6. The Last Will and Testament of Frances O’Shaughnessy （Melissa）
Chapter six
The Last Will and Testament of Frances O’Shaughnessy (Melissa)
T here were far too many people at the wake, all in one way or another resembling my father. It was disconcerting to be in the presence of so many people tonight after spending two weeks without anyone dropping by other than my friends.
Some of these people talked like him, others looked like him, and then some drank like he had done in life.
It wasn’t hard for me to connect the dots and realize that this was the estranged family that Dad had raised me to stay away from.
In life, he had done all he could to make sure that they never met us.
However it had, news of his death had traveled far and wide. For me, the last two weeks were more about answering dozens of calls from unknown numbers, asking for funeral details, the address of my house, and when the wake would be held.
I had been thumped on the back, clapped on the shoulder, shaken hands ferociously with, kissed on the cheek, hugged tightly, and wept in front of by no less than two dozen men and women, all of whom claimed to be my uncles and aunts.
Thankfully, my coven comprising of Natasha, Vanessa, Lindsey, Lisey, and Tony understood the assignment shortly thereafter and started hovering around me, blocking any more people from coming in my direction.
“Say the word and we’ll make you disappear,” Nat whispered in my ear at some point during the wake.
The sight of everyone sitting there, talking, playing cards, eating voraciously from the spread, and drinking away made me sick to my stomach.
How could they all behave this way, as if this were some sort of family gathering (which, I guess, it was) when my father had died?
It was like they were more excited to see each other than they were sad at Dad’s passing.
Come to think of it, they weren’t sad at all.
The way they threw their heads back to laugh, clapped hands, grinned from cheek to cheek, and talked of vapid matters, it was clear that they had never cared about my father, to begin with, and they weren’t about to begin now.
“You never told me you had this big a family,” Tony whispered from behind.
“She didn’t even know she had this big a family,” Lisey answered on my behalf. “If she knew, she would have told us.”
“Guys, would you be quiet for a second, this is her dad’s wake!
” Vanessa hissed from the front. Because we looked alike — as she had worn the same dress as me — some people were mistaking her for me and were offering their condolences to her, which, even though I was sad, I found hilarious.
She wasn’t the best at social interaction and here she was, poor girl, posing as me, shaking hands, nodding her head, and acting all somber.
“Okay, fine, Nat, you may take me away from here. Anywhere but here,” I said, feeling dread lying heavy on my heart. Nat easily pulled me through one of the doors, and the rest of the coven followed discreetly.
“You have a huge house,” Vanessa stated. “It must get very lonely, being here by yourself. You want us to stay with you for a night or two? We can do that.”
As touched as I was by their offer, I knew that I had to distance myself from everyone for a few days. Really process the fact that dad was no more. Hell, maybe this time if I’d go to his grave, Ryan wouldn’t be there. Why was he there in the first place?
I had no mental capacity to think about it. But I was still mentally capable enough to think that if he had just come there to goad me, it was probably the sickest thing anyone had ever done.
“I think I’d like to be alone, Vanessa,” I said, patting her cheek lightly.
“But what about all the wake attendants?” Natasha asked.
“They showed themselves in, they can show themselves out,” Lindsey said.
“Yep….or we can shepherd them out for you,” Lisey chipped in.
“You have done more than enough,” I said, holding Lisey’s hand fast and squeezing it.
Human touch was so understated at the time.
In the past two weeks, my friends hadn’t left my side.
At any time, one of them was either hugging me from the side, putting their hand on my shoulder, or simply holding my hand.
I was grateful to have them around. I was too rattled to make the funeral arrangements. Tony, Vanessa, and Lisey had made them for me. Nat had arranged for the wake. Lindsey had been with me, making sure that I had everything that I needed.
“You know what, girl? We’re gonna be around here just in case,” Nat said, snapping her fingers. “I don’t trust these people. If I see one of them leave with so much as a crystal ashtray, I’mma whup their asses. I don’t even care if it’s a wake.”
That got me giggling, the mental image of Nat kicking my relatives’ asses. Yeah, I’d pay to see that.
