Twenty-Nine
The first morning of their married life in Rochester, the phone rang at the inauspicious hour of four in the morning. Helen Harper was on the other end of the line, calling to say Robert’s grandmother Concetta had died.
“Dammit,” Finn said, wanting to get into it with Helen Harper about a host of things, but not during this call. “Should I go to the hospital?”
“No, I just left. Everyone else is going home for a little sleep.”
“Why didn’t you call me earlier? I would have come over.”
“Well. Honey was there, for one thing.”
Finn practically jumped out of bed. “Why was Honey there?” Behind him, Nina groggily turned over. “What’s wrong?” she said. Finn waved her off.
“We needed someone from the family on-site, and we didn’t want to bother you during your”—Finn swore he could hear an ugly smirk in Helen Harper’s voice—“honeymoon.”
“‘We’?” Finn said. “Who exactly is ‘we’?”
“Dennis and me. We decided.”
Finn heard it all in one sentence—we decided—and within minutes of walking into the conference room at the main office Monday morning at eight, looking around at the faces of the board, he knew he was toast. He felt like a ghost at his own funeral.
Nobody directed a comment or question toward him; they talked around him.
All questions from the board about the salmonella incident, its aftereffects, the strategy going forward, were directed to Helen and Uncle Dennis.
When they got to the part about who could be the public face of this new strategy and Finn said he’d like to volunteer for the role, his uncle Dennis all but rolled his eyes.
The discussion moved onto his “package.” He wasn’t given much of a choice.
A person had died, a mother and grandmother and soon-to-be great-grandmother, and someone had to be held accountable.
He could retire early. (“With a handsome compensation package that will set you up beautifully for the rest of your life,” Dennis relished telling him.
Only he and Finn knew those were the exact words Finn had used all those years ago when he retired his uncle.) Or he could take a reduced role as the director of the Finnegan’s charitable arm, the Finnegan Community Foundation.
He’d draw a smaller salary, but his private stock options would be safe.
“The truth is,” Uncle Dennis told him when they had an awkward attempt at a conciliatory coffee many weeks later, “if Helen is as good as we both suspect, she’s going to make this family quite wealthy. ”
“What if I’m not interested in either of those options?” Finn said. “What if I want to fight this decision?”
“Take one of those packages,” Dennis said, “and I will guarantee you, in writing, that Dune’s future here as the eventual head of this company is solid and assured.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Leave it to chance,” Dennis said. “And fate. And behavior, of course.”
Finn looked around the room at the stone-faced board, most of them old friends or distant cousins.
Not a friendly smile in the bunch. Not a suggestion of a little wink and nod that he didn’t have to worry about Dune.
Dune, according to Honey’s clipped phone recriminations, was drinking too much and regularly passing out and oversleeping and missing school.
“I’ll take the foundation.”