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“Not at all. I think it has more to do with the fact that they’ve been working on getting themselves established. Come on, Merce. Let’s go and let me brag on my children for a few minutes.” She asked her if she knew they were grown men. “Not to me. Not ever.”
The table was set, and she was happy to see they’d put the flowers they’d gotten her in vases on the table and around the room. The chocolates were on her candy tray that had been her mother’s. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used this room. It had only been her and Del for a while now, and they usually ate in the kitchen.
After they filled their plates with the side dishes, Peter and Del brought in the steaks and chicken. She didn’t care for red meat, and they always made sure she had something to eat with them. Katie noticed that Merce didn’t take a steak either. But her potato was piled high with sour cream, chives, bacon bits, as well as cheese. However, Katie saw that she skipped over the salad.
“You had something to tell us.” Peter put some salad in a small bowl and set it in front of Merce as he spoke to Del. She promptly smacked his hand and put it back in the large bowl. “You need some greens to go with your dinner.”
“But Daddy, I had a salad last month. Doesn’t that count?” Everyone laughed, and Peter’s face turned a bright red. “I’m a grown assed woman, Peter. Leave me to my own eating habits, and I’ll leave your namesake where it is. Right between your legs.”
There hadn’t been this much laughter in their home for a while, Katie realized. The last time the boys had been home all together was last Christmas. And they’d been so busy it had been just the single day with them before they were running off again. This was, she thought, the best time she’d had in a long time. Even Delmar was laughing at the antics going on. Peter reminded his brother again of his story.
“Yes, all right. I had some appointments today to find out if there was someone local that could do this project for the new equipment we’re manufacturing. The first one I went to, the owner met me at the door. He wouldn’t even let me in.” Merce asked him if it was Mr. Donaldson. “Yes, that’s right. Do you know him?”
“Sort of. He’s an ass and thinks if he doesn’t make whatever is being made, it isn’t worth his time to get it put together. If you’d like, you can run the other names by me, and I can perhaps help you out. I won’t down mouth them, I promise. But I will be honest about their work.” Del thanked her and then glanced at her. Smiling at her youngest son, he smiled back. “There are three other people that can do the work but won’t. Capital is the biggest thing. But back to Mr. Donaldson. What did he tell you?”
“Just what you said. That he didn’t come up with the design, and he didn’t think—no, he said he didn’t work on subpar designs that would have his name on them. Then he proceeded to walk me back to my car. What a jerk.” Robert asked him about the job. Del explained it to his brothers as they ate their dinner. “After I left his plant, I called it into the office and had him investigated, just to be sure he wasn’t having other troubles. He is. Big time. This project would have gotten him out of the hole, but turning it down because he’d not designed it is going to put him under, I’m betting.”
“My dad will more than likely end up purchasing the company. He’s really good at that sort of thing. Buying up failing companies, then making them viable again. I should have mentioned to you earlier that Lowery Construction also owns Arts Designs, as well as Shepherds Works. They don’t do what you need, but they are very good at working around designs for logos as well as advertising.” Everyone at the table turned to Merce. “What? You can’t tell me you don’t branch out on other things as well. I mean, how do you think we’re able to afford to get the equipment we need to make designs like you might need in the future?”
“For the most part, we’re attorneys. Darrel is a doctor. And Del is a designer for equipment he sees a need for.” She asked William if he liked his job. “What do you mean? Like being an attorney? It’s good pay, and I’m good at it. We’re partners in our own law firm.”
“But do you like it? Do you enjoy being an attorney? I really like what I do. So does my dad. We not only have several companies we work with to become viable again, but we also work with other companies that might need a hand-up once in a while. It’s fun giving back when we can.” Merce looked around the table. “Do you like being attorneys? Or doctors? I know Del loves his job. He shows it when he talks about it. But you guys, you just seem to have jobs that pay well.”
Katie watched her sons as they seemed to struggle with her question. She’d not thought they went to college to be attorneys for any reason other than that was something they wanted to do. But the looks on their faces told her they’d done just what Merce had pointed out to them—gone after their jobs because they paid well.
“You know what, I don’t care for it.” When Sherman said that, he smiled at Merce. “I’ve been thinking along the lines that since I have the education, I have money in the bank, and I’m good at it, I should keep at it. But I don’t like it like I think I should.”
