Michael (8 page)

The hardest thing I ever dealt with in my life was the death of my parents. At least I thought so until I held my husband as the doctors unplugged the respirators and tubes from his father’s body. I had never witnessed him in a more fragile state.

The machine continued a steady beep as we waited for Michael Joseph Scott Sr. to let go. Michael released my hand and had went to his step-mother’s side and held her as she said goodbye to her husband. We waited and waited but still the steady beat continued. The doctor who had unplugged him placed a stethoscope in his ears and listened to Michael Sr.’s heart rhythm.

“It could be a while, he’s comfortable. But he may let go slowly.” The doctor said leaving us to mourn.

After an hour of standing around his father’s room, Michael and I sat in the waiting room going through the bags of food that one of the nannies had dropped off for us. I hadn’t eaten a thing since the day before and the sight of food overwhelmed me. I took one of the Styrofoam containers from the bag and sat with my legs folded in the chair staring at my husband. His eyes were red and puffy but he was quiet as he checked the different containers of food for options. He settled on one and sat back across from me leaning forward with the open container in one hand and a fork in the other.

I picked at my Peruvian chicken and plantains as I watched Michael. His face remained unchanged until something; a thought maybe, caused a small smile and then a laugh.

“What’s funny?” I asked. He didn’t respond. He seemed to be stuck in his own world. “Michael?”

“My dad. When I first told him about you, the year I went down for the holiday to be with the family. He said you were perfect. All from a picture. He liked that I had chosen a woman with “color”, his words not mine. He said my mother’s skin was his greatest weakness.” He laughed and shook his head. “I’m my father’s child.”

“But you’re your mother’s child, too.” I moved to sit next to my husband. “You’re pretty lucky to have known them both. I loved my parents but I have emptiness inside me not knowing where I really came from.

“You should go. You should go to Canada and be with Amita. She can give you all the answers you need. You can get that chance to feel that void and be whole. Find out who your biological father his. You need the answers.”

“But your fath—.”

“My father isn’t going to make a miraculous turn around, he’s letting go slowly. It’ll be a funeral and a viewing and all these strangers gathering to mourn a man that none of them really knew. I’ll be okay here. I have the kids. You should go.”

“I can’t just leave you here.”

“You can and you will. The best decision I made in my life was seeking my father out. It gave me the life I have. You deserve to know where you come from.”

I sat my food on the wooden table and turned to my husband. “I need to be here with you and our fami—”

“Michael, Krish you should be in the room now.” Jayda called from the doorway. We quickly pressed pause on our conversation and followed Jayda down the hall and to the room where Patricia was crying hysterically. Michael went to her immediately holding her against himself as she begged for him not to go. The doctor cut off the steady beeping that rung in our ears.

I watched as tears streamed down the faces of everyone in the room including myself. I did care deeply for my father-in-law but I cried for my husband and his sister and brother who were losing the man that meant most to them in the world. Eventually the doctor turned off the machine that he had before silenced and we just stood over the shell of a man that was once Michael Joseph Scott Senior. I gripped Michael’s hand and he squeezed mine back with a smile. He released Patricia’s hand and gathered me in his arms. The rest of the room disappeared.

“You were right. I did need you here.” He whispered.

“I know. No where I would rather be.” I squeezed him tighter hoping to hold onto some of his emotions for him. To rid him of the pain he was feeling.

“It’s like my time with him flashed before my eyes.” My eyes were burning from crying so much in the last few days.

“I mean, realistically, I’d be shocked if it didn’t.” Krishna commented rubbing her foot up and down my thigh. “That was the centerpiece of your relationship with him. Everything revolved around time; the time you didn’t have, the time you did. First there wasn’t enough of it and then there were these expectations for what it would be like and then there was reality. I think time sums it all up perfectly.”

I nodded she was right. I held on to specific memories of my father and of my childhood because he wasn’t always there. And there was often a fear that he’d be taken away from me. I mean as a forty year old man, it’s one thing but as that fourteen, fifteen, even seventeen year old kid it’s a completely different concept. The kid in me was crying because he didn’t have enough time and the man in me was crying because he knew that there was no such thing as enough.

“Michael?” Krishna called. I snapped back to reality and looked at my wife who was leaning against the head board staring at me and rubbing my feet.

“Yeah? Just got lost in thought. You know my dad bought me my first car.”

“The Camaro?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “And I called it a junk car. I mean, Liam had a Lambo and Leah had a Ferrari and I thought I was being punished for being given a Camaro.”

“And? Why did he give it to you?”

“He said, ‘your brother and sister have perfect cars, they don’t need any work. But your car, it’s going to take us till you leave for college to get this damn thing running.’ I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing back then, not until we started the work on it and I realized that he just wanted that time with me.”

“I wish I knew him better. Your stories always make him seem like a completely different man than the one I knew.”

