of this situation. You need to visit Mr. Tveite. Establish your position with the board of directors.” I hoped I would get a pass on the conversation if I kept silent, but she leaned closer, engulfing me in a cloud of Chanel No. 5, and said, “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, answer me then.”

  I was considering telling her that she hadn’t asked a question, but Father Reginald stood up at that moment and made his excuses for leaving. The other guests must have felt the tide had turned, because they began to make their farewells, too, and I got up to see them out to their cars. When I came back into the parlor, I could tell my mother and aunt were annoyed with each other from the way they both smiled at me. Relieved. They reminded me of Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev, except that Aunt Ginny was much cuddlier than Raisa. To be fair, Nancy was cuddlier than my mother.

  “Shall w
e have some dinner?” my mother said.

  I went to help Aunt Ginny up from the sofa. As she took my arm, she smiled and said, “What a nice watch.”

  “It’s the one Dad gave Grandpa Pen for his birthday.”

  “A very nice watch then, but it’s a bit too big for you, sweetie. You need to have a link removed.” Aunt Ginny took up the slack with her finger.

  “You should have had it buried with him.” My mother glared at me balefully.

  “I—it never occurred to me.” I felt like a cad. For the viewing, I’d given the funeral director my grandfather’s wedding ring, his glasses and a tie tack. I assumed they’d be buried with him, but I hadn’t thought to include the watch any more than I had thought to bury him with his wallet or his car keys. It wasn’t too late. He hadn’t been buried yet.

  “Oh, Katherine, I don’t think Pen will need it where he’s going,” Aunt Ginny said, causing my mother to turn on her.

  “That is not the point.” My mother swept out of the room, a thing at which she excelled, before we could respond. With the offending article on my wrist, I looked at Aunt Ginny, who’d suddenly become the arbiter of my relationship with my mother.

  “Nonsense, Bernie. It’s a nice memento.”

  After we finished dinner, Aunt Ginny and I went into the library, where my mother was reading a magazine. The room was just as I remembered it: too warm, too full of light glinting off polished wood. I could barely keep my eyes open, so I got up and went down the shelves of books on the north wall. I bypassed the interminable classics—Aeschylus, Byron, Dante, Descartes—most of their green leather spines unmarred by reading. I had learned at an early age that the unwieldiness of the books was intended as a stern warning against would-be readers. At one end of the top shelf was my father’s secret stash of books. A testament to the cleaning regimen of my grandfather’s housekeeper, the books were free of dust, but they hadn’t been disturbed in years. I picked out The Moonstone and started reading. It’s a book I find subtly pleasing, because no matter how many times I read it, or have read it (about four), I can never remember how the mystery is solved the next time I pick up the book.

  “I can’t see how Bernie will manage this, even with an army of lawyers and accountants,” my mother said. She pretended I was deaf when I was reading, and I obliged.

  “It was Pen’s choice,” Aunt Ginny said. “He always did what he wanted.”

  “I’m only worried that Bernie won’t be able to handle it. So many decisions to make.”

  “He’s a smart boy. Everything will be fine.”

  “Of course he’s not stupid, Ginny, but I wonder if it won’t be too much for him. Emotionally. He’s not strong. Not like Robby.” It was the point in my mother’s disappointment when Robby once would have stood up and suggested he and I go for a drive. Aunt Ginny was simply embarrassed, folding and refolding her hands in the lap of her black dress.

  “I’m sure he’ll take care of it,” she said.

  “We’ll see. When I told him what I expect Pen’s will contains, he shrugged. And you saw that he’s wearing Pen’s watch.”

  “I don’t see why that makes you so angry.”

  “The coroner brought Pen’s personal items by and Bernie took the watch out of the bag and put it on. From his grandfather’s body directly to his wrist. I think that’s gruesome beyond words, apart from the fact that the watch had great sentimental value for Pen.”

  “Pooh,” Aunt Ginny said. “The dead aren’t sentimental.”

  “Bernham, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you.”

  “Stop lurking and come sit down,” my mother said in her dog-commanding voice.

  The pages of The Moonstone had been polished smooth by my father’s hands, and as I turned them, they gave off a whiff of his aftershave. I took the book over to where she was sitting and fanned it open in front of her.

  “What is it I’m reading?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Just breathe in.”

  She frowned and said nothing. The smell touched some part of her I couldn’t.

  The next morning my mother sat across from me at the breakfast table. She turned her magazine pages as if she were swatting at a fly. When I stood up to leave, she glanced at me as though she’d just noticed I was there and then went back to reading. She was leaving in the afternoon and considering the fact that we only saw each other for family funerals, the math was on her side. There were two more funerals that would require our mutual presence. Three, if I included hers, and she wouldn’t be forced to speak to me at that one.

