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Dad hadn’t had a clue how to help her.
“Those girls in the band were probably supported by their parents.” Noah threw his sandwich wrapper into the recycle bin. “Imagine where you’d be today if your dad had supported your interest in flowers instead of pushing you into geology.”
“He only wanted what was best for me.”
“I know, but only you could decide that. Not him.”
They’d been through this argument before, so Audrey said no more. Nothing either of them said would change the fact that she’d worked in an industry she shouldn’t have for too long.
She was where she needed to be now, though, and just in the nick of time to take care of Dad.
Noah seemed to understand and changed the subject. “How did the standoff go at the greenhouse this morning?”
“Fine,” she answered. “Gray didn’t even know his father had sold the land to me.”
“Figures. Dude just wants to make money so badly.” He pointed his wooden spoon at her. “You watch out for that guy. He’s a corporate snake in the grass. I don’t doubt he can get down and dirty when he needs to.”
“Relax, Noah. The sale was legal.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Audrey smiled, but Noah didn’t return it, and that chilled her.
“Listen, Noah, I dealt with plenty of Gray’s corporate doppelgängers in my previous job. I can be as tough as I need to be.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No ‘buts’ about it. Seriously. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can.” Noah’s sentiment sounded hollow. He should be the last person on earth to condescend to her, but she knew their history made it hard for him to think of her as independent.
In high school, when she’d been only fourteen, and too smart and a year ahead of her peers, and already trying to express her individuality with weird clothes, he’d caught a bunch of kids bullying her. Older Noah had given them hell. Even as a young teenager, Noah’s personality had already been set in stone, as though he’d come out of his mother’s womb fully formed. No one Audrey knew had better ethics or morals or stronger convictions, and he wasn’t afraid to act on them.
When he’d rescued her from the kids making fun of her spiky hair, her big boots and her baggy clothes, when he’d taken her under his brotherly wing, she’d been grateful, but it had been an uphill battle ever since to get him to see her as a grown-up. Maybe that was why they’d stayed friends and nothing more.
Too bad Noah’s version of support didn’t match what she needed these days. She buried her disappointment and ate her lunch.
When she left, though, Noah called to her, “Audrey.”
She turned from the doorway.
“You know I want only what’s best for you, right?” He smiled, his lips full in the middle of his red beard, but creases furrowed his forehead.
Oh, Noah. He didn’t even begin to get the similarities between her father and him. Hadn’t they already established that Dad had always wanted what he thought was best for her, too?
“I understand,” she said to ease his worried frown and left the shop.
* * *
GRAY TOSSED HIS pen on to the desk and took a deep, calming breath. Either that, or he would throttle the closest person. Considering that it was Dad’s blameless accountant, that wouldn’t be fair.
“I tried to talk Harrison out of this innumerable times,” Arnie said. “He wouldn’t budge. He wanted to give his people all of these benefits.”
“The company can’t afford them, though. I understand Dad’s urge, his largesse, given how long most of his employees have worked for him, but did he have to give them everything? Massages, for God’s sake. Orthodontics. Orthotics. Couldn’t he have chosen a cheaper benefit package? Just eye glasses and dental? Did he have to opt for the whole kit and caboodle?”
“I used those arguments myself, but he was...” Arnie’s glance slid away.
“Go ahead. Say it. Dad was stubborn.”
“Yeah, he was. About this, at any rate.”
“We have to cancel the contract with the insurance company.”
If the situation hadn’t been dire, Arnie’s look of horror would have been funny.
“What?” Gray asked. “We have to.”
“It’s one thing to fight with a union or a group of employees about implementing this kind of thing, but once it’s done, it just shouldn’t be taken away.”
Gray took another of his calming breaths. “It’s either that or layoffs, right?”
Arnie’s mouth became a thin slash in his aging face. “Yes.”
“Layoffs are the last resort, so we get rid of the benefits.” Gray glanced at his watch. Six o’clock. His head ached. He and Arnie had been hammering away at the budget, making cuts wherever they could, but the benefits package Dad had bought his employees a few years ago was the biggie.
“Come on,” he said. “Hilary should have everyone gathered by now.”
He stood and slid the walls of his office open. Many of the employees were already there. Turner Lumber employed over fifty people.
Some looked relaxed and others tense. Some expected him to be his dad. Others knew he wasn’t.
“The cashiers are just cashing out their tills downstairs, and then they’ll be up.” Hilary led him to a table she’d set up along the far wall, then took a militant stance. “I put on a pot of coffee and ordered in goodies from the bakery to tide everyone over until dinnertime.”
The defiance in her voice bugged him. Honest to God, she didn’t get that he wasn’t mean or stingy or hard-hearted, but a realist. Certain things had to change to save the company, but they could still afford doughnuts.
He was tired of tension in the company and with Hilary. He’d had to call her to task more than once for her spending of company money without his permission.
Worse, she’d actually called Dad a couple of times to make sure that what Gray was doing was okay with him. The woman needed to screw her head on right. She was either for or against him.
In the meantime, she ran the everyday details that Gray didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. He needed more responsibility in his life like he needed a lobotomy.
What would the company do without Hilary?
“Thanks,” he said, to appease her. “It was good of you to think of it.”
Hilary smiled, but reluctantly.
To satisfy her further, even though he didn’t have a sweet tooth, he bit into a doughnut. Hilary grinned.
Stifling a sigh, he turned away to socialize, asking about spouses and children.
When the last of the employees had finally dribbled in, Gray called for their attention.
He thanked them for their loyalty over the years and their hard work. Then, with Arnie by his side, he unloaded his bombshell.