“Well, he hardened a lot over the years. He lost our mothers, he took a while to recover and even when he did he occupied himself with business. He never took to another woman the same. He had a weird relationship with women. Even with Patricia. He loved her but I don’t think he had ever completely fallen in love with her. But he tried I think. As for you and Jayda, he prayed for us a lot, prayed you two would always be there for us.”

“He was a good man.”

“He was and it takes an extraordinary person to see that.” I smiled at my wife.

“Look at the amazing kids he raised, he was a wonderful man.” She smiled back before crawling to the bottom of the bed to be close to me. She pressed her body against mine and laid her head against my bare chest. I rested my head on hers and allowed myself good sleep for the first time in two days.

***

“Are you ready?” I asked my sister as she checked her dirty blonde hair in the mirror one last time. She glared at me before applying lip stick and walking away. We were leaving for the church service in ten minutes and everyone had finally stopped crying long enough to get things together. There had been caterers in and out of the house the entire day along with a party planner and her minions she called assistants. Leave it to my father to spend thousands on a party where he was the guest of honor.

The limos waited outside. Two limos for the seven of us, we opted to leave the kids at home with the nannies because not one of them except Daniel was old enough to understand what was going on and Daniel said he didn’t want to see his grandfather that way. And when I had told him it was a chance to say goodbye, he promised me that he would take a car to the burial the second the procession began.

I wasn’t sure why my father wanted an open casket funeral. I didn’t know how I would handle seeing him that way. When he passed in the hospital he looked so much unlike himself. Now I’d have to stand over him and talk about the man he was and I had stayed up till the early morning hours trying to accurately convey my feelings for the man in words that others would be able to absorb.

I was the first to step from the limo when we arrived at the old church, the one where many of us were baptized, the one where my father took his first wife. I took Krish’s hand and led my siblings up the cement steps and down the aisle of the church. I knew that my grip had tightened on Krishna’s hand by the time I reached the end of the aisle and stood before my father. I gently tucked the spare key to my Camaro in his jacket pocket. Not a single tear ran down my face. I think, between the conversations I had had with my wife and siblings and the time I spent writing my eulogy, I had found a peace in my father’s death. I had hoped so because the eulogy would be hard to deliver no matter what.

We stood at the front pew as guest visited with our father and sent condolences to us. Liam and I stood on either side of Patricia, at times having to help her remain standing. The woman, who was dressed in black, her dyed blonde hair done up in an elaborate bun, was truly in mourning. I never considered how deep her love for our father ran, mostly because I knew he had loved two women in his life more than anything and didn’t believe it was possible to love a third. But Patricia was in ruins as the last of the guest strolled pass my father and headed straight over to us, shaking our hands, handing off flowers and envelops and saying kind words. Once we were all seated the service began. It felt like mere seconds had passed before I found myself at the lectern speaking on the man we had all gathered to say goodbye to.

“I was chosen to give my father’s eulogy, not because he favored me or because I have profound words to share, but simply because I am his eldest child. Everyone here knows this man. Whether he was a close personal friend or a business acquaintance, he touched you in a way that provoked your presence here today. But few knew him as intimately as those who sit here in the front row; his children, his wife, and his son and daughters-in-law, and his grandchildren who aren’t here in attendance today. My father, who passed many things down to us by way of genetics had the biggest heart you could imagine. And he was not always forthright in his way of showing his love but he showed it the best way he knew how. Many of you who do not know my story, the story of a boy meeting his father for the first time when he was an adolescent, can’t understand the bond I had with this man. Many don’t understand how this man could meet a teenage boy, his first born, and already have loved him as much as he loved his other two children. But he did and it took me years to realize it. At sixteen, when my siblings both were driving the most expensive cars on the market, a tow truck showed up at our home with a run down Camaro on the hitch. It was a 1967 Yenko Super 450 and apparently pretty rare. My father told me that he wanted me to have the best and yet he gave me a piece of shit car…” the crowd laughed. “…that Camaro took us nineteen months to restore, a month to paint, and in the end I had something intangible to share with my father that was just ours, time. That was the thing about my father he gave to each of us a unique experience so that we could hold onto a part of him that was all our own. For Liam it was teaching him to fly a plane, for Leah it was traveling the world. It took me years to understand what he was doing but now, each of us strive to create that with our own children because it has impacted us so profoundly. So as I think about the grey haired man embracing that teenage boy, I ask that we all bow our heads in remembrance of my father, Michael Joseph Scott Senior.” I bowed my head. I was amazed in my ability to hold it together. But then the face of my father popped into my head and I broke, I tried to muffle my cries but the cries of my siblings and my niece Mackenzie echoed in the large room. I left the podium to sit with my family. Krishna weaved her arm through mine as we watched the casket close.

After a few moments I, along with; Liam, Nathan, and my sister’s husband Eric, and a couple of my father’s associates grabbed the handles of the casket and led the way from the church to the hearse. We loaded the casket into the hearse and stepped back allowing the driver to close the doors. When they had been closed we grasped the hands of our wives and I also held tight to Patricia as we got into the limos. Patricia pulled her pocket mirror from her purse and fixed the makeup around her eyes as I pulled my phone from my pocket and texted my son to be on his way.

