Granger's Threat. Teresa Pijoan

fall from her shoulders to her upper arms. “He was raised with the old adage ‘Spare the rod, Spoil the child.’ Both of us were. Yet somehow Granger took it all personally, very personally. Many times I stood between him and my angry father to deflect blows and words, but Granger was the victim who being vulnerable would cry, or hide, or sulk. At one point Granger even dug a dirt room under his bedroom floor to hide from my father. I received the reward from this with broken noses and bruises, but Granger didn’t see what I was being put through, he only saw his own victimization.”

      Sophia moved to stand at the window watching the wind blow a scarf across the main street, “Granger is bitter. All of this broke him. I knew my friends had fathers who did the same. We would talk about it. But Granger crawled inside of himself. Now he denies everything to state what a lovely family upbringing we had. He thinks our painful youth is a figment of my imagination.”

      She turned back to Mr. Goldfarb, “Margaret promoted my father’s wrath for us by her whining and suffering. She manipulated my father into his fits of anger and hitting us. The whole affair was dysfunctional to the point of bizarre. My mother was almost twenty years younger than my father. She never had a fixed father figure because her mother was divorced when she was a baby.”

      Reaching down to pick up the fallen tissue, she continued, “I have no idea why I am telling you this. Granger is not to be absolved of his greed or the torture he inflicts on others. Perhaps I want to protect him for somehow he is seriously sick, but when he hurts my family and those I love, I just want to throttle him myself.”

      “Or else,” Mr. Granger studied Sophia’s troubled face, “Or else, he is fully aware of what happened and has a devious plan to take all the money from your mother, from you, from whoever he can to make up for the pain he suffered as a child. This could all be an act. Personally, I find him dangerous.”

      “Yes, he is a conniving fellow. Perhaps because of his pain he wants to inflict pain on others.” Sophia sat in the Queen Anne chair, “This really is very comfortable.” She stroked the arm rests. “You are very thoughtful to provide tea and biscuits, Mr. Goldfarb. This is old world charm at its best. I commend you for your polite traditionalism.”

      “Thank you, Sophia. One thing you should know is a probate can be filed with the county clerk, but a probate hearing is questionable and sometimes challenged and usually does nothing to further validate or invalidate the legality of your father’s will. I am sure both Granger and your mother have already covered every single legal possibility to retain what they have done. Be careful in your decisions.”

      The clouds hovered over the mountains like thick fat waves of whipped cream. The brown terrain was desperate for moisture as the solitary rabbit bush flayed back and forth in the wind. The van creaked and groaned as the wind pelted the driver’s side. Donna was asleep in her car seat and Sybil was busy reading a book in the back seat. Sophia glanced at their quiet faces in the rear view mirror. Life was to seriously change with Granger now in control. Heavy clouds on the horizon gave fair warning of a storm moving their way.

      7

      Rocoso, New Mexico

      Friday, January, 1988

      Dinner was finished with morbid solitude. The girls were not even energetic enough to carry on a conversation. Geoffrey dragged his fork around his plate, pushing his chicken from side to side. Sophia tried to swallow some mashed potatoes, but they stuck in her throat. Donna was disappointed for after school today Sophia had stopped at the department store and bought Donna a pair of bright pink Mary Jane socks for Monday. Sybil was reading at the table, again. Neither Geoffrey nor Sophia had the desire to make her put the book down. At least she ate most of her dinner.

      Geoffrey gathered the messy plates and carried them to the sink. “Come on, girls, it’s time for our Friday night movies. Daddy stopped at the Movie Store. We have Bed Knobs and Broomsticks for the late night movie, come on!” He grabbed a giggling Donna around the middle and carried her into the family room. Sybil didn’t move except to turn a page of her book on science fiction. “Sybil, you can help me with the dishes, all right?” Sybil nodded without looking at her mother.

      Sophia sighed as she pushed her chair back to clear the table. The movie sound blared down the hall into the kitchen. Sybil looked up, “Did Dad get a movie?”

      Sophia smiled, “Yes, he told us at dinner, but evidently we weren’t interesting enough for you, right?”

      Sybil raced to her mom and gave her a hug, “Oh, Mom, I love you, you know I do! Everyone was so sad at dinner. I didn’t want to catch it so I read. What is going on with you two?” She pointed to the family room and at her mother. Sophia shook her head, “Go watch the movie. It’s a fun movie with only a few scary parts you will enjoy it. Go!”

      As Sophia washed the dishes in the deep stainless steel sink in the kitchen, she glanced up at her reflection in the dark window. She was five feet ten inches tall. She was not plump, but definitely she was not thin. She had short curly hair with walnut eyes. Her features were definitely more Mediterranean looking than Chicano. Sophia smiled, thinking about her mother Margaret who always made it a point to remark how her children were Mediterranean not Chicano or Hispanic.

      The dishes were dried and the kitchen table scrubbed clean. Sophia heard the television go off and Geoffrey making ‘time for bed’ noises. She threw the dish cloth on the counter. She was his backup for their ‘put the girls to bed’ routine. Sybil was in the bathroom brushing her teeth while reading her book. Getting toothpaste on the page, she tried to wipe it off with her toothbrush.

      “Sybil, really, just put the book down. Pay attention to those new permanent teeth.”

      Both girls satisfactorily in bed with hopes of them sleeping, Geoffrey beat her to the living room. He sat in his recliner holding a pillow against his middle as if he needed it for protection. Sophia slid into her rocking chair facing him. “Well, what do we do now?”

      His solemn face frowned, “Spoke with a lawyer today at work. He gave me the skinny on what happened with your father’s will or trust or distrust or whatever you want to call it.” He reached over to his jacket that had been tossed on the couch. He pulled out some legal papers. “Here is the gist of what happened. I am still stunned, Sophia, totally stunned.”

      Sophia shook her head, studying his eyes through his thick lenses. “Aren’t you industrious going for the legal side right out of the gate? Go on, I’m a big girl, I can take it.”

      Geoffrey gave her a wink, “The lawyer explained to me a clause in the legal world pertaining to someone who is incompetent. The definition of which I have right here.”

      Lifting the papers closer to his face, he read. “It describes the importance of the mental condition of a person who is subject to legal proceedings.” Geoffrey glanced at Sophia as he continued to read from the long white paper, “New Mexico law describes the legal qualification of ‘a person’ as a person who must have the ability to perform professional functions.”

      Geoffrey paused as if he was waiting for Sophia to respond, then he looked at her over his glasses as he asked, “Do you understand this part?”

      Sophia nodded, “But the problem is that he was not incompetent when he wrote the original will or trust. He just became incompetent when his illness progressed. So how did they make this work?”

      “Well, this is just the statement that Granger gave to us at Goldfarb’s office. This is not the legal ramification of it all!”

      Sophia smiled, “Get down, Geoffrey, aren’t we using the big words now?”

      “Damn straight, evidently this was more Margaret than Granger. The legal manipulative faction they used was related to the time when your father Walter Pino attempted to change his will. Your father wanted to not give anything at all to Granger and to move the majority of his funds to the UNM Medical Research Department for the research of Prostate Cancer disease, which he was diagnosed as having. This seriously upset Margaret for she had inherited the majority of that money from her mother and considered That Money to be Hers not His.”