Chapter 4
ADELE INSISTED SHE have a private meeting with Bob Fellows, but Fellows requested Jake stay, since he was the executor of the estate. Everyone had cleared out of the room, except Ginger and Jake told her he’d get his mother to give him a ride home, and not to wait up for him.
Adele said she felt light-headed. Fellows opened his liquor cabinet and Jake discretely shook his head out of sight of his mother. She was brought a glass of mineral water and lime, another glass given to Jake.
Fellows sat on the edge of his desk, loosened his tie and sighed.
“Adele, I am so sorry about all this. You can, of course contest it. I could recommend you get other counsel, and perhaps the not to sue clause could be challenged.”
“Bob, if I was going to sue someone, it would be you, you son-of-a-bitch! How could you call yourself a lawyer? You were supposed to represent both our interests.”
“But Adele, this doesn’t affect anyone but Gerud.”
“He made Jake executor? Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know. He changed it a few days before his death. And it had something to do with some information I’m afraid I gave him. But first, let me ask you, didn’t you anticipate something like this would happen?”
“No.”
“Look. We all know Burt wasn’t a good boy. Turns out he fathered Belinda, and he wanted to provide for her and her mother. I didn’t realize you didn’t know this.”
“Obviously not. That little slut. I should have known. He helped her sell her house when her husband left her. Oh, she cried her way right into Burt’s bed. I should have seen it coming, but I was too busy working my tail off in the business selling subdivisions while he was just chasing tail. Oh my God, have you looked at those chunky thighs and her plain features? The woman doesn’t know how to curl her hair or apply decent makeup. She’s a slob.”
“Mom. This isn’t helpful,” said Jake.
She stood, arms straight down at her sides, made into fists. She stamped her foot and screamed, “It’s just not fair!”
One of the secretaries opened Mr. Fellow’s office door.
“Everything okay?”
“We’re fine here Claire. Nothing to worry about.”
“Shall I stay to lock up?”
“No that won’t be necessary. I’ll see you tomorrow, and thanks.”
The secretary closed the door quietly behind her and once again the three were left alone.
“So, what did you tell my dad?” Jake asked.
Fellows stood, adjusted himself and sat behind the desk again, leaned forward and clasped his hands together with his forearms resting on the blotter. “About a week before Jake’s heart attack, I got a visit from a colleague of mine who said he represented Rob Peterson.”
Jake recognized the name from the older gentleman at the funeral.
“You remember him, don’t you, Adele?”
She was fidgeting in her purse to find some Kleenex. Jake leaned across the desk and dropped the whole box in her lap. Adele was careful to dab under her eyes and at the sides of her face, pressing the tissue into her laugh lines that would have been prominent on a happier day.
“Of course I do.” She blew her nose and wasn’t very ladylike about it. “He worked for us.”
“Well, Mr. Peterson believes he is Gerud’s father, Adele.” Fellows leaned back in his chair, which squeaked, making her jump. With his hands at the back of his head, he asked her, “Is he?”
“I was trying very hard to keep it our little secret. I wish he’d have kept his mouth shut. No one needed to know. I told him I’d deny it, but since this was done in such a public forum, I don’t see how there’s any way I can manage to keep my reputation.”
“Mother, this is Gerud, your son, my brother, we’re talking about. This isn’t about you. Can you imagine how he feels? Are you that cold?”
She squinted at him, parts where she’d missed her running mascara making rivulets down the top of her cheeks. “Says the man who jumps into bed with anyone. You’re a serial baby-making machine, Jake. Hardly one to talk.”
“Well at least I care about the people I hurt.”
“And that excuses it? Really, Jake?”
“You should have told Gerud. You should have told Dad. Can’t you imagine how he must have felt finding this out from old Bob here?” Jake was beginning to boil inside.
“Not like it was any secret your father and I weren’t that close. Heck, we were not even very intimate until that last—” She placed her hand over her mouth and tears overflowed. Broken and heaving forward, she barely got the words out, “I killed him with sex.”
Jake was going to spit his water out all over Fellows’ desk. He knew better than to look at Fellows or they’d both embarrass themselves. Jake had always wondered why his father had been found on their bed, naked, when his mother insisted she was out at the pool and didn’t hear him in time to call for quicker help. She’d been with him when he had the heart attack that eventually killed him. He shook his head in disbelief.
Jake finally had the courage to sneak a glance at the attorney. “So, where do we go from here? Say we’re not going to contest this. Gerud might. I can’t imagine he’d put up with all this. I know for a fact he put up with a lot from my father for years and years. I had a lot more respect for Dad until today. I can’t believe he’d be so cruel and heartless, even with this news.”
Adele was mumbling in her chair, lost in her private thoughts. Her whole world had collapsed.
“Now I regret telling him,” Fellows returned. “Didn’t realize he had a heart condition. But Jake, your Dad had reason to think this would work out for your brother. You see, Mr. Peterson isn’t well, as I’m sure you noticed at the funeral.”
“You saw him?”
“I kept Adele away from him. That was a scene I didn’t want you all to watch.”
Jake was getting sicker by the minute. No wonder his father had been so angry. It was like the whole world had conspired against him. It was one thing to deal with the hand he created, but he was sure his father felt sucker-punched.
“Adele, Rob Peterson is dying, or so his attorney tells me. I have instructions to give you this letter. He’d like to see you one time before he passes over. I wouldn’t wait too long.”
Adele stared at the sealed envelope with both their names on the outside in a scrawl she appeared to recognize. “What about Gerud?”
