Nine Lives Read online

  “There’s no rush to decide,” Phil reminded her. “I just wanted to put it out there, in case you do want to sell the business now or later, so you know how interested I am. And my son Bill would love it.” She nodded, feeling dazed. If she sold it to him, she would wind up with somewhere around two million dollars. What would she do with that kind of money? She couldn’t imagine.

  He reminded her to call the insurance company when she left, and she drove home feeling distracted and separate from her body somehow. She should have been relieved about the money, but she wasn’t. It just made her feel guiltier for surviving when Brad hadn’t. And now she was making money from it.

  She felt even worse after she called the insurance company. She had assumed that he had some ordinary policy, like fifty or a hundred thousand dollars she could put into Aden’s college fund. College was expensive, and she and Brad had talked about that a lot. But Brad was a prudent, responsible man. He had been paying for years for a three-million-dollar life insurance policy, in case anything ever happened to him, so he would leave his family secure for life.

  “Three million?” Her voice was a high-pitched squeak when the agent she spoke to told her, almost as a routine matter, which he assumed she knew. She didn’t. “Oh my God.” It was getting worse. Not only was she profiting from his death, she was getting rich. In a single day, she had discovered that she had four million dollars now, with what Brad had left them and his life insurance policy. And if she sold the business to Phil, she’d have five million eventually. She hung up the phone, feeling frightened and confused, and half an hour later, she had a migraine headache and went to bed. She had taken a painkiller and was in a deep sleep when Aden came home. She woke up when he sat on her bed to check on her.

  “Bad day, Mom?” he asked her gently. He could see that it had been. Most days were now. She was beginning to remind herself of her own mother and hated herself for it.

  “Yes…no…I don’t know. Kind of.” Finding out they had four million dollars didn’t really qualify as a bad day. Brad could have left her destitute or close to it, like her father had done, leaving only his military pension, but that wasn’t her husband’s style. But how she had gotten the money was devastating. She got up and went downstairs to start dinner. She brought up the business when Aden sat down at the table with her. She asked him about his career plans now, and felt foolish doing so. He was still the same seventeen-year-old high school kid he had been a month before, when his father was still alive. Nothing had changed, even if he seemed more grown up now. But his future was still a blank page to him, maybe even more so now without his father to guide him.

  “Can you see yourself stepping into Dad’s shoes at the office one day, when you’re older?”

  “Never,” he said without hesitating. He could be more honest with her than he had been with his father, not wanting to hurt his feelings since Aden knew how hard his dad had worked to build something for them for the future. “I’d rather die than be an accountant like Dad. I don’t know how he stood it. It’s so boring, and I’m terrible with numbers.” She knew that was true, but it could change if he tried to learn the business. Brad had actually enjoyed it. “I want to do something more exciting. I want to take flying lessons,” he said, and Maggie felt her stomach turn over.

  “Could we pick something a little more middle-of-the-road? Like a career where you don’t risk your life every day? My father, my brother, and your father all died in accidents related to flying. How about something less dangerous than flying?” she reasoned with him.

  “I’d rather be a plumber, or dig ditches, than be an accountant.” He said it with fervor, and Maggie felt her heart sink, knowing Brad would have been disappointed too, although not surprised. He wasn’t sure Aden would ever be cut out for the family business, although he’d hoped he’d grow into it one day. “Why?” She decided to tell him about Phil at least, not the insurance. She had decided not to tell him about that. He didn’t need to know how much money they had now, not until he was older. She didn’t intend to change anything about the way they lived. They had always been modest and discreet, and she wanted to keep it that way.

  “I went to Dad’s office today, to see Phil. He’d like to buy the business and run it with his son. He thinks it would be a long time before you go to work there, and he thinks it might make more sense if we sell it now.”

  “I will never work there,” Aden said. “I told Dad that when we talked about it. I don’t think he believed me, but I mean it. Maybe you should sell it, Mom.” She nodded, not sure what to do. The idea was new to her and she needed to digest it. “Did Dad leave you enough to get by? Do we need to sell the house?” He had been worried about that since his father’s death, but hadn’t wanted to ask her and upset her. He wasn’t sure what the situation would be with college if he didn’t get a full ride.

  “He left us enough,” she answered softly. “We’re fine. We don’t have to sell the house, or the business if we don’t want to. I don’t want to do something your father would have hated, or that would have broken his heart. He loved the business and the fact that your grandfather started it. Maintaining it and making it grow was like a sacred mission to him.”

  “He was pretty practical, though, Mom. If you can’t run it, and I don’t want to, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to keep it. Maybe you should sell it and invest the money. Maybe that’s what Dad would have done,” he said sensibly. It was the most adult conversation they’d ever had.

  “I’ll think about it,” was all she said, and intended to.

  The icing on the cake came after she called the airline two days later. She finally got up the guts to call them. She had been called by their legal department, the team assigned to settlements. They requested a meeting, and she wanted to put it off, but they said they needed information from her to better assess what had happened, so she felt obliged to meet with them the week after she’d gone to Brad’s office.

