Page 7 of August

“Hold on a second. You don’t have any right to sell our homes. Those were a gift when we gotmarried.” She asked Mary if she’d been paying the taxes on the home. “No. You were doing that since they were in your name.”

“I think you just answered your own question. And I have every right to—”

“What the hell am I supposed to do with two kids and no income. I mean, you did fire your sons today.” Linda looked at Jack. “I guess you’re going to be taking over the company. And be responsible for tossing us out of the houses that we’ve had since we married into the family.”

“I have no use for your homes, Linda. That’s what Mom wants and she usually gets what it is she wants. Or, in this case, owns. Besides, these are things that you should have taken care of before you got knocked up. And since you signed a prenup, then it really is a shame that you didn’t have a job where you got paid enough to have some money put back.” Jack looked at Mary. “I’m not sure why you think that Mom should be responsible for your woes. However, I’ve been working all my life and have a good deal of money put away. Plus, as of this morning, I’m happily married to a man who loves me back. You must have known that neither of my brothers was going to support you after you left them. You didn’t, did you?”

“I’m going to demand child support from you, Dedria. It’s the least we can get since we had your grandchildren.” Mom pointed out that she’d not been responsible for them in the first place and wasn’t now. “Are you saying that you don’t love them?”

“They’re heathens. The lot of them. Just look at them.” Each mother looked at their offspring and it had her wondering if her child would be like this. She hoped not.

Davy, David and Marys oldest was sitting there in his chair and making a mess with Catsup and his French fries. There was so much on his plate that she was sure that the bottle was about empty by now. Daniel, the second born, didn’t look any better. His burger was torn into small pieces, and he was currently tossing the bits at his sister, Joey or Josephine, four months old, who was screaming her head off in the car seat she was in with no one paying any attention to her. Looking around, she had wondered why people were sitting so far away from them and now she had her answer. The kids were brats. Even Linda’s children, who were currently running around the restaurant and knocking against people, were loud and unbearable. The glares that were directed to their table were enough to make her want to never have a child. But she knew on some level it wasn’t the kids’ fault but the parents that had raised them to think that it was all right to do the shit they were doing.

“Jack?” She looked at her mom and noticed that the kids were being taken away with their mothers. “Are you all right? You look like you zoned out there for a few minutes. Is it the kids? They’re going to be in prison before they reach their teens if they don’t do something about them soon.”

“I won’t allow my kids to rule me like those do their parents. What the hell were they thinking? Strictly speaking, that’s the only conclusion that I can come to. Christ, Mom, was I like that?” She told her that of her three children, she was the only one that she’d take out in public. “Thank goodness. My children won’t be like that, I promise you.”

“I never thought you’d raise kids like those.” Mom shivered and took her hand into hers. “Now that they’re gone, tell me about your husband.” Jack felt her face beam with happiness and the love that she had for him. “I guess that’s all I needed to know to see that you dearly love him. But be careful, child. The others will hurt you to get to me. Including your father. I’ve never known such a stupid man in my life than him.”

“I guess you only married him because, in that day, it was the way that things were done when a woman got pregnant. But why did the other two think that marriage was going to solve their problems of getting a good marriage out of them? Seriously, Mom, they both could have done much better.” She said that it was her dad’s fault. He raised them to be spoiled. “I guess you didn’t have much to do with their upbringing.”

“Enough that I feel some responsibility for their actions, too. I should have listened to my own mother when she told me that I was raising pampered idiots who wouldn’t amount to much. And your father? Good heavens, I can’t believe that I allowed him…it’s all water under the bridge now. They are what they are and I’m going to take a stand against them like I should have before you were born. Butthen I’d not have you, and you’ve been my pride and joy since you were old enough to know that they weren’t worth the cost of a free newspaper.” They both laughed. “Oh darling, what am I going to do without you working all the time? You were so easy to find that I’d go there to see you just so we could talk. Your father, to this day, thinks that I dislike you as well.”

They were sat at a different table so that the mess could be cleaned up at the one that the kids had been playing at. She noticed that her mom left two one-hundred-dollar bills and apologies to the people around them. As soon as they were seated, her mom pulled out the files that she’d had in her purse and handed them to her.

“You’ve married into a very wealthy family in the event you didn’t know that. Not only are they rich, but the one that married you is by and far more wealthy than his brothers. Good investment man, I’d say, and willing to take chances that the others aren’t.” She looked at the paperwork, knowing full well that she was now as wealthy as her new husband. “I can’t even find a skeleton in their closest but for their father, who was an abusive man, and their mother, who left her six sons when she took off to parts unknown. I couldn’t ever do that. Not with the kind of boys they must have been. Do you remember Margaret Grable? That’s the person responsible for them being what they are today. Men of good standing who know how to save money as well as invest it.

“August told me that one day they’d had enough and took off, leaving their father to his own devices. He was in jail at the time, I guess, so he couldn’t stop them.” She said that she’d heard that but not how they left. “He told me, but I don’t think that I’m going to share unless he wants you to know. Mom, he’s a wonderful man, and I can’t believe how quickly I fell in love with him. He said it was the fates that got us together. I believe it.”

