Chapter 5
Somehow, Bonnie made it home in one piece.
After staggering out of the bank, she’d sat in her car and chugged a water bottle from the emergency supply in her trunk. That was enough for her to pull herself together and drive home. Truth be told, she was still in a daze when she walked through her front door.
Nothing that she’d learned this morning made any sense whatsoever. It didn’t seem possible that Peter had managed to accumulate so much debt and lose so much money—especially without her being any wiser. He hadn’t so much as made a suggestion to cut back on the budget or live more frugally. For goodness sake, the wine she had last night was a three-hundred-dollar bottle she’d bought a week before Peter died. It had come in a case, the rest of which was stored in the wine fridge in the pantry. He had been sitting right next to her in the living room when she placed the order. She couldn’t fathom why on Earth he’d kept quiet and let her make the purchase if they were in financial trouble.
Something wasn’t right.
There was a detail missing somewhere.
Somebody had to know what was going on, and Bonnie planned to get to the bottom of it. This was shaping up to be a full-scale crisis, and she wasn’t about to sit idly by while her life crumbled around her. She’d kept it together when the police knocked on her door to tell her about the accident, and she’d kept her head up through the awful week of funeral arrangements—and the eternal funeral itself. She refused to get knocked down by a little paperwork issue with the business.
Dizzy, angry, and overwhelmed, Bonnie shut herself in Peter’s den to make some phone calls. First up, his attorney. Peter kept an old Rolodex on his desk with all of his contacts in it. Even though they were all programmed into his phone, he had always told Bonnie that the best backup for the cloud was a hard copy, so that’s what he’d made. A Rolodex couldn’t get corrupted or lost in a data breach. It was one of his favorite little rants; she couldn’t have ignored it if she’d tried.
Charles McCleod’s card was easy to find. The edge was soft and almost frayed from frequent references. Peter and Charles had golfed together, in addition to the client-attorney relationship they’d forged over many years. Bonnie knew she could count on Charles to talk to her as both an attorney and a family friend. He would know what to make of all this nonsense. She’d seen him at the funeral yesterday, and he hadn’t given any indication that there was trouble beyond Peter’s untimely passing.
If he wasn’t panicked, Bonnie wouldn’t panic.
She dialed his number and waited. The line rang and rang, going on longer than she thought possible before clicking over to his voicemail. Irritated, she hung up.
He might be with a client or out to lunch. She’d try him again later. For now, she turned her sights on the next most likely candidate: Peter’s business partner, Mike. She didn’t even need to look up his number. Over the years, she’d invited his family over for dinner parties and barbecues so often she practically had the number memorized.
But he was as elusive as Charles. There was no answer from his cell phone, business phone, or home phone. Bonnie tried Charles again twice more, and then all of Mike’s numbers again. The longer she waited for someone to pick up, the worse she felt. Anger and dismay swirled in her stomach, making her nauseous. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think they were avoiding her calls.
The expensive bottle of wine from last night was already open, so she figured she might as well keep drinking it. That, at least, might take the edge off the waiting. She poured herself a healthy glass and walked outside to get some air. It was too stale and still inside the house. She needed a breeze on her face and the sound of birds in her ears if she had any hope of staying calm.
She settled into an Adirondack chair on the deck, under the shade of the big oak tree that hovered over half of the yard. From there, she could keep her back to the house and stare out at the perfectly manicured lawn. It wasn’t quite so perfectly manicured now, though. Peter had always kept it in line. One of his favorite ways to spend a Saturday morning was pulling weeds and taking care of the lawn. Like the rest of Bonnie’s life, she thought, the grass had seen better days.
Bonnie’s favorite Saturday morning activity had always been calling her daughter to catch up. Before Jackie left home, it had been routine to get up early and make pancakes together, but she had to learn to adjust as Jackie grew up. That was what Bonnie was best at. And she’d do it with this new situation, too—as soon as she knew what she was adjusting to.
However, the thought made her miss her daughter fiercely. Despite seeing her the day before, Bonnie wished she were home. She’d left too soon, and Bonnie could have used a friendly shoulder to lean on today. She didn’t want to lean on her children for emotional support, but Jackie had always been such an empathetic child. She knew how to listen. Bonnie thought that was part of what made her so good at sales. She could make a client feel seen and understood, and that won them over to her side quickly.
Bonnie dialed her daughter’s number. It was the middle of the day, and Jackie was busy, but she couldn’t help it. To her surprise—and delight—she picked up.
“Mom? Is everything okay?” Jackie’s high-pitched voice filtered through the line, giving away her concern.
