“Would a McGill law degree be accepted in the United States?” Excitement for Faith studying at such a prestigious university pushed Milan from my thoughts. “The Canadians are so protective that we didn’t consider Faith for their schools.” Some economic facets like Canadian protection of jobs and borders resisted all kinds of global pressure.
“My father’s family had a tradition of attending McGill. There’s a scholarship program for high-achieving women funded by the Smithsons.” He gave the information casually. “I offered to see what my brother might be able to do for her at a British college, but Ashwood is strong in her blood. She’d like to visit England, but wasn’t keen on a trans-Atlantic commitment.”
“And most of what I hear Faith talk about is getting away.”
“She’s a teenager.” Andrew checked his communicator. “I offered her a trip to Montreal before I return to work. I assume she has travel credits available.”
“Of course.” The thought of our youngest moving from estate-school student to university candidate needed time to settle. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. She’s my only sister and she keeps me connected with being young.” He stood. “You’ve got a business to run and too many distractions. It’s good to be of help.”
“Right now I’m due to leave for Giant Pines. Ride with us?”
“Thanks for the invite, but I was asked to work with the students in conversational Chinese. The only thing more painful that learning how to speak Chinese is to listen to rookies plod through it.”
David joined us. “You and Phoebe could talk your way around most of the globe with your knowledge of languages. We thought we were ready for the future by having a second or third language.” He chuckled, then continued. “Unless you count your mom’s ability to talk with foreign business people in educated Spanish and Ashwood’s workers in American español.”
Standing in the midst of Giant Pines’ sixty-person day shift, the melting pot workforce could be heard questioning Deshomm’s goal and Ashwood’s ability to stay intact. From Max’s German accent to African-tinged English and urban slang, the crew spoke in a soup of mostly untaught languages with common understanding of words like continued employment, food allotments, funding for the Ashwood clinic, support of our estate education program.
That was where I began when Max and I sat in his office, a dish of fresh berries from Giant Pines between us on the table. Our crew valued berries as a seasonal treat. At least half of the metro population knew strawberry only as a chemical flavor or a dried particle in some mass-produced food.
“It is premature to be totally open with the employees about changes that are in the works for Giant Pines. I want to tell you what this part of Hartford, Ltd., will look like in the near future because you’re important to that future and it is time to draw you into the new venture.” With Max’s full involvement critical in transitioning Giant Pines into a research and production facility as well as supporting John’s development, I outlined how we would sidestep Deshomm’s reach. Legalese was easy, but Max and John would have tough work ahead to sort through land use and all the operational implications.
“I don’t know how we’ll title your new role,” I said as we wound down the discussion for that day. “It’s not like you’re giving up any responsibilities and you’ll wear hats in both the estate side of the business as well as the research foundation. You say you feel you’ve been treated well from a compensation angle and I want to keep you feeling that way. So I suggest we talk about that in six months when we both have a better understanding. In the meantime, the human asset folks are supportive of putting a two-part bonus in place for your involvement in the planning and transition. Is that fair?” Max extended a hand and we shook.
I knew where David spent the time when I stepped into the transport for our trip home. “Is everything good with the herd?” I teased.
He nodded. “More important, how did Max react?”
“I wasn’t concerned, but now I’m excited. He’s got good ideas and is pleased to be a mentor for John.” We notified security as we left Giant Pines. “It seems natural that you might stay on top of this effort?”
The Bureau escorted us back to Ashwood, which meant David could almost sleep in the driving seat, but his hands gripped the steering stick, and his jaw tightened. “It might not be good timing, Annie. There will be plenty to do when Dad passes and Phoebe’s setup needs the attention of a research scientist.”
Milan’s last comment about preparing David to head Hartford, Ltd., sounded in my head at the lukewarm response.
“I’m executor of the estate,” I reminded him, “and Phoebe might be better supported by someone who has current experience with research lab requirements.” His lips pressed together. I chose to think that David wasn’t able to think beyond his father’s approaching death.
Chapter 27
Paul died at a rancher’s favorite time of day—in the quiet of early morning, not long before dawn. The time of day when he might have been sipping his first cup of strong coffee and walking to the barns.
The call came as I was washing my face. David was still sleeping, and I knew what Otis would say as soon as I heard his voice. “Mr. Paul just passed.” He inhaled, a long wet sound. “I helped him sit up then went to get him a glass of water and when I returned he was gone. I’m very sorry, Ms. Anne.”
I put down my washcloth, saw the tension muscles in my reddened face slacken. “Thank you, Otis, for everything you’ve done for Paul and the family these past months.” He coughed on the other side, perhaps covering emotion. I pushed my own words out before sadness might choke them. “Please contact Dr. Frances while I tell David and the family.”
“Will do. I’ll comb his hair and shave him before everyone comes.”
The rituals of death slipped over Ashwood. The return to economic stability gave us time for grieving. No more hasty disposal or abandonment of our loved one’s remains. We would have our day of public mourning after Frances notified the officials.
