Bad Heiress Day (20 page)

“You know,” Palmer remarked, stirring his own coffee, “that’s some unusual set of circumstances you’ve got there. I don’t mean to sound forward, but guys like us dream of things like this. The possibilities. The options. The challenges. It’s enough to make any number cruncher’s heart beat faster.” The guy was genuinely excited. Not a greedy
kind of excited, but an unassuming, this-is-gonna-be-fun kind of excited.

Funny, Darcy thought,
fun
’s not the word I’d use for it.

“It goes without saying, though, Mrs. Nightengale,” he continued, his tone of voice changing completely, “that I’d much rather you had found this on the street. I’m sorry for your loss. The intricacies of estate management are difficult enough. I can’t imagine having it made that much more difficult by all you’ve gone through. Please, don’t ever let my enthusiasm let you think any differently.” He really meant it. You could see it in his eyes. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Thank you,” Darcy replied. “Please, call me Darcy.”

“I’d like that,” he said, his smile warm. “Welcome to my office, Darcy. I hope we’ll be able to give you some really valuable help here. Coffee okay?”

Darcy took another sip. She liked people who went through the trouble of using real creamer. Especially flavored creamer. “Fine, thanks.”

“I’ve heard the basic facts from Jack on the phone, Darcy. Why don’t we start with your story? Tell me how all this happened, and what your thoughts are on where to go from here.”

Craig Palmer listened attentively, his mechanical pencil busy jotting notes and figures as Darcy told the story as best she knew it, from beginning to end. He seemed impressed by her idea of The Restoration Project. He asked sensitive but important questions about the source of the funds in the first place, and double-checked his notes of portfolio balances and current holdings. He complimented Jacob the Kindly Lawyer on his job of managing the funds with only an attorney’s grasp of financial planning. Most revealingly, though, he told Darcy that her fa
ther must have been a unique and extraordinary man to have left such a challenging bequest.

“I’d like to meet with you again in about two weeks—if you’re so inclined,” Craig concluded, pushing a pair of small bound booklets for each of them across the desk. “In there you’ll find a set of references, and some questions that will be crucial to our planning process. It’s not a test—” he laughed, evidently catching Darcy’s concerned expression “—they’re mostly questions to help you think through your goals and needs.”

“That makes sense,” said Jack.

“There’s another major topic I want to put on the table here. Darcy, I know you left your part-time job to take care of your dad. That’s had its toll on your family finances. I can only begin to imagine the mental war going on in your heads with the needs, resources and demands you’re facing. These are dry times, and you’ve just been handed gallons of water.”

Darcy’s heart nearly stopped. Hadn’t she used that very image the first time The Restoration Project exploded into her life? There was no way Craig’s choice of wording had been chance. She fought the urge to shake her head in disbelief, dragging her attention back to what Craig was continuing to say.

“…You’ve got kids heading into college and I’d be willing to bet your 401-K looks as sick as mine. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in the next few months. Still, you’ve got to contend with Paul’s wishes and the emotional side of things.” Craig came around to sit on the front corner of his desk. He tapped the booklet Jack was holding.

“What I want you to see is that I believe there’s room for it all in there. I especially want you to consider setting up a formal foundation. It sounds complicated, but with
the right guidance it can have lots of benefits. Sure, you could just write checks off the accounts like you’ve done with your—what’d Jack call it? The pilot test group?—but you’ll need the structure of a formal charitable foundation in the long run. A foundation that will need someone to run it.”

Craig looked straight at Darcy, and there was something in his eyes that made her stomach do flips. A connection, an understanding, a something. “What I’m saying, Darcy, is that I don’t think you should have to choose between your dad and your family. Your new job can be as head of The Restoration Project on a part-time, salaried basis. That means you’ll not only have the time that will need to be devoted to get this project off and running well, but also that you will have complete control over your schedule and workload. The project gets the attention it needs, and you can meet the needs of your family.” Craig smiled a huge, warm grin. “Everybody wins.”

Craig Palmer had seen her needs, her family’s needs and her dad’s vision, and pulled all three together in a spectacular solution.

And Jack had been wise enough to call him.

In her mind’s eye Darcy saw God, standing in Glynnis’s hen-coated kitchen, leaning against the counter with his arms folded.
Do you see now, child? Would you give me just a little credit for knowing how to do things? Could we have a little conversation about your trust issues?

