Bad Heiress Day

Chocolate, Grease & Diet Coke

Cincinnati, Ohio

September 15, 2001

“Lovely man.”

“Such a waste. Sixty-five is still so young these days.”

“I’m sure his faith was a comfort to him.”

Platitudes—sincere and otherwise—were flying fast and furious in the narthex of the Ohio Valley Community Church. One woman spent a whole ten minutes telling Darcy Nightengale what a pillar of the community her father had been. The next woman smiled as she told Darcy how the universe now welcomed her father in his new state of pure energy. After that last “unique” remark, Darcy’s husband, Jack, softly hummed the General Electric theme, “We bring good things to life” in her ear. It made her laugh. A small laugh, but it was a gift none the less.

Somehow, the fact that a joke could still be made—in the current state of both the world and the family—was a foothold of hope. The Tuesday of this week, September 11, had been a day of national tragedy. Thousands lost their lives. Darcy had lots of company mourning a loved one.

For Darcy, though, September 11 was more still. September 11 was the last day she saw her father’s eyes. The last day he spoke. For a man who’d been dying for months, Paul Hartwell chose a really lousy last day on Earth. It was like a cruel afterthought to lose her father in the early hours of September 12. The day after the world shook on its foundations. Darcy remembered looking up from the hospice center bed in the roaring, breathless silence, and wondering if anyone would even notice.

But they had. The church was crowded with friends offering their sympathy. It had been a rough day. Between the ceremonial pressure, the endless handshaking and the spurts of intense conversation, Darcy was running on adrenaline. After the months of dying, Dad’s death felt more like the finish line of a long and weary marathon than any kind of mourning. She had stood beside Dad and seen him through to the end. Literally. When she dared to be honest, Darcy admitted that woven in through all the grief was a clear gleam of relief. Jack put his hand on the small of her back, as if holding her up, as an older woman told tales of Paul’s kindness to her little dogs.

“That’s the last guest,” came a deep voice behind her. Ed Parrot was the epitome of a funeral director, subdued and dignified. Except that he had a voice like Darth Vader and a body just as large. The fact that he always wore a black suit just intensified the effect. It made for a creepy image every time he spoke to her—as if the telltale Vader breathing sound effect would kick in at any moment. He took her hand in his with an experienced clasp. With an exhale he looked into her eyes and said softly, “It’s over.”

Over. What a potent choice of words.

His expression told Darcy that he meant both the best and worst of it. Here was a man who knew how grueling the rituals of grief could be. The time would come soon enough when the small box of ashes would go to their final spot, but this day’s duties were done.

Done. The word hung in Darcy’s thoughts like the last chord of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”—the one that echoed on at the end of the record for what seemed like forever.

“Kate’s in the driveway,” Jack said suddenly, loosening his tie. Darcy noticed that Jack and Mr. Parrot were exchanging looks. She raised an eyebrow.

“She’s going to go take you to dinner. The kids and I will head back home—I rented a movie for them and bought a vat of popcorn.”

She blinked. It hardly felt like time to hit a restaurant, but she couldn’t even form a coherent protest.

Jack kissed her lightly on the cheek and pressed his hand into the small of her back again. “Go, hon. You need it.”

In that moment, seeing her own weariness reflected in Jack’s eyes, Darcy realized she did.

Boy, did she.

Only a best friend like Kate Owens would know to do this, and only Kate would dare.

When Darcy walked out the church’s back door, Kate was in her little red Miata convertible. On the passenger seat was a pair of Darcy’s jeans, a T-shirt, sneakers, the instantly recognizable red-and-white stripes of a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken—extra crispy, Darcy was sure, with extra biscuits—and a box of chocolate-covered graham crackers. Darcy wanted to cry for the understanding of it all. Jack and Kate knew, even before she knew it herself, that what she needed most at this moment was to unwind and do something that felt normal.

Kate’s smile made words unnecessary. She winked back a tear and said, “We’ll hit Graeter’s Ice Cream Parlor if you’re still hungry later, but for now, let’s get out of Dodge.”

“You betcha.”

Kate reached over and opened the door. “Get in, girl.” She pulled the car out through the parking lot’s far exit so that they didn’t have to pass any of the lingering guests Darcy saw talking to Jack. Jack was earning Husband of the Year points for this one, to be sure.

Speeding onto Victory Parkway, the evening’s cooler air washed over Darcy like a balm, whipping her hair and streaming around her upstretched fingers. The weight of the last two hours slowly eased up off her shoulders. Of course, wiggling out of the control-top panty hose within thirty seconds of being in the car helped matters, too.

