One Year (39 page)

“M
egan, good to see you again.”

“And you, Sarah,” Megan replied, shaking the hand of her colleague. “How's the family?”

“Fantastic. My daughter gave birth to her fourth child last month.”

“Fourth? Wow. Girl or boy?”

“Another boy. Mark my words she's going to try one more time to get it right.”

Megan laughed and took the seat Sarah indicated. Sarah Simons was a professional fund-raising consultant and one of the best at that. Over the years she had done great work in helping the CPEE find money from a variety of sources, and most recently she had been responsible for raising twenty million dollars to fund a new wing of an esteemed art museum in Chicago. If anyone could help save the Oliver's Well Historical Association from the meddling Wynston Meadows, Sarah Simons was the most likely one to do it.

“So,” she said, seated behind her desk, “you said on the phone this isn't about the CPEE.”

“It isn't.” Megan outlined what had been going on with Meadows and the OWHA, and how she had gotten herself a place on the board—“a miracle, that”—with the admittedly crazy hope of ridding the association of the Great Man. “So far,” she went on, “they—we—haven't seen a penny of the promised first installment of five million dollars. And the CEO tells me that Meadows has refused to formalize a payment schedule. If you ask me, he has no intention of forking over the money.”

“He's bad news,” Sarah said shortly. “Everyone knows that. People who aren't compelled to do business with him don't. Personally, I think he's mentally unbalanced.”

“From what I've seen so far, I think I agree. Look, here's the thing, Sarah. The OWHA is financially sound. They don't need Meadows's money to survive, but they do need it—or they think they need it—to buy a big, important piece of property known as the Branley Estate. It would be a real coup for them and a benefit for the town as well as for the entire region. The buildings are in bad shape, but after restoration they hope to open the place as a museum.”

Sarah nodded. “And you want me to do a feasibility study, define the board's goal, outline how much money it really needs to raise to buy the property and then to restore it to at least some of its former glory?”

“Right. And then I want you to work your real magic by finding potentially interested donors and putting me in touch with them.”

“Private donors in this case, since you're not approaching them through formal procedures. Am I right?”

“Yes. The other members of the board know nothing about this yet. And I don't want them to know unless—until—I've found my money.”

“So we're not looking at government funding or corporate sponsorship or even foundations with grants to give.”

“Is that going to be a big problem?” Megan asked.

“It shouldn't be a problem at all. Not to be indelicate, but who's going to pay for my time and efforts if the board doesn't even know about me?”

“Me,” Megan said. “I'm your client.”

“I don't come cheap.”

Megan smiled. “I'm aware. But I've got the money.”

“And what the hell, I'll give you a discount. It'll be fun to try to undermine Wynston Meadows, even in a roundabout way. That is what you're trying to do, yes? Kick him out once you've secured pledges from more reputable donors?”

Megan nodded.

“All right, Megan,” Sarah said. “Let's sign the papers.”

“Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for believing in my impossible dream.”

A
lexis and Maureen were at the Pink Rose Café having an afternoon coffee and what Maureen liked to call her “unnecessary constitutional necessity.”

“I saw Mary Bernadette this morning,” Maureen said, wiping powdered sugar from her chin. “I just decided to show up. Frankly, I can't believe she let me in, but she did.”

“Really? How did she seem?”

Maureen grinned. “In fine form. Charming the nurse who delivered her breakfast into giving her extra butter for her toast.”

Alexis laughed. “I guess before long she'll be back on Honeysuckle Lane, directing and dominating the Fitzgibbon clan!”

“Looks like it.”

Alexis quickly glanced around the café to be sure that no one was in eavesdropping distance. “I have big news,” she said. “PJ has agreed to see a couples therapist.”

“That
is
big news! Hopefully this therapist can help sort things out.”

“Did you try to save your marriage when it started to break down? Did you ask Barry to see a counselor?”

Maureen smiled ruefully. “Oh, yes, I tried all sorts of things to make the marriage work, but Barry wasn't interested in our future together. At least I had the moral satisfaction of knowing that I was willing to forgive him and give the marriage another chance. Cold comfort, but better than nothing.”

“His loss,” Alexis said, reaching for the last piece of her chocolate croissant.

Maureen shrugged. “I'd argue if I could.”

“Are you in touch with him? Do you know where he is and what he's doing?”

“We're not in direct contact, no,” Maureen said. “There's no reason to be, not since we didn't have children. But he lives in Smithstown and on occasion I hear a snatch of gossip. He's been married twice since our divorce. Divorced twice, too. I don't know why he bothers getting married in the first place. He's clearly not cut out to be a husband. He can't even
spell
monogamy.”

