Bad Heiress Day

by Allie Pleiter

  Darcy took a deep breath. “That’s sort of why I’m here, Michelle. I know you don’t like the idea of The Restoration Project, but I wanted you to see that the Project isn’t the idea of a bunch of big-haired beauty queens who think a good makeover can change your life. I’m a mom, just like you. Only instead of watching my son die, I watched my father.”

  “It’s not the same,” Michelle said sharply.

  No, it wasn’t. The pain of losing a loved one was bad, but to compound it with the injustice, the sheer unnatural act of burying one’s child, well Darcy couldn’t begin to know how it would feel. “I won’t pretend that it is.” She answered after a pause. “I can’t imagine what it’s like. I don’t know what I’d do in your shoes. But I think I have an idea of how tired you are. How much it hurts. How people don’t have a clue—even though they think they do. How this kind of thing eats away at your family before you even realize it.”

  Michelle grew tense. “I don’t know why I let you come here.”

  I do, thought Darcy, determined to get her thoughts out before the door of communication with this woman slammed shut. “I felt like I was dying right alongside my dad. And you know what? I thought that was the right thing to do. I poured everything I had into taking care of him, tried never to miss a minute, put him before everything else. I didn’t want to regret a single missed chance. I wanted to do the right thing.”

  Michelle’s glare wavered. She shifted focus to the cookie in her hand.

  “And what I regret most, now that it’s done and Dad is—” Darcy was surprised at how much she choked on the word “—gone, is just how much I poured into it. Because I discovered, Michelle, that if you pour everything into it, there’s nothing left over.”

  That wasn’t the comment Michelle was expecting. Darcy knew it, because it wasn’t the outcome she had expected from the hospice, either. Darcy took a deep breath. “Robby’s going to die, isn’t he?” she asked very quietly.

  Michelle nodded, sniffling.

  “No one ever dares to ask that, do they? Nobody ever wants to talk about it. It’s too scary, too messy. But you and I—we know it. We live with it, every day. So we try to be noble and selfless and muster up hope, and all the time we’re dying inside, too. And everyone’s so focused on Robby. And they should be. He needs it. But what about you?”

  “I get to live.” Michelle whimpered after a long silence. “And that’s not fair.”

  “It rots, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “I can’t make that part better. There isn’t any ‘better’ to be had in all this. But The Project is a way that I can help people get one day where it is about them. Where you can remember that you still have friends and your body will feel normal again one day and you are stronger than it feels right now. This isn’t about hair color or any of that spa stuff. None of that is what really matters. I’d pay for twelve gallons of ice cream delivered straight to your door if I thought that would make a difference. It’s mostly about giving care to what’s been neglected. Giving you a day—just one day—away from all this, with someone you probably haven’t had lunch with in months, is a start, a foothold toward having something left over. And I know it is because I’ve been where you are. And ‘nothing left over’ is an awful, awful place to grieve. I just wanted you to know that. You can still say no, but I just wanted the chance to tell you myself.”

  There was an awkward stretch of silence. Darcy reached down slowly for her purse. Perhaps she was wrong in coming here. Michelle was entitled to her bitterness; life had handed her a raw deal. The acme of all raw deals. Who was Darcy to think she had any answers to coping?

  “Tony won’t choose a color,” Michelle said quietly.

  Darcy froze, her hand still reaching toward the floor. “What?”

  “We can get Robby a custom casket, painted with sailboats and whales—he loves boats, Robby does.” Michelle still stared down at her cookie. “There is a woman who’ll paint a special casket just for him, and I want him to have it, but Tony won’t let us choose a color.”

  Darcy couldn’t find words. She didn’t think the whole English language had the words for this. All she could do was just put her hand on Michelle’s arm.

  “Tony says I’m wrong to give up on Robby. But I’m not giving up on him, I…just want him to have a pretty casket.” She started to cry, and Darcy could feel the tears running down her own cheeks. “He’s not going to get a pretty life, so I want…I want him to have a pretty death. Is that so hideous? Why does everyone think it’s so awful that I want that?” Her voice took on the bitter edge Darcy heard in the letter. “Why can’t I want that? He’s my son, why can’t I want to give that to him? Why?” Michelle tossed the half-eaten cookie down on the coffee table and swore. “It’s bad enough that I have to be picking out caskets at all! Why can’t I have the one I want?”

  “I think boats sounds nice,” Darcy offered, trying not to sob. “I think I’d want them, too.”

  “Why can’t we have blue boats?” The question trailed off into a sob, and Darcy simply pulled the woman onto her shoulder, letting her cry.

  “Blue boats sounds nice.” She repeated, stroking Michelle’s shaking shoulders. “I think blue boats would look beautiful.”

  Even after she returned Mike to school, Darcy had yet to remove the lump from her throat. The mournful wail of Michelle Porter’s questions seemed to hang inside her chest, aching there, keeping Darcy on the verge of crying for hours after she left that home. Death was such a lousy business. She wondered about the people who said they envied her chance to say goodbye to her dad. Did they know the cost of that good long goodbye? The toll it took? The wide swath of pain it left?