The image struck her as irreverent at first, but Darcy decided it was intimate and loving instead. She had no doubt God hung out in The Henhouse. She was coming to see He hung out just about everywhere she went. In that instant, Darcy realized her earlier prayer had been answered. Hadn’t she just asked God to stay close?

What a relief to know He had no plans to leave in the first place.

Craig extended a hand. “It’s a lot to take in. Look over the booklets, talk it over, see what your gut tells you. I think there’s a happy ending for a lot of people wrapped up in this. I’d like to be the guy who makes it happen.”

Darcy clutched her booklet and shook Craig Palmer’s hand firmly. “Thank you, Craig,” she said.

And she meant it.

W
hile she was volunteering in the school library the following Monday, Darcy’s cell phone went off. It was Kate, begging for a tea date as fast as possible, and not taking no for an answer. She wouldn’t say why, only that it was a pleasant surprise.

By the time Darcy entered J.L.’s, Kate had already secured the table and a pair of steaming mugs. “I want to know what you did,” she burst out.

“Did what to what?”

“It’s to
whom,
not what. Your answering machine has two messages on it. One’s from Meredith, and the other’s from me. I decided, however, that I’d much rather tell you in person.”

Darcy dunked her tea bag, surrendering to the force of nature that was Kate Owens. “Okay, so what did I do to
whom?
”

“Michelle Porter.”

Oh. Darcy should have guessed. Given the way that
visit had gone, communication from Michelle could have meant a dozen things. If the woman had chosen to contact someone else, Darcy could only guess her visit had done more harm than good. Still, she couldn’t get that conversation, those tears, the image of a little hand-painted casket, out of her mind all weekend. Darcy had sent up a hundred tiny sighs of prayers, her heart aching for the young woman handed such a cruel indoctrination into motherhood. Most of those prayers didn’t even have words, just moans of “Oh, Lord…” for who could
know
what her needs were? Who could survive such a situation? It was the best example of
God only knows
…ever conceived.

“Oh, Kate,” Darcy moaned, “it’s heartbreaking. And I made it worse, didn’t I? I knew I made a mistake going there, letting her know who I was…I thought I could help her. I thought I knew something of—”

“Dar.” Kate’s hand clamped down on Darcy’s. “Dar, she said yes. You convinced her. You.” Kate’s broad, warm smile spilled out over the room. “You done good, girl.”

“She said yes?”

“Well, I admit that according to Meredith she’s still mighty nervous and not at all sure, but she’s willing to try, and that’s a big step.” Kate took a big sip of tea. “What did you say to her?”

“I don’t even remember. It was so awful. So much unfair pain. She looked like she was hanging on by her fingernails.” Darcy looked at Kate. “Do you remember those newborn days? How you thought you’d never make it through the day, how you’d never sleep again? Now imagine all the medical stuff and grief and strain piled on top of it. It hurt just to look at her, Kate. Her eyes were this
horrible, empty, hopeless place. I was on the verge of tears for hours after I left her house.”

“But you must have gotten through to her somehow.”

“I guess so. I don’t know how. I just told her how much it hurt, I suppose, to see the empty aftermath when Dad died. How I needed a life to go back to, and woke up one morning to discover I didn’t have one. At least, I think I said that. Kate, I don’t remember anything except wanting to cry.”

“I think,” said Kate, staring into her tea, “that it’s just the fact that you’ve been there. That you know something of what it’s like. The rest of us, we can only guess, but you’ve been there.” Kate looked up. “Does she have any friends? You know, someone she’ll take with her?”

Darcy was struck, suddenly, by the tone of Kate’s voice. A thin wisp of “second fiddle,” a sense of not being the major player in this project. Nothing could be further from the truth. There would be no Restoration Project without Kate, exactly because Kate was the force of nature she was. It was Kate who pulled her from the wreckage when Dad died, just as much as Jack had—maybe even more so. Kate had been the lifeline, the glimpse of hope, the person to walk her back from the edges.

“I hope she has a Kate,” Darcy said, her voice catching. “Everybody needs a Kate. You can’t do this without a Kate.”

Kate didn’t respond.

“Don’t you see?
You’ve
been there, too. You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to
watch
someone go through this. To see the—” she stumbled for the right word “—the disintegration happen and not be able to stop it. To lose your friend to a crisis. You know when to step in and shake them up, and when to let them wail.”

