One Wish (21 page)

* * *

Grace had to take on a house she’d never known, not really. It had never been her burden to make sure it was cared for or staffed—that had been something women like Winnie were bred and raised to do. And Winnie was dying.

No matter how much Winnie might want to be in charge, it was no longer practical. Virginia called Winnie’s neurologist, the man who initially diagnosed her almost four years earlier. Dr. Halstead came to the house in the late afternoon the very next day. Grace understood that house calls were not typical for him, but he’d known Winnie long before she needed his medical expertise—they had served together on several charity boards over the years. He confirmed that Winnie had hobbled along with her disease for longer than was typical; now it was a matter of finding a team who could help manage her quality of life. When asked how long that life might last, his prognosis wasn’t positive. It could be as short as a few months, as long as a year but more likely something in between. Now it was down to staying comfortable and taking advantage of her mental acuity, which would probably be the last to fail.

“I live up the coast in a very small quiet town,” Grace told him. “I have someone looking for a place for Mother so I can be on hand, where I can see her every day. I don’t want her to have to go to a hospital.”

“That’s the best way. Most end-stage ALS patients require a great deal of support, but there’s no way to reverse the disease.”

The first order of business was moving a smaller bed into Winnie’s room. Virginia contacted a home health care service and since Winnie didn’t go through insurance or require approval, she arranged to pay top dollar for a couple of experienced nurse’s aides who would start helping out immediately, taking the burden of her personal care off Grace and Virginia.

And Mikhail.

“You’re still here,” Grace observed. “When do you plan to return to your team?”

“I think, much later. They’re in good hands. If they choose other coach, so be it.”

“I’m taking her to Thunder Point as soon as I can,” she reminded him.

“Thunder Point,” he said with a shrug. “Not so bad.”

“Are you planning to stay with her, then?”

“I have nothing so important right now.”

He was the perfect distraction for Winnie. He wasn’t ready to retire, but he wasn’t a young man at sixty-six. “I had no idea Mother meant so much to you,” she said. “All the years you coached me, you ran interference between Mother and me. You’re the one that kept me working and her in line. I didn’t know you loved her.”

“Love? Not the love you know,
pupsik
. We understand each other. It could be my life closing, not hers. She would not turn me out. Is family. There should be one person who doesn’t hate me on the other side. I’m not long behind her.”

But he was long behind her—he was strong, his health good, and this was a sacrifice for him. He was in demand as a coach, his business was still thriving. She knew he would be missed. She also knew that he could stay a few weeks and go back to his team, currently managed by coaching assistants, and pick up right where he left off. “I’m glad you’re staying awhile. Don’t get underfoot, now. Maybe teach Troy poker or something.”

There was a housekeeper who came in weekdays from eight to five. She was fifty-five, of German descent—the woman who had replaced Mamie. She wasn’t as warm and motherly as Mamie, but that might’ve had more to do with the fact that they didn’t really know each other. She seemed to have a wonderful rapport with Virginia, who was younger by only a few years.

Gretchen didn’t do much housework and only a little cooking. She was the manager of a big house—she hired and supervised a cleaning service, ordered groceries to be delivered and called local restaurants to bring in meals customized to Winnie’s needs. Virginia and Grace met with her in the kitchen and Gretchen was more than happy to stay on after Winnie was moved. After all, it was great pay for far less work.

Meeting her mother’s two lawyers was emotionally exhausting, but not because it was hard work. Just as Grace had suspected, Winnie had been prepared. She’d known for years that this was coming. Everything in the house had been cataloged, photographed and appraised, including jewelry. As for Winnie’s accounts and net worth, it had all been managed and audited—after all, the money was old. It wasn’t as though it was a new job.

Grace met briefly with a Realtor. She wouldn’t make a commitment and even suggested she wasn’t sure what she would do with this property, but she knew exactly what would happen. Whispered feelers would go out and when the time came to sell, there would be an auction. The house was a prime property.

