Chapter 2
Gilda Jane was sitting in her kitchen when she realized that she needed to talk to her daughter. It wasn’t fair of her to just leave her to her own devices. Taylor had always made sure that things were taken care of for her and she didn’t understand why things were suddenly different. Jeri came out of the bedroom that they shared with her luggage. That was another thing that she needed to blame on her daughter.
“I’m leaving.” Gilda Jane said that she didn’t want her to leave now that Taylor wasn’t around. “You’re not a lesbian, Gilda Jane, and you never will be the way you feel about same-sex people. I understand that it was a fling for you, you and I together, but you’re breaking my heart more and more daily, and I don’t want to be around when you finally realize what I already know. You aren’t a lover of mine. Anyone’s either for as much as I can see about you.”
“But you must stay with me. My daughter and Grandmother in law have kicked me to the curb.” Which wasn’t right at all. She had a lovely place to live at no cost to herself and pretty things all around her when she wanted them because Taylor made sure that she had money to spend. Jeri moved her two pieces of luggage closer to the door. “Please stay with me. I’ll fix up the other room for you. I don’t want to be alone.”
“And I don’t want to be alone, but living here with you means that I won’t find someone who will love me.” Gilda Jane said that she did love her. “No. You liked the idea of trying to love me, I think, to simply shock your family. They didn’t seem the least bit surprised, so I’m thinking that they’re less predigest than you seem to be.”
“That’s not fair. I tried.” Jeri shook her head and opened the door. “You can even have lovers over if you want. I don’t care. I just don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Good bye, Gilda. You might have a better chance of finding someone if you let go of your daughter and live your life the way that you want. Not that way that you want your kid to see you.” She told her that she didn’t understand. “Stop trying to shock your family by doing things that you think they’ll have trouble with. Just be yourself.”
She didn’t know how to be herself. All her life, she’d been told what she should be and that had gotten her married and a child. Then, the only person she’d been trained to take care of had died of a massive stroke, and she was left with a child that she wasn’t sure she even wanted either. It wasn’t until one day she seemed to wake up and Taylor was taking care of her that she realized that she could learn to be what Taylor wanted. However, that never worked out. Taylor, like Jeri, wanted her to find her own path, and she’d been wandering listlessly since then.
Trying new things and fades had gotten her a name for being flighty. When she would give up, say the diet of eating only healthy, it was just one more thing that she could blame on Taylor—she wouldn’t help her get her head on straight, and it left her to wander around like some thoughtless being that had no idea how to live. She didn’t even know how to make her bed, run the dishwasher, or, for that matter, do a load of laundry.
Taylor could. And she did when she came by her place to check up on her. Not only could she get her house in order but she helped her fill out her checks for bills and get them off to the post office. Taylor had wanted her to set up online paying, but she couldn’t make that work either. Something about having to get on the computer once in a while to make sure that things were being paid would mess her up.
Gilda Jane didn’t have credit cards for the same reason. She’d forget there were balances on them and not pay them off at the end of the month. If she wanted anything, she’d have to find either H enrietta or Taylor to go with her to use their credit cards so that she’d have nice things all the time.
Taylor had admitted that she’d made it so that her mom would have to depend on her for everything. And she was sorry for that. Gilda Jane wasn’t sorry. It made is so that she would get to see her daughter more often. Of course, even when Taylor had set up things for her like her groceries being brought to her, she would mess up the order just to bring her daughter running. It was why she messed up all the things in her life so that her daughter would come to her and bail her out. It was her thing to see her more often.
Of course, she could get upset with her, too, like last month when she’d ordered a gross of oranges. Gilda Jane knew that was a great many oranges, but for two days, Taylor helped her get out of the order and she loved that like the car that she had too.
She hated to drive. It would make her crazy to have to remember all the rules about it. Where to park and stop. How to find her car when she drove it someplace and parked it. No one would ever know that she had been pretending that she had forgotten her car just so she could be the center of attention for Taylor when she was lonely. Now she was living with Henrietta, and she wasn’t allowed to be there too.
Taylor had told her that she needed to learn the businesses that her grandmother was leaving her. Not understanding how it could be that hard to run a business. She’d seen some of the business owners sitting around at their desks all the time when she’d been out and about. She didn’t even know what Henrietta did, for that matter. The woman didn’t seem to do much of anything anyway. Picking up the phone to call Taylor, she wasn’t happy with the way that she answered.