Mom was explaining about the houses that her two brothers lived in. They were small in comparison to the one that she and August shared and yet she could see that the value of both homes had not only gone down in the years that they’d been married but by a significant amount too. She asked about that.

“You’d think that since they work for a service like the one that has been putting bread on their table might have rubbed off on them. But if you look at that closeup of their homes, you can see that they’ve never kept up with the yardwork nor planted any flowers outside. I shudder to think what the house looks like on the inside—hold on, darling. I need to take this.”

She pulled out her own phone and called August. “I won’t be long, I just wanted to see if you’d like to meet my mom and me at the restaurant downtown. It’s calledRose Café.I’m suddenly hungry like I wasn’t earlier with my brothers’ wives around.” He said that he could meet her there in an hour. He was having a bit of fun with her dad. “Oh, you’ll have to tell me when you get here. Dad and my brothers are not only out of a job, but they don’t have a home either.”

“Your dad is trying to get me to buy Blackman. He said that he’s decided that he’s too old to be running a company. He told me that it practically runs itself. I didn’t tell him that I was going to own it by the end of the day. Are you all right?” She told him a little about the early lunch with the other two women and how their kids were brats. “I’ve seen kids like that a great deal growing up around here. According to their parents, they can do no wrong. I’m betting that those kids are the same thing.”

“Mom has hung up now. Can you come—hold on, she wants to speak to you.” They only spoke for a few minutes, and Mom looked too pleased with herself about something. She asked her what she’d done.

“Nothing that your man won’t enjoy. I want him to tell Dick that he’ll buy the firm. He can’t, as you know but it will have your father thinking that he’s pulled something over on me. I didn’t think he’d get the balls to do it, not this soon after being fired, but it goes to show you just how stupid he is.” Mom ordered some appetizers for the table. And as soon as Locke and Alex, his wife showed up, she knew that there was going to be a lot that her father was going to be arrested for in the very near future. “When I asked the two of you to meet me here it was so that we could talk business. But some of that is going on right now. I’m to understand that you have direct contact with the president.”

“He’s been a good friend since before Martha passed.” Locke looked sad, but he smiled at hermom. “Why do I have the feeling that you’re going to be ruffling some feathers on your family?” He looked at her. “Congratulations, Jacklynn? Or are we to call you Jack? My brother is certainly in love with you.”

“And I him. We fit perfectly, it feels like.” Locke nodded and looked at his own wife with so much love on his face that it spread warmth all over the room it felt like. “He and I, we have big plans together. Not a great deal as yet, but some that will dust off this town and get my family out of the way soon.”

When August joined them, he kissed her on the mouth, and she wanted to tell everyone to go away. They had plans for tonight. But he pulled away and looked at her mom. He was smiling like she’d never seen him smile before. Like her mom did when she was holding all the right cards in a game of chance.

“He is going to meet me at the bank in the morning. He wanted it now, but I told him that I had plans. Dick doesn’t have any idea that I’m married to his daughter nor that I’m a very wealthy man in my own right. I think he has it in his head that he’s going to take me to the cleaners. He’s got it in his head that I’m stupid with my money as well.” Mom said that was good. That’s the way that it should be. “I hope you’re right. I don’t want to be hanging out in prison while he’s out running around. I just found the love of my life, and I don’t want to leave her for some stupid trick that he’s going to lose. He will lose, won’t he?”

“He’ll go to prison. He’s going to commit the worst kind of fraud by selling you something that he knows perfectly well doesn’t belong to him. I’ve been talking to the banker here in town, too. He’s well aware of what’s going on. And if my sons are with him when he does this with you, they’ll be just as guilty.” Mom looked pleased, but she could tell that August was still nervous. She was, as well. Not that she didn’t trust her mother, but she didn’t trust her father at all. “I promise you, August, I won’t allow you to be involved in his demise at all. He’s made this happen all on his own, and I can’t appreciate you enough in telling me what he’s been up to.”

When dinner menus were brought to them, she noticed that all the appetizers were gone. That was fine with her. That meant that everyone was hungry. Ordering a nice piece of grilled salmon, she knew that, on some level, this wasn’t how her mother wanted to spend her evening. At times, she caught her looking so very sad.

“You don’t have to do this, Dedria. My family and I can get him arrested just as easily if you’re not involved.” She thanked August. “You should take a long cruise or something, get away so that when this is finished, you can be someplace where the sun is shining on your face and the idiots two—or the idiots three are far away from you.”

Mom looked away before she looked at her. “What I wouldn’t give to have had a man to love me the way that this one does you, darling.” When she wiped at her tears, she took August’s hand into hers. “You’re a wonderful man, young August, and a better man than I’ve ever met. No, I’ll be there simply because I want to see his face when he realizes, like all the other times he’s tried to scam me, I was there to show him that it won’t work. And if my sons are there, it will be the icing on the top of a very long-awaited cake. They have pissed me off enough. And I’m going to see that they get their comeuppance.”

There was no more talk of people going to prison. Occasionally, her mom would look sad, but either Locke or August would bring her out of it. She didn’t have any idea why it wasn’t bothering her that her entire family was going to jail. Jack supposed it was because they had been scamming people all her life, and they were going to be caught this time.