Are You My Husband? Pt. 03

While nibbling on their treats, Janie started off by downplaying the case against Scott and the injustice of an official using the law to target a citizen for personal or political reasons. Connie and Aimee both nodded their head in agreement. Janie described a little about her job, then Kathleen told them about her work. They spent a little time discussing the children and how the new arrangement with Beverly and Dina overseeing the kids has worked out so well.

Aimee and Connie returned the favor and told them a bit about their backgrounds and some of the more interesting parts of Aimee's work. Connie had raised four children, who went on to become a doctor, an attorney, an engineer, respectively, and, of course, Aimee, the curator. She was incredibly proud of all her children and eleven grandchildren. She thought great-grandchildren might be only a few years away.

While everything was very nice, tasty, and polite, even friendly, Janie and Kathleen were still wondering exactly why they were invited.

Connie said, "I want to thank you again for coming. With the pleasantries out of the way, I'd like to show you a few things of your mother's and get your thoughts on something. Would you follow us into the family room?"

The four women rose and went into the family room where Aimee turned on the large flatscreen TV and a tablet. Connie invited her two guests to sit on the couch, while she sat in an adjacent chair. Moments later on the screen, they saw a picture of a painting, which looked like something Amanda would have painted.

"I wanted to show you a few of your mother's paintings that I felt certain you either had never seen or hadn't seen in a long time."

That first painting was of a formal garden, and in the foreground were several pink and white hydrangeas. If you looked carefully at the hydrangeas, the flower petals were painted in such a way that you could see faces within the flowers. Depending on how you looked at it you could see faces within faces. Inside the formal garden, children were playing croquet, but rolled-up armadillos were being used for the balls, and flamingos were being used for the mallets. Little peafowl were running around everywhere.

"I placed this with someone I knew a long time ago, and one of her friends saw it and requested something similar. Word of mouth really is the best advertising."

She went through several more paintings describing what it was called and what Amanda had intended. In one painting, she had a small section of a horse track, but instead of jockeys riding horses, she had turtles riding hares while dressed in full jockey silks.

In another, similar to the hydrangeas, she used daisies as her base for a few individual faces, but the daisies were bleeding, and the red blood was dripping from the petals onto the grass below.

Connie said, "She must have been in a dark mood when she painted that one. Most of her paintings are happy paintings, but that one wasn't."

Each painting shown was a little bit more surreal than the last.

Another was similar to Dali's Galatea of the Spheres, except instead of using spheres, Amanda had used flowers to create a portrait of a woman, which had been requisitioned by her husband.

Connie said, "Only a few more, but you'll see why I saved these for the end."

Aimee switched to the next picture. It looked like the interior of a grand courtyard in a large estate or palace in a Mediterranean country. There was a long reflecting pool running the length of the courtyard with sunken gardens on each side filled with magenta-colored bougainvilleas. Playing in the courtyard were three children. Similar to the hydrangeas from the earlier painting, the petals of the flowers made up faces watching the children. These faces, based on the styles, looked to have been taken from some old paintings.

Aimee said, "We are really excited to see this one in person. It belongs to Queen Sofia of Spain as part of her personal collection. She was here for a charity event nearly twenty years ago and attended a dinner at the governor's mansion. When they began discussing art, the governor's wife mentioned the queen having an art museum named after her. She said she was a big supporter of art and they ended up viewing some of the works of art in the governor's mansion. The governor's wife had recently received a requested work from your mother, and the queen liked it so much that she asked if your mother could do one for her. This was the outcome. The faces in the bougainvilleas are old Spanish monarchs watching her three children play. That little boy is now the king of Spain. I'm told she was very pleased."

Janie said, "When Mother was in the nursing home, she began telling us that the queen of Spain had one of her works. We just thought it was a hallucination or her imagination. We had no idea."

Kathleen was so proud of what they had been seeing. She loathed herself for the feelings she had towards her mother's illness. Seen as a collection, her mother's work was incredible. And she and Janie had no idea the works existed or were so well placed.

