Magdalene (5 page)

“Pardon my saying so, Ms. St. James, but
won’t that make you late?”

“Yes, Sheldon. Yes, it will.
Perhaps...twenty minutes or so?”

“Yes, Ms. St. James.”

* * * * *

Mid-Life
Crisis

“Mitch, you okay? The pack’s here.”

He knew that.

From the vantage point of his office three
stories up, through floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, Mitch had
watched his board of directors, his friends-cum-family, drive onto
the grounds in two vehicles, then disappear into the parking
garage.

It wouldn’t take them long to get to his
office once they parked.

Still Mitch stood with his arm pressed
against the glass, up over his head, his forehead against his arm.
He watched sparks fly out of the massive doors of the foundry half
a mile away and regretted the weak winter sun; it was pretty in
daylight, but it was spectacular at night. He liked going out and
contributing to the creation of those sparks.

In the eternal battle of man against steel,
Mitch conquered.

Every minute of every hour of every day, and
Hollander Steelworks was a living testament to that.

“I’m fine, Darlene, thanks,” he said without
turning. His poor assistant, so worried about him.

But here it was, early December, the ground
around the office building covered in white or glittering ice melt.
The only grief he could muster today, his wedding anniversary, was
that he didn’t remember much about the time before Mina’s disease
had really started to drain the life out of her; didn’t remember
much about his wife, the woman he’d loved and married twenty-three
years before. She had loved him, believed in him, supported him,
borne his children. He remembered what she had done, but not who
she was.

He only remembered the longsuffering invalid
he had nursed so long.

Mitch heard the booming voices and
boisterous laughter of four men and three women drawing closer to
his office suite.

Still he didn’t move, even when he saw their
reflections in the glass.

The big hand of Mitch’s best friend came
down hard on his left shoulder and shook him lightly. “Sorry,
Elder,” Sebastian murmured. “I didn’t think about the date when I
scheduled this. You should have said something.”

Mitch shook his head. “If it bothered me
that much, I would’ve.”

Another man approached on his right and
halted at the glass, his arms crossed over his chest. “You okay,
Mitch?” he rasped.

Second time in five minutes someone had
asked him that, but Mitch knew Bryce would understand completely,
and he couldn’t lie to Sebastian when it was important.

“Wondering if I did everything I could,” he
finally replied.

“You got her seen and gave her the best care
money could buy,” Sebastian said.

Palliative, not curative.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Bryce
offered, “her first obstetrician should’ve suspected something was
wrong and checked her over.”

The second one missed it, too. The
third—

Mr. Hollander, I want to admit her so I can
run some tests. Something’s wrong, and we need to find out
what.

—had called in a neurologist who finally
uncovered it: early-onset multiple sclerosis, progressive,
undiagnosed for over ten years.

I’m sorry, Mrs. Hollander. There is no cure.
No drugs. And this is...serious. I don’t know how much longer
you’ll live, to be quite honest.

Sixteen years, eight of them spent lying in
bed in a deteriorating state of consciousness.

“What are you not saying?” Sebastian was
nothing if not persistent.

Mitch continued to say nothing.

“Oh, don’t start piling on the guilt. You
got nothin’ to feel guilty about.”

Oh, yes he did. He felt guilty for not
remembering her, for not missing her. Shouldn’t a widower grieve
longer?

Or at all?

“Mitch,” Sebastian said with some
impatience. “Her
body
died last year. Her
essence
left years ago. You’ve done years of grieving.”

Mitch was not shocked that Sebastian had
read his mind. It was to be expected; they were brothers, after
all, their bond forged in the blast furnace of adversity. It was
also to be expected that Sebastian would spout facts to negate
emotion he didn’t understand.

“Elder,” Mitch murmured finally, an edge in
his voice, “you don’t know from guilt.”

“Mitch—”

“Shut up, Taight,” Bryce rumbled. “You have
no idea.”

So the three of them stood there a moment
longer in silent companionship. Trust Sebastian to bear Mitch’s
temper with equanimity whether he deserved it or not.

Ah, well. That was what brothers were for.
Mitch had no one
else
to vent on, that was for sure.

