44. Mike
MIKE
M y phone rings in the middle of the night. Sylvia and I are wrapped around each other and I don’t want to move. I consider letting the call go to voice mail.
“No good news in the middle of the night,” Sylvia murmurs against my shoulder and she’s right.
It takes me a minute to locate my phone, since I’ve plugged it in at the trailer and I’m not entirely sure where anything is there yet. Sierra could probably have laid a hand on it in an instant, but she’s stayed with Merrie tonight.
“Candace.” I read the display aloud and meet Sylvia’s gaze in the shadows. It’s late enough that the fairy lights have extinguished themselves and Una’s place is in darkness, too.
Might as well deal with it now, whatever it is. I answer, checking my watch as I do. It’s just three.
I can hardly understand what Candace is saying.
“Your father,” she says several times. I hear wailing in the background. “Patrick. It’s Patrick. Omigod, it’s Patrick .”
“What’s going on, Candace? ”
She sobs. “Mike, you have to come now!” Then she breaks down crying and ends the call.
I get dressed and go.
By the time I get to the house, there’s an ambulance in the driveway, lights flashing.
The paramedics are working on Dad inside.
He looks awful, pale and much older than he did a few hours ago.
Candace clings to my arm as they work, telling and retelling her story.
How he was livid. How he went to his office alone.
How short-tempered he was. Madison and Ethan are both there, looking frightened.
Elke is gone and I hope she left right after me.
Dad doesn’t revive but he doesn’t pass away either. The paramedics stabilize him and load him into the ambulance. Ethan goes with them to the hospital.
Candace breaks down completely then and Mrs. Taylor sends Madison to get her mom a sedative. I practically carry Candace up the stairs to her suite and Madison agrees to stay with her.
I retreat to Dad’s office. There’s a spilled glass of rye on the rug and I pick that up, setting it aside. I call Sylvia to tell her what’s happened and she asks what she can do.
“Nothing, really,” I say and it’s true. I feel numb. Relieved. Sad.
“Someone will have to call people,” she says, reminding me of what I should do.
“I’ll do that. Might as well be useful.”
“Come home when you can,” she says and I close my eyes at the word.
Home. The prospect of being with her again, sooner rather than later, prompts me to start calling.
I get Jake’s voice mail and leave a message.
I leave a message on Austin’s voice mail, too.
I talk to Abbie and try to say the right things when she cries.
I call Luke and he’s the one who is kind to me.
“I know you were close,” he says in his gravelly voice.
“No, not anymore.” I might as well tell him. “He threatened to do the same to Sierra as he did to you if Sylvia didn’t leave town and me.”
Luke swears under his breath.
“I told him what I thought of that,” I admit, realizing that was just hours before. “He was pretty angry with me tonight.”
“He was pretty angry with everybody all the time,” Luke says. “Don’t blame yourself, Mike. Just because you were the last opponent doesn’t mean your battle was the decisive one.”
I like that. It’s a healthier way to think about it, to my view, and I’m glad that Luke and I are allies now. I thank him for that and continue down my list.
I call my Aunt Grace in Alberta and it’s earlier there. She’s still up and has a good cry while we’re on the phone. I call Dierdre at home so she’ll know and she is subdued but glad to know. I leave a message for Richard Bradshaw at his office and another for the golf club manager.
I sit there, worn out, and that’s when I hear the phone ring somewhere in the house. They still have a land line. I have a feeling and it proves to be right.
Moments later, Mrs. Taylor brings in a carafe of coffee on a tray with several mugs. She looks like she’s been crying. “That was the hospital,” she announces, avoiding my gaze. “Calling for Mrs. Cavendish.” She sniffs. “Your father is gone.”
Then she looks at me, waiting expectantly. I have no tears to shed, not here and not now.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say.
Her lips tighten and she leaves briskly, disapproval following her like a cloud .
He’s dead.
It really is over.
Jake arrives a few moments later. It’s just six. I hear the tires of his car on the drive out front and meet him at the door. He looks haggard and I don’t even want to know how many speeding tickets he evaded. “I tried to call you back,” he says.
“I’ve been on the phone ever since.” I take a breath. “They just called. He’s dead.”
Jake bows his head for a long moment. “Were you here when it happened?”
I shake my head, suddenly feeling exhausted, and my big brother puts his hand on my shoulder.
“In a movie,” he says as we walk toward the house.
“He would have opened his eyes, repented of all harsh words, and made amends before he breathed his last. The clouds would have parted and a beam of sunlight would have shone down upon the scene while bluebirds swirled around, chirping serenely.” I smile despite myself. “I’m guessing that’s not how it went.”