The burial was harder than the service and I was thankful for Krishna holding my hand through it all. Watching him being lowered into the ground was surreal, as if I had dreamt the entire thing. But before I knew it we were back at the house with over a hundred guests eating and sharing fond memories of the man who bought us there together. Several of his business associates had come up to Liam, Leah and I; handing of checks for the children and condolences. I laughed at the outpour of money for the family of the town’s wealthiest man but we accepted the checks that we’d deposit for the children. Once all of the alcohol had been consumed and the food began to dwindle, so did the crowd and I was anxious to have an empty house so that we could all take a breather, there was still the matter of the will that had to be addressed before we could leave town in two days.

***

The next day we all woke up to a full bar breakfast. The house was spic and span and the spread of food was elaborate. My father, without a doubt, had the best staff of us all. I sat with Lincoln on my lap holding her close to me thinking of how I will impact her life, how I will create memories that she’d hold onto as I held onto memories of my father. She was quiet as she picked through her bowl of fruit for grapes and avoided contact with every type of melon. The other kids all sat at the smaller tables. With so many toddlers, someone had the forethought to purchase them their own table and chair sets which they took to immediately. Daniel sat silently beside me.

“What’s wrong, kiddo?” I asked as he pushed food around on his plate.

“I didn’t get a lot of time with grandpa. I only got a few years.” Daniel replied.

“A few great years though, right?”

“I guess.”

“What do you mean you guess? He took you up in the helicopter; none of the kids get to ride in Tango Scott Alpha. And the Harley, he took you out on the Harley. He loved you very much Daniel. He told me so all the time, he was so happy when he met you.”

“Why?”

“Because, you are his first grandson, you carry our name, you are special.” I replied pulling my son closer.”

“You’re special to me, too.” Lincoln said pulling on her brothers’ arm. “I love you, too.” She said poking her lips out for a kiss.

“Love you too, Linc.” Daniel smiled. “I guess you’re right.”

“I know I’m right. Now if you’re done eating, go clean up, you have to be present at the reading of grandpa’s last will and testament.”

“Why do I have to go?” Daniel pouted.

“You don’t have to, but if you aren’t there to accept whatever he’s given to you, I’ll keep it all till you’re eighteen. I swear it.” I held up my hand.

“Fine!”

By the end of breakfast all of the kids had cleared the room and the adults scattered to their respective ends of the house to get ready to meet the lawyer who’d gone out to her car for his briefcase.

We gathered in the sitting room when he had finally come back in. He opened his briefcase and pulled from it a thick set of papers, handing a copy to each of us including Daniel. We waited for him to read the document as we followed along.

“We’ll start here with the grandchildren, Mackenzie included.” He began. “Each of them has a trust set aside in the amount of five million. Each receives access to said trust at age twenty-five. There are additional trusts for each of you; Michael, Liam, and Leah for any additional children, up to two children each. If you don’t bare any more children the trust reverts to your current children in five years in equal amounts. Mackenzie, there is a trust for Natalia also in the amount of five million. No additional trust has been set up for future children. You also inherit the home in Italy. Daniel, in addition to your trust you gain ownership of your grandfather’s Harley collection which he suggest you are not allowed to touch until eighteen.”

“Yes!” Daniel proclaimed looking in my direction smiling, his legs swinging beneath his chair.

“And to his children. Liam you gain thirty-three percent ownership in each of the companies, same for Michael and Leah. The remaining one percent goes to you Patricia in addition to the homes in Florida and Las Vegas and the hotels in Chicago and New York. This house is given to the children; Leah, Liam, and Michael under the condition that Patricia is able to live in it for the next five years minimum.

“Mama keeps the house!” Leah interjected.

“But this was our mother’s house, Leah.” Liam argued.

“And?” She huffed. “It was Mom’s house,
was
!”

“And it should remain in our possession!” He bit back.

“But—” Leah whined.

“I don’t need the house. It’s okay, Leah, really.”

“I’m with Leah.” I chimed in. my hands were knotted together. It wasn’t my place to interject but Leah was right. The house was as much Patricia’s as in was ours.

“I don’t think that you get a say in this, Mikey.” Liam spat. “It was
our
mother’s house.” He gestured between Leah and himself. I chuckled. He was at the tipping point and I was in the mood to go toe to toe.

“The house goes to Patricia. What are you going to do Liam? Are you going to pack up the wife and kids and leave D.C. in the rearview? You hate Texas just as much as I do. You aren’t coming back. You need to learn to let go. This house is Mama’s. Final word.” I leaned back watching the red creep up his neck and onto his face. “Daniel, go upstairs.” I muttered. He complied peaking back into the room before I heard his footsteps up the grand staircase.