“Mom, I told you that I’m much too busy today to help you. I’ll be there on Friday, and I’ll bring some lunch, and we’ll go over your accounts again.” She told her how Jeri had left her, and she didn’t want to be alone. Then asked again if she could please move in with her and her grandmother. “No. I don’t have the energy to help you and help grandmother as well. You have friends around you there. Go out to lunch with one of them and have some fun.”
“They’re busy.” She didn’t know if they were busy or not, but that’s what they said when she told them that she was lonely and that she wanted one of them to move in with her. No one wanted to be her friend when she was lonely anymore. “Taylor, I should mean more to you than your grandmother. If she’s really dying, which I don’t believe for a second, then she should just get it over with so that I can have you all to myself.”
“What a terrible thing to say, mother. I can’t believe that—why are you being so selfish? Grandmother took care of us after Dad died, and you told me that she made it possible for us to have his insurance money when it was needed.” She told her again how lonely she was. “Right now, I don’t care how lonely you are. You’re being selfish and mean, and I don’t have time to be your mother again. Grow up.”
When the line went dead, Gilda Jane couldn’t believe her ears. “There must have been something wrong with the phone, that’s all. There is no way that she’d hang up on me like I’m no one to her. Silly girl. I need her to take care of me like she always did.”
Gilda Jane had been talking to herself since she’d been a small child. When she was looking for a husband—her parents were looking for a husband for her, they told her that she would have to stop doing that. And for years, right up until Henry Paul died, she’d not spoken to herself at all but in her mind. Now, if she didn’t speak to herself at least three times a day, she couldn’t function. It was the way that she got things done. She remembered her mother having a talk with her about her getting married.
“We’re too old to keep caring for you, Gilda Jane. You need to find yourself a husband so that he can take care of your needs. And please don’t have any children. I don’t think that you can handle having someone depend on you as much as a baby will. Just get yourself a man and marry him so that we can go on peacefully in our golden years. It’s been too much for us to raise you now that you’re in your late twenties.” She tried to reason with her mother, telling her that she was happy with the arrangements. “Well, we’re not. It’s been several lifetimes of caring for your every slightest need. It’s time for you to grow up and be on your own.”
It didn’t happen that way for her. Not only did she find a husband that didn’t want to take care of her every need but he didn’t want to have to have her around him all the time when he was trying to make a living. She couldn’t see why she couldn’t go to work with him daily. She had promised him that she’d be quiet and good. But he didn’t allow it, so she had to be stuck at home all day. Then, the baby came along.
Gilda didn’t know anything about babies. She’d never babysat for one. Never had any sisters or brothers of her own to hang out with. And even though she’d been told that it wasn’t Taylor’s fault, she demanded things that Gilda Jane couldn’t understand why someone else didn’t come in and care for them both.
But as Taylor got older, about six years of younger, she began to take care of her, and as her mother was thrilled when there were no more chores or work for her to do to raise a baby. Even after Henry Paul died, Taylor had set aside her grief and had made sure that she was first in everything she did. Even setting up a meeting with her grandmother so that they could have a nice place to live. There were servants there as well that helped. But when Taylor moved out on her own at seventeen, she had to leave as well. Henrietta didn’t want her around messing with her plans. Plans that seemed to never cater to her needs but those of her grandmother-in-law.
When her phone rang again, she thought for sure it was Taylor telling her that she was on her way. Instead, it was a sales man that was asking her if she had any property near the ocean. She told him that she did and then asked him if he did.
Thirty minutes later, he’d hung up on her. She couldn’t get him to come to her house to visit with her nor would he tell her what sort of house he had. When he did hang up on her, he seemed to be very angry and pissed off. Telling her that she needed to get a life. Mean people didn’t understand what it was like to be her. Not even her own family understood how it was to be in her life.
Gilda Jean was going to mess with her grocery order again just to get Taylor to realize how much she needed her. But she told her then that if she did it again, she was going to have to go and buy her own things at the store and then bring them home for herself. That was entirely too much trouble for her and she decided that it wasn’t worth having Taylor coming over and being mean to her either. Sitting in the living room, she read the instructions on how to turn on the television and get to the station that she liked. Taylor had even made her instructions on how to turn the volume up and down, too. She supposed that she did love her at times.
