Chapter 5 - The Toll of the Bell
By 9:00 AM on Thursday, the fog over Lake Michigan had cleared, leaving a sky that was a brilliant, cold blue that made the limestone walls of the Holloway estate look like dry bone against the dark green of the yews.
I sat in the passenger seat of Arthur’s black sedan as we pulled up to the main gates of the estate. The iron gates were closed, their heavy bars looking like the entrance to a prison. Behind us, parked on the shoulder of the public road, was a white van with the logo of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, and a sedan belonging to the regional director of the State Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division.
Arthur pressed the call button on the stone pillar.
"Who is it?" Margaret’s voice came through the speaker, her tone carrying that same, sharp irritation that had become the soundtrack of my daughter’s life.
"Evelyn Carter," I said, leaning toward the metal grill. "I’m here to return your seventy-two hours."
The gates swung open with a slow, mechanical groan.
We drove up the winding driveway, our tires crunching over the wet gravel. Grant and Margaret were already standing on the bluestone porch, their coats wrapped tightly around them against the cold autumn wind. Grant’s lip was swollen and purple, covered by a small strip of white medical tape, his eyes dark with a rage that had not cooled since Tuesday morning.
"You’re early, Evelyn," Grant called out as I stepped out of the sedan. He looked past me, his eyes scanning the car for any sign of his wife. "Where is Hannah? I told you she needs to be on her knees."
"Hannah is at the diner," I said, walking up the steps until I was standing three feet from him, my boots resting on the stone where my golden broth had spilled two days ago. "She’s busy helping Frank with the morning biscuit dough. She doesn't have time for this."
"Then you’ve made your choice," Margaret said, her voice rising in a thin, triumphant screech. "The lease for Carter’s Table is officially canceled as of nine o'clock this morning. The sheriff's department will be there to evict you on Monday."
"The lease is owned by Select Properties LLC, Margaret," Arthur said, stepping up beside me and opening his leather briefcase. "And Select Properties is currently under a temporary restraining order issued by the Cook County Circuit Court at 8:30 AM today."
He handed her a thick, blue-bordered document.
Margaret’s face went completely still, the paper fluttering in her hand like a dead leaf. "This... this is nonsense. You have no grounds."
"The grounds are the delivery manifests from your Cicero distribution center, Grant," I said, looking directly at my son-in-law. "The ones showing you’ve been selling industrial-grade Indiana eggs as organic, family-farmed Illinois eggs for six months. The ones with your signature on every page."
Grant’s hand went to his pocket, his fingers twitching as if he wanted to reach for his phone, but his arm frozen when he saw the white van of the Department of Agriculture pull up the driveway behind us.
"The State Attorney General has already frozen your operating credit lines," Arthur said, his voice perfectly calm and professional. "Without those lines, your suppliers will stop delivery by Friday morning. And by Monday, the regional managers of your fifteen stores will be answering federal subpoenas regarding food safety violations at the Cicero facility."
"You... you can't do this," Grant whispered, his face turning an ugly, bloodless gray. He looked at the white van, then at me, his eyes wide with the same, childish terror he had shown when my hand first struck his cheek. "Evelyn... please. Let’s talk about this. We can settle the lease. We can give Hannah whatever she wants."
"Hannah doesn't want anything from you, Grant," I said. "The divorce papers are in that folder. You will sign them, you will surrender all claim to her personal property, and you will never, under any circumstances, contact her or her family again."
"And if I don't?" he asked, his voice cracking.
"Then the next call my attorney makes won't be to the state inspectors," I said, my voice dropping into that low, flat register that had kept the peace in my diner for twenty-three years. "It will be to the Cook County State's Attorney regarding the physical assault on my daughter. And I don't think your brand would survive a public trial with photographs of Hannah’s face on the front page of the Tribune."
Grant looked at his mother, but Margaret was no longer looking at him. She was staring at the bluestone porch, her mouth open, her chest heaving as if she were finally realizing that the world she had built out of pearls and limestone was nothing more than a house of dry paper.
He reached out, his hand shaking as he took the pen from Arthur’s briefcase and signed the papers against the mahogany door of his family's mansion.
I turned my back on them before the ink was dry.
As we drove down the driveway, the sun was bright on the lake, the water turning from black glass to a brilliant, sparkling blue. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the white van of the inspectors parked in front of the columns, their clipboards already out, their pens moving across the paper.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.
"Frank," I said when the cook answered.
May you like
"Yeah, Eve?"
"Turn the oven back on," I said, my voice warm. "The seventy-two hours are over. It’s time to bake the pies."