“No.”
“No. Of course not.” Jake tugs me into a brief – surprising but welcome – hug on the threshold then heads toward Dad’s office. He sits down at Dad’s desk and starts opening drawers. “Oh my God,” he mutters. “Look at this mess. Didn’t he ever file anything?”
“Not so far as I know.” Women did that kind of thing for Dad, but his office is sacred ground.
Was .
Jake swears, flicking open each drawer in turn. “This will take forever,” he says under his breath. “Can you get me a table, Mike? Maybe one of those big folding ones, set up there.” He points to the Oriental carpet before the French doors.
“Are you seriously giving me a job? ”
“Are you seriously trying to delay it? The sooner we figure out the exact state of the corporation and uncover whatever plans Dad made for its future, the better.”
“Just seems a little fast.”
“And what’s going to change if we sit here and cry for a day?”
I shake my head and look across the room before meeting his gaze again. “You really are an asshole, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and it’s too late for me to teach you that fine art, so just find a table, please.”
“Anything else, your majesty?”
Any sarcasm is completely lost on Jake. “No. That’ll do for a start.”
I head out and find a table in the basement. Amazingly, Madison is up and dressed. She helps me carry it into the study. “Hey Jake,” she says, but Jake dismisses her with a wave.
He’s loosened his tie and is scowling into the very crowded desk drawers. “I need an extra lifetime to sort this out,” he mutters.
“Ethan will need a ride home from the hospital,” Madison says quietly and leaves. I assume that means she’s going to Havelock.
“Why don’t you open that bottle of thirty-year-old Scotch I gave Dad a decade ago.” Jake points with precision. “It’s in that liquor cabinet, sealed like the day it came from the distillery.”
“Hardly seems like the time for a celebration,” I say.
Jake braces his hands on his hips. “All right, how about this: there’s no point in buying the really good stuff if you’re going to keep it locked away until you can only use it to clean your drains.
I’ve had a shock. You’ve had a shock. I’ve driven half the night.
You’ve been up all night. We deserve a shot, not any bloody coffee. ”
There is logic in that. I turn away to find the bottle.
“What did you say to him anyway?”
“Me?”
“You look freaked. Tell me.”
“Well, first I quit. That was earlier in the evening.”
“Probably not without provocation.”
“I don’t think so.”
But Jake isn’t listening to me. He’s frowning at a piece of paper. “Who keeps a receipt from a barber? It’s four years old.”
I shrug, because the answer is obvious.
“Then I took issue with him keeping my daughter from me and threatening her.” I crack the seal on the bottle, get out a couple of glasses and pour.
Jake looks up and blinks. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Then I have taught you something. Definitely worthy of celebration. Make mine a double,” Jake says. “No ice.”
I’m tempted to tell him that I’m not a waiter, but he’s shaking that receipt.
“And who pays fifteen bucks for a haircut?”
That’s easy. “Anyone who goes to Barney downtown.”
“You’re kidding me. Fifteen bucks?”
“If it was four years ago, he probably left a two-dollar tip to round it up.”
Jake squints at the receipt, apparently incredulous. “He did. He wrote it in.”
That makes me feel better, oddly enough.
“How much do you pay for a haircut?” I ask.
“Eighty bucks, one-fifty if I need highlights.”
Highlights? “Is that with the little foil packets?” I’m kind of loving that mental image of Jake and it makes me smile.
Jake looks annoyed. “So what if it is?” He waves the receipt and changes the subject. “And what was this for ? Why did he save it? Did he think he was going to get a tax credit for making a charitable donation?”
I get a big trash can from the kitchen and Jake makes a picture-perfect toss of the crumpled receipt from Barney’s Barber Shop.
We clink glasses and he lifts his to toast the huge photograph of Dad that hangs over the fireplace. “Godspeed, you old bugger,” he says and I nearly spill my drink.
Then I echo the toast, the truth starting to sink in.
He’s never going to yell at me again.
I am not going to miss that.
“What happens next?” I ask after we’ve sipped and savored.
“This,” Jake says, heading back to the desk and lifting everything out of one drawer. He takes it to the table and fortifies himself with another sip before he starts to sort. He’s fast, about every third thing going into that trash bin.
“Can I help?”
“Better done by one person. I can keep track of what’s here and what’s not.” He pauses for another fortifying sip. “You should maybe go ’round to Weatherby & Bradshaw, give them the bad news and ask about the will.”