Been In Love Before: A Novel Page 3

  “The house is in mine and my mother’s name, and now it belongs to me.”

  “Are you sure about that? I’m the spouse. And in Florida the spouse has . . .”

  “As the spouse . . . you’re entitled to a portion of the proceeds of the sale but only after all the house sale expenses. Of which there are many.”

  “Laura, I have certain legal rights. Besides, I never received any show cause or any other legal notices.”

  “You were sent orders to vacate the premises multiple times over the last two months, and you were supposed to have all of your things out of here by last week.”

  “I get all my mail, and I never got anything like that.”

  Her voice rose, as usual when she did not get her way. “You have one hour to pack up and leave or I’ll call the police.”

  “Go ahead and call ’em, you little twit,” he told her with a smile. “It was nice to meet you,” he told the awestruck Realtor with his melting charm, and returned to the kitchen to read his newspaper and call his lawyer on his cell phone. His attorney’s voice-mail message said, “Leave a message at the beep, and I’ll get back to you when I return from vacation, or feel free to call my office and speak with my assistant, Amy. Have a nice day.” Sunday. Damn.

  He turned to look in the living room and saw Laura pull out her cell phone and dial a number. The police arrived at the house within ten minutes.

  Laura stood by the front door, her hands on her hips, and greeted them with an angry frown, pointing at Eian, who was leaning against the door frame, drinking his coffee. “Get him out of here. Here is the vacate directive from my lawyer and the courts,” she told the two officers. She folded her arms in a sulk, waiting for the officers to do their duty. The senior officer read the court order, folded it, and walked toward the kitchen. Eian sat down at the table to drink his coffee and finish his English muffin while reading the newspaper.

  “I’m sorry to have to do this, Mr. Macgregor. I’m such a big fan of yours, but according to this paperwork, she does have first rights to the property. It doesn’t seem right, making a man move from his own home, but according to this court order, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave, please.”

  Eian wiped his mouth with his napkin and approached the small group assembled in his living room. “I see, Officer. I know you’re just doing your job, but you see, my wife, the late Alice Macgregor, wrote up a life estate trust on this property before she passed away. That means that I can stay here for as long as I live, and no one can make me leave until they carry me out on a stretcher with a sheet over my head.”

  His little grin irritated his stepdaughter, who was fuming at being delayed in her quest to oust him. Eian had never cared for her much. All of Alice’s friends came to visit, but she rarely came to see her failing mother other than call to ask her for money for some project or charity donation she was working on. And, of course, his sweet Alice always obliged.

  “He does have a point, ma’am,” said the older, paunchy cop.

  “That document would allow him to stay here,” continued the younger cop, a short-haired, brown-eyed officer in a heavily starched blue uniform.

  “I don’t believe it. My mother promised me this house before she died. Where is this so-called document, Eian?” she asked defiantly.

  “It’s in my safe-deposit box at the bank, where I keep all of my important papers.” He grinned again.

  “Well, let’s just trot on down there and get it,” she proclaimed with her hands on her hips, now smiling herself, thinking she had called his bluff.

  The older officer interceded. “Ma’am, I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to do that. It’s Sunday, and the banks are closed today.”

  Her face grew redder and redder as she stomped her feet and spun around to leave, her real estate agent running to catch up.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Eian. Count on it!” she ranted, and slammed the door shut behind her.

  They all watched her leave until the older cop turned to look at him and smiled. “You don’t have any such paperwork at all, do you?”

  “No, sir, I don’t, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me leave here with my tail between my legs. I’ll be out of here before the morning and then let the lawyers straighten it out; they always do.”

  The younger cop blushed and asked, “Mr. Macgregor, I feel awfully funny asking this . . . but would you mind giving me your autograph?”

  “Sure, I’d be happy to do that.”

  Eian went into his den and pulled out of his desk a promo picture from the local sports radio station he worked for in Boca Raton. In the picture he was wearing his baseball uniform. He signed it for the young cop.