“Mr. Paul and I had an agreement so you’d all remember him looking good.” Otis remained loyal. “He thought everything of you. Thought you should be ruler of the world, I think he said.”
“Thank you, Otis. I’ll be there as soon as I wake David.”
I drew the now cool cloth one more time across my face, washed away my tears. Quickly I brushed my hair and slipped on a soft shirt and linen skirt instead of my normal work clothes. In Paul’s honor I inserted the South Dakota agate earrings he gave me to celebrate John’s birth. The same earrings he gave each of his daughters-in-law.
David lay on his back in a state of semi-sleep, his way of easing into the day after I left bed. Before my asthma began, we would run together in the cool mornings three times a week. Now he ran alone.
“Honey.” I touched his shoulder gently. “David, you need to wake up.”
His eyes opened, a seamless transition from sleep to alert.
“Otis just called.”
David pushed himself upright. “Dad?”
“He woke early and they spoke. He passed when Otis went for a fresh glass of water. No pain.”
We had made the run from our room to Paul’s many times in the past months. David sprinted ahead in his sleep clothes and I followed. Our bare feet thwacked against wood then tile floors. Frances would be on her way and Terrell would take responsibility for notifying people in Ashwood who needed to know.
At his father’s door, David stopped and looked back for me. I held out my hand.
“I’m not ready for this.” Sleep coated his early grief. David waited for assurance from me, an orphan for almost thirty years.
“We’ll say good-bye together.” I opened the door. Dawn’s promise of sunlight came through partially open blinds.
Paul looked more like himself in death. His smooth face, sti
ll pale, no longer showed the struggle of breathing with a heart drowning in his body’s fluid. His work-hardened hands rested along his sides. David touched one, his lips moving without sound. He lifted his fingers to smooth his father’s hair. I stood at David’s side, prayed for Paul’s soul. Old religion brought simple comfort at the dark void of death.
“Did you call the kids?” David’s eyes absorbed all that could be still be seen as living from his father’s body.
“I wanted to give us time with him first.”
“I would like it if they could be here.” He reached for me, turned away from the bed and lowered his head to mine. “I’d like to stay with him. Just call them.”
Frances knocked as she entered. “David, Annie, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m going to tell the children in person.” I kissed David’s cheek and left.
The walk to the old manager’s house was the longest distance to cover. I went there first to wake John and Noah. As I approached, I paged John, a light sleeper.
“It’s Grandpa.” His sleep-heavy voice didn’t hesitate.
“Yes, about fifteen minutes ago. Dad’s with him.”
“Noah and I’ll be there. Are you okay?”
“Sad.”
I turned to the consultant quarters where Andrew was housed. As I walked up the stairs, I paged him.
“Mom?”
“Andrew, we’re all gathering in Grandpa’s room. He’s gone.” I heard Phoebe’s gasp, stopped advancing.
“We’ll be there in five.” Andrew’s words came clouded with Phoebe’s emotional eruption.
“Of course, Andrew. I have to wake Faith.”
Knocking on Faith’s door, I waited for a greeting. She would be asleep at this time. I opened the door to her comfy small room. Daylight teased around the corners of her drapes. She slept so quietly her blankets looked untouched. At her side I took in all I could, knowing there were no assured future opportunities to capture the innocence my daughter still held while sleeping. Then I knelt at her side and broke the news.
David, Paul, Sarah, and I all raised the five adult children who stood around Paul’s deathbed that morning. Andrew was the first to embrace David, two men now bound by their fatherless status. Noah, John, and Faith all hugged David with what looked like equal willingness to comfort and hunger to be comforted. Phoebe came to my side, put her wiry arms around my shoulders.
“I don’t think I can bear this,” she whispered near my ear. “You are the ground that keeps my feet steady, but Grandpa was the rock I need for strength and support.” She smelled of coffee and the faint scent of the British soap Andrew received from his London-based half-brother. We stood together, arms around each other’s bodies. “How are you, Mom?”
I couldn’t answer. David, my fellow architect of a very good life, had held a difficult and demanding job. Being married to a frequently absent government intellectual worker meant I turned to Paul as a business confidante as well as father-in-law. I knew the world of bureaucrats and classrooms. Paul understood fields and barns and people who worked with their hands. Together we navigated the redevelopment of a free economy.
When my father died during my college years, I cried mostly out of fear of a future without his strength. Standing next to Paul’s body, I grieved for what we’d lost. And something I could not name more elegantly than knowing that David and I were no longer young. A prediction Milan made when our children were young had come true—retired was a word that described old machinery, and we would all work until we died.
Phoebe leaned against me and I supported her weight, but emotionally I crumbled. Tears traveled from my eyes down my face, and I did nothing to hold them back. David moved Phoebe from my side so that he and I could be together. His hand gentled my back; I rested against his chest and quieted.