“We’re canceling the benefits package my dad gave to all of you a few years ago.”
The eruption of complaints hit the rafters, the sound level sending the throbbing in Gray’s temples into overdrive.
“Cripes,” he mumbled to Arnie. “You’d think I was killing a litter of puppies.”
“Can I say I told you so? Once you’ve given something to people, they take ownership. You try to take it back and they don’t thank you for having given it to them in the first place. Instead, they think they’re being robbed.” Arnie shrugged. “Human nature.”
Once Gray got the crowd under control again, he got right to the point. “Here’s the alternative. Layoffs.”
Again, more grumbling, but this time more subdued. Shock, no doubt.
“I’m fighting tooth and nail to not have that happen. I’ve kept you all on and plan to continue to do so, but you have to work with me. We need to cut corners like crazy. The economy is bad across the country.”
Mumbling all around. The employees’ fear smelled metallic, like spilled blood.
“My concern,” Gray continued, “is that once I let any of you go, you won’t get another job. The retail, hotel and restaurant sectors of Accord are doing well because of tourism, but industry is suffering. We need to fight hard to save Turner Lumber.”
He stalked to his office and slapped a hand against the office wall he’d slid open earlier. “This,” he said, “will be open all day most days. If any of you have ideas on how to cut costs, how to improve service to the customers so they’ll return more often, how to change anything that will help this company stay in business, you come to me and I’ll listen.”
Tired to the bone, he all but mumbled, “I’m heading out now. I’m sure you all have a lot you want to discuss without the boss hovering, so stay as long as you need to. Everyone still has jobs for now. See you tomorrow morning.”
He left the office. Where minutes ago, it had been full of noise, now it was silent. Perhaps they finally understood the situation. Despite how he’d tried to make changes recently, they had resisted and hadn’t understood fully how bad things were.
But Gray had. Maybe now they did, too.
CHAPTER FOUR
“AUDREY!” THE PANIC in Dad’s voice had Audrey dropping the dress she was sewing and running downstairs. It was seven in the morning, and she’d been up since six.
After her run-in with Gray yesterday at the greenhouses, she’d planned to wear something bold today to bolster her morale. The red dress with the huge white polka dots that she was hemming would have been perfect, but she would opt for something else.
She rushed into the living room. Dad sat in his favorite recliner rubbing his shins.
“What happened?”
“Walked into the coffee table. Why did you move it?”
She hadn’t. His eyesight was failing rapidly if he couldn’t see the monstrosity in front of the sofa that could house a small village.
“You have to remember to turn your head when you move. Learn to use your peripheral vision.” Macular degeneration caused vision loss in the center of the field of vision. Dad could no longer see and recognize faces, not even his own daughter’s. Or his own, for that matter. Good thing. It was probably a godsend that when he looked into a mirror, he wouldn’t see how much he’d aged in the past year.
“It’s hard walking forward while turning your head sideways,” he said, voice ripe with frustration. “I try.”
“I know you do. It’s a huge adjustment.”
She sat on the table and lifted his pant legs. “You’ll be sporting some impressive bruises tomorrow.”
She glanced up at his impassive face, his vibrancy drained by his affliction.
“The skin isn’t broken. I’m sorry, Dad. There’s nothing I can do.” She rubbed his shin gently to soften that news, then stood and walked to the hall. “I’m going back up to my sewing.”
“Don’t.”
She stopped in the doorway and watched him expectantly. Stress had ravaged his once handsome face. Deep creases bracketed his sullen mouth. Oh, Dad.
“Read to me,” he said, sounding so much like a little boy asking for a bedtime story she almost smiled. She had wanted to work in the greenhouses before heading into Denver today.
But Dad needed her.
The more and more trouble he had with his eyesight, the more childlike he became in his demands. An avid, lifelong reader, Dad could no longer read to himself. He resisted listening to the audio books she got for him from the library. She knew it was more than stubbornness. It was fear. If he started using them, it would be an open admission of how much he had lost in his life.
And he had more worry hanging over his head. Dry macular degeneration had already caused a blind spot in the center of his vision. If his condition changed to wet macular degeneration, blood vessels could grow under his retinas, leaking blood and fluid, and distorting what was left of the little vision he still had.
The doctors couldn’t predict whether it was a given.
Poor Dad.
It would be arrogant of Audrey to believe she understood how taxing Dad’s life must be these days. Her eyesight and her health were perfect.
“Dad, I have to get to work. I can read to you this evening.”
“You call that work? That shop? Mucking about with flowers?”
Audrey braced herself, heartily sick of this old argument. “The shop allows me to live in Accord with you.”
“I don’t need you to live with me. You didn’t have to come home.”
Oh, Daddy. Of course she did. She’d returned to town as soon as Dad had been diagnosed a year ago. How could she not have come home? Dad might be stubborn and unrealistic in his views that he could live alone, but she loved him. They belonged together, especially in his time of need. She was all he had left.
“I can get around this house just fine,” he insisted.
“And town? Do you get around town fine?” Dad sucked in a breath. She wasn’t being cruel. Just realistic. “You refuse to leave the house. How would you get your groceries?”
“I’d have them delivered. Or hire a kid to pick them up.”
But they wouldn’t be Audrey. They wouldn’t read to him because he could no longer read to himself. They wouldn’t cook him the meals he loved. Or force him to eat the healthy stuff he hated. Or spend time with him in the evenings.
Audrey held her tongue and picked up the print book from the end table. It tied into Dad’s fascination with World War II. Audrey didn’t get how Dad could listen to talk of war when his own son had been killed in Afghanistan.
She opened to the section on the Berlin Airlift.