  “Thanks, Mr. Macgregor. Thanks a lot.”

  Eian walked them to the door, and the older cop stopped and asked him, “Why didn’t you ever get your wife to sign something like that? You could have avoided all of this nonsense.”

  “Alice always said she was going to have the lawyers write one up, but I don’t think she ever got around to it . . . and toward the end we had a lot of other more important things to worry about.”

  “I understand, but Mr. Macgregor, as a squatter we can’t force you to leave the property. You have certain legal rights too, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I’ll have my attorney deal with her tomorrow.”

  “We won’t have to be coming back here, now will we?”

  “No, Officer, no problems here. Until I talk to my lawyer, I guess I’ll bunk over at my brother Ryan’s house for a bit.”

  “I am sure he’ll be happy to see you.”

  “I’m sure; he has tons of space. Have a good day, Officer.”

  In the past he would have crashed on his sofa at his office in Delray, but he had hired his old friend Rose Gilardo, an interior decorator, to remodel it and make sense of the old boxes, files, and memorabilia, along with the hundreds of baseball bats, gloves, and balls. The sofa was gone. It should be finished this week, he thought. I hope.

  He packed, finally tossing Alice’s pink robe over his shoulder. He was ready to leave, and turned to look around his homestead one last time. “Good-bye, baby. I’ll miss you, sweetie,” he whispered, closing the door behind him. He loved that house.

  It was only a thirty-minute drive from his home to Ryan’s house on the beach. He drove up State Road A1A from his house in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and marveled at the huge mansions going up seemingly overnight along the beach thoroughfare. The city straddled the ocean roadway, with the ocean on one side and the Intracoastal Waterway on the other.

  He and Alice preferred living along the restful Intracoastal Waterway. Sitting at the breakfast table, they would occasionally see the gentle manatees slowly gliding along the water, heading south to Fort Lauderdale with only their dark-brown, leathery backs breaking the water’s surface. He headed north toward his brother’s house in Boca Raton. This should be interesting, he thought. They had not lived in the same house . . . in a long, long time.

  As he drove toward his brother’s beach home, he made a detour through his old Delray neighborhood, turning left onto Atlantic Avenue before making another left onto South East First Avenue. He pulled to the curb, stopping before an oversize three-acre plot of vacant land, which still had a gray, weathered FOR SALE sign posted at the corner.

  He looked over the lot with fond recollections of his and Alice’s plans to build on it. This is where we are going to build our dream home, just for the two of us, they would say to each other. Now it was filled with bittersweet memories. Should I just sell it and get rid of it? Plenty of time for all those decisions later.

  Eian noticed the grass was very high and that someone had dumped some old tires and discarded a refrigerator on his property. He made a mental note to contact the property-management company to come by and take care of it. He said his good-byes, started the car, and pulled away from the curb to drive the short distance to his younger brother’s house. He
and Ryan together, this was going to be like old times, he thought to himself.

  Chapter Four

  Dr. Ryan Macgregor sat on his large patio overlooking the beach in front of his large white stucco house in Boca Raton. It was an ultramodern three-story house with a four-car garage and so many bedrooms he had lost count.

  Sitting by the pool, he was going through the motions of reading his outdated professional magazines. He bought the house because Grace loved to swim. Then he had lost her when she was biking down A1A and was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Now he sat by the pool and thought of nothing but her.

  She had called him that day from the side of the road, and he remembered she had told him, “Chill the champagne, Ryan my sweet, I beat my best biking time this morning. Today is a good day, I can tell.” Her voice had faded away. Then, talking with an edgy laugh, she said, “You won’t believe this guy, baby . . . he’s driving like a maniac. He’s crazy or drunk,” she shrilled. She talked faster as the fear rose in her voice. And then he heard her say, “Oh no! Oh my God! No! . . .” There was static, and then the line went dead. Dead? From that moment on, she was gone from his life forever.