It was all so huge to her. Even flying first-class, going to skate practices in a chauffeured car and owning her own business hadn’t really prepared her for the magnitude of her imminent inheritance.

But as Grace began to understand the full weight of it, she felt Winnie’s stress. It had been a life’s work. “Please don’t worry,” she told her mother. “I won’t let it be abused, stolen or ignored. I promise.”

“But what will you do with it?” Winnie asked.

“Just as you did, Mama. I’ll take very good care of it.”

“And the house and all these possessions?” she asked.

“I want you to be at peace about that. It’s all being guarded and cared for. And later, when you don’t need it anymore, I’ll go through it, claim those things that have sentimental value to both of us and then... Then there will be an estate sale managed by the company you suggested. If it will give you peace of mind, I can meet with them before I go home.”

“Grace, do you have to go home?”

“I have to get a place ready for us,” she said.

She wanted enough space so that when necessary she could stay the night with her mother, but she wasn’t planning to live in the house with her.

“You’ll need money. Virginia has some banking cards for you to sign for your checking account. And when you find that house, I want my bedroom rug, the Aubusson. And the antique dressing table. And the china. Not the expensive china, the Audun Fleur. And there’s silver that was my mother’s—if you don’t want to use it, I understand, but if there’s a granddaughter someday...”

Grace touched her hand. “I might not use some of my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s treasures, but I promise to keep them in case... There could be daughters one day.”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were daughters for you?” she said. “You will do so much better with them than I did.”

“I hope there are daughters and I hope I can love them as much,” she said, even though for so many years she had found fault with her mother’s form of affection.

“We got to the top, Izzy,” she said.

“Yes, Mother. Thank you for all you did.”

“No, Izzy. Thank you for doing it for me.”

Grace never thought she’d hear that! “We were a good team when it came to winning,” she said. She made a vow. When she had children, she wasn’t going to put the burden of her desires on them.

Every day exhausted her. She would see Troy on and off through the days. He poked around the house and neighborhood, went down to the wharf a couple of times and kept himself busy. He made friends with the maintenance men, pestered Gretchen in the kitchen, got lost in the library and spent some time on his laptop. She’d have dinner with him in the kitchen, fall into bed with him at night and sometimes she cried. She was losing the mother she had always loved, tried so hard to please and never really known.

Finally Tuesday came and it was time to go back to Thunder Point. She was so relieved, but frantic at the leaving. Virginia would stay, help get her mother to Thunder Point when the time came. Mikhail was planning on coming to Thunder Point, as well. Then Virginia would return to San Francisco. The housekeeper would remain to keep the house in order and in good repair until it was time to close it up. All the account information and household data was uploaded to accessible accounts so they were easy for Grace to oversee. She could call the accounting firm or lawyers whenever there was a question or request. The neighborhood and the house had private security; the contents had been inventoried, and her mother was in good hands with Virginia running herd on her health care providers.

The plane that Virginia arranged for Troy and Grace wasn’t a large plush jet, but rather a small Lear that returned them to Thunder Point in no time at all.

Grace wanted to tell him about the baby. Funny, in her mind it had gone from a positive pregnancy test to a baby. Oh, she was falling in love with the baby already.

But she was so tired after four days of getting things settled, she just fell asleep on the plane. They had a quick bite to eat on the way home from the airport then Troy helped her get her suitcase up to her little apartment. “I have to go home, babe,” he said. “I need to get ready for work in the morning. You going to be all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thank you for coming with me. Thank you for everything you did.”

“I didn’t do much. You handled it all. I’ll talk to you after work tomorrow.”

Nineteen

T
roy couldn’t count the number of times Grace had said “You don’t understand” when she was telling him about her childhood, her life as a competitive figure skater, her parents. Likewise, he couldn’t imagine how many times he had replied, “Of course I do, Grace.” Now, he realized, he really hadn’t. Grace had come from a world so alien to him he wondered if he would ever understand it.

