by Susan Wiggs
The words passed through her like a chilly breeze. “Oh. I see. I’m...” She really had no idea what to say. “I’m sorry, too. I mean, he’s your friend. What happened?”
“He fell off a ladder in his orchard, and he’s in a coma.”
Tess winced, flashing on a poor old man falling from a ladder. She laced her fingers together into a knot of tension, mingled with excitement. Her grandfather...her family. He had an orchard. She’d never really thought of anyone having an orchard, let alone someone she was related to. “I guess...I appreciate your coming to deliver the news in person,” she said. She wondered how much, if anything, he knew about the reason she didn’t know Magnus, or anyone on that side of the family. “I just don’t get what this has to do with me. I assume he’s got other family members who can deal with the situation.”
She flashed on another conversation she’d had with her mother, long ago, when she’d been a bewildered and lonely little girl. “I want you to tell me about my father,” she’d said, stubbornly crossing her arms.
“He’s gone, sweetheart. I’ve told you before, he was in a car accident before you were born, and he was killed.”
Tess winced. “Did it hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sure don’t know a lot, Mom.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, it’s true. Were you sad when he died?”
“I... Of course. Everyone who knew him was sad.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“All his friends and family.”
“But who? What were their names?”
“I only knew Erik for a short time. I really didn’t know his friends and family.” Her eyes shifted, and that was how Tess knew she was holding back.
She didn’t even really know what her father looked like, or how his voice sounded, or the touch of his hand. She had only one thing to go by—an old photo print. The square Instamatic picture was kept in the bottom drawer of her mom’s bureau. The colors were fading. In the background was a big bridge stretching like a spider web across the water. In the center of the photo stood a man. He wasn’t smiling but he looked nice. He had crinkles fanning his eyes and hair that was light brown or dark blond, cut in a feathery old-fashioned style. “Very eighties,” her mother had once explained.
“I still wish I had a dad,” she said, thinking of her friends who had actual families—mom, dad, brothers and sisters. Sometimes she fantasized about a handsome Prince Charming, swooping in to marry her pretty mother and settling down with them in a nice house, painted pink.
Now she regarded Dominic Rossi, who had appeared as if out of a dream, telling her things that only raised more questions. He studied her with a stranger’s eyes, yet she thought she recognized compassion. Or was it pity? Suddenly she found herself resenting his handsomeness, his patrician features, the calm intelligence in his eyes. He was...a banker? Probably some over-educated grad with a degree in finance from some fancy institution. Which was no reason to resent him, but she did so just the same.
“I’ve never had anything to do with Magnus Johansen,” she said, deeply discomfited by this conversation. “And like I said, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.”
“Miss Delaney. Theresa—”
“Tess,” she said. “No one calls me Theresa.”
“Sorry. That’s how you’re named in the will.”
Her jaw dropped. “What will? This is the first I’ve heard of any will. And why are you telling me this now? Did he die from the fall?”
“No. But...there’s, uh, some discussion about continuing life support. Everyone’s praying Magnus will recover, but...it doesn’t look good for your grandfather. There are decisions that need to be made....” Dominic Rossi’s voice sounded low and quiet with emotion.
The crazy heart rush started again. “It’s sad to hear, and it sounds like you’re...like you feel bad about it. But I have no idea what this has to do with me.”
He studied her for a moment. “Whether he survives this or not, your grandfather intends to leave you half his estate.”
It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. Despite her experience in provenance, she was fundamentally unfamiliar with the concepts of grandfathers and estates. “Let me get this straight. A grandfather I’ve never known wants to give me half of everything.”
“That’s correct.”
“Not only do I not know the man, I also don’t know what ‘everything’ means.”
“He has property in Sonoma County. Bella Vista—that’s the name of the estate—is a hundred-acre working orchard, with house, grounds and outbuildings.”
An estate. Her grandfather owned an estate. She’d never known anyone who owned an estate; that was something she saw on Masterpiece Theatre, not in real life.
“Bella Vista,” she said. The name tasted like sugar on her tongue. “And it’s...in Archangel? In Sonoma County?” Sonoma was where people went for Sunday drives or weekend escapes. It simply didn’t seem like a place where people owned estates. Certainly not a hundred acres... “And why do I not get to find all this out until he falls off a ladder and goes into a coma?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“And you’re telling me now because of... Oh, God.” She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t get her head around the idea of being someone’s next of kin. Finally she felt something, an unfamiliar surge—uncomfortable, yet impossible to deny. The thought crossed her mind that this...this possible legacy called Bella Vista might be a blessing in disguise. On the heels of that thought came a wave of guilt. She didn’t know Magnus Johansen, but she didn’t wish him ill just to get her hands on his money.
“Half of everything,” she murmured. “A stranger is leaving me half of everything. It’s like a storyline in those dreadful English children’s novels I used to read as a kid, about an orphan saved at the last minute by a rich relative.”
“Not familiar with them,” he said.
“Trust me, they’re dreadful. But just so you know, I’m not an orphan and I don’t need saving.”
An appealing glimmer flashed in his eyes. “Point taken.”