  Now he sat by the pool he had built for her, catching up on his reading, skimming through past issues of Psychiatric Journal Review. He knew that as a psychiatrist, he had to keep up with the latest in his field, but he could no longer tolerate the incessant medical bulletins. In addition, he was not interested in their conventions, even though they were usually held in some remote island paradise or on a luxury cruise ship. He had a good practice with another doctor, and he was good at what he did, but he could not face the truth: his Gracie was gone. As a psychiatrist, he was at a loss. What could he do? Talk himself out of it? He had lost the love of his life. It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair.

  He looked at the still water of the pool beside him and wondered how long he would have to stay under the surface before he would die . . . and join her.

  What if I take the rest of the sleeping pills and just lie on the bottom and never wake up? Maybe I could just take the pills I have in the medicine bottle upstairs and just fall asleep . . . and never wake up? That should be enough to do the trick. Just lie in our bed, with thoughts of Gracie. Why wait? She is only a breath away. She would be there waiting for me.

  Grace had always said he was a procrastinator and afraid to make a commitment. They dated for years until she gave him an ultimatum—get married or else. I could join her at the bottom of the pool; it would only take . . .

  “Hello?” he heard a familiar voice call. Again, it sounded through the air: “It’s me; I’m home.”

  “Oh my God, Gracie?” He was dozing, and his eyes began to tear as he looked into the sun at a figure approaching him.

  “Dad? Daddy? Oh, there you are,” said his daughter, causing his recurring dream to once again disappear in an instant. A tear still hung in his eye, unable to fall. His Gracie was gone.

  “I was calling for you, Dad. Didn’t you hear me?” said his tall, independent, red-haired daughter. She was the image of her mother, temper, iron will, and all. She had taken charge of everything since her mother died. In a way Ryan was glad to have her help. He was lost and adrift without his Gracie.

  “Hi, Mary Katherine. I must have dozed off here by the pool. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Only her parents called her Mary Katherine; everyone else called her Mary Kate or clung to her childhood nickname, Graw, given to her by her paternal grandfather. When her grandfather first saw the screaming red-haired baby, who was delivered at his home, he said in his heavy Scottish brogue to her mother, “Hell, woman, don’t worry about it, she’ll graw out of it!” She immediately stopped crying, and the nickname Graw stuck.

  Her eyes narrowed as she examined her father in the early-morning light and guessed what was going on. “I miss her too, Daddy.” She kissed him on his forehead.

  “What was that for?”

  “Do I need a reason to kiss my only father?”

  “No, no, you don’t. What’s up?”

  “I thought Uncle Eian and Uncle Robert would be here waiting for me.”

  He squinted, looking up at her into the hazy morning Florida sun. “I left them a message, and Robert called back saying he would be here, but it would probably be much later in the day. He and Bobby were down in the Keys fishing. And I’m sure your uncle Eian will be here soon; it’s Sunday, free food and free drinks, and he never misses a game on TV when he’s not in the broadcast booth.”

  “Like always. Daddy, can you call them and make sure that they are here later today, definitely? I really need to talk to them and to you today.” She kissed his forehead again and said, “I’ll see you later, Daddy. I am off to meet with the caterer, and then I’ll come back here before I go to the office and meet a new client.”

  “It’s Sunday, Mary Katherine. Don’t they give you time off?”

  “Yes, Daddy, they are very good to me there at the law firm, even though I am new there. I love my job. However, I have work to do. But make sure to call them, okay? I’ll be back later. Bye, Daddy. Love you.”

  She kissed his cheek and, like a whirlwind, was gone.

  Chapter Five

  Sunday morning Robert Macgregor sat on the old wooden chair on the porch of his seaside bungalow and sipped his coffee as he watched the glory of the beautiful sunrise over the Keys. Bobby had left hours earlier, but the elder Macgregor was lingering as long as he could. He didn’t want to leave.

  He secured the boat to the dock for rough weather, shut off the hot-water heater and the main water supply for the small house, locked the doors, and closed the shutters at the cabin. Time to go, he thought. Then he started on his long drive home to Boynton Beach, some five hours away.

