Destruction: The December People, Book One (11 page)

Patrick thought everyone in the car could hear his heart pounding behind his ribs.

“Okay. Amazing. Now open your eyes… no don’t change lanes! What are you doing?”

Jude put on his blinker and moved into the lane to his right to pass the car that had slowed down in front of him. Samantha grabbed Patrick’s shoulder and dug her fingernails into him. This made his heart start beating wildly for a completely different reason.

“Okay, Emmy,” Jude said.

She took her hands off his eyes. Jude sighed happily and grinned at Patrick.

“Pretty cool, huh? You want me to teach you that?”

“I’m never getting in a car with you again,” Patrick said.

avid picked up his kids from therapy. They waited in the lobby patiently while he introduced himself to their respective therapists. They had an impressive spread of qualifications and strong handshakes. He asked them what he should do. They both wrote down book recommendations. Evangeline’s therapist, a composed and inviting African-American woman with perfect skin, suggested a memorial service for their mother. He felt like an asshole for not thinking of it himself. David asked Xavier’s therapist, a librarian-type older white woman with a Bible on her desk, if Xavier had talked at all. She said he had but didn’t expand.

“Teenage boys are always tough nuts to crack,” she said. “Try talking to him about the things he likes. Easy things.”

David wanted to ask for examples but didn’t want to make it obvious he knew almost nothing about his son. If they thought his kids were hopelessly broken, they didn’t say so.

He asked the kids if they wanted to go shopping on the way home, but they said no. He let them stay silent on the drive. He asked only one question.

“Was therapy okay?”

They both nodded in the rearview mirror.

“Okay,” he said.

His phone rang. He answered with his Bluetooth.

“This is David.”

“Hey… David. How are you?” asked Liza, his Vice President of Human Resources. He could already tell she
knew
. She didn’t usually talk to the CEO with that sad little
How you doing, Champ
voice.

“Fine. How are you?”

“Good. Are you coming in today? If you aren’t… I understand. There’s just a thing.”

“A thing?”

“A crisis sort of thing. We can handle it if you need us to, but I know you want to be looped in to the big stuff.”

“What happened?”

“Maybe you should come in.”

He glanced at his kids in the rearview mirror. “All right, hang on.”

He took them with him to his office. At least, he would make the gossip hounds happy for a few months.

“Do you want to see where I work?” he asked the kids when he pulled into his office space.

Xavier’s eyebrows said,
no, don’t care
and
I hate you
.

“It’s okay,” Evangeline said. “I know you have to go in.”

“It won’t take long. You can hang out in my office and get on my computer.”

Everyone in the office greeted David by his first name. He liked to keep it familiar. He had always thought “Mr. Vandergraff” sounded intimidating. The whole office stopped and watched as he passed with his kids. Their appearance would cause a ripple effect of work stoppage for a while. Liza greeted him outside his office.

Her concerned expression didn’t mesh with her odd choice of clothing for the day. Liza had her thick legs stuffed in fishnet stockings and wore long, black, press-on nails. Fake blood covered Mark, the VP of Finance. At least Andy, the site foreman, looked normal.

Either they, or David, had lost their minds.

“Why are you dressed like that?” David asked.

“It’s Halloween,” Liza said.

“Today?”

“Yes.”

Now it made more sense why the accountant had worn a cape and the receptionist had pink glitter on her face.

“My costume does look a little funny without the hat. I’m a witch,” Liza said.

Naturally.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You don’t have to apologize for it being Halloween.”

Apologizing for the calendar date didn’t bode well. She acted guilty. Something about the three of them standing there reminded him of aged, bloated versions of his kids. They had done something wrong and waited for him to scold them. Liza gasped dramatically at the sight of Evangeline and Xavier hovering behind him.

“Is this them?” she said.

No. I found these two random children on the street.

“They are so precious. He looks just like you.”

She started to approach them, and David stood in her path. He remembered that she liked to do things such as tousle boys’ hair and tug on little girls’ ponytails.

“Don’t touch them,” he said.

She shrank back, her cheeks bright red. “I wasn’t going to. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Do they want anything to eat? There are tons of Halloween goodies in the break room.”

David showed them the break room, turned on the computer in his office, then met with his team in the conference room.

When he came in, he heard them speaking in whispers.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Give me the worst.”

None of them said anything.

“David,” Liza started.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“There was a problem in Tangled Forest,” Andy said.