The next painting was of children on a playground with oddly shaped and surreal playground equipment, but the children were playing anyway because that's what kids do. Overwatching the seven children were two ferocious grizzly bears, but the faces of the bears had human features, with blue or green eyes and more pronounced eyebrows. The lips were enhanced and reddened to look more like human lips, almost feminine.

Connie said, "This is another work of your mothers from around twenty years ago. She called it 'Guardians,' because that's how seriously she took her protection of her children. She painted this for me when you were children. If you look closely, the two of you are in this painting along with five of my grandchildren, which is how many I had at that time. She and I are the mother bears watching over our young.

"I know that her illness bothered both of you, and you especially, Kathleen. But I'm here to tell you that she loved you fiercely, and she tried to protect and minimize the hurt by shielding you from her illness as much as possible. You saw her teaching and painting, but she was very careful to keep her more surreal paintings hidden from you. These are some of those paintings."

"If you would come into my late-husbands office, there is one more I'd like to show you. It has some significance to your family, too."

The women followed Connie further back through the house and into a room that overlooked the backyard. The room was lined with dark paneling and contained a large dark wood desk with a high-backed leather chair.

Connie said, "Winston would spend a lot of time in here reviewing court documents or legal briefs. I don't know if you know this, but he was a judge in this county for over twenty years. He loved his work, and he loved working in this room. His favorite thing about this room is hanging on that wall over there.

She pointed to a painting on the wall opposite the desk. It was of two large great-horned owls overlooking a nest with a brood of four owlets covered in downy feathers. Again, Amanda had painted a human countenance onto each of the owls' faces. The two adults were clearly Connie and Winston along with their children, including Aimee, who could be identified by the glasses she wore even back then.

Aimee picked up a picture from the desk to show the sisters and said, "Here are the four of us from about ten years ago."

It was a picture of three early-thirty-somethings and Aimee who appeared to be in her late twenties. Each person in the picture was very different. From left to right, there was a Caucasian man, a Hispanic woman, an African American man, and Aimee who was born in Taiwan.

Aimee said, "I was around six when we received that painting, which meant Gillian and Donald were around ten and Robert was around twelve. We were all adopted because our parents couldn't have children. Forty years ago, in the south, it was very uncommon to see such different-looking children in the same family. Even though my dad was a sitting judge, we were still picked on occasionally at school. But in THIS painting, there isn't any color. We're all the same, and we LOVED that because it was how we felt.

"In this painting, I'm not the little Asian child and Robert isn't the little black boy. We were just Jackson children. I've got to tell you; this is what inspired Gillian to follow in Father's footsteps. Just because she didn't look like him didn't mean she couldn't be like him. For me, it was such a moving piece that it inspired me to pursue art because good art actually speaks and has a purpose the way this piece does. It wouldn't mean anything to anyone else, but to my family, THIS is our family portrait."

Connie spoke up, "What makes this even more special to me is that I didn't ask for it. Almost forty years ago, she and Franklin came by one afternoon to quote some work we wanted to be done in the backyard. I invited them in for some sweet tea and while showing them around your mother saw pictures of the family including the children. We went with another company for the yard work, but several weeks later this picture showed up on our front porch. Your mother painted this for a perfect stranger because she simply felt like it. Winston and I were gobsmacked.

"I invited her back out as soon as I could to thank her for the wonderful painting and a partnership was formed. Not a formal partnership, but I knew people that would appreciate her paintings, and I helped her to place some over the years. With rare exception, she wouldn't take much money for them. I think one thousand dollars was the most she ever accepted. She didn't want the notoriety so she could continue to shield the two of you."

"If you didn't pick up the name earlier, look closely at the second owlet from the left. Do you remember seeing her recently?"

They both studied the picture and shook their head.

Connie said, "She's no longer Gillian Jackson, but Judge Gillian Reynolds. The same judge that presided over Scott's recent court case."

