The Inheritance

By Ellen Heath

Born in Mississippi and raised by her late aunt in a Tucson trailer court, Martha Stahlings has created a very successful life from a humble and mysterious beginning. Now, in the wake of a great aunts death, she and her husband must return to the place she left behind. Martha now has the opportunity to go home to find out who she really is.

A will left by the great aunt of her husband, Sam, offers him an attractive opportunity to return to his own roots in the South. As the couple embarks on a one-week visit with his relatives in Alabama, Martha is both excited and apprehensive. How will she be received by his distinguished family? What will she discover about her own people? Why did Sams parents abruptly leave his hometown? Could she be happy there?

As an intense week progresses, Martha begins to realize that the true price of Sams inheritance may be much more than shes willing to pay. His family is endearing but profoundly dysfunctional. The way of life in the small southern town seems alien to her. She makes one dramatic discovery after another that she must keep secret. And most disconcerting of all, she suddenly finds herself in sexual competition with a beautiful, seductive, and ageless aunt.

At the end of the week, the heirs assemble for the climactic reading of the will at their lake house. Never in her most fearful moments could Martha have anticipated the drama that is about to eruptor the role she must play in it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Apr 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781458202697

Ellen Heath

Like the main character in The Inheritance, Ellen Heath was born in the South, raised in the West, and experienced a return. She now lives and writes in “The City Different,” Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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The Inheritance

Ellen Heath

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The Inheritance

Copyright © Ellen Heath 2012

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-0268-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0269-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012904121

Abbott Press rev. date:3/28/2012

CONTENTS

Nana’s Will

Who Is the Jezebel?

The Ultimatum

Casey’s Questions

Arrival in Atheneum

Meeting Jezebel

Candor at the Country Club

The Webb Question

Family Photos

Prelude to a Nap

The Coach

Pocahontas

Mutt and Jeff

Trouble for Lunch

Backwash

Dinner with Odessa and Ted

The Visitation

Escape to Baghdad

The Truth Buried in Elmwood

Conflict

The Revised Family History

Reba Takes Aim

Martha Squares Off

Mary Beth’s Advice

Martha on Deck

Escape to the Party Platform

Ben Speaks

Nana’s Last Words

Acknowledgment

About The Author

Nothing, of course, begins at the time you think it did.

Lillian Hellman

Ellen%20Heath%20Family%20Tree.jpg

Nana’s Will

Well, I guess we’ll know by the end of the week if we’re going home, said Martha.

Lost in memories as they sat at the cleared supper table, neither her husband nor her mother-in-law reacted to the use of that word. For decades, Tucson had been home for them all. Now the past had come calling, and the terms of a will were inviting Sam and Martha to return to their roots in the South.

Sam let his tipped chair drop to the floor and turned to look at his mother, who had absentmindedly begun to pick at paint chips on her fingernails. You know, he said, when I get more time to think about this, it’s going to seem peculiar as hell.

Oh, I don’t know, Mary Beth responded, now beginning to toy with the turquoise beads she was wearing over her white blouse in honor of the modest occasion. It’s just like Nana to do something like this.

Sam’s great aunt had recently died in Atheneum, Alabama, and her will would be read at the end of the following week. According to the brief sketch provided by Nana’s attorney, her intent had been to lure Sam back to his hometown to take over management of the family-owned, William Bennett Stahlings Memorial Hospital. Sam’s inheritance could disrupt a flourishing career in Tucson, where he was the chief operating officer of a teaching hospital and on track to become its chief executive officer.

When was the last time you were back there? Martha asked Sam.

Let me see, he said, looking up as though to search for the answer in the beamed ceiling. It was back in ’81 when Papa and I went to Duke to check it out. That was twenty-eight years ago.

How about when you attended that conference in New Orleans? asked Mary Beth. I thought you drove up there afterwards.

Oh, yeah. Sam glanced sheepishly at Martha and then grinned. There are a lot of blank spots in my memory.

Martha smiled, unperturbed by the fact that he must have made that trip with his first wife. Sam’s demanding career had left little time for sharing during the course of their three-year marriage, and Nana’s death had brought up a distant past about which she had heard little.

But didn’t you ever go back there on vacations? she asked.

Under thick white curls, a slight frown etched the forehead Mary Beth carefully guarded from the Arizona sun. Well, of course Sam’s father went back on short visits, but I had my hands full at home, she said a little defensively. And he wanted to explore the West on our vacations. He got so he really loved this country, she insisted. Sam smiled ironically.

