The Ring - Chapter 5

 

HEATHER AND MARGO

“I’LL GET THE door,” Margo said when the doorbell rang “Why Henry, this is a surprise.”

She had been glad Henry had been in her mother’s life. The time they spent together was time Medora wouldn’t be on Margo’s back, criticizing everything Margo was doing.

Margo also liked Henry for himself. Despite his business success, he was never pretentious, like many of her rich clients were. He treated her mother well. Despite her differences with her mother, she wanted them to be happy.

Henry had never been a replacement father, more like a friend, and more than once he’d given her financial advice. An artist’s income, even one who was semi-successful, could spiral up and down and with Henry’s advice she had been able to weather the leaner moments.

Also, he was supportive of her decisions to use her divorce settlement, which she hadn’t touched, to buy the land and build her tiny house/studio. He checked to make sure everything was like it should be during the construction.

He even acted as a surrogate grandfather and/or father when needed. He’d taken Bethany to more than one father-daughter dinner in her child’s teen years spent in America and that was before his wife had died.

As for Bethany, Margo knew Henry had guided her child through the school years when she felt she didn’t belong anywhere. He celebrated with Margo when Bethany finally found her niche as a researcher.

“It’s Henry. Bring another cup,” Margo said.

Heather appeared within minutes carrying a tray with a teapot and three cups and saucers. A plate, matching the cup and saucers, held chocolate chip cookies.

“I didn’t want to disturb you. Of course, if you need any help. . .”

“We know.” Heather put the cups and saucers on the coffee table then poured Henry’s first. She poured milk into her cup before adding the tea, a trick she had learned on a trip to England. Margo thought It pretentious but said nothing.

Heather added sugar to her tea, but Margo and Henry drank theirs black.

Margo thought that the cookies were a store brand and probably with enough additives to survive into the next decade. It was unusual not to have homemade cookies at her mother’s when she was growing up. She thought that was the case in every home until she visited friends’ homes. There had been many homemade cookies that they had found frozen in the freezer which they had put out for the after-funeral crowd. Both Heather and Margo wondered how her mother had had the strength to make them. Then again, they were not dated.

“May I talk to you alone, Margo?” Henry asked.

“Nothing you can’t say in front of me.” Heather’s pout reminded Margo of her sister’s teenage pout.

“I’m on a business mission. I may have a new client for her, but the woman wants to remain anonymous,” Henry said.

Heather didn’t see his wink. Margo did, telling her he was fibbing. “How about outside? I need some fresh air.” At Henry’s statement, Heather looked slightly mollified.

Margo threw a coat over her shoulders. They walked down the path leading to his house.

Until her final illness, Medora had flower beds on each side of the path, a chore Heather had taken over. Her mother loved black-eyed-susans and sneezeweeds. Yellow daffodils and yellow Iris would announce spring. Margo never understood how her mother could have so little interest in art yet made color a major part of her garden. Never understood was probably the best way to describe her relationship with her mother. At least she hadn’t duplicated the problem with Bethany. “What’s up, Henry?”

He reached into his pocket to pull out a small, blue case. When he opened it, the gold leaf ring with the diamond spine was revealed. It was the same ring as she had found in her mother’s coat a year or so ago. She had never mentioned it to her mother or her sister.

Henry made sure he stood so he blocked Heather’s view, if she were looking out any of the windows. Enough leaves had fallen off the trees for Medora’s windows to give a view, albeit limited, between the two houses.

“Your mother wanted you to have this. It goes back several generations. She said it always went to the youngest daughter in a family. She trusted me to make sure I completed the mission.”

When Margo took the case, the late afternoon light caught the gold. Henry took it back, shut the case and slipped it into Margo’s coat pocket. “I thought Heather might be jealous.”

“Thank you, Henry. I know why my mother liked you.”