She didn’t dare make herself some popcorn. The last time she’d done that, she’d burnt up the microwave and had done damage to the rest of the place. Now, all she had were bags of already popped corn that she could enjoy, too. But she was alone and popcorn never tasted as good as it did when she had company.
By evening, she was waiting for her dinner to come to her. It was Wednesday so she’d have pizza for her dinner and her lunch tomorrow. Another thing that Taylor had set up for her so she didn’t have to worry about cooking. While she was eating it, sitting at her dining room table for six, it just made her upset that she didn’t have anyone to share with. Or even to have a long conversation with someone. She didn’t even care if it was the weather they talked about. It would be nice to have—Gilda Jane heard someone down at the pool and decided to find herself a seat with the others and pretend that she was there with their families.
She’d done it before and had been asked to not put herself in a situation of whipping a child that wasn’t hers. Well, the kid wouldn’t listen to her about the things he was eating and she decided to teach him while he was young. The boy’s mother didn’t see it that way and had called the police on her when she smacked him on the cheek for talking back to her. Taylor would never have done that, and he wasn’t going to get by with it either.
Almost as soon as she was seated, one of the mothers told her that there were plenty of other seats to have. Why did she have to sit between them? Ignoring them for covering her skin up from the terrible sun, she laid back and smiled. They’d get used to her being around soon enough.
“Ms. Murphy?” She must have fallen asleep and looked up at the man towering over her. “Ms. Murphy, my name is Jack Tucker. I’ve been asked to come and see you by your daughter. She wants me to take you home. You’ve disrupted the pool party enough.”
“I’m not bothering anyone. I was just lonely.” He asked her if she’d eaten the cake and ice cream. “Yes. It was there, and I’m right here. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t partake of it either. And I only ate a bit of both. They’re bad for you with all the sugars and such in them.”
“It’s time to go home.” She gathered up where stuff with his help. Mostly he was picking things up on his own and handing them to her. “Taylor said that she’d talk to you tomorrow, but you’re to stay in the condo without bothering anyone. She said you know what she’ll do if you don’t behave yourself.”
“I’m a grown woman.” She thought he said for her to act like it but she wasn’t sure. “Well, that’s all right, I guess. You’ll come and stay with me until Taylor calls, and we’ll make a night of it. I’m lonely, you see.”
“I’m not staying. I have my own place to stay.” She pouted at him, which usually worked on men like him, but he only took her keys from her and opened her door. “You heard what I said to you, didn’t you? You’re to stay in the house until she talks to you. Otherwise, she said that she’d take you to task.”
“I wonder at times if she remembers that I’m her mother.” She pouted at Jack again. “Can’t you just stay until I go to sleep? I won’t bother you, I promise.”
All he did was shove her inside the condo, hand her the keys, and slam the door. She’d never been treated so badly in a long time. Well, she’d tell Taylor what a mean person he was so that he’d be out of a job soon enough. The nerve of some people.
~*~
Henrietta didn’t know what to think about her doctor’s visit. He had to be making her feel better, but as far as she was concerned, it was a cruel trick. To tell her that her cancer was gone was something that she’d never thought to hear. She’d been given only months to live, and now she was told that she could live out her life forever without cancer. Cancer free. It was two words that she’d never thought to hear.
“You don’t seem to be happy to hear that.” She told him that she was in shock. “To tell you the truth, Ms. Murphy, I am as well. When you were in here last week, I only gave you about ten weeks to live. Now, it wouldn’t surprise me to see you living for a good long time. Congratulations. You’ve been blessed with—a shifter. You know a shifter, don’t you?”
“Yes, Jack Tucker. He’s mated to my granddaughter, Taylor.” He nodded. “He didn’t do anything to me. I mean, the most we’ve shared it a hug. Nothing more.”
“He must love you very much, along with Taylor.” She asked him what that meant. “He only needed to touch you to heal you. You mean a great deal to him, or perhaps he wanted you to live for Taylor, but I’d say that he’s healed you completely. I’d bet anything that you feel better too. No aches and pains that come with age.”
