Ransom

It was a huge house, and an expensive one to keep up. And the real estate market hadn't been doing well. Jack had already told her that she absolutely had to sell it and have the money in her hands by the end of the year. He had also told her to strip the place and sell as much as she could separately. The furniture certainly. They had spent nearly five million dollars furnishing the house, some of which couldn't be recouped, like the marble they'd put in all the bathrooms, and the state-of-the-art kitchen. But the Viennese chandelier they had paid four hundred thousand dollars for could be sold at auction in New York, and might even bring a profit. And there were other things she could remove and sell throughout the house. She also knew that once they started stripping the place, it would be upsetting for the children, and she was dreading it. She tried not to think of it as she smiled at him, and he smiled back. She had been a hell of a good sport for the past four months, and he admired her for it. Fernanda said she wondered if Allan had ever considered what this would do to her. Knowing him, Jack suspected it had been the farthest thing from his mind. All he thought about was business, and money. There were times when Allan only thought of himself, both during his meteoric rise to dotcom celebrity, and as he plummeted at record speed on his way down. He was a handsome, charming, brilliant guy, but there had also been something very narcissistic about him. Even his suicide had been all about his own despair, without even thinking about her, or the kids. Jack wished he could do more for her, but for the moment he was doing all he could.

“Are you going anywhere this summer?” he asked, as he leaned back in his chair. He was a nice-looking man. He'd gone to business school with Allan, and then law school after that. The three of them had known each other for a long time. He had had his own griefs over the years. He had been married to an attorney, and she died of a brain tumor at thirty-five. He had never married again, and they hadn't had time to have kids. His own loss made him sympathetic to Fernanda's grief, and he envied her the kids. He was particularly worried about what she was going to live on after they paid Allan's debts. He knew she was thinking about getting a job in a museum, or teaching school. She had figured out that if she taught at Ashley and Sam's school, or even Will's, they might give her a break on their tuitions. But they needed a lot more than that to live on. They had gone from rags to riches to rags again. A lot of people had, in the wake of the dot-com blaze, but their story was more extreme than most, thanks to Allan.

“Will is going to camp, and Ash is going to Tahoe,” she explained. “Sam and I are staying here. We can always go to the beach.”

Listening to her made him feel guilty that he was going to Italy in August, and he almost wanted to invite her and the kids to join him, but he was traveling with friends. There was no current woman in his life, and he had had a soft spot for Fernanda over the years, but he also knew from his own experience that it was far too soon to approach anything of the kind with her. Allan had been gone for four months. And when his own wife died, he hadn't dated anyone for a year. But the thought of it had crossed his mind several times in the past few months. She needed someone to take care of her, and so did her children, and he was very fond of all of them. Fernanda knew nothing of his feelings for them.

“Maybe we can go to Napa for the day or something when the kids get out of school,” he suggested cautiously, and she smiled at him. They had known each other for so long that she thought of him as a brother. It never even occurred to her that he wanted to ask her out and was biding his time. She had been off the dating market for seventeen years, and hadn't even thought of reentering it. She had more important things to think of first. Like their survival, and how she was going to feed her kids.

“They'd like that,” Fernanda said in answer to his invitation to Napa.

“I have a friend who has a boat too. It's a beautiful sailboat.” He was trying to think of ways to cheer her up, and entertain her children, without being pushy or offensive. And she looked at him sheepishly as she finished her coffee.

“The kids would love it. Allan took them out on boats a number of times. I get seasick.” She had hated Allan's yacht, although he loved it. She got sick just standing on the dock. And now the mere mention of boats reminded her of how Allan had died. She never wanted to see a boat again.

“We'll think of something else,” he said kindly. They spent the next two hours going over business matters, and finished the last of their paperwork shortly before noon. She had a good understanding of all of it, and she was being responsible about the decisions she made. There was nothing frivolous about her. He just wished that there was more he could do.