Realizing that she had strayed into troubled waters, Martha changed the subject. I wonder what he would say about all this, she said.

That would indeed by interesting, replied Sam. He had often been guided by the imagined counsel of his late father, Sam Sr., who had once been chief of the medical staff at the hospital in Atheneum. Now Sam turned to his mother and asked, What do you think?

I have no idea what your father would advise, Mary Beth answered. With the death of her autocratic husband eight years earlier, she had been relieved of concerns about what he would think about anything, and she had become very comfortable with her own opinions. The Stahlings is a much smaller hospital, she said, but I always thought it was a good one; and Nana has paid you quite a compliment with this opportunity.

Sam started to protest modestly, but Mary Beth raised a hand to stop him. In a way, Nana’s faith in your ability is part of your inheritance, she went on, but I don’t know if you’d like living in Atheneum. It was a wonderful place to grow up, but it’s a small town and your relatives can be a little difficult. Don’t forget that you were a teenager when you left, and that memory is probably paramount. I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but you’d have to prove yourself to them. And you don’t have to do this just because Nana wanted you to, she declared.

Sam smiled. Putting it in her will was a good way to get my attention. It does have a certain appeal, he added wryly. Months of stress from an over-budget building program, the economic downturn, the uncertainties of pending healthcare reform, and the increasingly imperious and erratic ways of his chief executive officer had taken their toll. The coming week in Alabama would be welcome, if only as a getaway.

Well, I’m sure this development has caused consternation in the fold, Mary Beth said. Maybe The Stahlings is in some kind of trouble.

I guess we’ll find out, Sam said, and then he turned to Martha. It’s well-positioned in a couple of respects. There’s a big weapons research lab not far away, and all those folks have good insurance. And Alabama has the second highest obesity rate in the nation, which means complications. Heart problems, diabetes, hip and joint replacements, difficult pregnancies. Suddenly he slapped his lean thigh in comic inspiration. Fear and fat! We can make money from that!

Mary Beth frowned in annoyance, but Martha was amused. Sam’s irreverence had always been an asset in dealing with stress, and it made him seem younger than he was. Still, she had serious questions.

I don’t understand how Nana was so powerful that she could decide who should take over.

‘Wasn’t she just your great aunt?’ Mary Beth anticipated. Nana was never ‘just’ anything, she went on. She was the most strong-willed, overbearing person I ever met. Her hair had turned prematurely white, and she braided it into a little crown. Everyone called her Miz Stahlings, but it sounded like Your Highness. She was the half-sister of Sam’s grandfather and quite a bit younger. She became mistress of her brother’s household when his wife died and left him with four children to bring up. It was a lot to take on, Mary Beth conceded, even with help.

Was your husband very close to her? Martha asked.

Not really, Mary Beth answered. Sam Sr. was already fifteen when Nana arrived on the scene. As you can imagine, he wasn’t much into being managed. But of course he was fond of her, she added.

She never married? asked Martha, feeling a touch of pity for the spinster.

Probably didn’t want to stop being Miz Stahlings, said Mary Beth with a slight bite in her voice. I think she got to feeling like the hospital was hers.

She did save it once, Sam reminded her.

That would be an exaggeration, Mary Beth responded.

Martha saw that Sam was gently baiting his mother but was glad for the opening. What happened? she asked.

A big hospital chain tried to acquire The Stahlings about ten years ago, explained Mary Beth, folding her arms across her chest as though squaring off against her son. When the family refused, they moved to buy land to build a competing facility. Nana got wind of it, and she bought the property right out from under them. She laughed with grudging admiration, fine lines fanning at the corners of her eyes. They may be nosing around again, she added more seriously, if word is out about Nana’s death.

Sam shrugged, his interest fading. Martha observed his slumping form with concern. It had seemed lately as though there were only enough time and energy to be companionable—not a good situation for starting their family as planned. At thirty-two, she was ready to leave teaching, and Sam at forty-five was running out of time to launch the experience of fatherhood.

Martha began to move her chair back from the table. Shouldn’t we get this show on the road? she asked.

Nodding in agreement, Sam rose and stretched briefly. Got any messages for Casey? he asked his mother through a yawn. They would rendezvous in New Orleans with Sam’s sister, an ophthalmologist at the Ochsner Eye Center, and then drive together in a van to bring back a collection of antique dolls Nana had willed her.