She hesitated a moment, not wanting to scare her daughter. Yesterday, she mentioned being behind on a big sale she needed to close today. There was probably too much on her plate to also handle hearing about the disaster of her father’s businesses.
Jackie had an incredible work ethic. Bonnie had watched her rapidly rise through the ranks at her company, impressing her bosses and blazing past sales records month after month. She was able to succeed like that because she had such steadfast support. Bonnie knew that in order for her daughter to fly, she had to be ready to catch her, not weigh her down.
“I’m all right,” Bonnie said with as soft a voice as she could muster. “How did the sale go? The one you were worried about.”
“It’s looking good. We’re meeting with the clients for, hopefully, the final time this afternoon. I really think I can close it. They’ve been really receptive so far.” Jackie’s attention faded, leaving Bonnie to believe someone had just passed her office to say something. “I’ve only got a few minutes to chat, though. Are you sure nothing’s bothering you? You sound a little funny. Maybe it’s time you talk to that grief counselor I mentioned.”
The grief counselor wasn’t a topic Bonnie wanted to get into at all. She knew how to process her feelings and didn’t need to sit around in a circle with other widows to discuss them. None of that would bring Peter back, or undo whatever had happened with his businesses. It wouldn’t give her children back their father or give her a companion to spend her golden years with. As far as Bonnie could tell, all the grief counselor could do for her would be to help her bottle up and stuff down all her feelings like her children seemed so capable of doing.
So she opted to offer a little of the truth about her day instead. “I just had a bizarre morning, is all. I went by your father’s office to see how things were getting on since he passed, and it appears that things weren’t going so well for him.”
There was a short pause on the other end of the line, and when Jackie spoke again, there was significantly less background noise, like she’d shut the door to her office. “What do you mean? Are you having money trouble?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s that serious yet, no. I haven’t been able to get ahold of Charles McCleod yet, but I’m sure it’s not as dire as the landlord’s lawyer made it seem.”
“Lawyer? Mom, that sounds serious. Did Daddy owe rent to his office building?”
“Yes.” Bonnie sighed, not wanting to get into the specifics with her daughter. “But I’m taking care of it. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“I’m already worried. What were the building’s contingency plans? You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where there’s a lien on the house or something. What about business insurance? There’s probably a policy somewhere. Was he working on anything, like maybe considering filing for bankruptcy? It’s not like Dad to be reckless with finances. Have you seen the balance sheet?”
She could barely keep up with Jackie’s questions, which came through the line at a mile a minute. She didn’t want to admit to the staggering debt or that the landlord wouldn’t let her see any of the paperwork until the rent arrears were paid. She also didn’t want to admit to her daughter that she didn’t understand half the questions she threw at her.
Whatever insurance the business had, Peter had taken care of it. Everything about that was his area of expertise. Thinking about it all day had given Bonnie a headache. She took a long sip of her wine while Jackie kept talking, hardly noticing how little her mother responded to her barrage of questions.
“What did Mike say?” Jackie asked.
Finally, a question she could answer. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of him, either. All of this is very recent. I didn’t have any plans today other than dropping by the office to see how things were operating without your father. There hasn’t been time to do a proper investigation of anything. I’ve been so busy with all the funeral arrangements that the rest of our lives kind of fell by the wayside for a minute.”
“Of course. You’re grieving, Mom. It’s okay not to have all your ducks in a row yet. But you should at least take a look at the life insurance policy. If Daddy’s businesses really weren’t doing well, then you’ll at least have the funds from the insurance to give you a buffer so you’ve got time to figure out what you’re going to do next.”
Bonnie almost smacked her hand to her forehead. Of course! It seemed so obvious the second Jackie said it. Peter would certainly have had a life insurance policy. He was such a careful planner, and he took so much pride in taking care of Bonnie and the family. He never would have left them with nothing but debt. Bonnie remembered how solemnly he’d promised her that she would never want for anything when he proposed.
Back then, she thought he was awfully sweet, though maybe a little na?ve. Then, year after year, he’d proven he was as good as his word. He had given Bonnie and the kids a good life, building their own personal Wilkins family safety net piece by piece throughout his life. Certainly, life insurance would be part of that net.
“You know what, sweetie? I haven’t looked at the policy yet. That’s the next thing I’ll do, while I wait for Charles or Mike to call back. I’ll let you go—I don’t want to take up too much of your time before your big meeting this afternoon. But I love you very much.”
“Love you too, Mom. Call me if anything else comes up.”
Bonnie hung up the phone and exhaled slowly. She didn’t know for sure what the life insurance policy was or how it would work out, but now she had a purpose again—it was time to track it down and figure out exactly what kind of safety net Peter had left her.