  The narrow two-lane road leaving Key West had but a few cars heading north from the southern Keys. He loved life in the Keys. On the drive home, he had a long time to think about his life.

  Maybe I should just move down to the cabin permanently and then head north for family events. Bobby can run the store. I have everything I need here at the cabin. I can hunt and fish anytime I like, and the town of Key West is only minutes away. That makes sense. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll just wait until after the wedding before I tell everyone. There is plenty of time. Time to get on with my life. He could always come up for a few days to see everybody, including his new grandson. Now content and with a plan formulating in his mind, he began to hum an old Harry Chapin song, “Mail Order Annie,” a familiar tune from his childhood. It was one of Tess’s favorites. Yes, that is exactly what I’ll do.

  Five hours later Robert turned off I-95 at the Boynton Beach exit and headed west on Boynton Beach Boulevard. He passed a golf course and a country club and then a canal, and finally a cornfield. He made a sharp turn onto a narrow, dusty road running beside the canal, which led to his home. At the end of the dead-end road, he stopped in front of a solitary house with a view of the seventh fairway of the nearby golf course on the other side of the canal. He liked to tease his younger brother Ryan, the doctor, because he too had a waterfront home. The only difference was that Ryan had paid millions of dollars more for his.

  Robert’s two-bedroom cottage was small, with a porch at the front and the back. The front entrance featured a leaded glass door, which he had salvaged from the demolition of an old mansion nearby. He had also secured matching twin French doors for the rear, off the living room. There was a broad expansive deck off the back, with a boat dock and a fishing pier in the canal. He had everything he needed right here and knew he would miss it when he moved to Key West.

  “I’m home,” he said aloud to the empty house as he walked inside, and upon hearing no response, he repeated himself. “I’m home!” A mouse scurried from the mass of discarded cartons of Chinese food in the corner of the kitchen.

  The pungent odor of half-eaten pizzas, emanating from a pile of pizza boxes stacked high on the kitchen table, welcomed him as he entered. Inside, the flo
or of the house was littered with newspapers, dirty clothes, fast-food containers, beer bottles, fishing gear, and soda cans. It was hard to tell the color of the carpet underneath all the clutter inside the house. The kitchen sink was filled with half-empty soda and beer glasses, and stacks of plates with strands of spaghetti still clinging to them.

  The master bedroom contained an unmade king-size bed with the bedsheets bunched together at the end of the mattress. Pillows were scattered about the floor. The bed was pushed against the window, the heavy, dark mahogany headboard still stored in the garage attached to the house.

  He looked around the small house and knew what Tess would say if she saw it. Since she had passed away two years earlier, he had kept meaning to clean the place up, but never seemed to find the time. His house and his life . . . were in shambles.

  He looked around his home. Just because I’m living alone does not mean I need to live like a pig. Today’s the day, he told himself. If he was going to rejoin the human race as he had promised his son, he had to start now. Let’s clean up! He grabbed a large black contractor’s trash bag from the garage and started shoving piles of trash inside, soon filling it. He reached for another one. Then another. He soon had a pile of six trash bags outside before taking a break, grabbing a beer and a leftover half-eaten pizza from the fridge. He popped the pizza in the oven and set it at 350 degrees. He filled another three black plastic trash bags. It was then he noticed the message light flashing on his ancient answering machine, informing him he had two new messages, and pressed the button.

  “Hey, bro, this is Ryan. Don’t forget to come on over Sunday afternoon. Mary Katherine wants to talk with the three of us—together. If you speak to Eian, remind him as well. Hope you had a good trip to the Keys. See ya. Bye for now.”

  The second message was from his son, Bobby. “Hi, Dad, I really enjoyed the week. Don’t forget to telephone that Callahan woman on Monday. I’ll call you tomorrow night to see how your conversation went. Love ya.” He pulled the card from his pocket and thumbed the name and number. Tomorrow. I’ll call her tomorrow.