Darley
* * *
The next morning Darley dropped off Poppy and Hatcher with her parents at Orange Street. Malcolm had driven to Princeton to go to church with his parents, and Darley had foolishly signed on to chair the Henry Street School Holiday Book and Toy Fair and had to attend the first of about seven hundred meetings.
At half past noon, Darley jogged over to her parents’ to pick up the kids, and her mother fairly shoved them out the door before waving her off. They had agreed to babysit with even less enthusiasm than usual, and it made Darley wish all over again that the Kims lived in the neighborhood.
Poppy and Hatcher each wore a giant backpack with a water bottle tucked in a mesh outer pocket, keychains with stuffed animals and beaded lanyards dangling from the zippers. They moved along the street like little bouncing turtles, homes on their backs, Hatcher dragging his feet so that yet another pair of shoes would be scuffed across the toes.
“Did you have fun?” Darley asked Poppy as they galumphed the three blocks home.
“It was the worst day of my life,” Poppy said.
“Why?” Darley laughed.
“Glammy doesn’t know how to turn on the TV and for snack they only had olives and machine cherries.”
“Maraschino,” Darley corrected. Her parents had fed the kids from the bar cart. “What did you play with?”
“Glammy let us watch YouTube on her phone so she and Gramps could have an argument.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“Auntie George.”
“Oh,” Darley sighed. Her parents really needed to watch what they said in front of Poppy and Hatcher. The kids had turned into expert eavesdroppers, and they gossiped with the fervor of middle schoolers.
“Auntie George wants to give away all her money and Gramps says over his dead body. Is Gramps almost one hundred?”
“No, honey, Gramps is sixty-nine,” murmured Darley. What had her parents been talking about? When she got home, she called her father’s cell phone.
“Daddy, Poppy told me Georgiana is trying to give away her money.”
“Hold on a moment,” he said, and she heard her father walk down the hall and close a door. “Georgiana has gotten this idea in her head that having financial advantages is somehow an abomination and that the only way to move forward is for her to give it all away like some kind of millennial communist saint. This is why I didn’t want to send her to Brown.”
“She wants to give her whole trust away? When? And to who?”
“As soon as possible. She went and made an appointment with Bill Wallis behind our backs. She’s planning to set up a foundation.”
“Dad, you know she’s having a mental health crisis, right? This is all related to that married guy. You can’t let her do this.” Darley was pacing the hall and possibly yelling.
“The problem is, it’s beyond my control. She’s over twenty-five and I’m not a trustee. Your mother is. Talk to her.”
“Mom won’t talk to me! I tried to tell her Georgiana needed therapy and she said, ‘What happened with that friend of Georgiana’s is her business,’ as though I’m a complete stranger!”
Darley hung up the phone and felt adrenaline coursing through her body. Georgiana was barely an adult. She had no idea what money even meant. She’d never worried about it, she’d never been without. But who knew what the future might hold? What if she fell in love with an artist? What if she one day had a child with disabilities? What if Georgiana needed some medical treatment herself? What if there was a nuclear war and she needed to escape to another country? What if her husband was fired? What if, what if, what if? There were countless things that could go awry, and money was the best way to shore yourself up against tragedy. Darley couldn’t stand by and watch her baby sister throw it all away.
She called Georgiana but it went to voice mail, so she sent her a text: George, please call me. I’m v worried about you. I know you’re having a hard time, but this is a huge mistake.
She then texted Cord: Georgiana went to Bill Wallis to take all her money out of her trust. Did you know about this?
Cord replied: What? No. But Dad was being a nightmare at work yesterday and tried to pump the brakes on the new Vinegar Hill acquisition because “we are going to be poor” so that tracks.
Darley texted, I’m coming over and when Cord wrote back, I’m tied up right now, she didn’t see it—she was already on the way.
* * *
—
The Pineapple Street house was swarming with people when Darley arrived, kids in tow. She sent Poppy and Hatcher into the backyard and found her brother in the parlor talking to a woman wearing big wire-rimmed glasses and holding a tablet.
“Hey, Cord,” she said uncertainly. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Darley, hi.” Cord looked embarrassed, which was maybe a first for him. “I’m just getting an estimate. We’ll be done in about half an hour.”
“An estimate on what?”
“We’re going to have all the furniture and art and stuff taken out and put into storage. We have to make room for the baby.”
“The baby?” Darley asked in disbelief. “The baby that’s going to be the size of a loaf of bread needs you to move out the mahogany organ clock? The baby needs you to put Geegee’s Napoleon the third hall chair in storage?”
“I’m just going to check in with my team upstairs.” The woman in glasses excused herself awkwardly and scurried out of the room.
“Yeah, Darley,” Cord scowled at her. “Sasha doesn’t need to live in a Stockton family museum.”
“It’s not a museum, Cord. It’s a home.” Darley sat down on the sofa, then remembering the rash, stood up and moved to the velvet chaise.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Cord said and sat down next to her. “Sasha is so unhappy here. She says she feels like we exclude her from the family, like she isn’t comfortable around us. And so I thought that maybe if I took all the stuff out of Pineapple Street she could make it her own.”
“But she pretty much told us all she hates the house. That was really vicious.”
“And you and Georgiana called her a gold digger. That’s not vicious?”
Darley winced. “That was bad. I’m really sorry.”
“You should probably say that to her.” Cord rubbed his eyes, looking tired.
“Aren’t you mad she didn’t tell us about George, though? She kept that whole thing a secret.”
“Yeah, I’m really mad.” Cord washed the nap of the velvet back and forth with a sweep of his hand.
Darley sighed. “Where is Sasha, anyway? Is she working?”
“No, she’s with her parents for a few days. Her dad is in the hospital.”
“Her dad is in the hospital?” Darley asked, shocked.
“Yeah, he had blood clots in his lungs, but he’s going to be okay.”
“Jesus Christ, Cord, you need to tell me these things!” Darley jumped to her feet, as though she could run somewhere to help.
“But you were so angry at each other. I figured—”
“So what? We’re still her family!” Darley interrupted, and she meant it. She had made a mistake and Sasha had made a mistake, but she loved her, and Sasha loved her brother, and it was within her power to make it right. With that, she scooped up her phone and placed an order with a Rhode Island florist that was so extravagant that her credit card company had to call her and make sure it wasn’t fraudulent.