Mitch pushed away from the glass, turned
with a well-practiced hearty cheer he rarely felt, and rubbed his
hands together. “All right. Let’s get this party started.” He
looked at his board of directors.

Sebastian Taight.

Bryce and Giselle Kenard.

Knox Hilliard and Justice McKinley.

Morgan Ashworth.

All here to implement the reorganization of
Hollander Steelworks, which had begun to stumble under the weight
of its own success.

Then there was Eilis Logan, Sebastian’s
wife, Mitch’s biggest customer for J.I.’s products, who had come to
look after the health of her own company. Mitch had no doubt Wall
Street and the rest of manufacturing were waiting for news of this
meeting.

Ah, but it had to be done. This
reorganization would rejuvenate his company while taking a lot of
weight off Mitch’s shoulders.

Never mind the idea to reorganize had taken
root while getting quite a bit closer to proving that Greg Sitkaris
was a thief.

Never mind it had come up while Mitch stood
in the midst of a hundred or more beautiful, scantily clad
women—
knowing
he could have any one of them (or more) if he
so much as crooked his finger...

“We’re missing somebody,” Mitch said,
needing to shake that off. Another layer of his guilt, wanting to
move on.

Not knowing how.

Or with whom.

“Cassie St. James,” Sebastian said as he
seated Eilis at the foot of the conference table. He proceeded to
position himself as close to her as he could without pulling her
onto his lap. “Traffic must be heavy.”

“Who is she?” Mitch asked as he sat at the
head of the table, and the others, who seemed to be waiting to see
if Mitch were truly okay, followed his lead.

“Me,” Sebastian said, “version 2.0. Cassie
wrote her MBA thesis on my rationale for deciding whether to fix or
raid any given company.” Mitch raised his eyebrow and Sebastian
nodded. “She got roundly pummeled and ridiculed for daring to
suggest that my decision was predicated on the teachability of a
company’s leaders.”

Mitch, along with almost everyone else,
stared at Sebastian in shock. “She figured it out?”

“She sent me her thesis before she turned it
in; had it down to the last detail, examples, anecdotes, quotes,
patterns, data analyses, and footnotes wherever she could see a
deviance from my norm. She speculated that could indicate Knox’s
involvement into any particularly complex project I was working on.
That
really
got trashed.”

“You told me about that,” Knox said. “Did
you go back her up?”

“I would’ve if she’d asked, but she didn’t.
She refused to budge in her defense, though, and ended up nearly
getting herself drummed out of her program. I told Jack about it,
so he hired her. He’s been wanting a clone of me on his staff for
years.”

“Have you ever met her?” Mitch asked.

“I have not and furthermore, I’ve only
communicated with her by email once—to get her to do this.”

His brow wrinkled. “You’re handing the whole
thing over to her?”

“Yup. I didn’t want to end up sleeping on
the couch for the foreseeable future.”

Eilis chuckled.

“How long has this woman been with
Jack?”

“About a year, I think. He hired her just
before she was scheduled to defend her thesis.”

Mitch let every suspicious thought he had
show on his face and, predictably, Sebastian read him correctly.
“Mitch, I’ve been watching this woman work and I’ll go so far as to
say she’s better at being me than I am.”

“She’s certainly faster at it,” Eilis said,
staring at Sebastian speculatively, “but she’s rough on the ego.
She doesn’t do the same soft-shoe routine Sebastian does.”

“So, what, she cuts about a year off your
process?”

Sebastian nodded. “’Bout that, maybe a
little more. I figure it’s probably what I should have done all
along, but...”

“It’s your inner nurturer, Midas,” Eilis
teased with a nudge that garnered her a pleased grin.

“She’s, what, twenty-four, twenty-five?”
Bryce asked. “And she’s the phoenix rising out of the ashes of
Sebastian Taight’s sudden career change from corporate raider to
full-time artist and stay-at-home dad?”

“Not that young, but otherwise, yes.”

Knox glanced at his watch. “Late. Dammit, I
hate late.”

Mitch glared at Sebastian. “Me too. Why
hasn’t she called? Why hasn’t Jack called?”

“He’s afraid of offending you,” Sebastian
shot back. “He can’t tell when you’re being funny.”

Knox laughed then. “Shit, nobody else can,
either.”

