The Battle for Rosewood

The good news for Hector Bestwick was he was in line to inherit Rosewood.

The sad news was his father would have to die for him to get it.

Rosewood was his grandparent’s cozy two-story colonial home, so called because of the prodigious rose bushes that grew on both sides of the house.

His grandfather, Priam (known as Billy), had planted the rose bushes. A former shipyard welder, Billy was a little under five and a half feet tall, but he was James Cagney tough - quiet, and hard, with a talent for keeping his emotions in check.  Mattie, Hector’s grandmother, was a pretty, high-class people pleaser who was no stranger to vodka.

At some point, one of the Bestwicks had fallen in love with “The Iliad and the Odyssey.” From that point on, unwieldy names like Ajax, Achilles, Clytemnestra, and Ulysses began appearing on the family’s birth certificates. To avoid social persecution, most of the Bestwicks went by their middle names or a nickname.

Castor was nicknamed “Skip,” a tip of the hat to his rank in the Navy. He was the type of person who played the hand he was dealt and always smiled about it because he’d experienced how bad life could get. When he was a lineman for Con Edison, he’d fallen thirty feet to the ground, injuring his back. An investigation showed that the safety harness he’d used to secure himself to the pole was defective. He could have sued for enough money to retire but declined. When he found out the asbestos he’d been breathing for years while working for Con Ed had contributed to his emphysema, instead of joining in a class action lawsuit against the company, he shrugged his shoulders and bought more inhalers. A heavy smoker, Skip once had a heart attack during a violent coughing fit, collapsing to the floor. His only reaction was being embarrassed at having to be helped up. He’d also gone to college in his fifties and gotten his business degree to further his career. It hardly seemed worth it when he had another heart attack the week after he retired and his emphysema worsened, dashing his plans for traveling around the country.

Despite the respect Hector had for his mother, Audrey, she was a head-shaking collection of contradictions. Although she undoubtedly loved her husband, Hector never saw Audrey kiss Skip or call him by his given name. Audrey liked jesting with people but was thin-skinned. She was hyper-religious and played piano in the church choir yet refrained from going to church for fifteen years. She claimed to cherish family but called her husband’s younger brother Pollux (called Randy) a spoiled drunk and she had little use for the rest of Skip’s fun-loving family. Audrey enjoyed telling Hector that the worst beating he got as a child was when he asked his father if his grandmother was going to fall into the Christmas tree again.

Skip had always believed in the sanctity of family. “There’s nothing more sacred and important than your family,” he would say to Hector, an odd concept since his parents Billy and Mattie separated when he was a boy and neither one stepped up to raise him. He ended up in a foundling home under a different name, taken, no doubt to mask the family’s embarrassment. Eighteen years passed before his mother and father reconciled, culminating when Mattie became pregnant with Randy.

Randy didn’t have his brother’s all-for-one attitude toward family. A stint in Vietnam left him with bad recreational habits and PTSD. Nevertheless, he landed a prominent job at IBM, dressed like a hip celebrity, and drove the obligatory expensive sports car. Life seemed good until it wasn’t.

Before going to Vietnam, Randy had promised Sandra Plawecki, his high school flame, that he’d marry her when he came home. But living in rice patties, seeing his friends disemboweled, and a constant diet of drugs changed him, and he told everyone he no longer loved her.

But he never told Sandra how he felt, so he wound up inviting a thousand guests to an ostentatious wedding. Hector was one of the grooms who dressed up in their white suits at Rosewood and posed for pictures by the blooming roses.

As the wedding party was lining up to get in the limousines, Randy pulled Hector aside.

“I don’t want to do this.”

“Helluva time to come to that conclusion,” Hector replied.

“I made a promise.”

“You don’t have to keep it. Sandra will understand. It’s better to quit now than put yourself through years of misery.”

“Sandra isn’t the forgiving type,” Randy said. “Not marrying her might be even more miserable. Sometimes I wish I was like you, a kid. Things were so much simpler then.”

“We all have to grow up sometimes, Uncle Randy.”

Poor decision-making was one of Randy’s biggest faults. Because they had failed so badly at parenthood by abandoning Skip, Billy and Mattie raised Randy in a bubble. The decision to go to Vietnam had been his because even he realized he was being smothered. It was one of the few decisions Randy made on his own, and since it had played out so horribly, he never made another one. That’s why he wound up standing in front of thousands of friends and relatives saying, “I do” when he should have said, “I don’t.”

The only good decision Randy made in his late adult life came three years later when he ran away from his domineering wife and into the arms of Dawn, who loved him for all his faults, which was fine because it turned out she had plenty of her own. His decision to leave IBM proved to be yet another mistake because he never worked again. Randy and Dawn took up residence at Rosewood, caring for Hector’s grandparents while indulging in their many vices.