Alexis laughed. “I'm glad you're over him.”

“Me too. Although it did take some time. It's amazing how attached we become to people even when all they cause us is misery. Barry treated me shabbily from the first—not that I saw that then!—but I found myself missing him when he'd gone.”

“Habit?” Alexis wondered. “A relationship becomes a habit, good or bad.”

“And people need habits, don't they? If everything that happened to you and everyone you encountered was always new and changing, life would be unbearable.”

Alexis nodded. “I don't mean to equate my husband with something as mundane as breakfast, but if I don't have this particular kind of bread I like every morning, toasted with bitter marmalade, my entire day is somehow—wrong. I want my life with PJ to be that sort of habit. Without him it would just be—wrong.”

Maureen laughed. “I'm not sure I'd tell
him
about the toast analogy, but I get your point.” She ate the last bite of her donut and wiped the last speckles of powdered sugar from her hands. “You know, I'm so happy that you're taking steps toward a change for the good. Do you remember when I told you to let PJ know you needed a path of your own, something that belonged only to you and not to the family?”

“Of course I do. It was the day you rescued me.”

Maureen smiled. “Be that as it may, I have a confession to make. I'm afraid I haven't followed my own advice.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that I haven't been brave. I haven't been decisive. Sometimes . . . sometimes I think that after what happened to me—the bad marriage and the messy divorce, I mean—sometimes I think that I just . . . stopped. That I just gave up really living for anything other than this vague and far-off notion of ‘taking care of the parents.' I think I decided to be safe. Do you know, Alexis, that I don't even have a hobby?”

Alexis flinched. She recalled Morgan Shelby asking her about her life apart from the Fitzgibbons. She recalled having nothing to say. “Well, neither do I,” she admitted. “I used to before I . . .”

“And you will again. You'll have a passion all your own. I believe that.”

“But if I will—if I can—you can, too,” Alexis urged. “You've always seemed so strong. So
sure
.”

Maureen laughed. “I guess it's easy to seem strong and sure when your life presents absolutely no challenges and you've organized it that way. Look, I didn't mean to get all depressing. The point is that I'm proud of what you're trying to do for yourself, Alexis. Okay, I'm not your mother, I have no right to be proud, but I am.”

“Thank you, Maureen,” Alexis said sincerely. “I don't know what I would do without your friendship.”

“Without
your
friendship I'd have to eat my donuts all alone!”

Alexis laughed and looked at her watch. “Oops. I should get back to the office. When Mary Bernadette is back on her feet, the last thing I want her to find is a bill unpaid or the candy jar only half full.”

“And I should get back to good old Wharton Insurance. Not that anyone will have missed me. . . .”

“Maureen,” Alexis scolded, as the two women left the café. “You underestimate your charm.”

B
ack in Annapolis, Megan's campaign to replace Wynston Meadows's promised financing was forging ahead. Sarah's office had completed the feasibility study and had drawn up a detailed schedule for when money for the purchase and restoration of the Branley Estate would be needed over time. The results were heartening.

Ten million dollars would do the entire job—from buying the property to designing the restoration and through to the end of construction. One million up-front would secure the estate and get the restoration team rolling. Finding $1 million was doable. And Megan knew from experience that the hardest part of the fund-raising process was securing money up front. Afterward, especially once work had begun and the project was a reality, donors tended to come on board more readily.

Megan reviewed the list of potentially interested donors Sarah had provided. Some of the names were familiar to her; some were entirely new. Sarah had warned Megan there was a good chance that most if not all of them would make the complete and total absence of Wynston Meadows's involvement a prerequisite for their investing. “In fact,” she had said, “you might want to consider making that assurance up-front. The man has made a lot of enemies. But that's your call.”

“Hey.”

Megan turned around as Pat joined her in the office and sank into the chair by her desk. “You look tired,” he said.

“I am tired. I didn't sleep well last night.”

Pat frowned. “I'm worried about you, Meg. You're already stretched so thin, what with work and the charity and David's surgery looming.”

“It isn't
looming,
Pat. It's coming.”

“Meg.”

Megan sighed. “Look, Pat, don't worry. I'm fine. Really, I'm on top of it all.”

“It's not that I doubt your abilities.”

“I know.” She did know. Her husband had always been her greatest supporter.

“But I still don't understand why you're doing this,” he went on, pointing to the printed list of names still in Megan's hand. “Why have you taken on this Herculean task just for my mother? You don't think you can finally win her friendship, do you?”

Megan laughed. “No! Anyway, I've told you before I'm not really doing this for your mother.”