  Because she’d insisted, I met with Mr. Tveite, the Chairman of the Board at Raleigh Industries. He was prepared, but for the wrong thing. In painstaking detail, his legal henchmen explained that although I was inheriting a controlling interest in company stock, it was structured in such a way that an intricate web of executive officers, managers, and board members stood between me and the actual management of the business. It was the one concessionary plan my grandfather put in place after Uncle Alan’s death, when he must have realized I was his only heir. In terms which left no doubt as to the generally held belief in my inability to succeed at anything, the lawyers explained to me that there was no need for me to be involved in daily operation of Raleigh Industries.

  They wanted me to serve on the board and they wanted my name on the company stationery. I was going to be a figurehead, trotted out at board and shareholder meetings and various community functions. I had such a reputation for incompetence that they suggested hiring an assistant to help me keep track of my little obligations. I don’t know what response they expected from me, but they tiptoed so delicately around the central issue, that they must have been prepared for outrage. When they finished their presentation, I smiled and nodded in appreciation of their elaborate diplomacy. Leaning back into the leather chair that had been my grandfather’s, I said the words they’d hoped for.

  I said, “Okay. My brother was being groomed to take over this business, but I’m a librarian.” Everyone in the room exhaled in unison and smiled at me. I felt like an ass for playing the simpleton, except I was relieved, too. What would I have done if my grandfather’s dying wish had been for me to run the company? Killed myself and let the inheritance roulette wheel stop on someone else?

  “You were wrong to worry,” I told my mother when I came back from the meeting.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no need for me to ‘establish my position’ over at RI. I don’t have one.”

  “That’s outrageous. They can’t push you out.”

  “They can’t, but Pen did.” I wanted to get the last word, to end the conversation. “Don’t be upset. I’ll still receive the dividends, the income. I just won’t be making any decisions about the company. That’s what Grandpa Pen wanted.” She didn’t say anything else, except to tell me she was ready to go to the airport.

  With the big white house looming in my rearview mirror, and the line of trees that hugged the driveway reaching their bare limbs up to the winter sky, I felt my mother’s relief. She was glad to be going, glad to be leaving behind all that good red dirt and that drafty old mansion. And me.

  On the drive into Oklahoma City, she had nothing to say to me, and I found myself filling the quiet by describing the plot of The Moonstone as far as I could remember it, all the while hating myself for caving to her impenetrable silence. This was her idea of good-bye: “Oh, here we are. Take care of yourself.”

  She strode out onto the tarmac, her purse over one arm, and at the top of the stairs to my grandfather’s jet, she gave me a little wave. Very Jackie. She had quite a repertoire of First Ladies.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Raleigh,” Mrs. Bryant said when I got back to the house. She had been my grandfather’s housekeeper for close to twenty years, and she had a way of moving that advertised her arthritis: stiff and careful. She calculated each movement before she made it. When she resigned, she would apologize and mention her health. She would not want me
to feel that I was the reason she was leaving, but the truth was evident to us both: when a new tyrant takes the throne, the old tyrant’s faithful retainer goes to the chopping block.

  I wasn’t even sufficiently tyrannical for her taste. She waited for me to tell her what to do, and when I didn’t, she did what needed to be done. When she’d asked me about hiring extra help for the funeral, she was disappointed that I deputized her to do what she thought was best. Mrs. Bryant had a clear notion that there was a sacred order to the world. It started with God, the Pope, then descended through the ranks of the Church until it ultimately reached Mrs. Bryant, but in her mind her employer came ahead of her. I personally had always ranked the hierarchy of importance on usefulness, leaving me somewhere near the bottom. I wasn’t sure where God fit in.

  “What would you like for lunch, Mr. Raleigh?” she asked. “Mr. Raleigh usually preferred a roast beef sandwich on Tuesdays. Of course you can have whatever you’d like.”

  Feeling like an impostor, I agreed to prefer roast beef on Tuesdays also.

  Over the next few days I learned to exist at the periphery of the cleaning that went on throughout the house. Mrs. Bryant had her two temporary helpers, Meda Amos and Mrs. Krause, and the three of us had an unspoken pact to pretend we couldn’t see each other when we passed in the hallways.

  At first, the only evidence of the phone calls was in the regularity with which Mrs. Bryant poked her head around a door and said, “The phone for you, Mr. Raleigh.” Then I discovered that if I went up to my bedroom and shut the door, she wouldn’t disturb me. It was the easiest solution to the phone calls, but after several days the evidence mounted: a pile of phone messages written on little pink pieces of paper that said, “While You Were Out…” They gathered in drifts across my grandfather’s desk.

  The messages were all the far-flung particulates of my grandfather’s personal affairs. The people who called were assistants of attorneys, accountants, brokers, caretakers, consultants, and representatives from dozens of museums and collections. I didn’t bother to count the calls from the news agencies, imagining the phrase “could not be reached for comment” printed after my name. I made haphazard attempts to return some calls, but I didn’t have a particular system, and found that despite the best intentions, I couldn’t develop one. Maybe they weren’t the best intentions, but they were good intentions, arrayed one after another like so many paving stones. My failure was undeniable when the same names made third and fourth appearances, and the messages took on a tone of barely contained anxiety: questions needing answers.