Bad Heiress Day

“Look,” said Kate, “why don’t you let me take the kids tomorrow morning so you and Jack have some time to sort this out. They’ve canceled soccer practice and Thad is going nuts because I won’t let him turn on the TV.” Kate rubbed her eyes, and Darcy thought for the first time how long this day had been for her, too. “I don’t want him seeing all the stuff that’s on right now—some paper showed a photo of someone jumping from the Twin Towers yesterday.” She shook her head. “Everybody needs a distraction—something normal feeling. The kids can get together and play and then I’ll take them out for pizza.”

The images from the paper had left Darcy feeling cold herself. “The gates of hell” one fireman in New York City had called it. Her father was to have spent his last day at the gates of heaven, not watching the gates of hell open up in New York City and Washington, D.C. It killed her inside to know that such a gruesome day had been Dad’s last hours on earth. Cruel.

“Dar…?”

“Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.”

“I’ll pick them up at nine-thirty. Go get some sleep. It’ll all still be here in the morning. All of it.”

Darcy picked up the chicken bucket and the bank box from off her lap. She sat still for a moment. “Thanks.”

Kate just nodded.

Jack looked up to see Darcy coming through the front door, her hands full of clothes and boxes. She looked better. Exhausted, spent, but some of the tension had eased from her shoulders. He’d have to thank Ed Parrot for his suggestion next time he saw him.

Darcy tilted the boxes so that the bucket of chicken slid to the coffee table in front of Jack. “Let me guess,” he said, pulling off the lid, “extra crispy, all drumsticks.”

She smiled, sort of. “There’s even a few left. Dig in.” There was an explosion on the television and she turned to it. “Let me guess, Live and Let Die or You Only Live Twice?”

Jack grinned. “Both. It’s been that kind of day. Plus, it was two-for-one at the video store.” They knew each other so well. He paused in thought before asking softly, “How are you?”

Darcy kept staring at the television. “I don’t know. Okay, I suppose. But not really. Tired.”

An idea struck him. “Go get your pajamas on and come watch. The bad guy is just about to reveal his plan for world domination.” They used to do it all the time. Zap up a bucket of popcorn and watch Bond flicks in their pajamas.

Darcy returned, clad in soft pink cotton, and sat down beside him. Without a word, he wrapped one arm around her. With his other arm he pulled the throw from off the back of the couch and tugged it over her. She lay her head on his lap and exhaled. He felt her soften against him as he stroked the blond waves of her hair. How long had it been since they’d had time to do this?

Just as the last drumstick was gone and 007 was getting his girl, Jack looked down at Darcy to notice she’d fallen asleep. Her breathing was soft and peaceful. The knots gone from her shoulders as she lay against him.

When the movie was over, he hit the VCR remote and watched the blank blue glow of the TV screen fill the room. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and legs and picked her up. Jack held her there for a moment, the sensation taking him back. Back to when they were younger, before kids and middle school and dying parents and flaming office buildings. They would watch Bond movies on the couch and Darcy would always fall asleep. Always just half an hour before the end. The feeling of her asleep against him was warm and familiar. He’d scoop her up on those nights, like he did just now, and carry her to the bedroom.

There, in the blue glow, that younger woman returned. So much had changed. It’d been months since he’d seen her look like that. She’d been exhausted and beaten down by the endless care of her dad. It was like the life was draining out of both of them at the same time. She’d aged a dozen years in the last two months. Their life had dwindled down to Paul and everything else fell second to him.

And so much of everything else fell second to him.

She smelled of chocolate. They’d been to Graeter’s. Mint chocolate chip, if he knew her.

And he did. There was a small smudge of it at the corner of her mouth.

He kissed her forehead softly. She made a soft sound that hummed through him. No matter how unfair to Paul, Jack yearned to be the most important man in her life again.

“Movie’s over,” he said quietly.

They lay together later in the moonlight, listening to the night sounds waft through the open window. The moon had seemed harsh and cold when she’d been up nights with Paul. Now, the light poured rich and creamy through the window to play across Jack’s shoulders. She laid her hand on his chest and turned to rest her chin on it. Jack put an arm behind his head so he could look into her face. He smiled as he fingered a lock of her hair.

“Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

“You’ve been spending your nights with another man.” It was a tasteless joke, but somehow Darcy was glad for the irreverence. Everything had been so very serious for so very long.

She swatted him softly with her free hand. He caught it in his and held it. “No, seriously. There was something in Dad’s safety deposit box. About the money.”

That got his attention. “More stuff we didn’t know?”

“Well, not exactly. It was a letter. From Dad to me. For me to open after he died.”

“The guy had a flair for drama.”

Darcy couldn’t suppress a small smile. “This does sound like a bad novel, doesn’t it?” She paused, formulating the right words in her head. She hadn’t even wrapped her own mind around her father’s request, much less figure out how to explain it to Jack. “I’m not sure I even get it myself.”

Jack cocked an eyebrow, encouraging her to go on.

“Well, for starters, he told me where the money came from. It was from a settlement on Mom’s accident. She sued the old man who hit her—or at least started to—before she died.” Darcy’s throat tightened a bit at the thought of her mother, so bitter, angry and hopeless.

“I had a feeling that’s where it came from. Your dad was tight with a buck, but all that couldn’t have come from just clipping coupons. I figured it was from insurance settlements, though, not from lawsuits. Paul doesn’t seem the suing type.”

“There was a time when he was. Or Mom convinced him to be. He says—said—he tried to stop her.” Darcy still couldn’t get used to talking about her father in the past tense.

“And…” Jack was trying to help her, but somehow that only seemed to make it harder.

“They cleaned out the guy who hit her—he had no insurance. Once they got the money, though, Mom was already too far gone. Dad stopped wanting it, I guess. Hated what the lawsuit did to him, how it only ruined another life. Oh, I still don’t really get it. But he ended up promising her he’d never give it away.”

“So, what? He just hid it?”

“That’s a good way to put it, I suppose. He hid it. All these years. Never touched it.”

“Well, at least he had the good sense to find an interest-bearing hiding place.”

“I suppose. It seems sad, in a way.”

“It’s amazing when you think of it. All that money, just waiting, sitting. If I ever wanted to teach Mike about the magic of compound interest, I’ve got the ultimate real-life example. I’ve been thinking a lot about this Dar, and we’re going to have to do some serious research on how to manage it. The stock market is already taking a nosedive from the attack, and if we go to war, who knows what will happen? There’s a guy at work who’s really into all that stuff—”

“Jack,” Darcy stopped him. “There’s more.”

“Okay.”

“He asked me to give it away.”

Jack’s eyes flew wide open. “He what?”

“The letter asks me not to keep the money, but to give it away. He couldn’t—he’d promised Mom—but I can. At least that’s how he put it.”

Darcy could feel Jack’s chest tighten under her. Hadn’t she had the same reaction when she read the letter? “Well, that takes a lot of nerve. After all you’ve been through, after keeping it from you—from us—in the first place.”

“I know, I’m sick to death of bombshells going off around here.”