Page 14 of Jack

“No. However, if you go through with this, I’m going to drop everything that I do for you that you have no idea about. Like the condo and—” She said she was going to sell it and get something bigger. Just so the two of them could live together all the time. “You can’t sell the condo because it doesn’t belong to you. I own the entire subdivision. All the condos belong to me, and the only way that you can sell them is if I say so, which I won’t. They’re rentals, not ownership. It makes me more money that way, and I don’t have to worry about them sitting empty when someone moves out.”

“No, that’s no right. I own it. I bought and paid for it.” She didn’t say anything, and she looked over at her attorney. She asked him if she owned it or not. “Well? Do I or do I have to get my daughter to turn it over to me?”

“I tried to tell you that you don’t own anything. You have nothing to liquidate as it stands right now. You used to own a house that you didn’t pay taxes on, so it was taken by the bank.” Taylor said that she bought it when it went up for auction. “I figured as much. Also, there were two businesses that you owned that, too, were repossessed by the bank when you didn’t pay any taxes on them.”

“Taylor should have done that.” He handed her a contract, but she wouldn’t look at it. “What does it say? Just tell me.”

“It says that if you didn’t meet the demands of the business, which would include the taxes, then it would revert back to the original owner. That would be your grandmother-in-law, Harrietta Murphy. It was then sold to Taylor when things from the estate were put together into a single business. One that you signed off on that you wanted nothing to do with.” She asked if she had any money from that. “As I have told you several times over the past few days, Ms. Murphy, you don’t own anything. No stocks, no bonds, and certainly no capital from any of the businesses that you were supposed to have taken care of when you had them.”

“Someone should have taken care of them for me. I didn’t want to have to mess with things unless I wanted to. Why didn’t someone tell me what to do?” Taylor told her mom that she had daily, that things needed to be taken care of. “Then you should have taken care of them for me. You know I don’t like to be bothered with things like that. Unless all the attention is on me, I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“Well, it sucks to be you then.” She told her to have respect for her, or she could make her life a living hell. “You’ve done that since I was a child. I didn’t realize it, of course, because you’ve always been like this but I’ve been the parent in this since I was too young to understand that you were a selfish person.”

“So? It’s all right to be selfish. And that’s not a word that I’d use for myself. I just want things to go my way, and there is no harm in that.” Taylor told her that there were issues with that. No one had time to take care of her the way that she wanted. “My parents did it all right. And even your fatheruntil he got himself dead. He promised me riches and all he left me with was a baby that I couldn’t stand. Not until you were older, anyway. All you did was want-want-want. Well, I had wants and needs, too, that should have been taken care of instead of you. You were nothing to me. I’ve wanted to say that to you for such a long time. If not for the fact that you got older and were able to do what I wanted, I would have just as soon that you died. I needed things to be going my way, and all people thought about was how you were such a pretty good baby. Nothing about me. I should have gotten all the attention and people doing what I wanted, not some brat who was as useless as my husband was when he promised to take care of you all the time if I just gave him children. Never again will I be duped that way.”

“That’s enough.” Her mom told Jack to shut up. “I will not. My god, woman, do you really believe what you’re saying? That you didn’t like your daughter, much less your husband?”

“I just wanted to stay at home with my parents. They knew just how to treat me.” He asked if she knew where they were. “No. They left me with Henry Paul the moment that we were married. And he didn’t cater to me like they told me he would, either. He was so focused on making a living when he had all the money that we needed that he would leave me for hours on end to go to his work and leave me home. I didn’t want to be left alone. There was no one around to make sure that I had all that I wanted. It’s all about me, don’t you understand? It must be just about me.”

Taylor looked around the room. The judge had entered at some point, and he just stared at her mom, much like everyone else in the room was. She’d not only just admitted that she was selfish but that she’d not wanted her. Taylor thought that was what had hurt her the most that her mom had had no use for her until she got old enough to do her bidding. All her life, she’d done what she’d thought was the way things were supposed to go, and now it was as if someone was slapping her in the face for all the things that she had tried to do to make her mother happy. Standing up, she was surprised when every one of the Tuckers with her had stood as well. She looked at the judge when he asked her if she was all right.

“I don’t know that I am, thank you for asking.” She looked at her mom and then at her grandma. “I’m going home, sir. My attorney has all the paperwork that is necessary for you to understand what is really going on with my mom.” He asked her if she wanted to change anything to make sure that information was correct. “No, sir. I believe that if I stay here much longer I’m going to hate my mother and right now I don’t like her all that much but I don’t hate her. Yet. The things that she’s…well, I’m going home. Ivy, Mrs. Tucker will make sure I have the information that I need.”

She was headed to the door when she stopped suddenly. She was never so happy to see Jack with her as she was at that moment. Smiling at him, she kissed him on the mouth and turned to look at her mother.

“I’m married to this wonderful man, Gilda Jane and as soon as it’s possible, I’m going to have his children. Hundreds of them if he’s willing.” Her mother stood up and demanded that she take that back. With children, she told her there would be no time for her. “You’re right. I don’t care if I ever spend another minute with you for as long as I live.”