The sisters' mouths dropped open at that revelation.

"When Brother Leo called me to tell me about the indictment, he asked if there was anything we could do. I don't really have much pull anymore, but I do still know quite a few people. I think I called in every last favor owed to me to ensure that Gillian was put on the case. When I told her who was involved, well let's just say that short of a video showing a marriage ceremony and a marriage license, Scott wasn't going to be convicted. Gillian wasn't going to let THAT happen."

They didn't know what to say but, "Thank you. My God. We had no idea. Well, Brother Leo told us the weekend before the trial that things were looking good, but that was all he would say."

Connie tittered, "That sounds like Leo. If you don't know this already, because he's the chaplain for the sheriff's office, he knows everyone, or at least it seems that way. I'm sure once I told him Gillian had been assigned the case, he knew everything was going to be okay.

"While it was a stupid trial, it did serve a good purpose. The only way your husband can be tried again is if new evidence is brought forward, and as I mentioned a second ago, short of video or a marriage license, no uncorrupt DA is going to want to touch a retrial. Still, if the two of you decide to have another baby, you may want to go to a fertility doctor or OBGYN and let her or him do something, so you can point to that as how you got pregnant. It would eliminate a lot of risks. That doesn't mean you cannot make it the way you made little Franklin, but it gives you a legal paper trail."

Kathleen asked, "Mrs. Jackson, why are you doing this for us? Why are you telling us all this?"

She replied, "Part of it is because we know that you struggled with your mother's illness, and the recent trial reminded us of that. But it also reminded us of your wonderful mother, and that owl painting that meant so much to my family. Her other paintings meant so much to others, that we wanted you to see and know how she impacted us. I'll let Aimee explain the second reason."

Aimee said, "The Atlanta High Museum of Art would like to exhibit some of your mother's works. When Mother mentioned the court case, she also reached out to some of her old contacts and had them take pictures of your mother's art for me. As a curator, I approached the director about an amazing local artist, which nobody even knew about. When I showed him these pictures that we've just reviewed he was more than enthusiastic. He is very eager to do this.

"Before we actually start bringing in pictures, we wanted to talk with both of you. I mean we could do it without you, but it would be better if we had your support. Also, do you know if your mother had any other paintings which she didn't sell or give away? If so, we'd like to look through those, too."

Janie replied, "I'd like to talk to Kathleen about this. For a long time, she wasn't comfortable with any of it, so I want to make sure that she is before I agree. If she says 'yes,' we do have several paintings of Mother's that we could pull from storage for you to review."

Connie said, "Kathleen, we want to be sensitive to your feelings, so if there is a way we can please or appease you in doing this, please let us know. Your mother was an amazing woman, and she loved both of you fiercely. She was wonderful with her students, too. After she painted that picture, Aimee wanted to take art lessons from Amanda, and she did. Her students loved her.

"The school administration was well aware of her illness and how sometimes her visions could last for several minutes, which is why she only taught at public school for a few years before exclusively teaching privately. At the beginning of each school year, when a teacher would take their class into your mother's art classroom for the first time, they would explain to the students that if your mother were to 'zone-out,' they were to come and get their regular teacher, and they would be taken back to their classroom.

"Your mom, who you know was a beautiful woman, had several young admirers. One day she had a vision during class and after all the students had left, one stayed behind to make sure she was okay. He sat there and waited and waited. She was touched that he stayed for her.

"He was in middle school at the time and would do anything he could for her. Of course, I imagine your mother probably had that effect on many males. Anyway, over time, they became close, and she saw that he needed a little financial help, so she introduced him to your father. He was too young to be officially hired by your father, so he was allowed to help mow or mulch and do things for the business until he was old enough to be hired on part-time, then full time. Until then, they just paid him with cash."

Janie was hoping that she wasn't about to hear about an affair that her mother had a long time ago.

"What was his name. Robert? No. Roberto? Ramon! That's it. I believe he still works for you, and he loved your mother and father for being so good to him. That's just who she was, and one of the reasons we'd love to help arrange this exhibit which is to celebrate an extraordinary woman."

