A Month of Summer (46 page)

“Kenita Kendal has an employment history with various nursing centers and home health agencies in Florida, usually only for a few months here and a few months there before moving on. In Florida, she was Kenita Kendal-Dawson, but Dan did a little digging and found out she dropped the married name after pleading out of a charge of illegal sale of prescription drugs in Florida. Her LVN was pulled after that, which was probably why she moved to another state. She was working for an agency here, so your parents most likely felt that they could trust her. If the agency performed a basic background check on Kenita Kendal, they wouldn’t have found anything. LMK Limited, the company that’s been taking automatic drafts from your father’s accounts, is hers. No telling, really, how she convinced him to allow the drafts. It may have been as simple as getting his online passwords, or as complicated as convincing him that the money was needed to pay bills, or was being transferred into investments, but it’s been going on for over a year, and there’s quite a bit of money involved—at least seventy thousand dollars that Dan could track.”

“My God,” I whispered. “How could that happen here?”

Kyle’s eyes narrowed, as in,
Don’t be naive, Rebecca.
“Your father and Hanna Beth probably looked like prime targets. Hanna Beth was in a desperate situation with your father’s medical problems, he was in a state of mental decline, they own a big house in a location that’s hot with developers who would jump at the opportunity to snap up this house. No doubt this Kenita Kendal-slash-Dawson thought she’d hit the jackpot when Hanna Beth had the stroke. With Hanna Beth out of the way, she could get your father to sign over the house, then she could turn a quick sale to a development company and be gone before anyone questioned it. According to Dan, Kenita Kendal has a deed, signed by your father and notarized three weeks before you got here. I informed the Constable’s Office of the situation with the house, and they’ve agreed to stand down on the eviction order until we can get to court on Monday.”

I imagined my father’s home embroiled in a long legal battle, one that could spoil these final years, when my father and Hanna Beth should be enjoying their lives in peace. “Could this woman really end up with the house?”

Kyle shook his head. “The good news is that your father’s a smart man. He must have had some concern when his original diagnosis was made, because he set up a Blue Sky Real Estate Trust and transferred the bulk of his assets, as well as the house, into the trust—hence his reason for putting the name of his lawyer in the safe-deposit box he left for you. He knew they would have all the paperwork. The trust was never filed with the courthouse, but it’s all in safekeeping with the firm—Elliston, Hatch, and Williams, here in Dallas. I talked with Elliston this morning—he’s a Pepperdine man, by the way. Good lawyer. Blue Sky Trust is solid, and it predates Kenita Kendal’s deed. Nothing can come out of Blue Sky Trust without the approval of Hanna Beth, and in the event Hanna Beth is incapacitated, the trust reverts in equal shares to you and Teddy, with Elliston seeing to Teddy’s interests. Any sale of properties in the trust would have to be approved both by you and by your father’s lawyer.”

I was momentarily stunned. “My father left an equal share of the trust to me?” The idea touched me like a fresh breeze. My father had been thinking of me all along. Even after all the years that had passed, all the times I’d refused contact with him, he’d believed that Blue Sky Hill was still my home.

Kyle gave a confident smile. In Kyle’s world, things always worked out the way he wanted them to. “Monday morning, I’m set to meet with Elliston. We’ll be filing a motion in J.P. Court for a declaratory judgment that the Kenita Kendal claim constitutes a wild deed, and legal ownership of the house rests with the Blue Sky Trust. If Kenita Kendal does show up to contest it, or makes contact about the eviction over the weekend, there will be an arrest warrant waiting for her. Aside from the fraudulent claim to the house, there’s the issue of the money she’s bilked from your father’s checking accounts, so the police are involved now. But the truth is, given her history and the cash missing from his bank account, my guess is that she’ll take what she’s got and run. Whether we’ll ever recover any of the seventy thousand is anybody’s guess, but the bulk of your father’s estate is safe.”

The knots that had been tightening in my spine since yesterday began to loosen. Letting my head roll forward, I rubbed the back of my neck. “Thanks for doing this, Kyle. Thanks for coming.”

He frowned, seeming confused. “Did you think I wouldn’t?” He reached for me, and I jerked away without meaning to.

