“Who ‘forgets’ to file her own divorce papers?” Lydia sputtered in raw disbelief.
Kate was only half-listening, intent on combing through the rest of the folder’s contents in the hope that the unsigned document was simply a file copy her sister had tucked away.
“It’s bad enough that he couldn’t even keep a roof over her head,” Lydia continued, “but now the little weasel’s probably going to come back and want half her estate!”
‘Estate’, of course, was defining fairly loosely what Cassy had left behind in terms of tangible property stored in the few boxes strewn around Lydia’s kitchen. “What we should be more worried about,” Kate said, “is that he’s going to want all of Jimmy.” If Luke’s finances were still as spotty as Cassy had always told her, a dependent child under his roof, would make him eligible for government aid, an angle that someone of his character wouldn’t hesitate to play.
Lydia snorted her disdain for her former, or rather, current, son-in-law’s woeful lack of accountability. “No court’s going to even allow him visitation rights,” she insisted, “especially considering that hippie lifestyle of his.”
“He wasn’t born in the right decade to be a hippie,” Kate gently corrected her.
“Well whatever you want to call people like that, your sister should have seen the writing on the wall when she first met him. All that anyone has to do is just look at him and know he’s incapable of taking care of anything.”
“Yeah, but whether we like it or not, a judge is still going to take into—”
A sudden boisterous banging at the back door caught both women off guard.
Kate opened the door to see John holding a squirming Jimmy in his arms.
“We obviously need to work on our knocking skills,” he said with an apologetic grin, stepping back just far enough so that Jimmy, a dirty fist outstretched, couldn’t repeat his exuberant performance.
Seeing her nephew being carried sent Kate into instant panic mode. “Is he hurt?” she asked, reaching out to touch him.
“No, but I think maybe he’s carrying half the backyard in his pockets and on his feet.” John delivered his next smile to Lydia who had just come up behind Kate. “Wouldn’t want to mess up your mom’s clean house.”
His thoughtfulness about not wanting to make extra work for her went un-thanked. Lydia, in fact, couldn’t wait to relieve him of his wriggling burden so he could be on his way that much faster.
“How can someone so small get dirty so fast?” she declared as she marched Jimmy over to the kitchen sink and began running water for a preliminary clean-up.
“He was quite the little helper,” John remarked. “All the makings of a natural arboriculturist.”
“That’s a bigger word than he is,” Kate pointed out in amusement.
“Not to worry, I bet he’ll grow into it. You know, you’ve got some great trees back there, Mrs. Toscano,” he complimented Lydia.
“All the more reason I didn’t need another one,” she tartly replied without turning around.
Kate started to say something but John was too quick.
“I’m worried, though, about the one closest to the house. From the looks of it, it’s getting hit with too much water.”
“Trees are supposed to have water,” Lydia informed him as if he were dense. “It has to get down to the roots.”
John chuckled. “Oddly enough, that’s what a lot of people think,” he replied. “Truth is that tree roots grow horizontally, not vertically. Most of ‘em are only about 6-18 inches beneath the surface.”
“And that means what to me?” Lydia asked.
“Well, unless I’m mistaken, ma’am, the trunk’s in the line of fire with your sprinkler. All that exposure’s started a fungi problem.”
“So I’ll point the sprinkler somewhere else,” she cut him off.
“I’m afraid you’ve already got some decay kickin’ in.” John shook his head. “Sooner or later, it’ll have to come out. Preferably sooner.”
He glanced at Kate as he said it and she was struck by the tenderness with which he was conveying to them that the tree had already started to die.
Lydia, however, was more concerned about what it was going to cost her, not to mention the disruption of having her backyard torn up.
“Oh, I think I could make you a pretty good deal,” John offered. “How ‘bout a date with your daughter?”
“‘A date with your daughter’?” Kate echoed a few moments later as she walked him out to his truck. “I can’t believe you said that.”
John winked. “And did you notice how fast she told me she’d rather call around town and get other quotes?”
“Subtlety isn’t her strong suit.”
John pushed his lower lip forward in thought. “Well, unless someone comes back to her with a better offer, I’m not that worried.”
“Yeah, but you were just joking with her, right?” A part of her hoped that he’d tell her he was totally serious and then ask her what night she was free.
“Was I?”