  They came to the house at ten o’clock in the morning the following week, and she met them in the living room. There were four of them. Three men and a woman, all lawyers. They told her very frankly that they had a clearer picture now of the circumstances of the crash. They had suggested to her that she have an attorney present, but she said she didn’t need one. She didn’t tell them, but she didn’t intend to sue them. Whatever she or they did, it wouldn’t bring Brad back, so she was going to listen but not file a claim against them, which was one of the things they wanted to know from her during the meeting.

  They explained that on the night of the flight, whether or not it should take off had become debatable, given weather conditions in New York. It could have gone either way, and the snowstorm could have let up once they took off, or worsened, which was what had happened. But there was a strong suspicion before takeoff that LaGuardia would be closing shortly, and the deciding voices at the airline had decided to make a run for it. They had assumed they’d get to New York in time to be the last plane in. The pilot had thought he could make it safely, but they realized now, in hindsight, that they should have canceled the flight, to be completely safe. He was a seasoned pilot and had been part of the decision, and they trusted his experience and his judgment. The storm had gotten much worse after takeoff, and they had all been wrong. It was public knowledge and had been in the media, so they weren’t sharing secrets with her. They expected numerous lawsuits for wrongful death to be filed, in which they would be accused of making irresponsible decisions. They were intending to shoulder the consequences.

  At fifty-two, Brad had still been at the height of his earning power, and had a family to support. Maggie had been on the flight with him, and had suffered physical and mental consequences that might stay with her for years, or mark her forever. She had been clearly assessed with post-traumatic stress disorder when discharged from the hospital. The other passengers had suffered similarly, and many had died. It was not an even
t the airline was proud of, and they were prepared to accept full responsibility for it. They acknowledged that it wouldn’t make up for her loss, or the loss of a father for a son, but they were prepared to compensate them in the only way they could. They offered her a ten-million-dollar settlement if she would sign a release. They were making similar offers to the other passengers, depending on the degree of damage they had suffered. One woman had lost her legs, a child, and her husband. They didn’t tell Maggie they were offering her a hundred million. She hadn’t accepted yet, and her attorney said she was still too traumatized to discuss it.

  Maggie felt as if she were in shock again after they made the offer. They left her with the paperwork outlining their settlement package and the release she would have to sign, and advised her to seek the advice of a lawyer. They were kind and compassionate and very humble. Not knowing what to do, she called Phil after they left. He said he wasn’t surprised, and thought it was the least they could do if the crash had been due to poor judgment on the part of the airline, which they readily admitted.

  “You can probably get double that, if that’s where they started,” Phil said gently.

  “I don’t want double that!” Maggie said, horrified. “I don’t even want ten million. I don’t want to get rich because my husband died, Phil. You already told me we have more than enough from the insurance and Brad’s savings.”

  “You have a right to that money, Maggie. You suffered a terrible loss and went through unspeakable trauma yourself. You should take it. It could make a big difference to Aden one day. I think Brad would want you to take it.” She was shocked. It felt immoral to her, but pointing out that it might matter to Aden one day resonated with her. “You might even get more if you sue them, and they know that,” he added, and she groaned.

  “Is everything about money? I lost the husband I loved, and Aden lost his dad. Money doesn’t make up for that.”

  “Aden could have seventy years ahead of him, and you could have fifty. He’s a boy, and you’re a young woman. Don’t turn your nose up at that kind of money.”

  “I’m not. I just don’t want blood money. It’s bad enough that I survived and he didn’t.”

  “It’s damn lucky you did,” he said, “for Aden’s sake. Imagine if you had both died. What would happen to him now?” They had no other relatives and Aden would have been an orphan, on his own at seventeen. It suddenly made her realize even more acutely how important it was for her to make good decisions now, for her son’s sake. She called Brad’s lawyer after she talked to Phil, and sent him the paperwork the airline had left with her. She told him about Phil offering to buy the business too, and he thought it an excellent idea, particularly selling it to someone who knew it so well, had worked there for twenty years, and loved Brad deeply as an employee and friend.

  It was a lot for her to think about.

  The lawyer suggested that she turn down the settlement and ask them to double it. He thought she’d come out somewhere around fifteen million if she did, which he thought was fair, and he advised her again to sell the business to Phil, and said he thought Brad would approve.

  In the end, she accepted the ten million the airline had offered her, which seemed like more than enough to her. More would have seemed obscene, for the price on her husband’s head. She told Phil she would sell the business to him. They agreed on a million two, with two years to pay her in full.

  When it was all over, she had fourteen million dollars, with a million more to come from Phil. He was elated about it. The airline’s check arrived in the mail two days after she signed the release, and they thanked her for being so reasonable. Her lawyer had requested a confidentiality clause that they not disclose the amount of the settlement, or that there had even been one, so as not to make her or Aden targets for people with profiteering or criminal intentions, which she hadn’t even thought of.