“Speaking of strange, untrustworthy people, girl, you know who that man is, giving you the side eye?” Lindsey wondered, nudging me and pointing at a suited man who didn’t look remotely sad.
Then again, nobody else looked sad, for that matter.
But this man, he wasn’t indulging in small talk with anyone around him.
I had never seen him before, but the kind of officiousness he was exuding unnerved me more than any of my ill-mannered wake guests.
What made matters worse was that when he saw us all staring at him, he walked over to us, briefcase in hand, hair as gray as ash, face withered with wrinkles and liver spots.
“Er…excuse me?” he said in a wheezy voice.
“Yes?” Natasha answered for me.
“I was hoping to speak privately with Miss Frances,” he said.
“Well, that depends on who you are, man,” Lindsey said, stepping up in front of me.
“As much as I admire this display of camaraderie, rest assured that I mean her no ill will. I am her father’s lawyer, come here to share with her the last will and testament of Frances O’Shaughnessy,” he said, adjusting his tie and pulling his cuffs out from under the sleeves of his coat.
“Oh,” I said, my throat clogging up, my eyes starting to sting again. It wasn’t until I had heard his name used in the second person, within the context of his will, that the realization hit me with the force of a sledgehammer.
My father was dead.
With my friends out in the drawing room, keeping an eye on the leaving guests, I sat in Dad’s study with his lawyer.
From the way he walked around the room, I gathered that he was already well-acquainted with the place and had been here many times before.
He was looking at a big golden frame hanging on the wall.
It was one of my father’s most expensive purchases in recent years.
A Charles Jervas original, he bought “Lady in Waiting” for fifty million dollars at an auction in Dublin.
“He’s left you the house, you know,” the lawyer, whose name I still hadn’t gotten, said.
“I didn’t,” I said.
“You may not know me. In fact, it was Hoffa’s principle never to mix business with family.
So, you might not know that your father was one of my oldest friends just as I was one of his.
I admired his insistence on keeping both worlds separate, but as a man of the law, I knew that one day, both worlds would collide.
It makes me sad to announce that today is that day,” he said and sat down in front of my dad’s desk.
I almost expected Dad to just come in from one of the doors, take his seat, and get down to business, telling me to get out of his study. When that did not happen, I slowly went to my dad’s chair and sat down in his stead, feeling extremely uncomfortable.
Dead man’s chair.
My intrusive thoughts were having a field day.
“Thomas Orpen, by the way. I should have introduced myself earlier. You, I know to be Melissa Frances, Hoffa’s daughter…and his only heir,” Thomas said, opening his briefcase and bringing out a file, which he placed in front of me.
“Do you get to be my lawyer too?” I asked.
“If you want me to, by all means, I would love to,” he said, smiling warmly.
“Then, you’re hired,” I said. “Now, as both my lawyer and Dad’s, can you explain the contents of the will while keeping in mind that all this has happened today, and I might not be in the right mindset to tackle such a big thing?”
“I completely understand what you mean,” Thomas said, putting his glasses on and opening the file. “I will keep it succinct. Credit goes to Hoffa, he kept it short and to the point himself.”
“Very well, then,” I said, finding that the longer I sat in Dad’s chair, the less uncomfortable it became.
But sitting here without him in the room felt depressing and downright dreary.
The wood panel walls, the shelves packed with literature, the crystal decanters and our pictures hanging on one wall — all these things reminded me of him.
It tugged at my heartstrings, making me want to burst out into tears and weep till I had no more tears left.
“I am certain that you know your father was a well-endowed man. A self-made man, at that. He may not have seemed it, but he was very creative with how he invested his money and managed the returns. Hoffa was one of the few men I’ve known who really knew how to make more money out of money.
He was bloody good at it, pardon my French,” Thomas said.
“Are you suggesting that he left me shares in companies?”
“Unfortunately, no. Hoffa did not believe in passing on his burden to his daughter. In the matter of his death, all the shares he had in the companies he’d invested in were sold back at an enormous profit.
Liquidating those assets yielded more than seven billion dollars, not counting all the money in his accounts,” Thomas said calmly, matter-of-factly, as if seven billion was chump change.
“S-s-even billion?”