“I do feel better, as a matter of fact. I thought it was, well, I thought it was Jack being in love with Taylor so she’d have someone when I was gone, but you know, I even climbed the stairs to come to your office, and it didn’t wind me like it usually does. I feel wonderful.” He cautioned her about not doing too much. “No, I won’t. I mean, I’m nearly a hundred years old. I don’t want to fall now and be hurt.” Henrietta stretched out her arms and couldn’t believe how much better she felt.
On her way home, she decided that she needed to get something for Jack. Nothing big but something that told him that he’d done something special for her and she wasn’t going to forget it. As soon as she pulled into the shopping center lot, she knew just what she was going to give him. Going to the jewelry store, she removed the diamonds that her husband had given her and had them put into a band that would suit Taylor. It would do her heart good to have him marrying her only grandchild with one of the many pieces of jewelry that had been hers. She was also going to give him her husband’s band. It was silly of her to wear it on a chain around her neck when someone as special as Jack and Taylor could use them. Right then she decided that she was going to make sure that she gave her all her many jewels now and watch her wear them while she was still around to do so.
She knew as soon as she got home that she needed to take it easy. Running around would still kill her. She wasn’t as young as she used to be. Taking a nap before dinner, she was almost too excited to sleep. But exhaustion won out, and she smiled as her body began to relax little by little.
She’d forgotten that they were a couple who were going to go out. They were taking things slowly, and she didn’t blame them for that. Jack looked to be so much in love with Taylor that it made her slightly jealous, but she couldn’t have been happier for the two of them than she was right now. Just as she was settling down with her own dinner, Gilda Jane called. That woman could put a sour note to about anything wonderful she thought.
“Taylor isn’t answering her phone. I wanted to talk to her about that employee she sent over here to take me home.” She asked her what his name had been, and Henrietta laughed. “I don’t like to be treated like I’m a child.”
“Then stop acting like one.” Gilda Jane said that he’d said the same thing to her. “Good for him. And you might want to get used to seeing him around. He and Taylor are going to be married soon if I don’t miss my bet.”
The quiet at the other end of the line should have warned her. Gilda didn’t like things going on that she’d not been a part of. Or at least told about it beforehand. When she started screaming, much like a child that she’d accused her of being, Henrietta pulled the phone away from her ear so as not to have any damage done to her. It was like a small child having a tantrum.
“She will not marry anyone. Who will take care of me if she has a husband around all the time? He’ll suck her dry, I just know it, and I won’t have anyone to take care of me. You’ll see. She’ll spend all her time around him and there won’t be—do you suppose they’ll have children? Oh, Henrietta, you can’t allow her to do that. I remember how much time a child can suck out of your life. Henry Paul wanted to take care of her all the time, and I was fine by that, but he up and died and left her to me. I don’t want to have to be second or third in line for her to come to my needs.”
“You selfish bitch. I never realized until this moment what a selfish person…no, that’s not true. I knew that you were selfish, but not to the extent that you’ve just shown me you could be. I’m glad that she’s getting married and I hope that she has children while I’m still around so that I can cuddle them as I did their mother. Why are you like this? With your own daughter?” Henrietta didn’t know what she expected her to say, but the next words broke her heart.
“I didn’t want to have any children. My parents told me not to have any. But Henry Paul said that he’d take care of them if I had them. Then look what he went and did? He died so that I had to care for the little chit.” Feeling the tears as they rolled down her cheeks, she listened to Gilda Jane as she went on about how selfish her grandson had been for having a heart attack and leaving her alone. “If she thinks I’m going to allow this, then she’s in for a rude awakening. And I’m going to live with them, too, just to make sure that they don’t have children and that Taylor devotes all her time to me. I don’t deserve to be left out in the cold any more than I deserve to have her all to myself. Henrietta I demand that you put an end to this right now before I have to tell her how I feel about this. No, I won’t have it. I’m not made to be not taken care of. I want what is coming to me as her mother.”
“I will do no such thing.” She thought about Gilda’s parents and finally realized that the rumors that she’d heard all Gilda’s life were true. “They forced you to marry, didn’t they? To get you out of their home? Isn’t that right?”
“They said that they were too old to wait on me all the time. Then they shouldn’t have had me is my way of thinking.” It made her stomach feel off and she put her hand over it. “They ran off when I got married, and I never could find them. Even when I married like they made me, I didn’t love Henry Paul. My parents made me do it, and that’s what I did.”
