Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I pull in a breath. “I’m pleased I’m here too.” I stand. “I would like to see him,” I say. Yes, he’s on a ventilator, but I need to see him with my own eyes.
“And you’ll stay?” It’s half question, half command. She doesn’t mean stay in the hospital. She means stay in Manhattan.
She means, no more working on a fruit farm and spending time with Iris.
I don’t answer. My father’s sick. My mother needs me.
“It’s time,” my mother says, looking me right in the eye.
Two words that say so much.
My father is seventy-four years old. I should have been prepared that this could happen at any time. In so many ways I am prepared. This moment is what my entire life has been about so far. Now my father is incapacitated, I’m expected to take over the Alden family. The foundations. The galas. The meetings. The investments.
I’m no longer the heir.
I’ve inherited.
My father’s life is now mine.
Someone’s reached inside me and their fist is clenching my guts, seizing any choices I had over my life.
This is it. I’m expected to step up.
Months-long trips to Colorado are in my past. I have to be in New York now. I don’t have a choice about that. I’m de facto head of the Alden family.
And Iris? I’m not sure how she fits into any of this, however much I want her to. However much I really can’t imagine my life without her.
“We need an engagement, Jack,” my mother says.
It feels like she’s slapped me and I withdraw my hands from hers and sit back in the chair. I don’t know if she could have said anything more appalling. Her husband is lying in a hospital bed, unable to breathe by himself. Why is she so concerned about me being engaged? And not just engaged, but engaged to someone she approves of. “I’m not even thinking about any of that. Iris and—”
“No Iris,” she hisses. “You need to stop being so selfish, let that girl go and find yourself someone suitable.”
It’s like she’s struck a match down a lighting strip and I feel myself burst into flame. “Selfish? How is dating someone I care about selfish?”
She fixes me with a look that could penetrate marble. “You think it’s okay to stand by while what generations of Aldens have built goes to waste?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Stop exaggerating, Mother. I’m fulfilling all my duties.”
“Oh really. Is that why you keep missing board meetings and the trustees haven’t seen you in months?”
“I’ve been video conferencing in to most things,” I mumble. “And even if I hadn’t, me spending a couple of months in Colorado isn’t going to destroy generations of wealth and power.”
“It’s where the rot starts,” she says simply like it’s the answer to a basic math equation. “That’s why you need to come back to New York and stop spending time in Colorado. The family needs you.”
There’s no point in having this conversation with my mother. She doesn’t understand how technology means I can work from anywhere. I can videoconference into meetings and fly back for really important things. It’s not like we’re living in a time where it takes three weeks to get a letter across the country. Plenty of people work remotely now.
“Listen to me, Jack.” My mother’s voice drops and softens, like she knows that she hasn’t won me over and she’s changing tack. But her stare is still as steely. “You think it’s fair to be making some small-town country girl fall for you when you know it would be impossible for the two of you to be together?”
“I don’t know it’s impossible,” I say indignantly. If Wilde’s Farm do start a frozen business, maybe Iris will have more time to come back to New York with me. Maybe she’ll let me help financially with the business. I’m not prepared to walk away from her. She’s too important. Too special. I knew it from the first moment I laid eyes on her.
“So what’s your plan?” my mother asks. “You’re going to marry her? You know very well that there’s no hiding who she is or where’s she’s come from. What will you do? Dress her up like she’s a doll in the right clothes and the right shoes and hope it’s enough? Send her to etiquette classes, and parade her around New York society as your girlfriend or wife, hoping your wealth and power will cover up the cracks? And then what?” She pulls in a breath, like this speech has been a long time coming.
Dress her up like a doll?
I think back to the ballet and how it had been difficult for me to even buy her a dress without it becoming messy and complicated. I didn’t want to dress her up like a doll, but maybe that’s how she felt. It’s not like I care what she wears, but I want her to feel comfortable?