1
This was so much worse than he’d expected.
Jack Taylor flipped through late notices from vendors of his father’s construction company while bouncing his nephew’s tabletop jumper seat, hoping to soothe the tired six-month-old. But the misery covering the kitchen table of his childhood home in Nashville had Jack about ready to wail right along with the kid.
He thumbed through the thick file folders containing nothing but million-dollar problems. “Why’d you print all this out?”
His younger sister, Jen, whisked between the refrigerator, the cutting board, and the stove in their father’s kitchen, finishing up their dad’s lunch meal prep for the coming week. She flipped something in a hot skillet, filling the kitchen with an angry sizzle. The spicy scent reminded Jack he hadn’t eaten since his last meal of pretzels on the flight here. He’d only been on the ground for two hours, but Jack was already longing for the quiet simplicity of the friendly skies.
“Because the last time I worked on my laptop at home,” Jen said, “Jacob spilled orange juice all over the keyboard. Paper can be replaced a hell of a lot easier than a hard drive.”
As if her youngest son felt the rising stress in the room, Joshua’s whine ratcheted up to an ear-bleeding wail.
The bills blurred in front of Jack’s eyes. He planted his elbows on the table and rubbed his face with both hands. He’d been working seven days a week for months, and he’d been on an Australian jobsite for the last three weeks. He was still trying to figure out what day it was.
Jack stood and unbuckled the boy from his seat. Drawing the squirming bundle into his arms, Jack imitated the bouncing motion of the chair while pacing the breakfast nook. “Man, you’ve got lungs, buddy.”
“I shouldn’t have tried to deal with this myself, but Bruce kept telling me he had it under control, and I’ve been so worried about Dad.” She hammered the cutting board with the butt of the knife before slicing a bevy of veggies. “If I didn’t have the boys to take care of, I’d hunt that fucker down myself and slice off his balls.”
Standing just over five feet tall with rosy cheeks and a head of blonde curls, Jen might have looked like a cherub on the outside, but there was a fiercely protective giant inside.
“The cops will find Bruce,” he told her. “I’ve got a meeting with the company attorney, their investigator, and the forensic accountant Monday. It’s a pretty sweet little dream team. We’ll get through this.”
Since their mother’s death the year before, Jen had been doting on their father and stressing over his declining mental state. Her husband traveled almost as much as Jack, which left Jen to tackle her job as a project manager for their family firm, Pinnacle Construction, and care for her three little boys mostly on her own. Living and working in New York didn’t give Jack the ability to help as much as he should.
“I admire your dedication to Dad,” he said, “but why don’t you hire someone to do the cooking? Maybe have the housekeeper do double duty. You’ve already got your hands full.”
“Ask me again after you finish reading the accountant’s report.”
Jacob, his oldest nephew at three and a half, sped into the kitchen carrying some kind of toy car, making vrooming and screeching noises.
His brother, James, the middle kid at eighteen months, followed, his whine ratcheting toward the baby’s tune. “I want it.”
James chased Jacob around the butcher block, under the kitchen table, and out the other side. Then the two wound a figure eight around Jack and Jen. Keep-away at its finest.
“It’s mine,” James insisted.
“Out.” Jen ushered the boys toward the living room. “And stop yelling. Pop-pop’s trying to sleep.”
The older boys ran off, still fighting. Jack slid his hand over Joshua’s bald head. “I have no idea how you stay sane, Jen. This is murder.”
“Who says I do?” She finished chopping a pepper and set down the knife with a heavy sigh. “Thanks for coming, Jack. I know how busy you are.”
Seeing her problems firsthand made Jack feel like shit. In his defense, his new partnership at the architecture firm had heaped on major responsibilities. And Jen had a lot more flexibility living so close to their dad and working for the company. But Jack could clearly see this was all too much for one person to handle. In the last month, Jen had moved her family into their dad’s home to better care for him. Since their father’s business partner had disappeared with Pinnacle’s money, he and Jen had been jumping through all sorts of twisted hoops to keep the financial reaper at bay.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around.” He kissed Joshua’s head and breathed in his sweet baby scent. “How was Dad’s visit with the new doctor?”
“A bit of good news there, at least.” Jennifer tossed slices of pepper into the hot pan. “He doesn’t think it’s dementia. At least not the normal kind where the brain function continues to decline.”
“There are kinds?” Jack asked.
“Evidently. This guy looked over his latest scans and blood work and did a bunch of cognitive tests with Dad. I didn’t understand everything he was saying, but he called it a dementia syndrome and explained it as depression-induced dementia. Which makes sense when you consider Dad never pulled out of his depression after mom died. He seemed to slide right from depression into dementia. The doctor called it a reversable cognitive disorder. Once the depression is treated, Dad’s thinking abilities could return. The doctor said many people regain complete function and go on to live full lives.”
“Wow, that’s really good news.” Relief lifted some of the heaviness from Jack’s shoulders. Hope returned. Joshua must have felt the change in Jack’s body, because his cries ebbed. “Amazing news.”
“On the downside,” she said, “they don’t know how long it could take. They’ve started him on a couple of medications, but it’s usually a bit of trial and error before they figure out the correct dosage. And it takes time for the body to respond to treatments. It could take weeks or months, so it might be a while before we se
e positive changes.”
“I’m just relieved there are positive changes in his future.” Possibilities of getting his dad back brightened Jack’s outlook. “But, Jen, you can’t keep this up for months on end, and there’s no way I can take an undetermined amount of time off work. I already feel like these few weeks are a huge burden on my firm. Maybe we should think about one of those in-home nurses.”
“His insurance plan doesn’t cover it. And before you say we could just hire someone, may I direct you back to the accountant’s report?” Jen finished dicing a carrot and looked at Jack. “I miss the hell out of Mom. I don’t know how she did it all.”
“She wasn’t faced with a multimillion-dollar embezzlement scheme by a trusted partner and friend or Dad having dementia. We’ll get the company and Dad squared away, and you’ll get your life back. Hang in there.”
Jen sighed. “I’m sorry. You’ve been here over an hour, and I haven’t even asked about you. How’s…Krystall, right?” She smirked. “K and two Ls, as I recall. Pronounced like the wine Chris-tall.”
Mention of Jack’s latest relationship failure added to his fatigue. “Between her travel and mine, I haven’t seen her in three months.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“She thought so too. Broke up with me over text a few weeks ago.”
“Oh, Jack…”
He waved away her concern. “No great loss.”
“I hate to admit it, but I didn’t like her much.”
“You never even met her.”
She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I didn’t like the sound of her. A twenty-something boho artist from Harlem certainly won’t get you closer to the family you say you want.”
“You’re worse than Mom. You don’t like any of the women I date.”
“Neither, evidently, do you.”
“Ha. Funny.” But he couldn’t argue. None of his relationships lasted long. The truth was, he loved strong, unique women. In New York, that seemed to lead him to ambitious, driven women focused on themselves and their careers. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a relationship that felt equal. Or, if he were honest, even warm. For the last few years, he felt as if he’d been going through the motions, but not really connecting.
He certainly wasn’t any closer to settling down and starting a family, something that had become increasingly important to Jack as he neared his thirty-fifth birthday.
He pressed a kiss to Joshua’s head. The boy was now sound asleep, but Jack kept swaying, just in case. “You won’t be getting cousins anytime soon, kid.”