“Jack annoys me,” Mitch groused.

“Jack annoys everyone,” Eilis offered. “Even
his wife.”

The eight of them settled in to wait, and
Mitch relaxed as they began to indulge their favorite pastime while
together: Poking fun at each other.

“So, Bishop Hollander,” Ashworth boomed.
Morgan Ashworth never
said
anything. “How’s the wife hunt
going?”

“I could ask the same of you,” Mitch shot
back with a smirk, not in the least offended, and the snickers and
laughter around the table rose, Morgan’s guffaw outstripping the
rest. “You have anything to confess yet, Elder Ashworth?”

He held up his hands in truce. “Not me,
Bishop. I’m pure as the wind-driven snow.”

“My ass,” Giselle Kenard returned. “I saw
the way you checked out that carpenter as we came in.”

“Looking is not the same as doing, dear Cuz.
Tell her, Mitch.”

“True. But did you lust after him in your
heart, Elder?”

Morgan snorted. “I’m not confessing to
anything.” He pointed at Giselle. “And
you
have no room to
talk, O Freshly Excommunicated One.”

“Pffftt. Shall I tell our bishop about your
Playgirl
stash?”

“You mean the one that doesn’t exist?”

“Ha! I
caught
you.”

“Twenty years ago, at which time you decided
you wanted to share in the eye candy. All afternoon. I was not
amused.”

The table erupted in laughter. “I can’t
believe you’re still mad about that,” she grumbled underneath the
noise.

“I might not be if you hadn’t
stolen
them.”

She sank down into her chair and bit her
lip. “I still have them if you want them back. They’re kind of,
um...dog-eared, shall I say.” Bryce stopped laughing and looked at
her, one eyebrow raised. “Well,” she said defensively when she
caught her husband’s look. “It’s not like I need them anymore. You
know, ’cause you— Believe me, I don’t need— You, you’re—”

“Giselle,” Bryce growled, though Knox and
Justice, Sebastian and Eilis, were all coughing and choking on
their laughter.

“They’re at Mom’s, okay? In storage. And
they have been for years. I moved on from pictures to words and—”
She shot up in her chair and stuck her finger in Bryce’s face.
“—
You
don’t seem to mind my library. You’ve practically got
Tropic of Cancer
memorized and you’ve done—”

Bryce clapped a hand over her mouth. “Okay.
Got the point.” He looked at Morgan. “You want those back?”

“No.” Morgan glared at Giselle. “I should’ve
drowned you when you were a kitten.” Then he took a deep breath and
looked back at Mitch, who simply rolled his eyes at the family’s
ribaldry. “Speaking of bishops,” he said smoothly once the hilarity
had died down. “Why haven’t they fired you yet?”

“I wish they would,” Mitch said. “
You
try going into year seven running a ward the size of mine and
knowing you’re on the short list for stake president.”

He caught Bryce’s shudder out of the corner
of his eye and chuckled.

“Now, see, this is what I like about my
situation,” Morgan said. “I don’t have to worry about being called
as bishop or anything higher than what I am.
And
I don’t get
stuck teaching rugrats. It’s all I can do to grin and bear all the
little bastards at family gatherings. I have my brush with
greatness being second counselor and that’s more than enough for
me.”

Mitch stared at him. “Second counselor? I
didn’t know that.”

He shrugged. “Lucky that way. I figure the
Lord gives me little consolations to make up for the big one I
don’t get.”

“I empathize,” Mitch murmured as he stared
down at the table, no longer quite as amused as he had been.
Fifteen years of celibacy. At least. One did not beg a dying woman
for sex, no matter how badly one needed it.

He
had
.

Still did. Spending the past week at
Whittaker House and having to endure its three-day bacchanalian
masquerade—in complete misery—had made that perfectly clear.

Kenard clapped him on the back and squeezed
his shoulder with a big, comforting hand. Yes, of all the people at
that table, even Morgan, Bryce understood the most. They’d talked
about it privately, the two of them; had compared notes, had given
and received solace as only people with similar experiences can do.
Had he been the bishop to hear Bryce’s confession—

Some days he wondered if Bryce would ever
come back from his excommunication and Mitch shook his head at the
senseless waste of a believer—two, if he counted Giselle.