BILLION DOLLAR DADDY

by Stephanie Brother

  “You need Donnie. His office is through that door and up those stairs.”

  I remember the warning Dana gave me and what Troy had said.

  “Would it be okay for Donnie to speak to me out here?” I ask. “I’d feel more comfortable.”

  The barman frowns. Either he’s wondering why I’m not willing to go to the office or he’s thinking I’ve got some balls to summon his boss when it’s me who’s looking for work.

  “I think he might tell you to get lost,” the barman says, “but I’ll ask.”

  “Thanks.” I take a set on a stool at the bar and watch while he walks to the corner of the bar and picks up a phone. There’s some mumbled conversation but I catch him saying, “she’s a looker.” I suppose if I was less attractive, there’d be no chance. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll tell her.”

  He saunters across the bar looking pleased with himself. “He said that if you want to talk to him, you gotta go upstairs.”

  My face falls and my heart picks up. There is no way I’m going up there. I shake my head, then the barman grins some more. “I told him you wouldn’t and I managed to convince him to come down.”

  “Thank you,” I say quickly, looking towards the door. I’m nervous to meet Donnie down here after all the negative feedback I’ve been given, but I have to do this. Mind over matter, Jessie.

  And just like that, I write my next chapter.

  22

  RYAN

  The List

  Ride a rollercoaster

  Jump off the Stratosphere tower

  Take a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon

  Scuba dive

  Hot air balloon ride

  Learn to shoot a rifle

  Ride a horse

  Try ten new dishes

  Drive the Spyder on a professional racetrack

  Water ski

  Bungee Jump

  Eat at favorite restaurant

  Visit the old neighborhood. Have a beer at O’Neil’s with Paul and Ronan.

  Put flowers on Ma’s grave.

  Kiss a beautiful woman.

  Swim in the ocean at sunset.

  I wake and look at my list. I still have so much to do. I look over the things that are left. All of them would have been more fun with Jessie by my side.

  I decide that I’m going to try and finish them all like I planned. When I originally decided to take this time off work and do some of the things I’d been putting off doing for a long time, I hadn’t met Jessie. Meeting her at the beginning was just fortuitous. Losing her in the middle was unfortunate, but I have to get on with this. I made a plan and I need to stick to it.

  I tick off something each day, and a week passes. With every new experience I feel a little more alive, but when I go to bed at night I’m plagued with dreams of Jessie. She comes to me in my sleep like an angel, with soothing words and encouragement. She tells me everything’s going to be okay and while I’m in dreamland I believe her. Then, as the sun rises, I wake to realizing that none of it was real. Not her cool hand on my brow or her fingers entwined with mine. Not the words she whispered in my ear; I love you, I need you, I’ll always be with you.

  My subconscious tortures me.

  My heart aches a little more each day.

  Where is she? Why hasn’t she come here? Is she okay?

  I consider sending a private investigator to find her. I have one who deals with my corporate issues. In those circumstances I never worry too much about the morality of it. When there’s money on the line, somehow things seem a whole lot clearer cut. If I do I’m invading her privacy. I’m taking away her right to choose to have nothing more to do with me. Can I really do that? Am I that man?

  I vacillate for days, going so far as too call him and tell him to go to the Kitty Cat Club. I tell him to find out if she’s still working there. Before he gets a chance to leave his office, I’m back on the phone telling him not to.

  I sleep restlessly that night. She doesn’t come to me in my dreams and I wake up feeling emptier and more worried than ever. Yes, she made a choice to leave me. She made a choice to leave behind the money I gave her, but that doesn’t stop me from imagining going to see her at work and her welcoming me into her arms. It doesn’t stop me from hoping that I might be able to change her mind. She could forgive me. I know she could. I felt the connection between us and I know she felt it too.

  I know it’s not right, and I know it’s not fair but I need to do this. I need to make this right for my own peace of mind. She may not have kept her end of the bargain but I don’t want her to suffer because of that. I want her to have the money. I want to know that she’s safe and that she has a chance to leave the dangerous lifestyle she’s living behind and do something that she wants to do. It’s the only way I’ll be able to move on.

  But the PI returns with the news I didn’t want to hear. She doesn’t work at the Kitty Cat Club anymore. In some ways I’m relieved. Was the money she took from the console enough to help her leave that place behind and find another job? Half of me hopes it was. The other half, the half that doesn’t care about what’s right and wrong, is panicking. What if she’s gone? What if she’s moved away and I won’t ever be able to find her?

  Sending him to her apartment seems like a huge step. That really is stalking territory and I don’t want to scare her.

  Another day passes and I’m due to fly out to Boston for the two things on my list that I need to do back home. As I’m being driven to the airport I make my decision. Time is not my friend and I need to know she’s okay before…

  I call him and instruct him to go to her apartment. This is a watch and wait exercise. He doesn’t need to intercept her. Not yet, anyway.

  The flight to Boston is uneventful. I wear my headphones and play the meditation music and it helps me block out where I am. With every step I take through the list my fear seems to reduce. It’s ironic really.