“Who sent you to find me?” she asked. “And by the way, how did you find me?”
“Like I said, you’re named in his will and...he’s an old man and it’s not looking good for him. I found you the way everybody finds people these days—the internet. It wasn’t a stretch. Good job on the Polish necklace, by the way.”
“Rosary,” she corrected him. “So what’s your role? How are you involved in this situation?”
“Magnus redrafted his will recently, naming me executor.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why you?”
“He asked,” Dominic said simply. “I’ve known Magnus since I was a kid. And I’ve been his neighbor and his banker for a number of years.”
She felt an irrational stab of envy. How was it that this guy—this banker—got to know her grandfather, when she’d never even met the man?
Dominic’s penetrating stare made her uncomfortable, as if he saw some part of her that she didn’t like people to see—that needy girl, yearning for a family.
“Maybe he’ll recover,” Dominic said, reading her thoughts.
“Maybe? What’s the prognosis? Is there a prognosis?”
“At the moment, it’s uncertain. There’s swelling of the brain and he’s on a ventilator, but that could change. That’s the hope, anyway.”
Her stomach churned, the way it had the night before in the elevator. “I feel for you, and for everyone who cares for him. Really, I do. But I still don’t see a role for me in all this.”
“Once he recovers, and you get to know him—”
“Apparently getting to know me is not what he wants.” She glanced away from his probing gaze.
“Magnus didn’t just decide...” There was an edge in his voice. “I’m sure he has his reasons.”
“Really? What kind of man refuses to acknowledge his own granddaughter except on a piece of paper?”
“I can’t answer for Magnus.”
She softened, felt her shoulders round. “It’s terrible, what happened to him. I just wish I understood. Mr. Rossi, I really don’t think there’s anything to discuss.” She was dying, dying to get in touch with her mother now. Shannon Delaney had some explaining to do. Such as why she’d never mentioned Magnus Johansen, or Archangel, or the legacy of an estate. A man she’d never known had included her in his will. She let the words sink in, trying to figure out how it made her feel. Her grandfather—her grandfather—was leaving her half of everything. As she shaped her mind around the idea, an obvious question occurred to her.
“What about the other half?” she asked.
“The other... Oh, you mean Magnus’s estate.”
“Yes.”
“The other half will be left to your sister.”
She nearly fell over in her chair. She couldn’t speak for a moment, could only stare at her visitor, aghast. “Whoa,” she said softly. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Give me a minute here. I have a sister?”
“Yes,” said Dominic. “Look, I know I’ve thrown a lot at you....”
“You think?” Tess struggled to assimilate the information, but she felt flooded by all the revelations. Her heart jolted into overdrive. It wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning, and she’d learned her estranged grandfather was in a coma he’d probably never come out of, and she had a...sister. The word—the concept—was completely foreign to her.
“What sister?” she managed to ask, although she couldn’t hear her own voice over a rampant pounding in her ears. “Where is she? Who is this...oh, my God...this sister?”
“She’s at Bella Vista, and she— Hey, are you okay?” he asked, again with that oddly penetrating look.
“Just peachy,” she said. Her hands clamped the edge of the desk in a death grip. How could this be happening to her? In the middle of her perfectly normal life, this person had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to tell her about a legacy she didn’t realize she had coming to her.
And a sister she’d never even known about.
Feeling trapped, Tess looked wildly around the office. Her pulse went crazy, hammering away at her chest with a vengeance. It was even worse than it had been the night before. Was she dying? Maybe she was dying. Inanimate objects started to blur and pulsate as though coming to life. Her throat constricted, and she felt her heart thudding against her breastbone. She made an involuntary sound, a gasp of distress and confusion.
“Miss Delaney...Tess?” asked Dominic.
“I...” Her throat felt swollen and clogged. Sweat broke out on her forehead, her upper lip. “Not feeling so hot,” she managed to mutter.
“You look terrible, like you’re going to pass out or something.”
His voice sounded very far away, as if he was shouting down a long tube.
She pressed her hands against her chest. Her fingers felt as cold as ice. Breathe, Tess told herself, but her throat kept closing up.
“I need to...sit down,” she managed to force out.
“Uh, you are sitting down.”
She pressed her hands against the chair. Dear God, what’s happening to me?
Dominic went to the doorway and stuck his head out into the hall. “Hey, we could use some help in here. I think she’s getting sick.”
Tess tried to protest. I’m not sick. Her voice was lost somewhere inside her, and besides, she couldn’t swear the guy was wrong.
People gathered in the small space outside the office. Her blurred vision pulsed harder. A couple of faces pressed close.
Jude: “Jesus, Tess, you look like death on a cracker.”
Oksana: “Maybe it’s a heart attack. Tess! Can you hear me?”
Brooks: “Or a panic attack. Give her a paper bag to breathe into.”
Jude: “I’m calling 911.”
No, said Tess, but no sound came out.
“Where’s the nearest emergency room?” asked Dominic. He took her wrist, and she felt his fingers, delicately feeling for her pulse. Of them all, the stranger was the only one who touched her. She trembled as though stepping into a freezer.