No, we’ll talk later, said Mary Beth as she stood and brushed imaginary crumbs off her denim skirt.

Sam and Martha preceded Mary Beth through the dining room where the antique table was nearly hidden by mail, magazines, and a dried flower arrangement placed awkwardly at one end. In the hallway, Martha glanced into the dim living room that they had not entered since Christmas. It seemed that parts of the house had begun to die from disuse, with Mary Beth’s studio now the focal point of her life. Moving to Arizona had been a catalyst for the development of her talent as an artist, and her work was now being shown by a good local gallery.

As they hugged goodbye at the door, a desert breeze gently lifted Mary Beth’s curls away from her pale face, and the shadows made her look older, a little frail. Touched by the sight, Martha acted impulsively. Why don’t you come with us? she asked.

Caught off guard, Mary Beth inadvertently shuddered at the prospect. No thank you, honey, she replied. You just have a good time, and we’ll talk when you get back.

As they reached the car parked beyond a stand of yucca, Sam asked, Want to drive? Without waiting for a response, he opened the door for her. Once inside, Sam frowned at the dashboard of the hospital sedan he had never liked. Just think, he said. I could have any kind of damned car I want in Alabama. Then he adjusted his seat back and closed his eyes. Gotta think about this, he said.

Actually, he would nap, Martha knew. As she pulled out onto the street, the dark horizon trembled with lightning. She was so familiar with the desert’s moods and seasons after all these years. If she went on a day trip to Mississippi as she privately planned, would that landscape speak to her from the level of genetic memory? Would she vibrate like a tuning fork when she approached the town of Baghdad, where the late aunt who had raised her and the mother she did not remember had grown up, where her unknown father might live?

Sam had never entirely understood his family’s abrupt exodus from Atheneum, and Martha knew even less about the reason for her own departure from Mississippi. After her mother’s death, her aunt had spirited her out of the state when she was still a toddler for reasons never explained. This upcoming trip represented the opportunity for both husband and wife to retrace the early journeys over which neither had had any control. As she had suggested, they would be heading home, as in the places where they had been born, and she was both excited and a little apprehensive.

Their situations were very different. Sam would be returning to a town where the Stahlings name was an institution. Martha had been a Hampton, and she had no known living relatives in Mississippi. It was hard to know what kind of people the Hamptons had been, but there was reason to be a little anxious. After all, Loretta had raised her in a mobile home in a trailer park, something Sam, who never asked questions, did not know.

What Sam did know was that Martha had won a scholarship to college as a champion diver and was teaching with a master’s degree with honors in English. He also knew that her late aunt had been a teacher and a tennis coach, an outstanding athlete in her own right. From Sam’s perspective, Martha’s history was as compact as her slight physique, the story of a person whose development had been guided by her own will, talents, and ambition as well as the high expectations of an aunt he had never met. Sam apparently trusted what he saw and perhaps liked the simplicity of it.

As she drove on toward the fragrant prospect of rain, Martha hoped that things would remain that simple. In her purse was the former address of her Hampton grandparents. The look of that homestead would tell her a lot about the kind of people they had been, and that was a discovery she intended to make on her own. She glanced over at Sam, feeling a little guilty about concerns she couldn’t share. Miz Stahlings could not possibly have anticipated all the consequence of her bid for Sam’s return, and Martha could only hope that she would prove as wise as she had been willful.

Who Is the Jezebel?

Light from the crystal chandeliers reflected in dim mirrors, illuminating silverware dulled by countless washings and the worn texture of the white tablecloth. All of it, including the black-clad waiters of Casey’s favorite French restaurant, was a new experience in elegance for Martha. The air-conditioned civility of the cozy dining room was a pleasant contrast to the hot and rowdy streets of New Orleans they had explored that afternoon. The humidity was going to take a little getting used to; and in the overweight, sweaty tourists sipping beers and a concoction called a Hurricane, Martha had sensed the attraction to the forbidden so familiar in teenagers she had supervised on field trips.

She was trying not to be judgmental, however, schooling herself to open to impressions with which she might resonate in this gateway to the South. Perhaps she was a little provincial, having traveled outside of Arizona only for diving competitions when she was young. A teacher’s salary and continuing education courses in the summer hadn’t been