  With a sigh, Darcy thought that she might be safer with someone throwing up today. The tasks at hand were proving just too huge. She fished in her purse for the address of the financial planner, and took the car out of Park. Stay close, Lord, I’m going to need you.

  Craig Palmer’s office looked surprisingly like the orthodontist office she’d just left. A small, one-story, redbrick structure with plate glass front windows. Palmer and Associates was painted on one window in trustworthy white lettering.

  The finance magnate inside, whom Darcy was certain would be wearing a sharp dark suit and a trust-me expression, ended up being an ordinary guy in a broadcloth shirt and a pair of Dockers. A round-faced, balding man about ten years older than Jack, with bright blue eyes and wire-rimmed glasses. Friendly. Decidedly nonpredatory. Definitely an Ed Bidwell kind of guy, Darcy thought, remembering from whom the recommendation had come.

  “Jack’s filled me in on the basics,” he said as he brought in three cups of coffee and a little china box filled with sugar packets and those tiny creamer tubs. “Jack also told me you drink tea, and I thought we had some, but evidently we’re out. I hope coffee’s okay until I stock up again.”

  After today’s events, a stronger brew seemed like a good idea. “Coffee’s fine, thanks.” Darcy chose the chocolate-flavored creamer, though, and used two of them.

  “You know,” Palmer remarked, stirring his own coffee, “that’s some unusual set of circumstances you’ve got there. I don’t mean to sound forward, but guys like us dream of things like this. The possibilities. The options. The challenges. It’s enough to make any number cruncher’s heart beat faster.” The guy was genuinely excited. Not a greedy kind of excited, but an unassuming, this-is-gonna-be-fun kind of excited.

  Funny, Darcy thought, fun’s not the word I’d use for it.

  “It goes without saying, though, Mrs. Nightengale,” he continued, his tone of voice changing completely, “that I’d much rather you had found this on the street. I’m sorry for your loss. The intricacies of estate management are difficult enough. I can’t imagine having it made that much more difficult by all you’ve gone through. Please, don’t ever let my enthusiasm let you think any differently.” He really meant it. You could see it in his eyes. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. />
  “Thank you,” Darcy replied. “Please, call me Darcy.”

  “I’d like that,” he said, his smile warm. “Welcome to my office, Darcy. I hope we’ll be able to give you some really valuable help here. Coffee okay?”

  Darcy took another sip. She liked people who went through the trouble of using real creamer. Especially flavored creamer. “Fine, thanks.”

  “I’ve heard the basic facts from Jack on the phone, Darcy. Why don’t we start with your story? Tell me how all this happened, and what your thoughts are on where to go from here.”

  Craig Palmer listened attentively, his mechanical pencil busy jotting notes and figures as Darcy told the story as best she knew it, from beginning to end. He seemed impressed by her idea of The Restoration Project. He asked sensitive but important questions about the source of the funds in the first place, and double-checked his notes of portfolio balances and current holdings. He complimented Jacob the Kindly Lawyer on his job of managing the funds with only an attorney’s grasp of financial planning. Most revealingly, though, he told Darcy that her father must have been a unique and extraordinary man to have left such a challenging bequest.

  “I’d like to meet with you again in about two weeks—if you’re so inclined,” Craig concluded, pushing a pair of small bound booklets for each of them across the desk. “In there you’ll find a set of references, and some questions that will be crucial to our planning process. It’s not a test—” he laughed, evidently catching Darcy’s concerned expression “—they’re mostly questions to help you think through your goals and needs.”

  “That makes sense,” said Jack.

  “There’s another major topic I want to put on the table here. Darcy, I know you left your part-time job to take care of your dad. That’s had its toll on your family finances. I can only begin to imagine the mental war going on in your heads with the needs, resources and demands you’re facing. These are dry times, and you’ve just been handed gallons of water.”

  Darcy’s heart nearly stopped. Hadn’t she used that very image the first time The Restoration Project exploded into her life? There was no way Craig’s choice of wording had been chance. She fought the urge to shake her head in disbelief, dragging her attention back to what Craig was continuing to say.

  “…You’ve got kids heading into college and I’d be willing to bet your 401-K looks as sick as mine. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in the next few months. Still, you’ve got to contend with Paul’s wishes and the emotional side of things.” Craig came around to sit on the front corner of his desk. He tapped the booklet Jack was holding.

  “What I want you to see is that I believe there’s room for it all in there. I especially want you to consider setting up a formal foundation. It sounds complicated, but with the right guidance it can have lots of benefits. Sure, you could just write checks off the accounts like you’ve done with your—what’d Jack call it? The pilot test group?—but you’ll need the structure of a formal charitable foundation in the long run. A foundation that will need someone to run it.”

  Craig looked straight at Darcy, and there was something in his eyes that made her stomach do flips. A connection, an understanding, a something. “What I’m saying, Darcy, is that I don’t think you should have to choose between your dad and your family. Your new job can be as head of The Restoration Project on a part-time, salaried basis. That means you’ll not only have the time that will need to be devoted to get this project off and running well, but also that you will have complete control over your schedule and workload. The project gets the attention it needs, and you can meet the needs of your family.” Craig smiled a huge, warm grin. “Everybody wins.”