Their largest project—a forty-acre subdivision near Magnolia.

“Fucking Tangled Forest,” David said. “It’s always something. I was out there last week. All that’s left is landscaping. What could possibly go wrong now? The landscape architect put in red oaks instead of black?”

“It burned down,” Mark said.

Tears formed in Liza’s eyes. She wiped copious amounts of black eyeliner onto a tissue.

“What do you mean?” David asked. “How much of it?”

“All of it,” Mark said.

“That’s not possible,” David said.

“There was a wildfire,” Andy said. “It took out two hundred acres of forest outside of Magnolia, including all of Tangled Forest.”

“Imagine, if it had happened two months from now, hundreds of people would have lived in those houses,” Liza said. “I guess it’s a blessing, in a way.”

“No, Liza. They would have all been evacuated,” Mark said acidly. “And their insurance would have paid for it. The property is still ours.”

“No one was hurt,” Andy said. “But we had sixteen vehicles on site. They’re gone. We had to stop work in Cherry Woods because that equipment had been scheduled to be moved over there. I sent the workers home without pay.”

“Our insurance will cover the vehicles, and it will help cover part of the loss from Tangled Forest,” Mark said. “But we’re covered only for up to twenty million.”

The words ‘disaster recovery’ floated to the top of David’s mind. He hadn’t spent much time thinking about it, and the mistake would cost him.

“Twenty million,” he repeated

It had seemed like an excessive amount of coverage. He had wanted to buy less. How could they lose that much in a disaster? They would have to lose a hundred homes at once. It would take a meteor hitting the Earth for that to happen. A hurricane wouldn’t do much this far inland. Tornadoes didn’t usually take out that much at once.

“Get the claim going as fast as possible,” he said.

“Already done,” Mark said.

“Andy, start placing orders for new equipment so we can purchase as soon we get the money. We need to get Cherry Wood back up. We’re on a deadline.”

“David?” Liza asked.

“Yes?”

“Do you think it’s worth it to start work again on Cherry Wood?” She looked at Mark and Andy for support. “Or should we start the process of bankruptcy?”

David stared at her blankly.

“We’ve lost money before,” he said.

“I’ve done the calculations,” Mark said. “We can’t come back this time.”

“You called me in here to tell me that we’re bankrupt?” David asked. “Just like that?

“I’ll email you the projections,” Liza said, tears still spilling down her face.

Mark spun his wedding ring around his finger.

David’s ears rang. He couldn’t hear anything anyone said as he left with his kids following behind him.

“Are you okay?” Evangeline asked when they climbed back into the Mercedes.

“Let’s go shopping,” he said. “You need clothes. I’m going to take you to the mall, and you’re going to buy clothes. End of discussion.”

He wished he had handled it differently, but he didn’t know how much longer he could afford to buy them clothes and wanted to do it now. He took his silent, baffled children into The Galleria, the largest and loudest structure they’d ever visited, took them to Hollister, and ordered them to pick out clothes. Evangeline walked around the store with her nose wrinkled but eventually gave in and began pulling things off the rack. She went for bright colors and picked out outfits that defied all sense of matching or reason. David’s ears didn’t stop ringing until he noticed Xavier. He had his arms wrapped around his chest as he stared at a rack of cargo shorts, holding his breath. He looked as if he was trying not to cry.

David snapped out of it.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here if you didn’t want to come. Try to relax. You’re fine.” As an afterthought, he added, “Breathe.”

Xavier looked at him when he said that. And, after a moment’s consideration, he did take a breath.

“I’ll pick the stuff out for you if you want,” David said. “I’m not going to say I know what’s cool, but I know what my sons wear. You don’t have to try it on here. If it doesn’t fit when you put it on at home, I’ll take it back and exchange it. Okay?”

Xavier nodded. He followed David around mutely while he pulled things off the rack. For Xavier, David chose simple: navy blues, grays, khakis, denims. He would want to blend in at school. Hollister didn’t sell invisibility cloaks, so he had to go with the next best thing.

“So, I take it you don’t like shopping,” David said. “What do you like?”

By the look on Xavier’s face, David might have asked the question in German.

“What do you like to do for fun?” David asked.

“I don’t know,” Xavier said.

“Shawna from the shelter said you liked to watch movies. Maybe you want a television for your room? Or a video game console, maybe. My other sons certainly like video games.”