Listen to Your Heart - Fern Michaels [47]
“Of course I understand. Listen, let’s make some coffee for you before we start to talk business. Your mother and the aunts came to New York last week. They aren’t happy. They were doubly unhappy when I told them you were unavailable. The cornmeal plant will be closed the first of June.”
“No, we’re not closing it. We’re going to sell it and split the profits with the workers. That will take them past retirement. No one is going to get shafted. I’m working on something for my mother that I think will make her happy. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Are you listening to yourself, Paul? Who in the hell in their right mind would buy that archaic company? What kind of money are you talking about?”
“Me. I’m going to buy it. No one has to know that but you and me. Whatever it takes to do this is what I’ll pay. You’re in charge. Just don’t leave a paper trail, okay?”
“You’re talking some big bucks here, Paul.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll sell this apartment, my stock, my entire portfolio. The whole ball of wax. If I have to, I’ll sell the house in New Orleans. As I said, whatever it takes. How upset was my mother?”
“Did you ever see smoke coming out of someone’s ears? She was breathing fire. But I had this weird feeling it was all an act, Paul. I think it was for the benefit of the aunts, who, by the way, didn’t say boo.”
“Did she make her usual threats?”
“No. I was prepared for anything she might throw at me. She gave up on that company a long time ago. I could tell. She goes through the motions, and that’s it. It’s a way of life. She knows it’s operating in the red. I also told her it wasn’t negotiable. Very kindly of course. I think I’d feel a lot better if you told me what your game plan is in regard to your mother.”
Paul told him. “If we can find my niece and come to terms with my brother-in-law, I’m hoping she’ll finally be happy and she won’t begrudge my leaving. Maybe I’m fooling myself. It’s the best I can do.”
“Are you having any luck, finding any leads that look like they might pan out?”
“Right now they’re looking up birth certificates. The detective seems to think my niece Nancy might have married and had children. He’s trying to track her that way. You know, maiden names and all that. He seems hopeful, so that makes me hopeful. We’ll find her—it’s just a matter of when. I’m hoping for Mother’s Day.”
“I hope it works out. You ready to get down to work?”
“I will be as soon as we order dinner.”
“Then let’s get to it.”
“Where are you going, Marie?” the aunts asked in unison.
“To the jardin. I need to think.”
“Chère, are you going to think about premier-né?”
“My firstborn? No, June is gone. I gave up hope of ever seeing my granddaughter again. Jamais.”
“Never ever is a very long time,” the aunts said with one voice.
“Yes, it is. I need to sit quietly and think about my son, homme de consequence.”
“If Paul is such a man of importance, then why is he closing the plant?” the aunts questioned.
“Because it is losing tons of money. It is a business decision. It must be. We can do nothing about it. Somehow, some way, he will make things right. I feel it here,” Marie said, thumping her chest.
“Then why did we go traipsing into New York? We missed our programs for two days.”
“We went because it was expected. It was the right thing to do. I voiced our objections. It no longer matters. Go, make some lemonade or sweet tea. I’ll be in in a little while.”
Marie knew they were watching her from the kitchen window, so she turned her chair around so they wouldn’t see her tears. How was it that she was coming to the end of her life and was so bitterly unhappy? She had hoped against hope that Paul would be in the corporate offices when she got there. She’d had a speech all rehearsed—a careful speech in which she bared her soul and asked for forgiveness. For years now she had fought him tooth and nail for the cornmeal plant because it was the only communication they had. She could vent her anger at herself and him as well. All surface words that never got to the depth of