I'd just caught my breath after the shock of my husband's sudden passing
when his last legacy showed up on my front porch. We'd buried Wesley Lloyd
Springer some few months before that hot, still morning in August, and
I hoped I was through signing forms and meeting with lawyers and shuffling
through various and sundry legal papers. I declare, this business of dying
has more legal aspects to it than you would think. The deceased never
knows what you have to go through to get his affairs in order, and Wesley
Lloyd's were in as much order as they could get. I thought.
Lord, it was hot that
morning, and I recalled again how Wesley Lloyd had always put his foot
down about air-conditioning the house, even when the Conovers had theirs
done. Central air, too. Wesley Lloyd said it was a waste of money and,
besides, fresh air was good for us. He felt that way only at home, though,
because his office at the bank was kept cool enough for the threepiece
suits he wore day in and day out. But I don't believe in speaking ill
of the dead, even when it's the truth.
So I was sitting in
my living room trying to get my mind off the heat by looking through a
stack of mail-order catalogs. Making a list of the items I intended to
call in for and having a good time doing it, since Binkie Enloe'd said
I needed to spend some, money. Sam Murdoch had agreed, and he ought've
known since he was the executor of the will that had put me in my present
more-than-comfortable position. Lord, there was more money than I ever
knew Wesley Lloyd had, and it all belonged to me, his grieving widow.
But a proud widow, too, and justly so, because I'd made such a fine and
fortunate choice of husbands.
But I tell you, I
thought I'd never get over the shock of finding Wesley Lloyd dead as a
doornail, slumped over the steering wheel of his new Buick Park Avenue.
Steel gray with plush upholstery, parked right out there in the driveway.
But I did, laying
him to rest in a properly ordered Presbyterian ceremony as he would've
expected. Then I had to suffer another shock when I found out how well-off
Wesley Lloyd had been. Why, besides the bank his daddy'd left him, he
owned half the county, seemed like, plus stocks and bonds and tax-deferred
annuities, all of it making more and more money every day of the week.
When the extent of his estate was laid out for me, all I could think of
was how he used to hand me a housekeeping allowance every Friday, saying,
"Make it last, Julia. Money doesn't grow on trees, you know." And all
the time he was cultivating a whole grove! Well, a lot of good it did
him, because I ended up with every penny.
Now, after forty-four
years in blissful ignorance of Wesley Lloyd's activities, financial and
otherwise, I had settled down to enjoy the benefits of widowhood and a
full checkbook, both of which I was mastering with hardly any problems
to speak of.
I looked out the window
as a few cars passed by on Polk Street, headed down to Main. I declare,
everybody and his brother seemed to have a telephone glued to his ear,
though this town's not big enough to need BellSouth whenever you drive
to the grocery store. Across the street the parking lot spread from Polk
to the back of the First Presbyterian Church of Abbotsville, my church
and the one Wesley Lloyd and his father, before him, had supported with
their presence, tithes, offerings, and over-and-above donations. Advice,
too, which was always taken but not always appreciated. Heat waves shimmered
up from the asphalt lot as I took note of whose cars were parked over
there. It was my custom to keep up with what went on around me and, since
Mondays were Pastor Ledbetter's days off, I couldn't be blamed for wondering
why he was meeting with several men on the session at the church. But
far be it from me to be nosy.
I could hear Lillian
humming along with the radio above the occasional clatter of pans out
in the kitchen as she prepared my lunch. That was another thing that was
different, now that Wesley Lloyd wouldn't be home for meals anymore. He'd
liked a quiet house, meals served on time, and everything done right on
schedule. I had already begun to enjoy a little freedom from that schedule,
telling Lillian that we'd eat whenever either of us got hungry or she
got the urge to put something on the table.
I licked a finger
and turned a page in the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog, wondering what
Sam and Binkie would say if I ordered a few trinkets from it. I declare,
some of the offerings were for people with more money than sense, a condition
that didn't apply to me, I'm happy to say. I expect, though, that any
number of people would've said it did if they'd known the full extent
of Wesley Lloyd's prudence and foresight.
However. His prudence
and foresight hadn't taken heart attacks into account. I knew as sure
as I was sitting there he never intended to leave me in charge of everything
he owned. I knew it as soon as Pastor Ledbetter came sidling up to me
not two days after laying Wesley Lloyd to rest, telling me he knew I'd
want to 'honor Mr. Springer's last wishes even if they'd never gotten
written down. That was the first I'd heard that Wesley Lloyd had planned
to make the First Presbyterian Church. . .
Excerpted from Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind © Copyright 2009 by Ann B. Ross. Reprinted with permission by HarperCollins. All rights reserved.
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