Family Merger

“Are you sure everything went okay?”

Ron had called Ted the minute he got back to the house. It was 7:21 a.m. in Geneva. Time to be preparing for the second day’s meeting. He was the one who was up past his bedtime. More than six hours past.

“Lord Hradschin is in favor of the merger,” Ted said. “There’s nothing that old pirate likes as much as money.”

There really wasn’t much that was difficult that had to be done during the first few days. It was mostly laying out the plans for the merger, explaining how they meant to restructure the company, answering questions, giving the costs and income projections. Ted was good at making difficult things sound simple and Ben could make you feel good about a root canal, but could they read the people, know who was going to be trouble, figure out the arguments necessary to bring them around, figure out how the politics played into the decision? That had always been his job.

“Don’t move to a second point until you’re certain everyone understands the first one,” Ron said. “It’ll only get worse as you go along if they don’t.”

He’d already rejected the idea of flying back to Geneva in the morning. Something had happened to him when Cynthia suddenly broke into tears and ran from the room. This wasn’t the same as having a tantrum, sulking or being obstinate. She was deeply hurt, and he had no idea how to fix it.

Kathryn said she could teach him to understand his daughter if he really wanted to. He couldn’t imagine why she would have any doubt. He had left his meeting just as it was getting started. What more proof could she want?

“Call me if you hit a snag. I’ll have my cell phone with me… No, I don’t know when I’ll be back. In the next couple of days, but I can’t say exactly when.”

He was certain Kathryn would say he’d need more than one session, but he didn’t have time for more. If she was as good as she thought, she could teach him everything he had to know in a couple of hours. After that it shouldn’t take him more than a day to sort things out with Cynthia and get her back home.

“I’ve got to go. If I don’t get some sleep, I’ll be a zombie. You’ve been wanting a chance to do this on your own, so make the most of it.”

He hung up the phone and fell back on the bed without bothering to take off his clothes. He would undress in a minute, just as soon as the muscles at the back of his neck and shoulders unknotted enough for him to move his arms. Then it struck him, the million-dollar question.

Had he screwed up so badly with Cynthia she wouldn’t give him another chance?

He hoped not. Their relationship wasn’t perfect, but they’d been going along with only an occasional bump until this pregnancy thing happened. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the boy who’d done this to his little girl. It was always the boy who was so anxious to have sex he didn’t stop to think of the consequences.

“Is Daddy really going to let you try to teach him to understand women?” Cynthia asked Kathryn over a bowl of oatmeal sprinkled with brown sugar and pecans.

“That’s what he says,” Kathryn replied. “But he may be too angry at me to listen to anything I say.”

They were sitting in the breakfast alcove in Kathryn’s bright, cheerful kitchen. Sunlight streamed in through the windows despite the canopy of oaks that shaded the backyard.

“How can any man be angry at you?” Lisette asked. “You’re beautiful.” She had requested French toast, which she had promptly drowned in a sea of maple syrup. She had yet to swallow the vitamin and calcium pills that Mrs. Collias had placed by her plate.

“My dad never notices women, even when they’re as beautiful as Miss Roper,” Cynthia said. “I used to think it was because he could never love another woman after my mother died.”

Kathryn couldn’t imagine a man as handsome, energetic and vital as Ron Egan ignoring women. She was certain women didn’t ignore him. She hadn’t been able to.

“That’s so romantic,” Lisette cooed.

“Now I think it’s because he’ll never like any woman as much as he likes his work.”

“But he’s rich,” Lisette reminded her. “All rich men like beautiful women, and he isn’t even ancient with a potbelly and bald head. Please tell me he’s not fifty.”

Kathryn couldn’t help laughing. “Fifty is not ancient, Lisette. You wait until you get there.”

“I never want to be fifty,” the young girl said. “I want to die while I’m still young and beautiful, just like Princess Diana.”

“Well, speaking as one who has passed her thirtieth birthday, I can tell you I plan to live well past fifty. And I don’t intend to become an old hag in the process.”

“Of course not,” Lisette said, smiling as she popped a vitamin in her mouth and followed it with half a glass of orange juice. “You can have all the plastic surgery you want.”

“Will you do that?” Julia, the third of four girls at the table, asked.

“I hope to age gracefully.”

“Why would you do that when you could still look young and beautiful?” Lisette asked.

“Because I want my husband to think of me as a wife and companion, not as someone who’s concerned with nothing but her looks. I want to enjoy every phase of my life, to live each age honestly whatever its challenges.”

“Kerry doesn’t want me to look old,” Lisette declared. “He wants me to be as beautiful as possible. I want to go to parties, wear beautiful clothes and have men follow me with their eyes when I walk past.”

Kathryn decided somebody needed to explain to Mother Nature that some girls, regardless of their age, were just too young to have babies. Lisette should have been at the top of that list. This wasn’t about rich husbands or beautiful clothes. She was about to become a mother. It was about learning to act with the maturity and responsibility necessary to make her a good mother.

“I want lots of children,” Cynthia said. “I want a thousand pictures of when they learn to walk, start school, go on their first dates, of their proms and their graduations. I want books of pictures of their weddings, even more of their children. I want movies, too. After Mama got sick, she used to watch movies of me when I was a baby. She said I was her touchstone. She said as long as she had me she never felt lonely.”

“Kerry will never leave my bedside when I get sick,” Lisette said. “He’ll be holding my hand when I die.”

“Has your father dated?” Julia asked Cynthia.

“No.”

“He must have loved your mother very much,” Kathryn said.

“Both of them were only children whose parents died early,” Cynthia said. “I think they were friends more than lovers.”

“Would that bother you?” Kathryn asked.

“It would bother me,” Lisette said. “If Kerry doesn’t love me to distraction, I’ll divorce him.”

“Mama said she was happy because she had me to love,” Cynthia answered. “Maybe a woman doesn’t need more than that. What do you think?”

Kathryn realized what she thought was uncomfortably close to Lisette’s feelings. Her own mother had been content to spend most of her married life waiting for her husband to return from business trips. When the split came between her sister and their father, her mother had backed their father’s position without hesitation. Away at college at the time, Kathryn had been too furious to give any thought to her mother’s position, but now she wondered. Could a woman be happily married to a man who was away from home more often than not?

“I can’t speak for anyone but myself,” Kathryn said, “but—”

The sound of the doorbell caused her to break off. Lisette bounded up from her chair. “It’s Kerry. He can’t stand to be separated from me.”

“He must stay in the living room,” Kathryn called after her. “I’ll be in as soon as I fix my coffee.”

“Do you think their parents will let them get married?” Julia asked as the door banged shut behind Lisette. “They’re nuts about each other.”

“It will depend on what Kerry’s father says when he gets home.”

“Where is he?”

“On a business trip. No one seems to know when he’ll get back.”

“My dad was on a business trip, too, but he came home right away.”