The majority of the Bestwicks made it hard for Hector to follow his father’s belief in the importance of family. With a Mephistophelian goatee and a shaved head, Hector’s cousin Danny looked and acted like bone-crushing boxer Marvin Hagler, and usually greeted Hector with a man-sized punch on the arm. Cousin Patroclus, called Donny because he resembled and acted like actor Don Knotts, was skittish and always looked surprised. But the most memorable, or forgettable relative, was Johnny (appropriately born as Hercules), a 6’ 6” monster with cinder block-sized hands, a perpetual scowl, and eyes as black as his heart. He took immense pleasure in bullying his skinny, peace-loving younger brother, Odysseus, who was called Pearly because of his abnormally white teeth. During a Fourth of July party at Rosewood, while haggling over the potato salad, Pearly finally snapped, stabbing Johnny in the eye with his fork. Johnny simply pulled it out, opting for the macaroni salad before driving himself to the hospital.

Rosewood was the scene of many family triumphs and tragedies. Cousin Artemis announced she was going to get married there; family matriarch Hera celebrated her ninety-ninth birthday there, doing the boogaloo with Danny, and Skip surprised Hector on his eighteenth birthday by driving up in a Shelby Mustang and handing him the keys.

But there was tragedy at Rosewood too – Hecuba clutching her stomach as she reached for a glass of ginger ale. She would be rushed to the hospital and lose her baby two months away from giving birth. Then there was Danny and Donny suddenly going into fits – Hector was too young to understand they were going through withdrawal. But the cruelest moment was when his grandmother raised her glass and announced she was going to die.

Mattie succumbed to a combination of fine living, liver disease, and emphysema three months later. Her dying wish, which was fulfilled, was to exit sitting on the front porch of her home while looking at her rose bushes. Mattie’s passing seemed to give Skip, her oldest son, and caretaker, the right to let his own maladies wear him down. In typical Skip fashion, he’d ignored his own declining health to help someone else.

For the next four months after his mother’s death, Skip fell into a terminal pattern of poor health that Hector could set his watch by. By the first week of the month, Skip had enough fluid in his lungs to fill a bathtub, necessitating in Hector taking him to the hospital. By the second week, Skip was himself again and he’d be discharged, free to pursue the only hobby his debilitating health would allow – taking Hector and Audrey to dinner. By the third week, he’d be struggling to catch his breath, barely able to walk from one side of the room to the other to reach his oxygen tank. By the last week of the month, Skip would be spending days sitting in a chair as the medication and his failing heart forced him to repeatedly nod off.

Hector knew as surely as his father did that he was going to die. The doctor said Skip needed a heart and lung transplant, but he wouldn’t give him one because there was a 98% chance he’d die on the operating table. Skip had started handing over his administrative tasks as head of the family to Hector, telling him about bank accounts, stocks, life insurance, and the $10,000 in mad money he kept hidden in an old suit.

Three days before he passed, Hector caught his father looking out of the front window, staring at the front yard with a foreign, melancholy look on his face, as if he were taking a mental picture.

Hector was scheduled to get his car repaired the same day his father went to the hospital for the last time.

“You go get old’ Betsy fixed,” Skip insisted. “EMS can take me to the hospital. You get your car taken care of and go to work. Don’t worry about me.”

So, he didn’t, not even when he saw the EMS van still sitting in the driveway ten minutes later. Audrey later told him his father had gone into a coma right after the attendants had put him in the van.

Skip was buried on his sixty-fifth birthday. When the limousine pulled into the graveyard, Hector asked his grandfather if he wanted him to accompany him to his son’s gravesite.

Billy’s lower lip quivered for a moment, then his back stiffened. He stayed by himself, leaning against the limousine throughout the entire ceremony.

Hector inherited his father’s share of Rosewood. He didn’t think much about it until his grandfather passed away two years later. Now, he owned Rosewood along with his uncle.

He was certain Uncle Randy was as anxious as he was to make a profit.

“So, when do you want to sell Rosewood?”

“Sell? This is my home.”

“Of course. I thought you might want to move to a condominium or something easier to maintain,” Hector said.

“My memories are here,” Randy replied. “I wanna stay here for a little while. I promise we can sell in a few years.”

“Sure, no problem.”

But it was a big problem for Audrey, who’d never forgiven Randy for coming along on her honeymoon.

“That bum doesn’t have the money to keep up with the taxes or the repairs.”

“He’s handy.”

“But he doesn’t have a job! All he does is drink all day with Dawn. They’re living off his check from the army and her disability payments. If you don’t force him to sell, Rosewood will be worthless in a few years.”