The distance separating us was suddenly, painfully clear. A few feet, yet miles. “I wasn’t sure.”
How can I be sure of anything?
“I thought you might have . . . other plans.” The words took on a sharp edge, a dark color, spilled hot and squalid onto the floor. I wanted to mop them up, reabsorb the animosity, hide the mess until later. Now wasn’t the time for it.

Jerking his chin up, he appraised me narrowly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Clutching a hand over the racing pulse in my throat, I shook my head. “Nothing. I’m sorry. I’m just stressed. It’s been a busy day.”

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered.

“We’d better take the cake outside.”

“They’re walking around the yard, remember?” He stiffened, his cheek going tight, twitching slightly. “I hate it when you’re like this.”

“Like what, Kyle?” The corrosive mixture of supposition and unspoken accusations boiled higher inside me, hissed like a pressure cooker coming up to steam. “What am I like?”
How am I different from Susan Sewell?

“Like your mother,” he ground out. “She’s still right here, even though she’s gone.” Kyle’s dislike for my mother, and my mother’s dislike for Kyle, had always been a thinly veiled secret. In his view, she interfered consistently and purposefully in our marriage. In her view, he was a man, after all. She’d always made known her opinion that he was a little too smooth, too friendly, too quick to strike up conversations with other women.

“This has nothing to do with my mother,” I hissed, trying to control the volume of my voice, to keep it from pressing through the walls and entering the garden.

“This? This what?” Kyle’s hands flailed in the air, demanding an answer. “I thought we were doing better. We took the anniversary trip. I came home for family movie night. I skipped golf, went to three of Macey’s gymnastic meets. . . .”

“You had your face in your PalmPilot the whole time, Kyle. How does that help?” I shot back, even though the arguments about Macey had played out between us a dozen times before. It was easier to stay in familiar territory instead of opening up something new. “Macey needs you to be present, to be focused on her once in a while. She’s growing up, and most of the time, you’re not there.”

He coughed in disbelief. “And you’re so much better? You’re at that stupid boutique six hours a day after you leave the office, and by the way, you never wanted to take over the shop—or have you forgotten? Our whole lives, you’ve been letting your mom reel you in—with her illness, with the shop, with her issues. You want to complain about my letting
my
job take me away from the family? What about you?”

“This isn’t about me, Kyle. This isn’t about my mother, and it’s not about the shop. It’s about . . .” I could feel the accusation on the tip of my tongue, so close, ready to rush out and shatter our lives into a million small pieces.

“About
what
?” he finished, his chin jutting toward me. His eyes flashed a challenge. “About
what
? Why don’t you just say what you mean, Rebecca? Why don’t you just get it out? There’s been something going on with you ever since you left California.”

“This isn’t the time.” I turned away from him and braced my hands on the edge of the counter, closed my eyes and tried to calm down.
Breathe, breathe. You can’t do this now—not with birthday guests in the backyard and Macey close enough to walk in any minute.

“It is the time. It’s past time,” Kyle pressed, fiercely determined, a skillful debater as usual. “You asked me to come here, I came. I try to touch you, you’re hostile. Last night, we’re talking on the phone like everything’s fine, and today you’re all over me. What’s going on?”

Something inside me broke through the restraints, rushed toward daylight. “I
saw
you, Kyle. The morning I left, I saw you at the café with Susan Sewell, all right?” There it was, the truth, the facts of the case laid out on the table.

Kyle stumbled backward, stunned silent, his eyes blinking rapidly, as if I’d just thrown a punch and he was struggling to recover from it. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but . . .”

I wheeled toward him. My hand caught the cake knife and sent it skittering onto the floor. “I
know
what I saw, Kyle. I saw the two of you holding hands. I saw her leaning across the table, gazing into your eyes. I saw you leaning close, like it wasn’t the first time. I’m not stupid, Kyle. I know what a romantic interlude looks like. For heaven’s sake, I had Macey in the car with me. She could have seen! What were you thinking?”

“A what? A romantic interlude?” He had the audacity to punctuate the question with an indignant cough. His mouth dropped open, and he shook his head. “Rebecca, are you serious? What you saw was me meeting with a
client
. Talking about real estate.”

“Do you always hold hands when you talk about real estate?” I spat out, the anger, the frustration, the weeks of wounded uncertainty spewing from me.

