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Except for those who knew her best, which were, unfortunately, few and far between as she was an extremely private person, both in her personal and public life. One being Angus, Marshall’s longtime Scottish friend, pseudo-butler, and Mia’s part-time nanny.
The other being Pearl, safely hidden and protected over the years by both her and Marshall.
Then her daughter Mia, whom Marshall had adopted shortly after their wedding. A legal event that brought about tantrums and threats of apocalyptic proportions from Ariana, with the support of her despicable sons.
But Marshall ignored their rants and constant complaints with unbending resolve and unyielding patience, despite their efforts to destroy them.
The problem for Errol and Flynn was there wasn’t a contractor, CEO, city or state official who wasn’t in some way indebted to their father.
Indebted because he genuinely cared about the people he worked with. Looked out for them. Sometimes taking the hit on construction jobs gone wrong when one of his contractors was at fault, but couldn’t financially handle the repercussions.
In short, Marshall Shepherd was beloved and leveraged those positively charged relationships to protect his family from the negative ones.
God, how she missed that man.
But, then again, she still had Angus, Pearl, and Mia.
Sad to think she could only name three people who loved her unconditionally, her daughter, her butler, and her dead husband’s secret lover. What a strange family she had cobbled together. But they were all hers and she didn’t take a single one of them for granted.
Birdie sighed as she watched several racks of couture clothing being hauled into a climate-controlled van. Errol and Flynn saw to it that she was allowed to walk away with only two suitcases filled with contents of a restricted value. A huge problem for her as one suitcase wouldn’t even hold all her toiletries.
Funny how quickly she went from scrounging for rent money to buying things without a second thought. Now, here she was coming around full circle.
When she shared her luggage-related dilemma to Angus, he told her to hold on and came back with two large steamer trunks. Each of them pasted with stickers from exotic locales. When he rolled them into her bedroom on dollies, she met his angry gaze with a raised eyebrow.
“Where did you find those relics?” she asked as he sat one of them upright, unlatched the metal clasp and pulled them apart.
“From Marshall, God rest ‘is soul. Aye, he told me to gather them ‘afore he passed. Plum left me heid.”
She pulled at the wooden knob of one of the drawers. “They look like antiques.”
“Aye, from the attic. Dusted them aff fer ye.”
“They said I could take two pieces of luggage,” she said, noticing one compartment was sealed shut with decorative nails. She pulled the hanging drawer handle a couple times but it wouldn’t budge. “But they never said what size they had to be.”
“I dare one of them demmed eejits to utter a single word ta me.” He unlatched the other one, providing her with enough room to pack the contents of a small living room. “There. Two suitcases.”
It took some time, but she managed to fill one trunk with a decent amount of clothing and toiletries. She reserved the second for family mementos. Including a stack of Marshall’s favorite books and the dozens of scrapbooks where she catalogued Mia’s life from the day she was born to her latest report card, which was straight A’s.
It wasn’t everything she would have liked to have kept close, after losing a man who was more than just a beloved father figure to her, but it would have to be enough.
Everything else was being systematically taken away.
Earlier that morning, she was contacted by a couple of concerned neighbors, informing her the twins had already raided the townhome in Beacon Hill and the vacation home in Park City. Hell, they had moving crews on the premises of each property the day she caved and signed their felonious paperwork. By the end of the day, both luxury estates had been listed with a for sale sign placed in the front yards.
They saved the best for last, in what had to have been an insidious plan crafted by Ariana. The dismantling and carting away of the contents residing in her and Marshall’s main estate in Cambridge. The only home Mia had ever known. A good thing considering her first home was a storage room over a gas station in Duxbury.
Birdie had to laugh at the irony. It had been almost sixteen years since she was forced to sift through clothing, choosing pieces that were the most practical and could fit in as few suitcases as possible.
Checking her watch, she wondered what was taking Angus so long. He had left hours ago, making last-minute arrangements.
Despite her better judgment, she wandered back toward the window and leaned her head against the windowpane. At that moment, Errol looked up and gave a wink and what would have appeared to others as a congenial salute.
“Asshole.” She returned the gesture with her middle finger.
She blinked and jerked back from the window as a multitude of cameras clicked en masse, capturing her ill-mannered body language, further cementing the narrative as to who she was, or wasn’t.
Turning away from the window, she leveraged her pent-up anger to pull one side of the steamer trunk closed, just as Angus entered the room, catching her mid-struggle.
