Abigail on the Classics

The wheels are in motion.

I have sold a sizeable amount of stock to finance the Mercy Hayworth Memorial Arts Center, much to my lawyer’s shock and awe. He tried to convince me to wait and see how I feel about this project in six months – nothing good happens when we are impulsive, he said. Ha. I didn’t tell him I certainly know all about the regrets you live with when you act on impulse only.

But I told him that in six months I could be dead. Highly unlikely, he said, referring, no doubt, to my robust contrariness, the kind of which has kept codgers alive and kicking well into their centenarian years.

In any case, it’s my money, my estate, and I can do what I want. So I did. I have also asked my lawyer to draw up the necessary paperwork to set up a land trust so that the parcel of land I am donating will always and forevermore be a monument of sorts to Mercy.

Lauren’s father’s company is taking care of all the contracting. I have nothing to do now except watch it grow.

It’s a beautiful piece of land, really. I’ve had developers after me for years, wanting it. You can’t see the ocean from the land, but you can smell it. You can feel it. On extraordinarily quiet nights, you can hear it.

In the meantime, Graham is at last gainfully employed. I wonder every day if this will be the day when he decides he doesn’t like working and will quit. That’s not your problem, Clarissa tells me. So stop wondering. I think there are days she’d like sock Graham soundly in the head. I wonder if maybe that isn’t what he has needed, all these years - for someone to care enough about him to knock some sense into him.

I am glad Clarissa is staying at the house with me this summer. I would never tell her this, but she makes me feel brave.

Ironically, if she knew, I think it might scare her off . . .