They were stunned to have heard that about Ramon. The sisters thought that story explained a lot about why he was so crushed during the funeral and why he was left a portion of the business.

Kathleen said, "Based on what Janie just said, I think you can count on both of us to agree and support this. Before we jump in with both feet, I'd like to talk to her this evening or this weekend. Can this sit until Monday?"

Connie and Amiee both nodded.

Janie and Kathleen thanked them both for everything. It had been an uplifting and informative afternoon.

As soon as they were in the car, they called Beverly and told her everyone needed to come to her place for dinner that night, including Ramon and Emilia, for a family meeting. It was important.

After they hung up, while in the car, Kathleen asked, "Janie, I know Mom tried to minimize my interactions with her illness, so I'm not surprised that I didn't know anything about this. Did you know?"

"No. I didn't know about this either. I only remember her teaching privately. She must have painted most of those while we were at school or during our after-school activities. I'm surprised, but knowing Mother, that is exactly the kind of thing she would have done."

They drove directly to Beverly and Wade's house and took over watching after the children, so Beverly and Dina could prepare something for dinner. When everyone else arrived, they were curious as to the reason for an important family get-together. When Ramon and Emilia arrived, Janie and Kathleen went straight to him and hugged him for a long time.

Confused, he and Emilia asked what was going on.

Janie asked, "Ramon, how old were you when you started working for our parents?"

"Pretty young. Why?"

"Please just answer the question."

"I met your mom when I was twelve and started working for them when I was thirteen."

Janie did some quick math. "So you had already been working for my dad for twelve years when he died. You know, we knew they liked you, but we didn't know why. We found out today. After all these years, why didn't you tell us about sitting with our mom in art class during her hallucinations and working with our dad so early? We had no idea of the depth of your relationship."

He looked at Emilia, and she nodded to him. He said, "I didn't really know any of you. Your mom liked me a lot, and your dad liked me as a worker. When Scott came along and married Janie, I didn't know what was going to happen. When Mr. Winter passed away, I was stunned that I was left part of the business. But I felt like if I had brought up my being close to them all those years, I would be trying to toot my own horn, or you wouldn't believe me.

"My stepmom wasn't a bad woman. On the contrary, every time she needed to step up to help someone she did, like taking in Dina and her family. But with her, it always seemed or felt like a duty or obligation. Your mom? She just loved everyone. And when she shone her light on me, I grew. She and your dad were so good to me. I know she loved me because she told me so. Even now, several years after she's gone, it humbles me just thinking about it.

"You haven't been in our house. We don't have a ton of art, but we have two pieces that your mother gave me. The first picture she gave me was my high-school senior portrait. We had the usual senior school pictures, and I gave one to your mom. A month later, she gave me a painting she did of me in my cap and gown. My stepmom loved it, but I kept it. Later, after I had moved out and was on my own, she gave me another painting. It was of me as a toddler with two American parents. Your parents. She titled it 'Family.' She gave it to me when I was about twenty.

"That second picture means a lot to me. It's priceless. The reason I'm so committed to Winter and Son's landscaping is because I was looking after my family. They were my family. All of you are my family."

Scott said, "Man, Ramon. I really wish you had told us about this."

"Don't worry about it, Scott. Emilia and I are happy. I like what I do and who I work with. I'm well paid. Life is pretty good for us. Helping you with Stennis was the least I could do. Helping with the money to buy out Stennis isn't that important. I'm not worried about the percentage of ownership."

Emilia was kicking him under the table.

He looked at Emilia and said, "Yes, I can feel you kicking me." He looked at the Parkers. "I trusted Mr. and Mrs. Winter because I know they loved me and looked after me. I trust all of you because you've always been fair to me. Sure I want a good return for our investment in the larger company, but I'm not worried about it because I know we can figure out something that works for all of us. You're our family, so I'm not worried."