Troy had never been around people with the kind of money it took to rent a jet or live in a mansion with a complete staff to take care of it. But of course there had to be a staff—no one could take care of something that big alone. The closest he’d ever come to that kind of wealth was knowing a guy who had a cousin who was a pro football player and bought himself a three-million-dollar house and a fast car. He couldn’t even remember what kind of car because of course he’d never seen it. Troy didn’t even read about rich people. He read about rafting, climbing, diving. He was scrimping to make his Jeep payments. Grace could probably pay it off out of her allowance.

Did Grace get an allowance?

He left Grace at her place and went home to his apartment, which was very quiet. It was also very lonely. He had only rarely spent a night alone since he started sleeping with Grace and he wasn’t thrilled about being alone tonight, either. Troy had never lived with a woman and he still didn’t, not officially at any rate. He and Grace each had their own place. Except he checked in with Grace at least three times a day and saw her when they were both off work. And stayed the night more often than not.

But right now he needed a little space and time to think. He thought he knew her inside and out, but after four days in San Francisco he wondered if he knew her at all. He was more than a little intimidated by the magnitude of her wealth. It made him feel like a failure by comparison. Intellectually he knew that wasn’t the case, but somewhere inside, he had that sinking feeling of not being good enough.

The next day, during his free period, he went looking for Iris, whom he considered his closest friend. She was a counselor and he needed counseling. There was a part of him that hoped she’d be busy with a student, because he wasn’t sure how he was going to put into words what he was thinking.

“Got a minute?” he asked, standing in her doorway.

“Sure,” she said with a smile. “Want to sit?”

“Thanks,” he said, sitting in front of her desk. But then he didn’t say anything.

“Troy? Problems with a student?”

He shook his head. “Listen, I don’t know how to say this, how to explain this, so if I sound like an idiot...”

“Just spit it out. We can rake through the idiocy afterward.”

“Can this be confidential?” he asked.

“Of course!”

“It’s about Grace. We’ve gotten pretty close.”

Iris smiled. “You two seem great together.”

“You know we’re not alike, right?”

She made a doubtful face. “You seem a lot alike. You laugh at the same things, you appear to be inseparable, she’s an athlete and you’re a pretty physical guy. I bet you finally found someone to play with.”

“But we come from completely different backgrounds.
Completely.
Did you know Grace is—” He struggled. “She’s well-to-do.”

Iris leaned back. “I heard that. I mean, she told me. It was pretty recently, when she was telling me about growing up on the ice-skating circuit. She said she had tutors and traveled the world to compete and I asked how expensive things like skating lessons were. Lessons for kids can be as much as ninety dollars an hour but coaching for world champions? It can be any amount, depending on the coach, maybe four hundred a day! Plus expenses. So I asked...”

“Her mother is rich,” he said. “
Old
money. Apparently there’s a difference,” he added.

“She didn’t make it on a dot-com,” Iris said with a grin. “I assume there’s enough so that it keeps growing itself. Not only was Grace born into it, apparently her mother was, as was her grandmother.”

“It might be billions,” Troy said.

“Billions? Come on!”

“I don’t know. How would I know? But here’s what I know after spending a few days at her childhood home. The house is bigger than four normal houses, and it takes a full staff to run it so just one person can live in it. There’s a full-time driver, even if he’s not driving much. I think her mother might have other houses—she likes to spend time in Cabo, in New York, in London. There’s art and jewelry and her mother can rent private jets anytime she wants to. I mean, she stinks with it. I’m serious.”

“Wow. Incredible. Sounds like the Gettys. You should look and see if they’re on the Forbes List.”

“I’m afraid to,” Troy said.

“Why?” she asked with a laugh. “She’ll still be your friend.”

“Iris, we’ve been more than friends. And I can’t relate to that kind of money.”

“Just as well,” she said, laughing. “It’s not yours. It’s hers.”

“Iris, could you please stop laughing. It makes me feel like a poor relation with his hand out.”

“You have your
hand
out?”

“Of course not! But that’s how I feel! Do you know anyone that rich?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Peyton comes from a pretty rich family.”