Kyle’s eyebrows shot up. He slapped a hand over them. “That was thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of misguided affection in an hour-long conversation about separation of real estate assets. She’s lonely. That’s all. She’s forty, divorced, and insecure about the future.”

Forty, divorced, and insecure. . . .
The description could apply to me soon enough. Was that what I wanted? What if Kyle was telling the truth? What if I’d misconstrued what I saw, built it up into more than it was?

Don’t be gullible
, my mother’s voice whispered in my head.
A woman can’t afford to be pie-in-the-sky these days. You think you know somebody. You think you’re a good wife, and you’re doing all the things a good wife should, and then boom. . . .

“You
gave
her Macey’s
au pair
, Kyle. You want me to believe you did that for a business relationship and thirty seconds of flirtation?”
A woman has to be practical, watchful. Watch yourself, that’s all I can say. . . .

Kyle’s hand flew into the air, slammed to the counter in a fist, bouncing the cake platter. “I didn’t
give
her Macey’s au pair. I found a solution that was best for everyone. I wanted Macey’s au pair out of the house. That’s it. End of story.”

“Interesting how all these women are pursuing you, completely without encouragement on your part.” That was something my mother would have said.
He’s far too conversational with other women, Rebecca. Men don’t do that without a reason. . . .

Kyle’s arms stiffened at his sides. Cursing under his breath, he turned away, paced to the door and came back. “All right, I’ll admit it. I was flattered. Is that what you wanted to hear? The big bad husband goes wrong, just like your mother warned you about? Just like your father did?” He spread his arms wide, as if he were offering an open shot, as if he were through defending himself.

“This has nothing to do with my mother,” I countered, but deep inside, I knew it did. There was a part of me that always heard her voice, that was always defensive, careful to maintain my independence.

“Come on, Rebecca. It has everything to do with your mother,” Kyle insisted, his voice suddenly calm, making the words seem logical. “Haven’t we been working up to this point for years? Ever since the day we got married, it’s been you, your mother, your father, and me. Even when they’re not there, they’re there. Our whole lives have been a holding pattern, waiting for history to repeat itself.”

“I don’t want history to repeat itself,” I protested, searching his face, groping for the truth. “All I want . . . all I ever wanted was a family, a normal life, the three of us spending time together, but you’re never there, Kyle.”

“I’m never there for whom, Rebecca?” Encompassing the kitchen with a sweeping gesture, he looked around, indicating the absence of anyone else in the room. “Who’s there to come home to—you? Macey? Yes, I’ll admit I’m driven. I work. I love what I do. I love it when a deal pays off. I get caught up in it more than I probably should. But there’s no one to come home to, Rebecca. You’re gone to the shop. Macey’s gone to her activities. You make it home at bedtime, and then you’re so tired, there’s nothing left. We sleep on opposite sides of the same bed. You don’t want me. You don’t need me. You’re so busy trying to make sure you’re not leaning on anybody, that you’re ready to go it alone, I’m on the outside, all the time. So, is it any wonder that when an attractive woman offered to let me in, even for thirty seconds, I was tempted? I’m human, Rebecca.”

Our gazes tangled, held fast. I felt sick inside, hollow. I felt like the twelve-year-old girl deciding whether to stay or go as Teddy ran across the lawn. Open up, take a chance? Get in the car, and hide behind the door?

Was Kyle telling the truth? There was no way to answer the question, except to trust.

Trust. Such a simple word. Such a hard thing to accomplish after a lifetime of self-defense. Was Kyle right? Had I spent our years casting him in my father’s role and myself in my mother’s?

But I was wrong about my mother’s role. She wasn’t the helpless victim of a philandering man. She was the person who purposefully kept my father from his child, who kept me from my brother, who hid the truth, even to her dying breath. All these years, I’d let her maintain a stranglehold on my life. All these years, she’d been trying to edge out my father. She’d used me to punish him, to punish Hanna Beth and Teddy. Even when she lay terminally ill, when she knew she would be leaving us, she had been trying to push Kyle out of my life, out of Macey’s. She’d said she was leaving me the shop, so I would have something of my own, so I could take care of myself and Macey . . . in case . . .