Some of the conversations that she’d had with her grandson were coming back to her. How stressed he’d been about having to work so hard and then come home to Gilda wanting things of him. She remembered the day that he told her that he was going to be a father, the fear in his voice along with his excitement. It occurred to her right then that Gilda had killed her grandson as if she’d shot him in the head. The stress of being the working one, taking care of a house, then the child had been just too much for him, and he’d had a massive heart attack at just forty years old. So young, and now she thought that she knew why.
“Did you ever help him out around the house? Take care of the baby when she was born?” Gilda just laughed, manic-like, and said that it was her who needed things done for her and not him. “You murdered him then, didn’t you? As surely as I’m standing here talking to you, you killed my grandson because you’re—you’ve been selfish all your life, and because of that, Henry died well before his time.”
“Taylor is mine, and she’ll do what is good for me and only me. I don’t care that she thinks that she’ll marry. I won’t have it. It’s too much of a drain trying to get her to do things for me now so she won’t marry. Not so long as I have breath in my body. I won’t have it.”
Henrietta closed the connection and put her phone on the desk. Her heart was shattered, and she didn’t know what she could do about it. As much as she didn’t want to tell Taylor and Jack, she knew that they’d have to know what sort of person they’d be dealing with. All this time, all the time since her grandson had died, the clues had been right there for her to look at, and she’d ignored them. Now, her heart was broken.
Picking up the phone, she nearly put it down when Jack answered. Telling him how sorry she was that she’d called him by mistake, he seemed to understand that something was going on. No matter how many times she’d told him that it was all right, she’d talk to them later, he insisted that she tell him what had happened. All she could think about at that moment was that if Gilda got her way, then she’d kill off this young man to get what she wanted in the same way that she’d done to her poor grandson.
They arrived not ten minutes later after hanging up the phone. Sobbing so hard that she could barely speak, she tried her best to tell them both what Gilda had said and had done. Holding onto the two of them, her heart hurting for the words that she was repeating for them, Henrietta told them how sorry she was and that she wished that she’d learned sooner about Gilda. Knowing that she’d killed off her only grandson hurt her in ways that she couldn’t explain.
“I’ll talk to her.” She started to tell Taylor that she didn’t want to do that, that she’d just hurt her too when Jack said that he’d take care of her. If she would allow it. “I knew that she was childish and selfish, but I never thought of the extent of her ways. To think that she doesn’t care that I’m happy and in love but that I only do what she needs of me. How did I never see this before?”
“She’s been that way all her life.” Henrietta explained about her parents and how they had moved away right after the wedding. “I never saw it because she’d been that way when I was a child. But lately, I’ve been getting fed up with her about the little things that she does to get my attention. Stupid things like getting into trouble at the condo. Telling the people there how they should be living their lives around her. She had maid service, and she still manages to fuck things up when I’m not at her beck and call.” Taylor looked at her, and she put her hand on her head. Her heart hurt so badly for this child who was born with a mother like Gilda.
“Your father would have spoiled you to no end. But he’d been there for you, too.” Henrietta smiled at her but knew that it was a painful one. “I didn’t see it. He told me how it was at their home, and I thought for sure that it was just growing pains for Gilda that she’d get better once you were older. But nothing happened. She just kept getting worse and worse.”
“I’ll make sure that she knows what’s going on.” She didn’t envy Jack any of this but knew that if anyone could deal with Gilda, it would be him. “I’ll make sure, too, she knows that she won’t be hurting either of you again.”
“Your lion might come in handy if you do that.” Taylor laughed a little. “Nothing like this was anything I thought was going to happen when I got here. I thought for sure that the doctor had given you less time and you were going to leave me sooner.”
“Oh, good heavens, I forgot.” She told them everything that the doctor had said and asked Jack if he’d done anything. “I’m not mad, son. I love you—did you just tell me that you love Jack, honey?”
“Yes, I’ve told him tonight, too, but you’re the first to know that we’ll be getting married soon, and we don’t want any fuss about it.” She looked at the two of them and then remembered the rings. “Oh, Grandma, this is more special than I could have hoped for. Thank you so much for thinking of the two of us.”
Henrietta decided to go out with them. Leaving all their phones at home, they set out to have a celebration dinner and not talk about Gilda. That was going to be difficult, she knew, but she was going to do her damnest to keep the woman’s name out of their fun tonight.