“It’s all in there, I’m told. Peterson would like to visit with his son as well. He’d like you to bring him. Mr. Peterson is a very wealthy man, and I could be wrong, but I believe he means to help you and your son, if you can see your way to visiting him again. You’d regret it, Adele, if you allowed your pride to get in the way. It might be the last chance Gerud would ever get to meet his true father.”
Jake thought the attorney had given very good advice. Now he understood why his dad was so angry. Someone else was going to be able to provide for Gerud in a manner he couldn’t any longer.
It was just like his dad. He liked to win. This news probably made him feel like a loser, in more ways than one.
ON THE WAY home, Adele tried once more to twist Jake’s arm about staying over at her place for a couple of days. She was laying the guilt trip heavy, being all alone in the big house, having just lost his father, and now all the work of the estate needing to be settled.
“I can’t do it, Mom. I made a promise to Ginger and the girls. Not like I’m just home from college. I have a family. I wish you’d ask Karlene or Monica to come stay with you. Or Gerud.”
“Would you do it?”
“I’m not taking sides here. But listen, it’s really your place. And if you really don’t want to be left alone, come on over to our place. Our house is tiny, as you know, but you’re welcome any time.”
“Thanks, Jake. You’ve been a good son.”
“I still am. You’re not going anywhere, Mom.”
“I know, but you just are able to manage everything. Going off to the Middle East, off to war, doing all your SEAL things. Your dad was sure proud of you.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
“I know, he never told you, did he?”
Jake thought about that for a bit. “He was starting to change, Mom. Things were coming unraveled. You know what was going on?”
“Money problems. But he hid all that from me. When I left the office that was it. I never heard anything else about it. He wanted to work with Gerud, but there wasn’t the level of trust he had with you. A completely different relationship, almost as if he knew all along Gerud wasn’t his son.”
“Did he know?”
“I swear not. Even with all his playing around, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. And I thought Gerud would bear the brunt. As it was, he did anyway, so I guess I should have been honest with everyone.”
“So tell me about Gerud’s father?”
She gave him a nostalgic smile. “He was everything your father wasn’t. He was attentive. I was starved for attention and it caught me by surprise. We had a wonderful few weeks while your dad was off golfing in Scotland and traveling in Africa with some of his friends from the club. He was gone practically the whole summer. I was running the office then, working myself to the bone and Rob was just, nice to be around. We were just friends at first. Later, well, I think it was loneliness that got to us both.”
Jake watched the traffic and thought about how his parents interacted in those days.
“When Burt came back, I found out right away I was pregnant with Gerud. I felt so guilty. I was so confused back then. He begged me to leave Burt, but I had you, and what was I going to do, abandon you for this new life with Rob and a new baby? I had to end it. I knew there was no changing him. Burt was like Clinton, “one Bimbo eruption after another.” But I still couldn’t break away, so, Rob moved to LA and we occasionally saw each other, but by then we were just friends.”
“Didn’t he want to meet Gerud?”
“Oh he definitely did. That was my doing, though. I didn’t want to put him in the middle of my mistake. He wasn’t the one to have to pay. It was my own fault.”
“So you stopped being in touch.”
“He always sent me a birthday card on your birthday every year. Burt never noticed. Always sent it a week early. Just a simple card, no note or anything. No news about him. No pictures. Just letting me know he hadn’t forgotten. I never wrote him back or tried to contact him after Gerud started school.”
Adele turned off the freeway, headed for Coronado. Jake couldn’t wait to get home.
“It just doesn’t seem natural for a man not to want to see his child.” Jake could never imagine not being a part of his children’s lives.
“Well, I’m going to fix that. I have to talk to Gerud first. And then, if he’s agreeable, we’ll go together on that road trip.”
“Listen,” Jake said as they pulled up to the bungalow where Ginger and the girls lived. “I’m deploying at the end of the week. Not quite sure how much of the estate stuff I can get done before I go. I’m going to need you to run some interference with the rest of the family. The girls will be impatient.”
“You aren’t going to sell my house out from under me, Jake. I won’t let you do it.”
“Of course not, Mom.” He placed his hand on her shoulder. She remained clutching the steering wheel and looked at him warily. “I’d never do that. I have to find out what’s going on with the business, and I’ll only be able to start the process. The rest I’ll have to do when I get back to California.”
“When will you return?”
“We never know. Not more than a month, though. But you know that could change. I asked for permission to stand down for this deployment, but it wasn’t granted. So, I’m going.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you, but think about tamales and rice and beans.”
“Mexico. Same place?”
“I can’t tell you. And if you knew anything about it before, you have to forget.”
“Well, you were on the news, KTLA for heaven’s sake.”
He didn’t want to show his apprehension about the trip, so he told a little white lie. “That was all disinformation, Mom. It was all made up as a cover.”
She seemed to accept it, and he was grateful the lie worked.
“I’m spending as much time as I can with Ginger and the girls before I go. Just don’t go expecting miracles on my end. I had my priorities set before today’s reading. Nothing changes that fact.”
Adele nodded. “Well, we each have our adventures, don’t we?”
“I think it will be good to get it all out in the open, Mom. Good for Gerud, too. He needs to know someone cares for him. I’ve lost my dad. But Gerud is about to find his. I’d say that makes him pretty lucky, wouldn’t you? Maybe this is the second chance you both need.”
He hugged his mother in the front seat of her car, and then gave her a peck on the cheek. “Let me know when you guys leave for LA, if I’m not gone by then.”