Kate blinked wet lashes and pointed a cookie at Darcy. “Don’t you make me cry.”

“I can’t help it.” Darcy grabbed Kate’s hand and squeezed it.

They were silent for a moment, catching each other’s wet glances. Then Kate took a deep breath. “Do you think The Restoration Project should put out its own brand of waterproof mascara?”

They laughed. Kate could always make her laugh. And oh, how many times they had laughed with wet lashes in the past months. She was a lifeline.

“Yep. Right behind our own brand of chocolate-covered graham crackers.”

“What? And put the Keebler elves out of work? That’d be heartless.”

Later that night, Darcy found Jack in the dining room, Craig Palmer’s brown booklet spread open before him. Jack had his laptop open to his left, a stack of scratch paper to his right and a pile of Monopoly money spread out in front of him. Darcy leaned against the doorway, the school sweatshirt she had picked up off the steps still in her hands, and took in the amusing picture. Jack was being Jack. Running numbers. She was always amazed at how fast he could work a numeric keypad—it was like typing for him, instantaneous and as quick as his thoughts. Over the years, she had come to love the
tic-tic
of Jack’s hands over a calculator—or lately a keyboard—as he worked through his numbers. Jack. Solving. Finding order. Analyzing. Securing.

The Monopoly money, though, was a new twist. She walked into the room and picked up a pink five-dollar bill. “Visual aids?”

Jack didn’t even look up. He gave a grunt of sorts, that universal male signal for “I know you’re in the room,” but it was clear he hadn’t heard a word.

“Do not pass Go, do not collect one million dollars?”

Grunt.
Tic-tic-tic.

“Jack?” Pause. “
Jack!
”

“Hmm?” Jack blinked and looked up, pushing his glasses back up from where they’d slid down his nose.

Darcy folded the sweatshirt over one of the tall backs of the dining room chairs. She leaned over the chair, gesturing toward the sloppy piles of play money. “What’s with the Monopoly money?”

Jack blinked again, as if he hadn’t quite understood the question. Then, as if he had just come back from Imaginary Number Land, he suddenly became aware of his surroundings. “Oh, that.”

“What’s up?”

“The kids were playing in here earlier. I just pushed it aside so I could work.”

Darcy laughed. It was just like her to create connections, draw relationships when none were really there. To assume a simple mess was a premeditated strategy. But it
was
funny to see Jack crunching numbers surrounded by imaginary millions.

And millions that were all too real.

She pulled out the chair and sat down, collecting beige one-hundred-dollar bills into a pile. “So what do you think?”

Jack took off his glasses. “Palmer’s good. He’s on top of things. There’s a lot of intricacies to this, and he seems to know his way around them. Plus, anyone who handles Ed’s portfolio has to be top-notch, I’d imagine.”

“He looks like he’d be Ed Bidwell’s finance guy.”

Jack grinned. “One of four. Can you imagine? Having a finance
staff?
No wonder the guy drives the car he does.”

Darcy tapped the pile of bills into a neat stack. “Jack, you’re drooling.”

“Am not.” He put his glasses back on, then shot her a playful look. “But the thought has occurred to me. Who knew I married into money?”

“Little Orphan Heiress is not amused. In fact, she’s considering beaning you with her tiara at this very moment.”

“Hey, watch out. My finance guys can beat up your finance guys.”

“Your finance guys
are
my finance guys. And they’re not even our guys yet, Jack.”

Jack’s face took on a serious look. “They should be.”

Darcy folded her arms. She was coming to the very same conclusion. She liked Craig. Craig’s solution sounded just too good to be true. Were they taking Dad’s last request and twisting it to their own liking? Or was it just that Craig could see more clearly, unencumbered by all the emotional baggage of grief? She’d pored over the brown booklet herself the past few days, and it seemed to make such sense. Trouble was, she didn’t trust her concept of sensible when it came to the subject. “I do like him,” she offered, “and he seems to make sense. But doesn’t it feel just a little too good to be true? Too easy.”

“Well, I don’t think I’d call it easy,” Jack replied. “This is some complicated management. He can see more possibilities because of his skills. And he of all people knows the work involved in managing—and in giving away—that kind of money. You and your dad, you both have all kinds of emotional issues tied up in this money. Craig’s objective. He can see things differently.”

Darcy ran her hands through her hair and blew out a breath. “I suppose. I don’t know why I’m hesitating.”