“Well, I certainly hope you're not doing it for me. I don't need you wearing yourself out for my sake.”

“Consider the big picture, Pat. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do.”

Pat rolled his eyes. “Meg, there's no need to be noble! Don't sacrifice yourself for the sake of the Fitzgibbon clan! We're not worth it.”

“Why shouldn't I do what I can for the family?” Megan argued. “I'm a Fitzgibbon, too, aren't I? And you know as well as I do that Mary Bernadette might be a lot of things, but she isn't a thief or a liar as Meadows has been implying. She's the most aboveboard person I know. And she's PJ's role model, or one of them, anyway. I don't want her tarnished in his eyes.”

“PJ is a big boy, Meg. He should be able to handle the fall of heroes and the debunking of cherished myths.”

“Still.”

Pat leaned closer to his wife. “Meg,” he said, “my mother has spent a lifetime hurting the people she claims to love. Whatever her deep, dark motives, and I told you all that Dad told me about what happened after William died, the result was bad. Can't you just forget about this crusade? Most crusaders don't come home alive, you know. And if they do, they're missing a limb or two.”

“No,” Megan said firmly. “I can't let it go. More to the point, I won't. I'm taking the bull by the horns, Pat.”

Pat sighed. “Just promise me that you'll walk away if things become too heated. Wynston Meadows—your bull—can be a brutal opponent. I don't relish the idea of my wife becoming cannon fodder.”

“Men and their war imagery. And what do cannons have to do with bulls?”

“I'm right in this case, Meg. Well, I guess I'll let you get back to the crusade.”

“Onward Christian soldiers. Now, I've got some calls to make.”

J
ust after seven o'clock Wednesday morning, Mary Bernadette Fitzgibbon suffered a heart attack. The call from the hospital came in on Grace's cell phone; she had asked the hospital staff to notify her or Megan, not Paddy, in the case of an emergency. Now Grace and her father stood in the waiting room at the end of the hall while her mother's condition was being evaluated. Paddy looked utterly drawn and defeated. For the first time since her mother had fallen ill, Grace felt seriously concerned about her father.

The elevator doors slid open and Pat came bursting out into the hall. “I got here as soon as I could,” he said, panting. “How is she?”

“I'm not sure yet,” Grace admitted.

Pat put his hand on his father's shoulder. “Dad, how are you holding up?” Paddy just shook his head.

The birth family is together,
Grace thought.
Dad and Mom, Pat and me
.
A unit unto itself. And where does William fit into this unit?

“What am I going to do if she doesn't make it?” Paddy said, his voice pathetic and thin. “She's my better half and always has been. How will I live without her?”

“Now, Dad,” Grace said quietly. “It wasn't a major heart attack, that much we know. Let's not jump to conclusions. Let's just wait until we hear again from the doctor.”

“Why don't you have a seat, Dad?” Pat led his father to a row of plastic chairs and helped him into one. Then he came back to where Grace stood, arms folded.

“Mom had better recover,” he whispered fiercely. “I realized there's something I've got to do while I still can.”

“And that is?”

Pat sighed. “I had a very illuminating conversation the other day with Dad. And then another conversation with Megan. Boy, that woman is smart. And then I got your call this morning. Suffice it to say, I'm finally ready to make some sort of peace with Mom after a lifetime of—of anger. Of bitterness. I want to ease my conscience. It's a selfish motive, I know.”

“But that doesn't make it wrong. And maybe Mom will benefit from a reconciliation, too.”

“Maybe.”

“An offering of peace is never a waste, even when it might seem to be.”

Pat frowned. “Putting positive energy into the universe?”

“Something like that.” Over her brother's shoulder, Grace saw a man in a white coat coming down the hall toward the waiting room. “Here comes Dr. Wesson.”

“Ms. Fitzgibbon,” Dr. Wesson said as he joined them. “And—”

“Mary Bernadette's son, Pat.” He held out his hand and the doctor shook it. The three walked over to where Paddy was sitting.

“How is she, Doctor,” Paddy asked. “How is my wife?”

Dr. Wesson smiled. “She's stable and resting. It wasn't a major episode, as I mentioned earlier, and as she was right here in the hospital we were able to take action immediately. The worst that can be said is that this will delay her release a bit longer. We'll want to keep an eye on her for a few more days.”

Pat wiped his hand across his eyes. “What a relief. I mean, that Mom's okay. When can we see her?”

“Now, if you'd like.”

Grace offered her hand to her father and helped him to rise. “See, Dad,” she said. “There was no point in worrying.”

Paddy managed a feeble smile and the family followed Dr. Wesson to Mary Bernadette's room.