  Craig Palmer had seen her needs, her family’s needs and her dad’s vision, and pulled all three together in a spectacular solution.

  And Jack had been wise enough to call him.

  In her mind’s eye Darcy saw God, standing in Glynnis’s hen-coated kitchen, leaning against the counter with his arms folded. Do you see now, child? Would you give me just a little credit for knowing how to do things? Could we have a little conversation about your trust issues?

  The image struck her as irreverent at first, but Darcy decided it was intimate and loving instead. She had no doubt God hung out in The Henhouse. She was coming to see He hung out just about everywhere she went. In that instant, Darcy realized her earlier prayer had been answered. Hadn’t she just asked God to stay close?

  What a relief to know He had no plans to leave in the first place.

  Craig extended a hand. “It’s a lot to take in. Look over the booklets, talk it over, see what your gut tells you. I think there’s a happy ending for a lot of people wrapped up in this. I’d like to be the guy who makes it happen.”

  Darcy clutched her booklet and shook Craig Palmer’s hand firmly. “Thank you, Craig,” she said.

  And she meant it.

  Chapter 27

  The Evil of Unemployed Elves

  While she was volunteering in the school library the following Monday, Darcy’s cell phone went off. It was Kate, begging for a tea date as fast as possible, and not taking no for an answer. She wouldn’t say why, only that it was a pleasant surprise.

  By the time Darcy entered J.L.’s, Kate had already secured the table and a pair of steaming mugs. “I want to know what you did,” she burst out.

  “Did what to what?”

  “It’s to whom, not what. Your answering machine has two messages on it. One’s from Meredith, and the other’s from me. I decided, however, that I’d much rather tell you in person.”

  Darcy dunked her tea bag, surrendering to the force of nature that was Kate Owens. “Okay, so what did I do to whom?”

  “Michelle Porter.”

  Oh. Darcy should have guessed. Given the way that visit had gone, communication from Michelle could have meant a dozen things. If the woman had chosen to contact someone else, Darcy could only guess her visit had done more harm than good. Still, she couldn’t get that conversation, those tears, the image of a little hand-painted casket, out of her mind all weekend. Darcy had sent up a hundred tiny sighs of prayers, her heart aching for the young woman handed such a cruel indoctrination into motherhood. Most of those prayers didn’t even have words, just moans of “Oh, Lord…” for who could know what her needs were? Who could survive such a situation? It was the best example of God only knows…ever conceived.

  “Oh, Kate,” Darcy moaned, “it’s heartbreaking. And I made it worse, didn’t I? I knew I made a mistake going there, letting her know who I was…I thought I could help her. I thought I knew something of—”

  “Dar.” Kate’s hand clamped down on Darcy’s. “Dar, she said yes. You convinced her. You.” Kate’s broad, warm smile spilled out over the room. “You done good, girl.”

  “She said yes?”

  “Well, I admit that according to Meredith she’s still mighty nervous and not at all sure, but she’s willing to try, and that’s a big step.” Kate took a big sip of tea. “What did you say to her?”

  “I don’t even remember. It was so awful. So much unfair pain. She looked like she was hanging on by her fingernails.” Darcy looked at Kate. “Do you remember those newborn days? How you thought you’d never make it through the day, how you’d never sleep again? Now imagine all the medical stuff and grief and strain piled on top of it. It hurt just to look at her, Kate. Her eyes were this horrible, empty, hopeless place. I was on the verge of tears for hours after I left her house.”

  “But you must have gotten through to her somehow.”

  “I guess so. I don’t know how. I just told her how much it hurt, I suppose, to see the empty aftermath when Dad died. How I needed a life to go back to, and woke up one morning to discover I didn’t have one. At least, I think I said that. Kate, I don’t remember anything except wanting to cry.”

  “I think,” said Kate, staring into her tea, “that it’s just the fact that you’ve been there. That you know something of what it’s like. The rest of us, we
can only guess, but you’ve been there.” Kate looked up. “Does she have any friends? You know, someone she’ll take with her?”

  Darcy was struck, suddenly, by the tone of Kate’s voice. A thin wisp of “second fiddle,” a sense of not being the major player in this project. Nothing could be further from the truth. There would be no Restoration Project without Kate, exactly because Kate was the force of nature she was. It was Kate who pulled her from the wreckage when Dad died, just as much as Jack had—maybe even more so. Kate had been the lifeline, the glimpse of hope, the person to walk her back from the edges.

  “I hope she has a Kate,” Darcy said, her voice catching. “Everybody needs a Kate. You can’t do this without a Kate.”

  Kate didn’t respond.

  “Don’t you see? You’ve been there, too. You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to watch someone go through this. To see the—” she stumbled for the right word “—the disintegration happen and not be able to stop it. To lose your friend to a crisis. You know when to step in and shake them up, and when to let them wail.”

  Kate blinked wet lashes and pointed a cookie at Darcy. “Don’t you make me cry.”

  “I can’t help it.” Darcy grabbed Kate’s hand and squeezed it.

  They were silent for a moment, catching each other’s wet glances. Then Kate took a deep breath. “Do you think The Restoration Project should put out its own brand of waterproof mascara?”