Jack closed down the spreadsheet program and shut off his laptop. “Your being on staff for The Project means that not only will you be seeing to the needs of this family, but you’ll be taking the time and energy to make sure your dad’s wishes come true. So much good can come out of something so regrettable. I think that’s exactly how Paul would have wanted it. I mean, really, if your dad was in the office with Craig and you and me, what do you think he’d say?”

“Don’t you see, that’s just it? I thought I knew him. I thought I knew everything about him. Now I discover these big huge things that he kept from me. I don’t know how to answer that question anymore.”

“You know, it would be ideal if we could find out why your dad did this. Why he didn’t feel he could touch that money.” Jack pulled his papers into a neat stack. “We’re all just guessing at why he didn’t touch it and didn’t tell you. And I don’t think his letter clears it up much, either. If you knew that, it might tell you what he’d do now in your shoes.” He held the papers still for a moment and looked at her, his face intent and serious. “But…”

“But what?”

“You may never get to know, Dar. I mean, really, there’s no one to ask. Pastor Doug doesn’t seem to know, most of your dad’s friends didn’t know, your mom’s gone, Aunt Jenny’s downright dangerous. There’s no one left to ask. Face it, Dar, there may be no way to find that out. Ever. We need to think this through with what we’ve got here and now, because I think we may never know the why of it.”

Jack was absolutely right. And that was an awful thought. “I hate that I don’t know. I hate that he kept this
from me. I—I’m trying really hard to let it go, but I can’t forgive him for that yet.” The emotion welled up in Darcy, grabbing at her throat with greedy fingers. “I don’t know what it’s going to take to let it go.”

Jack stood up and came behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head before he let his chin rest there. “Time, I suppose.”

“Why, Jack? What would possess him to do something so strange?” She let the tears come, unable to stem the pain that seemed to come up from out of nowhere. “Why would he think of that money as so evil it couldn’t be touched? Who would argue with him deserving it? He lost his wife. I lost my mother. That driver lost control of his car and he hit Mom. It’s not our fault that he wasn’t insured. That money was rightfully Dad’s. There’s so much he could have done, travel, comforts, things he deserved. Why? I want to know
why?
” Darcy buried her face in Jack’s arms, gripping them as they held her. Try as he might, even sensible Jack would never be able to make sense of this. It would never make sense. Ever.

“I don’t know,” he said softly, his cheek against her hair. “I don’t think we’ll ever know.” After a while, he added, “So we’ve got to go on without knowing. You and I. We’ve got to work through this together. We don’t know what Paul would do. So we’ve got to decide what Jack and Darcy will do.” He came around on one knee in front of her, stroking her hair. “You could twist yourself inside out, Dar, trying to figure out your dad’s motivations. But if you ask me, it’ll just make you crazy. It’d be better for everyone if you and I just try to decide where to take it from here.”

It sounded right to Darcy. Jack’s voice had the solid ring of truth. It was a scary thought to think it was all up
to her, but it was the truth. Jack was right; she could make herself nuts trying to figure out her dad’s strange relationship to that money. She might never know the whole story. And she could either choose to let that eat her alive, or choose to move past it.

“Look at it this way, Dar. Would Paul have ever come up with The Restoration Project?”

“Dad?” Darcy sniffled. “Never.”

“And look what that idea has done so far. You told me yourself the women in the trial run have been really helped by it. That was
you,
Dar.
Your
ideas,
your
way of doing what your dad asked.” He stroked her hair. “Trust yourself to know what to do. Trust yourself to take it from here.” He looked at her as if she could run the world. For the first time, she realized how much The Restoration Project had amazed him. You could see it now, in his eyes, that he believed in it. That he believed in her.

“I trust
you,
” she offered, sliding her hand over his.

“I think we can trust Craig, too. Your Dad loved your creativity, how you connected people together to make something happen. How you made sure the kids always had what they needed. I think he’d give his blessing, if he could.”

“Maybe he has.” Darcy thought about the Bidwells and Kate and Michelle and Meredith, and each person who had come into her life over the past year. What an astounding, amazing adventure it all had become. What a blessing each person was. “Maybe he has.”

Jack pulled her up off the chair and wrapped her in his arms. She felt his sure strength seeping into her, melting away the shivers of uncertainty. She pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to his breath, taking in his heartbeat. She closed her eyes and breathed, pulling in the solid air around him. Around them.