“Grandpa looks peaceful.” Faith had moved near us. David stretched out an arm to bring her closer. “It’s good to be with him and not hear him struggle to breathe.” Her beautiful blonde hair draped down my arm. “I’ll miss him.”
The Regan extended family had used their travel allocations to visit Paul before he passed away so they would attend his memorial service via hologram in their South Dakota Catholic church. While David’s older brother stood as patriarch for the South Dakota family branch, the scarcity of travel resources in the twenty-first century created two very separate Regan clans. On Ashwood Paul had stepped out of Hartford, Ltd., in his seventies, but it was hard to predict who would absorb the connective role he played in our family—both blood and extended.
The Death Society appeared within ninety minutes of official notification and prepared Paul’s body to lie in state at Ashwood. Phoebe’s presence ruled out the courtyard so we brought his body to a tree grove near the front gates. News traveled through surrounding communities where he had friends and was known by many who once worked on the estate or had family who spent time in the fields. I wished we could allow the drones to carry these human images to their owners.
Bureau protocol didn’t allow Phoebe to be outside Ashwood’s inner gates so she watched from the screen porch. We stood around him, accepting kind messages and hugs, comforting others. Giant Pines, the estate he loved, sent trucks of employees and their families to honor the man who understood nature in all its forms. True to Paul’s heritage, carafes of hot coffee stood next to the fruit, breads, cookies, and pies on tables along the waiting line. He reminded me regularly that the bounty of the land was meant to be shared, to nourish, and comfort.
A formal memorial service would be held later, but that was the day Paul would have cherished. The South Dakota rancher with silver hair and weather-wrinkled skin belonged to the air and sun and people.
Chapter 28
Ashwood settled into a week of hard work following Paul’s death. David spent long days relocating his herd from Giant Pines to new acreage adjacent to our land. Noah participated in medical school prep sessions and studied. Andrew and Phoebe were together whenever possible, exploring Ashwood with adult eyes and curiosity.
The threatened Deshomm hostile takeover turned into a settlement process with lawyers and accountants arguing the value of obtuse items like loss of executive direction, disruption of product development, and the very real costs of damage to our engineering systems and weeks of additional security.
The actual business of running Hartford, Ltd., devoured my days. Giant Pines redevelopment filled late afternoons. Faith finished her studies early enough to join the meetings. She asked questions that were surprisingly insightful. The child who always studied on my office table had not only absorbed what she’d heard or read over a decade, but also had opinions. John, with a tendency to be intense about focusing on the subject, showed limited patience for Faith’s presence.
“I think the next generation’s Hartford, Ltd., CEO is sleeping in a peach-colored bedroom,” I shared with David after the first week. “Our child understands the interconnections of operations and asks damn good questions. Low residency college studies might be wonderful for both Ashwood and Faith. I intend to involve her in whatever she wants to learn.”
Even with his back to me as he slid on a clean shirt for dinner I read his disagreement, knew I had rubbed against his romantic plan that spared Faith from the work-driven pace of our economy. He wanted to carve a space for her to enjoy school, make friends and live like an old-world college student. Corporate titans managed to make a 2050 version of that happen for their offspring. We didn’t have that amount of money or influence. Regans might live without money worries, but not without working.
“Don’t push her, Annie.” He hung his dirty shirt in our cleaning cabinet. “Looks like there’s enough in here that I’m going to run a load, okay?”
“Go ahead.”
He pressed the start button, turned. His skin had tanned with working in the barns and fields. Beyond h
is size, his features were more his mother’s than Paul’s, including beautiful dark eyes which held that tired look of grief. “If we work it right, she can fulfill her community service time during her college years like Noah and John instead of working in some metro hell hole.” There was nothing new in his plans for Faith’s near future, but I listened. “I’m hoping she can spend a year or two at McGill with other young people. She’ll work her whole life. I’d rather we didn’t tie her down before she turns eighteen.”
David chose to remain separate from long days with key managers and consultants about the transformation of our corporation. I broke our tradition of not talking business in our bedroom. “Please spend the next two days with me. We’re turning Hartford, Ltd., into a more organized corporation that will outstrip the capabilities of our current team. You are exactly the right person to provide new leadership.”
“My time is committed to establishing the herd right now.”
Milan was right, David now led perhaps the easiest life in our family—bare minimum hours required by the DOE to maintain his working status, the hobby herd, a small acreage farm. He volunteered at harvest times, kept an eye on a handful of insignificant subsidiaries of Hartford, Ltd.,
“Max has good folks involved with the herd. Trust them.” As I expressed the truth, a touch of my frustration crawled into the words. His resistance frustrated me, tainted other parts of our relationship.
“This could be the best time for you to totally leave the DOE and bring all your great people and project management skills full-time to Hartford, Ltd.” Persuasion skills that employees, vendors, and other businesses admired didn’t faze David. “You could make the next iteration of the corporation happen while preparing John or Phoebe or Faith to step in.”
Leaving Ashwood Page 18
