Chapter 9 - The Reclaiming of the Soil
The conference room of the law firm of Vance, Miller, and Hollingsworth did not smell of old cedar. It smelled of expensive leather cleaner, stale tobacco smoke that had been masked with chemical pine, and the cold, metallic ozone of an industrial laser printer that had been running all morning.
It was two o'clock on Tuesday afternoon.
Marianne sat at the end of the long mahogany table. She wore her best dark wool coat, her hair pinned back in a neat, gray bun, and her spectacles sitting firmly on her nose. The bruise on her cheek had shifted to that ugly, mottled greenish-yellow of an old apple, but she wore no makeup to hide it. She let it sit there in the light of the recessed halogens, an open indictment etched into her flesh.
Beside her sat Arthur Vance—the 'Vance' whose name came before Richard’s on the bronze plaque by the elevator. He was seventy-four years old, had dry, papery skin that looked like parchment, and had known Thomas Caldwell since they were boys catching sunfish in Guist Creek.
Across from them sat Richard Hollingsworth and his daughter.
Tiffany was not wearing her four-thousand-dollar imported French corsetry. She was wearing an oversized cashmere sweater the color of oatmeal, dark leggings, and large, black designer sunglasses that she had refused to remove even though the window blinds were drawn. Her lower lip was swollen from crying, and her small, sharp chin was tucked down into the wool of her collar like a turtle’s head.
Richard looked as if he had been run through an agricultural combine. His white hair was uncombed at the crown; his collar was frayed; and his hands, resting on the mahogany, had a continuous, rhythmic tremor that he was trying to hide by pressing his thumbs hard against the wood.
Ethan sat six feet down the table from his mother, isolated in a high-backed swivel chair. He wore a clean, dark suit he had bought three years ago for seventy dollars at the Goodwill store in Frankfort, a white shirt he had ironed himself that morning on Marianne’s yellow formica table, and his father’s old silver pocket watch—the one with the dented case that had been through two wars and three tractor rollovers.
"This is ridiculous, Arthur," Richard rasped, his voice sounding like two dry bricks being rubbed together. "This is a domestic matter. It doesn't belong in the partnership rooms. Ethan is my son-in-law. We had an incident—an unfortunate, emotional incident fueled by alcohol and the stress of a high-profile social event—"
"Shut up, Richard," Arthur Vance said. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't even look up from the three-ring binder he was reading.
Richard’s mouth snapped shut.
"Arthur," Tiffany began, her voice high and nasal behind her dark glasses. "You don't understand what she did to me. She humiliated—"
"Miss Hollingsworth," Arthur Vance said, his pale, watery eyes lifting over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses with the deadly precision of a sniper. "I have known you since you were six years old, when your father brought you to the Christmas party and you threw a cup of hot chocolate at the receptionist because she gave you a marshmallow instead of a candy cane. I am not your uncle Arthur today. I am the managing partner of this firm, and I am the personal executor of Thomas Caldwell’s estate."
He turned a page in the binder.
"At nine o'clock this morning, Deputy Miller filed an incident report with the Commonwealth’s Attorney regarding the battery committed against Mrs. Caldwell on the evening of October fourteenth," Vance said. "The report contains fifteen sworn witness statements—including three from your own bridesmaids—confirming that you struck an elderly woman in the face with an open hand after she refused to authorize a secondary liquor charge."
Tiffany flinched behind her sunglasses. Her fingers clawed into the cashmere of her sleeves.
"Furthermore," Vance continued, "Mr. Ortega has provided this office with the security footage from the Grandview Manor vestibule and the north lawn. It shows Mr. Hollingsworth attempting to strike a county officer with a bottle of fortified wine, followed by forty-five minutes of verbal harassment directed at the estate’s domestic staff."
"That footage is private property!" Richard shouted, his face turning an alarming shade of magenta. "The manor has no right to distribute—"
"The manor," Vance said, "is a client of this firm, Richard. Or rather, they were your client until eight o'clock yesterday morning, when they terminated their retainer and transferred their business to my personal ledger. Samuel Ortega is a very thorough man. He does not like people who leave grease on his parquet."
Vance pulled two blue-backed legal documents from the folder and slid them across the polished mahogany. One stopped in front of Richard; the other stopped in front of Tiffany.
"Document One," Vance said. "A petition for the total annulment of the marriage between Ethan Thomas Caldwell and Tiffany Ann Hollingsworth, based on fraud, physical battery prior to the completion of the ceremony’s civil registration, and non-consummation. Ethan has already executed his portion."
Tiffany looked down at the paper as if it were a dead rat.
"I won't sign it," she whispered. "I'll file for divorce. I'll take half of everything he has. I'll take his future earnings. I'll take that farm!"
Arthur Vance let out a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh if there had been any humor within ten miles of the room.
"Miss Hollingsworth," Vance said, "the only thing your husband owns is a twelve-year-old Honda Civic with two hundred and ten thousand miles on the block, a collection of used textbooks on media ethics, and thirty-four thousand dollars in direct student debt owed to the federal government. If you file for divorce, the court will require a full disclosure of your family’s assets to determine spousal maintenance."
He looked directly at Richard.
"And Richard," Vance said softly, "if a chancery judge looks at your personal books for more than twenty seconds, you will be spending your seventy-fifth birthday in the federal correctional institution at Manchester for tax evasion and fraudulent bankruptcy filings."
The room went dead.
A truck shifted gears down on Main Street, its heavy diesel engine rattling the double-paned glass of the window.
Richard Hollingsworth looked at his partner. He looked at the paper. His thumbs had stopped pressing into the wood; they were trembling so hard now that his cufflinks were clinking against the mahogany like little silver coins.
"Arthur," Richard whispered. "You wouldn't."
"I have already drafted the referral to the bar ethics committee, Richard," Vance replied, his voice completely devoid of pity. "It is sitting in my outbox. If these two documents are not executed and notarized by two-fifteen, my secretary will walk them down to the post office."
He slid a heavy gold pen across the table. It rolled until it struck the base of Tiffany’s water glass with a clear, sharp ring.
"Sign the papers, Tiffany," Richard said. He didn't look at her. He was staring at the bronze plaque on the wall that listed the firm’s founding dates.
"Daddy!" she gasped, ripping her sunglasses off. Her eyes were small, red-rimmed, and wild with fury. "You can't let them do this to me! He's nobody! He's a peasant!"
"Sign the papers," Richard roared, his voice cracking into a ragged, pathetic sob. "Sign them, you stupid little bitch! Do you think I have eleven thousand dollars to pay that manor? Do you think I have twenty thousand dollars for Vance? Sign them!"
Tiffany stared at her father. The veneer—the forty years of pretend wealth, the club memberships, the silver patterns, the French corsets, and the Laurent Reserve—shattered like a thin sheet of cheap ice over a ditch.
She snatched the gold pen. Her hand was shaking so violently that her signature was nothing more than a jagged, angry scratch that tore through the surface of the bond paper, leaving a tiny blue scar in the pulp.
She threw the pen at Ethan.
It struck him in the center of his chest, right over his father’s silver watch, and fell into his lap.
"I hope you die in that ditch, Ethan," she spat, her face ugly and twisted like an old root. "I hope you rot in that old house with your crazy mother."
Ethan did not flinch. He picked up the pen, placed it neatly on the mahogany table, and looked his wife in the eye for the very first time in his life.
May you like
"My mother," Ethan said, his voice quiet, steady, and clear, "built the only thing in this room that wasn't bought on credit. And you aren't fit to sweep her porch."
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