Emergency room? Was she having an emergency? No ER, she thought. That was where people went to have their chests cracked and ended up in the morgue with a tag tied to their big toe.
“Mercy Heights is just across Comstock,” said Jude.
“Then that’s where we need to go.”
“Should I call—”
“No, that takes too long.” Arms that felt as strong and solid as a forklift hoisted her up out of the chair. Dominic Rossi held her as if she weighed nothing.
“Grab her purse, will you?” he said. “And someone get the door.”
* * *
Tess lay on a gurney covered with a crackly, disposable fabric. A thin hospital gown lay over her, and someone had given her a pair of bright yellow socks with nonskid dots on the soles. Little sticky things attached to wires led from her chest to a beeping monitor. More wires led to the tips of her fingers, attached by clear plastic clothespins. Flexible plastic tubing snaked behind her ears and blew chilly, strangely scented oxygen into her nostrils. Someone had left an aluminum chart lying across her thighs.
Bells and announcements went off. Hurried footsteps squeaked across polished floors. There were sounds of conversation, weeping, praying in at least three languages. Someone was moaning. Someone else was cursing fluently at the top of his lungs, and somewhere a patient—or inmate, perhaps—was barking like a dog.
A group of people in lab coats clustered around Tess. Mercy was a teaching hospital, and most of the coat wearers were young and appeared to be incredibly interested in her.
Tess felt limp and defeated, battered by the events of the past two hours. Dominic Rossi had brought her in, carrying her in his arms like a drowning victim. She’d been questioned, monitored, questioned some more, tested and scanned. They’d asked her if she’d ever considered or attempted suicide, who the president was and to describe her state of mind. The screening questions came at her in a barrage, melding together—Did she worry excessively? Had she experienced symptoms for six months or more? Was she unable to control her worry?
She felt numb, defeated, as she replied with dull affirmatives to far too many of the questions.
One of the med students, a pudgy, earnest guy no older than Tess, reported her case. He stood nervously at the end of the bed, reading notes from a rolling monitor station. “Miss Delaney is a twenty-nine-year-old female, height, sixty-seven inches, weight, one-hundred-nineteen pounds, with no previous history of health issues. She was brought in by...” He consulted the monitor. “A friend or coworker who became worried about her when she exhibited a variety of symptoms, including shortness of breath, elevated heart rate, disorientation, blurred vision....”
She felt like a different person, lying there, or maybe an inanimate item about to be put up for auction. Anyone within earshot could hear her story. The med student reported the replies to her “lifestyle choices” and results of the labs done in the ER. In flat tones, mercifully free of judgment, he told the attending physician that she was underweight and smoked. Her blood pressure and pulse were elevated. A chem panel revealed that she was not on drugs nor was she the victim of poison. The patient reported that she had experienced these symptoms before but never with this intensity.
When the student finished, the attending, an older man, stepped forward. “Your labs are in,” he informed her.
“That’s a relief,” Tess said. Her voice was thin and strained, but at least she was beginning to sound like herself again. “I’m ready to get out of here.”
“I’m sure you are. However, we do need to discuss the differential diagnosis—”
“The what?”
“Your condition.”
“Condition? I have a condition? I do not have a condition. I have a meeting with—” Her heart sped up, and two of the monitors betrayed her.
A student adjusted her oxygen flow. The
doctor wheeled a monitor into view. “I’ll show you the results. There’s nothing physically wrong with you.” He went over her EKG and ultrasound, her blood tests and urinalysis. “However, your symptoms are real, and the good news is, very treatable. Have you ever heard of generalized anxiety disorder? Sometimes referred to as GAD.”
“Anxiety disorder?” She hated the sound of that. “Disorder” applied to her housekeeping habits, not her health. “You mean, I had an anxiety attack?”
“You’ll want to follow up with your primary care physician.”
“I don’t have a doctor,” she said. “Doctors are for sick people.”
“In that case, you’ll want to find one to monitor your condition and help you treat the disorder with lifestyle changes.”
“My lifestyle is fine,” she said, and despite the extra oxygen, the monitor beeped faster. “I have no desire to change it.”
“There are risks—particularly to your heart.”
“My heart?” She swallowed, trying not to freak out again.
“Left untreated, your symptoms could result in heart damage due to cardiovascular stress. There are further tests for cardiovascular disease. Again, I would urge you to take this up with a physician.”
“What are you?” she demanded. “Chopped liver?”
The man had an intractable poker face. “It could be situational. What’s going on in your life?”
It was the first personal question he’d asked her. “Everything,” she said. “I’m missing what’s probably the most important meeting of my career. Some stranger showed up this morning with a crazy story about my... It doesn’t matter. I just need to pull myself together and get out of here.”
“You won’t get far if you don’t deal with this,” he stated. “I have a list of referrals for you. And here’s a pamphlet with some information on panic disorders. There are things you need to start doing right away in order to avoid lasting health effects....”
Wonderful, thought Tess. This was just too good to be true. In the space of a single day, she had found her grandfather, only to be told she was probably on the verge of losing him; she’d been informed that she had a sister she’d never met, and now this.