Chapter 9 - The Crumbling Facade and the Dampened Luggage
By three-fifteen, the gravel driveway of the Point was nearly deserted, save for two idling vehicles and the debris of an aborted celebration.
The catering staff worked in frantic, uncomfortable silence, throwing unopened boxes of imported champagne into the back of their refrigerated van.
The decorative folding chairs sat scattered across the manicured turf like bleached bones after a storm.
Blythe stood beside the hydrangeas, shivering uncontrollably despite the heavy cashmere wrap draped over her shoulders.
She looked at the four monogrammed suitcases resting on the damp lawn, their corners dark with salt-water moisture that had seeped up from the turf.
The six cardboard moving boxes containing her designer wardrobe were beginning to sag under the weight of the rising coastal fog.
"My clothes are in those boxes, Cullen," Blythe said, her voice devoid of the haughty confidence she had carried thirty minutes earlier.
"My vintage Chanel jackets are sitting on the grass like trash by the curb."
"Blythe, baby, please, get in the car and let me handle this," Cullen pleaded, rushing to her side with his hands outstretched.
"Do not touch me, Cullen," she hissed, recoiling from his reach as if he were covered in harbor mud.
"You lied to me about everything."
"You told me your family came from old coastal money, that this estate was part of a five-generation family trust!"
"You let my mother print invitations claiming we were hosting a private reception at 'our ancestral estate'!"
"It would have been ours!" Cullen shouted, his composure shattering entirely into raw, petulant rage.
"If she hadn't turned into a vindictive old hag, we would be walking through that blue front door right now!"
"She didn't turn into anything, Cullen," Blythe answered, looking up at the gray-shingled house with bitter clarity.
"She is the only person here who actually owns what she claims to own."
"You are a clerk living on an allowance from my father, and now you don't even have that."
Miles Vance walked over to the black town car that had brought the newlyweds from the regional airport.
The driver had already loaded Miles and Laurelai’s private luggage into the rear compartment.
"Blythe," Miles said, opening the rear passenger door with an unyielding metallic snap.
"Get in the car."
"Dad... what about our apartment in Boston?" Blythe asked, tears finally spilling over her cheeks in great, ugly gasps.
"We broke the lease, Dad, we gave the keys back to the building management on Friday because Cullen said we were taking the estate!"
"Then you will stay in the guest cottage at our house in Greenwich until the annulment papers are finalized," Miles said without hesitation.
Cullen lunged forward toward the car window, his face contorted in absolute panic.
"Annulment? Miles! We have been married for five days! You cannot dissolve a marriage over an inheritance squabble!"
"Watch me," Miles replied, his voice flat, terrifying, and utterly devoid of human warmth.
"A marriage predicated on intentional material misrepresentation and financial fraud can be dissolved before the ink on the license is dry."
"My partners will have the petition filed in the probate court by nine o’clock Monday morning."
"Miles, please, think of our firm's reputation!" Cullen begged, gripping the chrome door handle of the sedan.
"I am thinking of my firm's reputation, which is precisely why your name will be stripped from the building directory before the cleaning crew arrives tomorrow."
Miles reached out, peeled Cullen’s fingers off the door handle one by one with cold, mechanical strength, and pulled the heavy door shut.
The tinted glass rolled up smoothly, cutting off Cullen’s frantic cries like a guillotine.
The black car backed down the gravel drive, its tires throwing small stones against the peeling cardboard moving boxes, and disappeared down the bluff road.
Cullen stood in the center of the driveway, completely alone in the rising ocean wind.
The catering truck rumbled past him twenty seconds later, the driver not even bothering to look down at the man who had ordered the feast.
The only sound left on the Point was the rhythmic, uncaring crash of the North Atlantic against the granite boulders below.
I sat in my wicker rocker on the porch, my thermos of coffee resting securely between my weathered hands.
George, the locksmith, stepped out from the side garden where he had been quietly watching the spectacle beside Nile’s hydrangea bushes.
He carried a small steel toolbox in his left hand and a brass padlock in his right.
He walked slowly across the grass, looked down at the six soggy moving boxes, and then looked up at me on the porch.
"Looks like rain is coming in from the east, Martha," George said in his slow, Maine drawl.
"Nile always said that when the gulls fly that low over the bluff, you've got twenty minutes before the squall breaks."
May you like
"That sounds about right, George," I said, taking a warm, fragrant sip from my metal cup.
Cullen slowly turned around, his hair wild from the sea wind, his eyes fixed upon the blue front door where I sat in judgment.
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