“She does?” he asked, shocked.

“Uh-huh. Her parents own one of the biggest farms in Oregon. Huge. They grow pears for Harry & David, potatoes for grocers, have a ton of sheep for the wool and now she says her father and brothers are into Christmas trees. Scott says it’s a huge family, almost all of them in the business, and her father has holes in his jeans and drives an old pickup with no shocks. He probably doesn’t have a twenty in his pocket, but his net worth is astronomical.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said. “Do they live in a big house?”

“Yes. With one bathroom. Eight kids, one bathroom. Try to imagine.”

“Okay, we’re not talking about the same thing at all. Grace has money to burn. I think if she started spending it now she couldn’t go through it all. Unfortunately for her mother, it’s in Grace’s near future.”

Iris sat back in her chair and chewed on her pen. “Troy, what about this is a problem?”

He shrugged and looked down.

“Spit it out before I start guessing.”

“I don’t feel good enough.”

“Ridiculous,” she scoffed. “Your individual incomes have nothing at all to do with your worth. After all, Grace didn’t earn hers, did she? She was born to it—that’s nothing but luck. You should start playing the lottery, maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“Tell me how to get past this,” he said. “My brain is telling me it makes no sense to feel this way and I don’t know why I can’t shake it. I’m a smart person. I don’t discriminate against anyone. What the hell is this?”

“I think it’s testosterone,” she said. “Really!” she said, her tone indicating some disgust.

“Where’d you come up with that?”

“It sounds like just another version of ‘let’s get ’em out and measure ’em, boys.’ Men have this competitive thing, this need for mastery. You have a hard time if you think you’re not in control, especially in control of your woman. Something about Grace’s family money makes you feel vulnerable and awkward. And yet the girl lives in a tiny loft! She drives a flower delivery van!”

“I’ve never been like that,” he said. “I’ve never been controlling toward women. If you knew my mother or sister, you wouldn’t even suggest that.”

“Then what is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just...I wonder what I could ever get her if she has everything. What can I do for her if she can pick up the phone and hire it done?”

Iris stared at him in wonder. She leaned toward him and her voice was disarmingly soft. “Troy, I want you to think about those questions—what could you give her, what could you do for her? When you come up with the answers, you will have solved the problem. I’m not going to be able to answer for you. But can I just tell you one thing?”

“Please.”

“The important things Seth gives me never come out of his pocket.”

* * *

Grace didn’t sleep as well without Troy as she had with him, but after all he’d done for her the past week, she’d never complain. She was up early, not because she was ambitious but because she didn’t want to struggle again and again to fall back to sleep. The look it left on her was less than gorgeous. After the past week, including her four days in San Francisco, she had dark circles under her eyes. She used a little cosmetic concealer and hoped she wouldn’t yawn all day.

She got into the shop early and found it was as clean as an ICU, her flowers all well cared for and chilling, her desk clear and the front of the store sparkling. Even the scarred, stained worktable had been scrubbed and if she wasn’t mistaken, the floor had been thoroughly mopped, something she didn’t bother with more than once a week. That workroom saw a lot of action and keeping it pristine was a never-ending task.

Ginger wasn’t due until nine but she came in at eight, using her own key. She was clearly surprised to see Grace and her face lit up with a happy smile. “Welcome home! How was the trip?”

“Productive,” she said. “And very tiring. I’m going to want to speak to Ray Anne at her earliest convenience. Is she awake?”

“Awake, already left the house and said to tell you she’s planning to come down to talk with you today, probably before noon.”

“Outstanding,” Grace said. “The place looks great, Ginger. It looks like you were scrubbing all night.”

“No, not at all. There wasn’t much business. I only tried my hand at one arrangement, which didn’t turn out too well, then I stopped. I didn’t want to waste flowers on practice.”

“Well, we get a new shipment tomorrow and since they’re mostly for the wedding, I’ll order yet another for Monday. Later today you can feel free to practice. Flowers that have reached their life expectancy have to be disposed of anyway.”

