Page 47 of The Light Year

This makes Barbie want to laugh; her father isn’t one for offers or for meeting halfway. “That would surprise me,” she says. “I can’t picture him doing anything like that.”

“People can surprise you, you know,” Todd says. He taps his fingers absentmindedly on his beer bottle and looks out the kitchen window. “So go into it thinking the best—if you can.”

Barbie smiles, but it’s half-hearted. It’s one of the things she loves most about Todd, his easy, glass-half-full mentality. Even when he’d been having vertigo and seeing doctors, he’d worked to keep his sense of optimism, and though he’d been worried about work and his future, Barbie had appreciated the way he never lost his temper with her or the kids. To her, Todd is and will always be the same guy she met in high school: easy, handsome, funny, and a true partner.

“I’ll try to be open-minded,” Barbie says, though her stomach is churning, and she feels like sleep will be hard to come by. “I’m going to ask Carrie if she’ll take Huck for an hour or so in the morning just to make sure he’s occupied while I’m on the call.”

“Good thinking,” Todd says. “And you’ll call me at work after? Let me know how it goes?”

“Of course I will.” Barbie sets her beer on the counter as Todd approaches, setting his right next to hers. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close.

“I’m proud of you, Barbie,” he whispers, holding her tightly. “You’ve got an idea, and you’re willing to see it through, even if it means poking a hornets’ nest.”

Barbie laughs at this, but with no mirth or joy. “Yeah, my dad is a bit of a hornets’ nest,” she agrees, burying her face against her husband’s chest. “But it’s time that someone stood up to him.”

Todd could say a million things here, as he isn’t her father’s biggest fan, but instead, he kisses her, making her forget for a moment that she’s got troubles or worries at all. This, too, is Todd’s gift—the ability to kiss her until she loses all her senses and forgets whatever is bothering her.

“Just to make sure we’re all here and accounted for,” the attorney says on the other end of the line the next morning. “I have George and Theodore Mackey in my office, as well as Harrison Black, Mrs. Roman’s attorney, and on the line here we have Barbara Roman, née Mackey.”

“Good morning,” Barbie says, trying to hold her voice as firm as she possibly can.

“Mrs. Roman,” her father’s attorney says. “We have scheduled this call and this meeting with your attorney to solidify the terms of the arrangement going forward with regards to your inheritance.”

Barbie’s heart is thumping so loudly in her chest that the blood rushes to her head, filling her ears with the sound of the ocean. She nods, then realizes that no one can see that. “Yes, sir,” she says, waiting to hear more.

“Your father,” the attorney goes on, “is willing to make a compromise.”

At the sound of the wordcompromise, Barbie’s heart nearly stops its wild race. She’s never known George Mackey to compromise, but she knows in her heart that, no matter what it is, it’s not going to be what she wants.

“Your father is prepared to offer you ten percent of the total of your inheritance to use towards community betterment in whichever ways you choose, so long as you agree todo so with the express understanding that the foundation, henceforth called ‘The Mackey Foundation,’ will be monitored by an appointed board that needs to give final approval on all donations.”

“Wait,” Barbie interrupts. “Please tell me how needing board approval comes anywhere near me spendingmymoney in ‘whichever way I choose.’”

“Mrs. Roman,” the attorney says, sounding as though he’s explaining something very obvious to a petulant teenage girl. “Your father isn’t willing to just hand over a lump sum of money to a woman and let her toss it to the wind. This is a family matter, and it needs to be handledby the family.”

“This is where I’d like to interrupt,” Harrison Black says, speaking before Barbie can. “This isn’t a family matter at all. It’s a matter of a politician wanting to spin a situation in his favor, and of a father wanting to retain some control over his fully grown, married daughter. Everything about this attempt to strike a deal flies in the face of legal protocol.” He sounds frustrated. “I’ve done my legwork here, and there is no precedent for Senator Mackey to attempt to re-write his wife’s will, or to re-route the funds that she, quite legally, I might add, earmarked for her daughter.”

“Mr. Black,” the other attorney says, sounding condescending. “A man simply wishes to guide his daughter in a financial matter that is, under the circumstances, more involved than she understands. Mrs. Roman is not prepared to oversee a sum of money on her own, and?—“

“What gives you the right to say that?” Harrison Black thunders. “What gives you the right to determine that my client isn’t prepared to oversee her own money?”

“Well,” the attorney says. “First, she’s going to need someone to co-sign on all of the bank accounts and paperwork.”

“That’s none of your concern,” Harrison Black counters. “She’s fully capable of handling and figuring out her own banking situation.”

The attorney changes tack. “Listen,” he says, speaking as though Barbie isn’t within earshot. “I understand having a soft spot for the fairer sex, but handing what amounts to over a hundred thousand dollars over to a girl with no mind for business is the same thing as setting fire to a pile of money.”

Barbie stops herself from gasping audibly; she'd been unaware of the sum of money, and while she'd hoped it might be enough to build a new nursery at the church, or to fund a holiday meal for the war veterans who turned out in droves at the soup kitchens, she did not know that the amount of money left to her by her mother would make it possible for her to do so much good. Barbie puts a hand to her mouth and holds back the tears, grateful that she's alone on her end of the phone line, and not sitting across from a table of stern men, including her father.

"My client has given me permission to request that the case of your wife's death be reopened in New Jersey," Harrison Black says, dropping the threat that he and Barbie had hoped they wouldn't have to use. "Mrs. Roman has further questions about the death of Mrs. Mackey, and we'd like the police to take another look."

Barbie hears a loud thump on the other end of the line, and she can picture her father's red, angry face as he pounds the table with a fist.

"Dammit, Barbara," George Mackey says. "Can't you leave well enough alone? Can't you?"

At this, Barbie does start to cry, though the tears are muffled by her hand, and the only sound that's audible on the phone is her hiccuping.

"Can't you just accept the gift I'm trying to give you, and run the foundation the way I need you to run it, in the public eye,while you mind your own children and husband down there in Florida? Do you need to be so damn headstrong and like your mother?"

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