  Darryl has come with me. He’s been my chief security office for about eight years. He’s seem me at my highest and lowest and I feel like we have an understanding. We take a car back to my old neighborhood. This will be the first time I’ve come back here since Ma passed. I decide that I want to walk a bit, to smell the air and get a sense of the place where I was raised. I want to feel connected again. It seems important. He sticks close by me as we make our way through the narrow streets. It feels more cramped than I remember. It seems dirtier too.

  It takes a while for us to get to the cemetery. Ma wanted to be buried where she had lived her life. It’s hard for me to understand when this place gave her nothing but hardship, but I guess that for some people, the place we are rooted to the most firmly has our heart, no matter what the circumstances.

  Her plot is modest. She didn’t want me to spend a lot of money on her resting place. Instead, the money went to her chosen charity to pay for more research into the condition that had killed her. She didn’t want anyone else to suffer as she had.

  There are flowers already here. I pay a service to tend to her grave weekly. The ground is dry so I sit. I feel this urge to talk to her, to tell her what I have going around in my head. I want her to understand me because I know she’d be mad as hell. I’m her only son. She’d want me to fight.

  Darryl wanders a little but I know he won’t take his eyes off me. He just wants to give me space. The strangest thing pops into my head. It’s a story she used to read me when I was a kid. It’s was about a boy who loved a rabbit, then the boy got sick. I can’t remember the name but I remember the premise; if a toy is loved enough, it becomes real. I ask her if it’s possible to want something enough that you can make it real. If mind really can conquer the way they say it can. I ask her if she’s proud of me. I know that she was before she died, but I’m not sure if she would be now. She’d be worried that I was lonely.

  She’d be worried that the loneliness was clouding my judgement. She’d tell me that love is enough to triumph over even the greatest of life’s adversities. There was no love like th
at in Ma’s life, except maybe what she felt for me. The love of a mother for her child is unfathomable.

  I have regrets but the biggest is that I haven’t had any children. In a way, it’s a blessing. I just feel like Ma deserves a legacy. She deserves for there to be a little girl out there in the world who looks just like her. Ma had so much decency. The universe needs more people like her and that was my job. In that one thing I have been unsuccessful.

  A bird comes to sit near me. It’s small and dark with a short stubby beak. It pecks at the ground for a while then it looks up at me. We’re still as the night, two creatures sitting under the sun. I hear the call of other birds in the distance and feel the soft drift of the breeze across my skin. I feel Ma’s presence as sharply as if she was really sitting next to me and I can’t breathe. I remember how it felt to press myself against her when she hugged me close. The softness and warmth of her body. Her smell that made me feel so safe. Days when there was someone around to help me make sense of my life and my decisions.

  Fuck.

  I didn’t come here to wallow in fucking self-pity. I came here out of respect. Darryl walks another circle and I stand, dusting of my jeans and rubbing my hands over my face. The bird doesn’t fly away, it just sits there like it’s forgotten how.

  “Bye Ma,” I say softly.

  Then I turn and begin walk towards the exit because it’s time to tick something else off the list.

  I arranged to meet Paul and Ronan in O’Neil’s, where we used to drink when we were scrawny teenagers with fake ID’s. My thinking was that if you are going to take a trip down memory lane you might as well do it properly. It’s been too long since I saw them so I’m nervous. More than I thought I would be. I walk in and find them sitting at the table that used to be our favorite. They’re chatting and laughing and get a pang. These were my friends. The ones I used to bike with. The ones who got me home when I was drunk and took me out to drown my sorrows when I experienced my first heartbreak. These are the men that helped me carry Ma’s casket.

  When they see me it’s all smiles. They bellow my name and pull me into man embraces that involve way more painful backslapping than is necessary. They’ve both put on weight. They both look tired and a little worn. They both look fucking happy to see me.

  “What are you drinking?” I ask them.

  “Well, if it’s you buying, a fucking bottle of the best champagne,” Paul says.

  “The best champagne in here is likely to taste like piss,” Ronan replies.

  “Beers all round then,” I say.

  “And nuts.”

  Ronan punches Paul in the shoulder. “For fuck sake, you and your nuts.”

  I order our drinks and carry them to the table. There is an awkward pause where they both look at me like they have no idea what to say. This is what I hate. This is what money does. It changes things even when you don’t want it to.

  “So you in town for a reason?” Paul says, picking up his pint and taking a long drink.

  “Yeah, to see you.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ronan says. “Well, not that I’m not touched or anything but what’s the occasion?”

  “I think he missed us,” Paul laughs. “He’s stuck having to listen to all of those rich fuckers talk shit all the time. He’s come to us for some real.”

  “Yeah, because we talk such fucking entertaining shit all the time!”

  Paul looks at Ronan and shakes his head. “Always ready to knock us down,” he says. “You don’t realize how lucky you got it.”

  They both look over at me as if this is the point at which I need to confirm why I’m in town.

  “It’s been too fucking long,” I say. I can hear the Boston slipping into my accent again and it feels good.

  “Listen to Mr. Hardo with the curses. You coming back to your roots, Gossy?”