Was that a yes or a no? She paused for a second, hesitant to remind him that, according to Maria, he was already seeing someone. Hesitant as well to hear it confirmed from his own lips. Like it hasn’t been a bad enough day already to begin with. Instead, she apologized for her mother’s rude attitude toward him, returning his easy grin with as much nonchalance as she could muster. “I know there’s no excuse for some of the things she does,” she said.
“No need to explain. Some people just get rubbed the wrong way and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Being nice to them, though, he added in quip, generally drove them crazy.
“For my mother, that would be a pretty short trip,” Kate candidly replied.
“Well, listen, I probably shouldn’t take any more of your time.”
“Uh—”
“Yeah?”
She pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen across her forehead. “It was sweet of you to bring Jimmy a tree.”
“He’s a sweet kid.”
Kate nodded in agreement. “I just wasn’t sure if I, uh, remembered to thank you. This morning’s been kinda difficult.”
“I could use some help in here!” Lydia called out.
Humor was Kate’s best defense against the latest rush of embarrassment. “Making me feel like I’m still twelve is what she lives for.”
“You and everyone else, I’m sure,” John replied. “So what were you about to say?”
Kate shook her head. “Just some things that caught me off-guard.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“Wouldn’t happen to know a good lawyer, would you?”
“Well, there’s my brother Mitch,” he replied. “Although I don’t know that I’d use his name and the word ‘good’ in the same sentence.”
It was an attempt to make her laugh but, for the moment, Kate’s nerves were much too raw to manage much more than a half-smile.
“Something serious?” he asked in concern when she didn’t elaborate on what was distracting her.
The last thing she wanted right now, Kate realized, was to divulge the latest details of the escalating mess that was her sister’s life. Especially if she ended up crying and the nearest pair of comforting arms belonged to John Neal. She felt his steady gaze on her lowered face and allowed the silence to continue until she realized it was only making them both more uncomfortable with one another. She looked up. “If I’m attacked by a killer tree,” she told him, “you’ll be the first person I call.”
“The tree,” John gallantly promised her in turn, “won’t have a chance.”
After what seemed an eternity, the paralegal finally returned to the line. “I’m sorry,” she apologized to Kate, “but we don’t have anything in our files that shows the final documents were ever executed.”
Kate asked her if there’d been any follow-up on their part to find out why.
“With the volume of paperwork that we have to process on any given day…”
“I realize that,” Kate said, “but I’m just trying to understand how this could have fallen through the cracks, especially since there’s a young child involved.”
The paralegal’s voice was definitively a few degrees cooler than when their conversation had first begun. “Whether there are children in the marriage or not,” she informed Kate, “we have no way of knowing if a couple has changed their minds unless they tell us they want to withdraw the petition.”
“Yes, but if my sister had hired your firm to handle the paperwork.”
“Your sister was a one-time client, Ms. Toscano. We served the papers on her husband and did everything we were supposed to do to put the process in motion. According to our records, we attempted to follow up with her several times but her telephone had been disconnected.”
“Forgive my ignorance on this,” Kate said, “but they had already been separated for years.”
“Not legally.”
“Excuse me?”
“They may have decided to live apart as husband and wife but neither one of them filed for a legal separation.”
Kate gently protested that friends and family had been aware they split up and weren’t under the same roof. “Shouldn’t that count for something?”
“A legal separation would have an impact on respective earnings, custodial terms, property. This would also have spelled out support payments for the care and welfare of the child.” She pointed out that while these things had been addressed in the divorce papers, there was no evidence of any formal agreements between Cassy and Luke before that.
“Well, he sent money for my nephew whenever he could but it wasn’t exactly a model father.”
The paralegal cut her off. “I wish I could help you, Ms. Toscano, but under the laws of the State of California, your sister and Mr. Finch were still legally married to one another at the time of her death.”
“If I could bother you with just one more question?”
“I really do need to go.” The sound of a ringing phone in the background seemed to emphasize her impatience with Kate’s queries.
“I promise I’ll keep it short. The thing of it is, my nephew is now living with my mother and me in New Jersey,” she began.
The paralegal expressed surprise that Kate wasn’t calling from San Francisco. “How did he get to New Jersey?” she wanted to know.
“Well, I brought him here myself when we heard what had happened to my sister.”
“And Mr. Finch was aware of this?”
For the second time since their conversation had first begun, Kate reminded her that she had no idea of Luke’s whereabouts.
There was a dull silence at the other end of the line.
“If I were you, Ms. Toscano,” she finally advised, “I’d hire an attorney as soon as possible.”