Audrey insisted that Hector hire a high-priced lawyer. Randy hired his own expensive mouthpiece, and the war for Rosewood was on.

Because they were family and only eight years apart, Hector and his uncle remained on good terms during the battle for Rosewood. Their lawyers, however, dug one litigious trench after another that kept the issue of selling the house unresolved for seven years.

During that time, Hector scarcely visited the house. In his moments of sobriety, Randy had remodeled the first floor, sanding, painting, and plastering to the point that Rosewood could have been featured in Good Housekeeping.

Several real estate agents offered to buy Rosewood for $500,000, prompting Hector to yell, “Sell! Sell! Sell!” But Hector didn’t mind when Randy said no, thinking that playing hard to get would drive up the selling price.

Thanks to Randy and Dawn’s desire to remain at Rosewood, Hector came to discover that whenever the police called him on the phone, it wasn’t to tell him he’d won a raffle.

“This is Detective Mel Stang,” the gruff voice on the other end of the phone said. “Do you and your uncle own a house at 423 Robin Lane?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve received three complaints from the neighbors. Your uncle and his girlfriend got into a knockdown, drag-out fight on the front lawn.”

“I’ll apologize to the neighbors.”

“They were naked. You can pick them up at the station.”

There was a three-month reprieve before Hector got another distressing call at work.

“Hector Bestwick? I’m calling about Rosewood,” Detective Stang said. “Does your uncle still live there?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“He should be at the house,” Hector replied. “Is something wrong?”

“We’d like to locate him. I’ve got a few questions to ask him. There was a fire on the second floor this morning. We found a dead woman in the bathtub. Any chance you might know who she is?”

“It might be Dawn, his girlfriend.”

“What’s her last name?”

Hector was struck dumb. He’d known Dawn for a decade, yet never knew what her last name was. So much for those tight-knit family values his father had tried to instill in him.

“I… I don’t know,” he finally stammered. “Maybe one of the neighbors knows.”

“Also, the fire looks suspicious. That’s why we want to talk to your uncle.”

“You don’t think he set it, do you? He’s not like that.”

“I’ll be the judge of that when he turns himself in. If he contacts you, you call me right away.”

Randy hid from the police for two days at a friend’s house before turning himself in. By then the police had figured out that Dawn had passed out while smoking a cigarette and had set fire to herself and the bed. She ran into the bathroom, dying in the tub.

Even with his developing skills as a carpenter, Randy couldn’t repair the devastation on the second floor. Rosewood’s market value plummeted as the lawyer’s fees doubled.

A buyer finally stepped in, offering $50,000 for Rosewood.

“Do I look like I have sucker written across my forehead?” Hector steamed.

“It’ll cost that much to repair the upstairs,” his lawyer said. “And are you aware your uncle hasn’t paid taxes for Rosewood for the past seven years? The buyer’s willing to work things out with the town if you sell.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You’d better learn how to print money.”

When Hector went to sign the papers to sell Rosewood, he barely recognized his reclusive uncle. Randy had a beard down to his waist, and dreadlocks that stretched down his back. He was missing his front teeth and was dressed in wrinkled fatigues. Embarrassed, hesitant, and edgy, Randy’s hand shook from the DTs as he signed off on the deal.

Randy’s $25,000 went to his lawyer, creditors, relatives, and friends who’d lent him money. With no set place to live, he drifted down south to an old army buddy’s place. The friend soon kicked him out for smoking too much in bed and almost setting his house on fire.

After he sold his share in Rosewood, Hector lost touch with most of his family. Danny had a heart attack at age forty-two. The doctors expected him to make a full recovery, disregarding his years as a heroin user because outwardly he appeared to be in excellent shape. A day later he had a second heart attack. He punched one of the nurses trying to hold him down as he died. At his funeral, Jason was surprised to learn Danny’s real name was Menelaus.

Low-key bachelor and cancer victim Donny showed a flair for the dramatic when during his funeral, his heretofore unseen wife and daughter showed up to wail over his coffin.

Johnny went out one afternoon to strong-arm a cigar store owner and was never heard from again. Pearly, who outlived his brother by a decade, always laughed hysterically when he told the story.

Six months after Hector and Randy sold Rosewood, Randy’s wife Sandra called, saying he’d died from exposure, and she had his remains. In what must have looked like a clandestine drug buy, Hector met Sandra on a  street corner where she handed him a box containing his uncle’s ashes.

Randy’s death certificate was telling. The coroner had written that he had no relatives.

After his mother’s death, Hector found himself without any family to rescue or lean on. He would drive by Rosewood whenever he was feeling nostalgic.

The new owners had dug up the rose bushes.