  “It’s not Gossy anymore, is it, Paul. It’s Mr. Crawford, owner of Crawford Inc, industrialist.”

  “Ah fuck,” I say. “Fuck Mr. Crawford.” I down a long drink of my beer, feeling the foam dragging on my top lip. When I’m done I swipe it away with the back of my hand and Paul and Ronan laugh.

  “You can take the boy outta Southie, but you can’t take Southie outta the boy.”

  “You staying in town long? You gotta come and see Darleen and the kids.”

  “Not this time,” I say. “Gotta be back for tomorrow.”

  “You’re flying back tonight?” Paul asks. There’s real disappointment in his voice and I feel like shit. I should never have left it so long. I should have kept these guys close where they belonged.

  “Yeah. Crawford Inc. doesn’t run itself,” I say with a straight face. They look at me like I’m being a pretentious prick, then, when I laugh, they laugh too. “You gonna show me some pictures of this brood you’ve been spawning?” I say to Paul.

  “Yeah, here.” He pulls out his phone and begins to hunt around for images of his kids and his wife.

  “I proposed to Siobhan last year,” Ronan says.

  “Siobhan from school?” I ask. He always did have a soft spot for that girl.

  “Yeah. You know I always said I’d make an honest woman of her.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  I take Paul’s phone and swipe through a few photos of three dark haired, blue eyed kids. All three of them are spitting images of their dad. “Fuck, Paul. There’s no doubting who their daddy is,” I laugh.

  “What you trying to say about Darleen, Ryan?” He looked seriously pissed off and for a moment I think he’s being serious. Then he punches me in the shoulder hard and laughs. “Got ya!”

  In the background someone feeds the juke-box. Irish music blares and my chest hurts for all the years I’ve been away from this place that was my home.

  “You found anyone?” Ronan asks. I can tell he’s worried about asking. They heard about Corina in the papers. I know because they called the funeral service and left condolences with the director.

  “Nah,” I say. “Not really.”

  “Not really means there is someone,” Paul laughs.

  “Who is she?” Ronan asks. “She after your money?”

  “It’s not like that,” I say. I think about Jessie and her sweetness. I think about her gentle smile and her pretty face, and her strength. “She’s a good girl but it didn’t work out.”

  “Then make it work,” Ronan says. “You think Siobhan agreed to marry this without some convincing?” He waves his hand over himself like a game show hostess presenting the prizes. He’s put on weight since I last saw him. I guess that’s what he means.

  I shake my head. “Things aren’t always that simple. Sometimes you need to let people go, if that’s what they want. No point in fighting the tide.”

  “Women don’t always know what they want,” Paul says. He downs the rest of his drink and stands as though he’s going to the bar. “Another round?”

  I shouldn’t. I don’t want to sit here and get drunk and end up pouring out my heart to these men. There was a time when that would have been exactly what I would have done but not now. My problems are my own. I’m here to make peace. To set things to rights.

  I’m here to say goodbye.

  “I’ll have a Coke,” I say.

  “Coke?”

  “Yeah, you know that brown bubbly stuff.”

  “Very fucking funny.”

  Paul heads to the bar and Ronan leans towards me. “He won’t tell you but I thought I should,” he whispers.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Darleen. She’s sick.”

  “What do you mean, sick?”

  “She’s got cancer.”

  I don’t know what to say. He’s got three young children. A family to support. “Is she having treatment?” I ask.

  “Yeah, but their insurance is shit. He’s worried outta his mind, but he won’t talk about it. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Why didn’t he call me?”

  “Why do you think, Ryan?” He speaks without anger or malic
e. It’s just a statement and I know. We’re not like that anymore. He didn’t feel he could tell me the worst news a man can face. I make a decision that things are not going to be like this anymore. Friendships shouldn’t fall by the wayside in life. True friends get over differences. The change and grow together. I feel like I failed them.

  “I can help her,” I say. “I can get her to see a specialist.”

  “Then you do it, Ryan. You do what you can because he needs her and those kids need her. You fucking do what you can okay?”

  Paul comes back with two beers and my Coke. “Connor called you a pussy,” he laughs.

  “Connor wouldn’t know pussy if it was wrapped round his face,” I say and something slots into place with me. I’ve been Mr. Crawford for so long I forgot that there was another me inside. One that I traded in to get where I wanted to go. But it feels good to be Gossy again.

  “Now there’s the Ryan we fucking miss,” Ronan says banging the table so hard the drinks jump.

  For the next couple of hours we talk about old time and I smile more than I have in a very long time. Darryl sits in the corner reading a paper so discreetly that Paul and Ronan never even notice him. Then, when it’s time to go, I message for my car to pick me up and I have to do what I came for. I have to say goodbye.

  We all stand and it feels awkward. Like those moments after the first time you fuck someone new, when you’ve sweated all over them but somehow talking to them seems like a massively intimate thing. I reach out and pull Paul into a hug. It’s less man-show this time and he pats my shoulder as though he can tell this is a big thing for me. It’s the same with Ronan.

  “You’re coming back?” Ronan says, slapping my cheek in a way that people do with cute kids.