“I do love it,” Robert spoke up, then shook his head. “No, that’s not true. I used to love it. I used to look forward to going to the courtroom and making sure my client got the best deal. But they’re all shitheads for the most part. What I’d really like to do is teach law. Be the person that can tell them exactly what to expect in the courtroom, not what it says in the books we got. To be able to tell them things you have to learn on your own. Such as, you study for years to become the best you can be, and all you have to show for it is a lot of debt when you get out and no place to hang your name. I was lucky in that my b
rothers and I decided to be together right from the start as a firm. But that wasn’t the right way to go either, I’m thinking. We have everything in common, but nothing to talk about but some dick we got off only to see him in the courtroom a few weeks later for the same thing.”
They talked over one another about how much they didn’t enjoy what they did. It was an eye-opener for Katie to see that they’d only done what they did for the money. As it turned out, the only one that seemed to enjoy being an attorney that he had gone to college for was Peter. But he only enjoyed the pro-bono stuff rather than going to court, as his brothers had pointed out, for shit heads.
“I used to love what I did for fun after retirement.” Merce asked Delmar what it was he’d done. “Believe it or not, I was a gardener. We didn’t need to work for the money after I retired from working as a county clerk for the tax department. So I started out by plowing up gardens around the neighborhood. Sometimes people having themselves a little plot of food growing was the difference between starving and having a good meal. But I began to branch out. Putting in larger gardens that would have trees and flowers and such. I think my old greenhouse is still on the property we used to live on.”
“My grandda used to plant flowers around the neighborhood when he was retired too. Nothing fancy, but he would load up his old beater of a truck and go around and plant flowers around the town. I think the courthouse was his biggest project, and he so loved having the pretty blooms to show off.” Delmar said he remembered him. “He might well remember you too if you were in the courthouse when he was around. He’s not doing well now. I think his heart just broke when my grandma died some years ago. I’ve been telling my brothers that he needs to get out of that place and live, but I don’t have any kind of power to do it.”
“Why not?” Merce told Peter that her brothers had power of attorney over him since he’d moved into the place. “You need to kidnap him for a few hours daily. I can arrange that if you want. I think it would be fun to have him and Grandda tooling around and planting flowers and planning trouble. You can do that for him as his granddaughter.”
“Really? I’d love that. I know my dad would too. He goes to see him once a day, and I think having him at home would do both of them a world of good. Thank you, Peter. If you can arrange that, I’d be forever grateful to you.” He said he’d work on it tomorrow. “Thanks.”
She told him where he was and his full name. Delmar perked up when Merce said him coming home would be so much fun. Not only did he know the other man, but he had had lunch with him a few times in the past and had enjoyed his banter and laughter at the silliest things. Katie was glad to see that Delmar was looking forward to something after being stuck in a nursing home for so long. And even though he put himself in there, he’d wanted out in the worst kind of way, he’d told her as her sons talked about what they really wanted to do.
As soon as dinner was over and desserts were passed around, she sat and listened to her sons talking about their lives. Katie had only been gone for a few months on the cruise ship, but it seemed as if she’d missed so much. She thought perhaps she’d missed a great deal even before she’d left home to have what she had hoped was fun. Then Merce turned to her and told her she needed to talk to her sons.
“You, my dear, are too pushy.” Katie smiled. And instead of taking offense, Merce told her she needed her around. “I do believe I do. You’ve been here one day, and I feel like I need you around forever. We’re having such a good time. I’m not sure I want to tell them the rest. By the way, how did you find out?”
“I didn’t until you just told me. You were fired—or did you quit?” She said they fired her. “I’m assuming they thought they had good reason. All Del and the others have talked about is what a good cook you are. So that can’t be it.”
“It was, actually. I was cooking things I thought everyone would enjoy. And they did, more than they did the other food places on the ship. The buffet is a high-profit margin for them, and I was taking people away from that and having them go to the restaurant I was in charge of.” Merce said that was just stupid. “I thought so as well. But they paid me severance pay and gave me a ticket home. I’m glad, in a way. I think I needed to be here more than seeing if I could have fun on a cruise. Which I have to admit, I didn’t.”
“Good for you.”
The two of them talked well after the dishes were cleaned up, and they all retired to the living room. Merce received two calls, which she didn’t talk about. The girl looked upset, and as much as she wanted to ask her about it, Katie didn’t know that she wanted her to tell her just yet. They were, as she said before, having a nice evening.
~*~
Del explained to Merce and her dad what he needed. Then, after a tour of their plant, he was sure that she and her company were the best fit. While standing there watching the machinery work on part of what he’d wanted, he looked around the place and was impressed by not just what he saw in equipment but how the employees seemed to take pride in what they were doing. It was, in a weird sort of way, a happy place.