Chapter 6

Emma backed her trailer up to the bay doors and waited for the signal that her locks were in place. Once they were, she put her truck into park and turned it off. Getting out, she had her gloves on and was ready to lock things in place when her mom said her name. She told her that she had a phone call.

“Take a message, and I’ll call them back. We’re behind enough on this load, and I want to get out of here as soon as they get me empty.” Mom said that she’d do that and Emma finished up her locking down the trailer so that the people on the inside could work on getting things done. She hated to unload or load at this center.

This was the third time this month that their scheduled time had been put back. The first time, it had been only an hour. This time, it was nearly seven. She didn’t have time to pussy foot around with a center if they didn’t get their shit together. It was nearly dark when she decided to get into her bed and eat something with her mom. They’d been traveling together since her dad died five years ago, and it had been working out well for the two of them.

“What is it you’ve made us?” Mom handed her a plate of still steaming food of spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. “This is a bit much, don’t you think?”

“Well, we had plans to have dinner out tonight, and I had my heart set on Italian. But this place has screwed that all up. Again. Besides, it’s not that much to throw some frozen meatballs into the pot with the noodles. Not all that good but rib-sticking.” They ate in silence for a few minutes before her mom spoke again. “I heard from your grandpa. He said that the real estate agent showed the house to a couple today. I hope they can sell it. I’m sick of paying taxes on the place when we don’t even live there.”

Her father had passed away a month and a half after the house had been completely paid off. Even with the mortgage that he’d borrowed against the house for her semi was now fully paid. From the beginning, her parents had supported her and now that she was free of any kind of payments to the bank, it made the profit that she made go a bit further when paying bills. The house being sold would save them a bit more. The two of them were making a profit now but without the monthly taxes, it would be easier to bank more.

“Don’t forget to call that person back. I think that it was the same person as before, Denver Tucker.” She said she’d call him as soon as she was finished eating. “Are they the ones that I sent all that paperwork to when they were looking for full-time drivers?”

“Yes. They’re opening a distribution center along the coast. It’ll be nice to be able to be at home at night. I know we’d have to buy us a place but it won’t have to be as big as the place we had back home.” The house had been in their family for generations, but neither she nor her mom were all that sentimental about the place. In fact, they both hated living there after her dad had died. “Maybe we can get us a little condo that has a couple of bedrooms, so we don’t have to do yard crap either.”

“I’d like to have a crafting room. And a big kitchen. Well, not big, but big enough that I could cook some cookies when I want.” They had talked about this before, finding a driving job so that she could be home nightly. Her mom had gotten her driver’s license to drive one of the big rigs but she didn’t care for it. It had helped a great deal, her knowing how to drive to keep them on track when working. “You know how much it would cost to get us something smaller to go to the store in. I don’t care for driving this sucker to the grocery store when we need something.”

The two of them joked around about what they wanted in a house. Mom had said that she wanted a garden so that she could grow her own vegetables. Emma had wanted a garage to hold her rig in. She didn’t care if it spent all its time in the weather. They only had nice weather down here where they were working for the most part.

After getting the dishes cleaned up—her mom used regular plates so as not to add to the amount of trash in the world, and it worked out great for them. The two of them only drank bottled water, so there were a lot of empty bottles in the rig when they got to a place to recycle them. Emma thought that the two of them worked well together. After checking to see how much longer they were going to be at this center, she called Denver Tucker.

“We’ve gone over your application, Ms. Holden, and it looks like we can work well together. I know you said that your mom didn’t want to drive the bigger trucks but we do have cargo vans that she could drive that would bring in some good money for her as well.” She told him that her mom would like that so long as it wasn’t full-time. “I understand that she wants to work part-time, and any time that she can give us will be a blessing. The stores that we’re suppling to are smaller stores that families run. But there are approximately seventy of them along the coast that we’ll supply.”

“That’ll be wonderful.” He told her that the center was nearly finished on the outside, but the inside was being worked on now. “There will be forty bay doors along with an entire section devoted to the perishable things that will be delivered, such as candy and drinks that can’t handle the heat.”

“The place we’re at now has over a hundred bay doors, but they only use about twenty, which is what makes me late in and out of here. I don’t know that they have enough people or they just don’t care about times but it’s a pain to be here.” She shut down her talking about the center that she was working at. That didn’t bode well to do that to a new employer. “Mom and I will be looking for a place to stay here too. About where the center is so that we can be halfway between each delivery.”

“There are several condos that you can look into. I can set up a realtor to help you out with that if you want. Also, you will be given an allowance when you have to stay over for whatever reason.” She said that she understood there would be times for her to work overnight. “Good. I’m glad that we’re on the same page. As for a starting date, it will be three weeks before the center starts taking in product. Most of the shelves have been put together and are standing. The merge area—the area where all the boxes and products are put on lines to head to the trucks has been running for a few days now, working out the bugs or whatever.”

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