  The insurance company’s check took a little longer. Phil made his first payment right on time, as she would have expected him to. No matter how she looked at it, or hated the reasons for it, in a short span of time, she had become a rich woman. She didn’t know what to do with the money, and hired the same investment advisor Brad had used. He had left her a legacy of stability, and a solid foundation he had built carefully. But she still had no idea what to do with it, or who she was without Brad. He had been her whole identity for nineteen years. Without him, she felt invisible, and lost. She had nightmares about the money sometimes and saw it dripping blood in her dreams, or floating in a pool of blood with the vision of Brad slipping under the surface.

  She told Aden none of it, and she had accepted it all for him. She knew that if she safeguarded the money, as Brad would have done, and invested it well, Aden would be a wealthy man one day, but she had no intention of telling him or anyone else about it. In the meantime, overnight she was now a wealthy widow, which was the last thing she wanted to be. All she had wanted was to be Brad’s wife, and a good wife and mother. Instead she now had money and had to live the rest of her life without him. At least they were safe and secure. It was his final gift to her. She would never have to worry about money or the future.

  Little by little, the nightmares lessened, the headaches were less severe, and she was able to sleep at night again. She realized that despite how sad she was without Brad, security was a good thing. She was never going to do anything risky with her money or spend it lavishly. She would save all or most of it for Aden. It would be for him one day. It was the only way she could live with acquiring so much money as a result of Brad’s death.

  Chapter 4

  At the end of March, Aden got his college acceptance letters. He was accepted at Dartmouth and Boston University, with a full scholarship to play on their hockey teams. Buck’s recommendations had helped, but Aden had earned it. Maggie was even more worried now about his playing such a violent sport, but he had played all through high school, and it was what he wanted to do in college. It didn’t reassure her that two days after he accepted Boston University, he got into a massive team fight on the ice, and got a cut over his eye that needed stitches and a dislocated jaw when the opposing team’s goalie punched him. She gave him a sound lecture when she drove him home from the emergency room. Half the team was there, and Aden was proud of the scrap that they had gotten into. All of the boys were fined and would have to miss the next game. She was still annoyed at him when Buck came to check on him the next day. He was a big, burly man who had played professional hockey for two seasons in his youth, and had to give it up when he broke his ankle during a game.

  “It’s the nature of the game.” He tried to soothe Maggie about the fight, which didn’t reassure her. “The pros do it too.”

  “That’s what I don’t like about it. He could end up with a serious injury,” she said as she led Buck into her kitchen after he visited Aden, who was watching TV from his bed. Aden didn’t admit it to his mother, but he thought the fight had been fun, just like the pro players in the NHL, as Buck said. He felt like a man now, and Buck didn’t disagree with him, although he didn’t say it to Aden’s mother. He knew she was always worried about Aden getting hurt. Other than that, Buck liked her. And she was a very pretty woman.

  “He’s a great player, Maggie. He’s got what it takes for the NHL: incredible timing, speed, size. He’s got all the right instincts. He could be a pro player one day, and a good one.” She had higher hopes for him, and didn’t want him playing violent sports. Brad hadn’t wanted that for him either. “I’m going to miss him when he leaves for Boston. He’s my star player,” Buck said. She was more interested in his education than a future in the NHL.

  “I’m going to miss him too,” she said sadly. Buck had been very kind to him in the three months since Brad had died. He had mentored him all through high school, but had stepped it up when Brad died and tried to be almost a father figure to Aden. He had dropped in on him at home to check on him from time to ti
me, which Maggie appreciated. There were no other adult men in his life now. “The house is going to be like a tomb without him,” she admitted.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. Enjoy the next five months before he leaves, and then I have to find something to do. I can’t sit around here all day.” She had been thinking about it a lot, and hadn’t come up with any ideas. She didn’t even have her twice-a-week job at Brad’s firm anymore. She didn’t want to intrude on Phil, since he was buying the business, and he didn’t really need her. She had just done it to be close to Brad, once Aden was in school.

  Buck chatted about the subject awkwardly for a while, and then looked at her and spat it out. “I’d love to take you out to dinner sometime. You’re a wonderful woman.” He had been divorced for years and his kids were grown. His whole life was the school and the coaching he did. He was kind of gruff, a little rough around the edges, and he was great with the kids, but he held no appeal for her. She couldn’t see herself with a high school hockey coach, going to games every weekend. She was ready for that time in her life to end. Brad had agreed to travel to please her, and they had both liked the theater and ballet. They went to Chicago for it. She wondered if this was what she had to look forward to now, dating the high school coach. The prospect didn’t cheer her. She turned him down as gently as she could, and he looked disappointed when he left. She told him she wasn’t dating and wouldn’t be ready to for a long time.

  Brad’s lawyer tried the same thing when Maggie met with him. He’d been divorced twice and was something of a ladies’ man, or thought he was. He was sixty years old, and Maggie was shocked when he asked her to dinner with a clear innuendo in his tone, and the look in his eyes made her skin crawl. She had always liked him until then, and decided to change lawyers as soon as possible. Helen recommended a friend, a younger woman at a local firm. Maggie met with her and hired her. She had no interest whatsoever in dating, and certainly not the dregs of what was available, either slimy men or lonely ones, who didn’t measure up to Brad and didn’t appeal to her.