“It must kill you to throw away flowers,” Ginger said.

“It kills me more to get a phone call from a customer saying their centerpiece lasted two days! Fresh is beautiful, remember that.”

“Can I make you some coffee?” Ginger asked, going to the workroom.

Grace thought about it, then lied. “I’ve already had coffee, thanks. Go ahead, make yourself a pot. The minute we have time, I’ll show you how to use the designing computer programs I have.”

While they were in San Francisco, Grace had stayed away from wine and caffeine, though she could have used a full tank of each. She’d let Troy pour her a glass of wine, then nurse it. She’d take a sip and complain of being too tired to enjoy it and once she tipped it into a potted plant when he wasn’t looking. She poured coffee down the drain. No one seemed to notice. She wasn’t sure Troy would question it but since she wasn’t ready to confront it, she kept silent.

Tonight, however. Tonight it had to be done. She was afraid, of course. She hoped he wouldn’t suggest they terminate to give themselves more time, because in the days since she’d peed on the stick she’d been seeing a real, beautiful baby in her mind. Now there was no direction for her other than to have it, to hold it and love it.

It was late morning when Ray Anne came into the shop.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Grace said. “I’m afraid I have to do everything I can to find a place for my mother and quickly. I knew that old house in the Bay Area wasn’t going to work for her—everything is a challenge, from the bed to the stairs to the bath. We practically have to have her doctor flown in and she’s pretty much captive in that bedroom with no fresh air or—”

Ray Anne was smiling. “We’ve got the solution. Everything you need, everything you asked for.”

“Really? How’d you find it?”

“I’d love to take credit, but Cooper will rat me out eventually. He has three spec houses that can be occupied in three months or less and he’s given me the contracts.”

Her face fell. “Ray Anne, we don’t have three months.”

“Not to worry. The exteriors are nearly finished on all three and one of them only needs a little... Oh, listen, come with me, come and see. Ginger can stay here, can’t she?”

“She sure can,” Grace said. “She left the place better than I leave it!”

Grace jumped in Ray Anne’s car and they drove along the beach by the high road that wound behind the houses right down to Cooper’s bar. Stairs led from the bar and houses down to the beach, the structures being safely perched on the hill. Ray Anne parked in the drive of the house nearest Cooper’s, next door to Spencer and Devon Lawson’s home. There were a lot of trucks and construction equipment everywhere and Grace was immediately disappointed. “These houses look far from ready,” she said. “And, Ray Anne, they’re three levels! Stairs!”

“Oh, they’re not completely ready, but Cooper’s hoping to get contracts on them before the interior is finished so new owners can choose their flooring, paint, appliances, decorator items like wallpaper. Come inside, you’ll see.” She led the way and held the door open.

They stepped into a wide foyer that opened right to a large living room and dining room. Very large. “Twenty by twenty,” Ray Anne confirmed. Behind the great room was a nice-sized kitchen with plenty of cupboard space, once the cupboards were installed, that is. A breakfast bar divided it from the dining room and there was an island with a small sink. Straight ahead, a triple sliding door led to a wide deck. There was a fireplace on one wall, mantel unfinished. There were no countertops or appliances; the floors were plywood and still littered with construction trash. To the right of the kitchen were matching up and down staircases with crude railings in want of the finished decorator banisters. There was a door into the kitchen from the garage.

“This way,” Ray Anne said. She walked to the left down a wide hall. The master bedroom was in front, beach side, with a large en suite bath. French doors led onto the deck. A second bedroom was across the hall. There was a generous bathroom down the hall for the use of anyone on that floor. “Now listen,” Ray Anne said. “What do you hear?”

“Hammers and saws,” Grace said, again disappointed.

“But not as loud. And I have a solution for that. But consider this. We can get the flooring, appliances and bathroom fixtures in very quickly. Countertops would have to be rushed. You have your choice of cupboards—once you make up your mind about the wood type. They’re constructed off-site and installed in a day. Paint on this level would take two days.”