They stopped at a United Dairy Farmers convenience store to switch clothes in the ladies’ room, ditching their somber suits for the familiarity of jeans and T-shirts. Darcy felt as if she began to breathe softer air.

They ate on benches in Overlook Park, the quaint pond behind them, the river valley stretching out before them. In a silence broken only with sighs, the pair watched the Ohio River wind its way under the bridges. The serene scene spread out in postcard-style perfection. Bit by bit the evening sky appeared, washing the landscape in pastels and pinpricks of light. You’d never even know New York was still smoking.

Kate licked her fingers loudly and she threw yet another bare drumstick bone into a paper bag. “We just raised our cholesterol a dozen points, you know.”

Darcy chuckled. “I don’t care. I’ve never enjoyed a bucketful of drumsticks so much in my life. But shame on you for getting all dark meat. We’d probably have added only five or six points if you’d have sprung for all white.”

“No way. This was pure indulgence. White meat would have been too responsible. And just for that ungrateful remark, I’m going to eat all the cookies!” She made for the package, but Darcy lunged first.

“Over my dead body!” she yelled, then stopped short at the choice of words. They both held still for a moment. Oh man, just when she’d actually almost forgotten about it for a while. Even her own language couldn’t get out from the death all around her.

Kate tore open the cookie package and handed a stack to Darcy. “It rots,” she declared sharply. “It just rots. All of it. Your dad, those terrorists, the planes. My kids think they’re going to be blown up if they go to the mall. It all just rots.”

Darcy had to admit “rots” was putting it rather bluntly, but there was a useful truth in Kate’s choice of words. Fourth-grade-style vocabulary aside, it felt good for someone not to try to put a sympathetic, comforting spin on whatever they said to her. It did rot. No amount of greeting card-worthy verse would change that. “It does,” Darcy agreed. “It rots. It rots!”

They looked at each other. “It rots!” they yelled together, listening to the satisfying way it echoed over the steep hillside. So they did it again. Granted, it was childish and undignified, but it felt wonderful. When they began to laugh from the ridiculousness of it all, Darcy didn’t care who else in the park stared. No matter what the shape of the world this week, she needed to laugh far more than she needed to care who saw it.

“Oh, if Thad could see me now, he’d turn purple from embarrassment,” Kate said behind a mouthful of chocolate and graham cracker.

“That son of yours has heard worse. Actually, by the eighth grade, Thad’s probably said worse.” Darcy plucked another cracker from the plastic sleeve. “Actually, I think ‘rots’ is rather restrained given the circumstances. I can think of far worse words that apply. A dozen or so, to be exact.”

They fell quiet again for a while, pondering the sorry state of the universe.

Kate finally broke the silence. “I went to the safe-deposit box.”

“And…” Darcy’s heart did a small, tense somersault.

“Well, it was just like you said. They weren’t going to let me near the thing until I showed them the letter you wrote and about twelve forms of ID.”

“I suspected as much.”

Kate turned to her. “Dar, why did you want me to do this? This is your dad’s box we’re talking about. Private stuff and all. Why me?”

Darcy leaned back against the bench. “I dunno. It just seemed like one too many things to do. There’s been so many picky details in the last couple of days I just couldn’t handle one more.”

Kate leaned back to meet her eyes, not letting her off the hook. Darcy knew Kate would get into this with her. “So have me fetch flowers or drive Aunt So-and-So someplace, but why the box?” Kate pointed at her with the half-eaten end of a graham cracker. “I know you, Darcy. You’re avoiding something. What did you think would be in there?”

“I don’t know what’s in there,” Darcy said, more sharply than she would have liked. Why did Kate always have to know her so well? Of course she was avoiding it. With the bombshell that’d been dropped on her at the lawyer’s office, she was terrified to find other secrets lurking in her dad’s private affairs. She thought she knew everything about her dad, that nothing had gone unspoken between them. It had been a comfort of sorts as she was forced to watch her father’s long, agonizing exit from life.

Just goes to show how wrong a person can be.

Dad had left a great big secret for her to find. Intentionally hid it from her—at least that’s what it felt like. Now she discovered Dad had left strict instructions with Jacob the Kindly Lawyer for her to remove the contents of the box upon his death. What now? What else was going to come crashing down upon her head?

Darcy didn’t want to ignore her dad’s instructions, but she surely didn’t think she could handle another startling revelation at the moment. Things were feeling as if she were on The Jerry Springer Show as it was.

Kate wasn’t backing off for a second. “Darcy. You knew something was in there. Something big and worth going to all this trouble to avoid.”