Chapter 8

Suzy had Juliet, me, and our children over for dinner one night. When all the dishes were cleared and all the adults were sitting back with full tummies, Suzy said, “I’m not sure that I want to rent out the farm again. The Larsons kept it up, but their son scared the shit out of us. Burt is keeping up with the farm work because you help and we’ve had the money to improve our equipment, but I think we might want more than what we have.”

Suzy was uncomfortable with the subject, but continued, “I’m doing what I always wanted to do, and that’s to be a good wife and raise my babies. Burt continues with the farm’s goal to raise the grains and sugar cane needed to continue Jeb’s heritage.”

Burt took the floor now, and said, “Not to brag, but I think this last year’s batch is one of Grandpa’s best and it is a batch that you and I are totally responsible for. We now have five years of Beck’s Best aging in the caves. I’d like to apply for a Federal license to make and sell liquor. I think we could get almost fifty bucks for a 750 milliliter bottle if we bottled five year old Beck’s Best. That’s ridiculously high, but I think it’s close to being possible. I don’t want to make more volume than we make right now yet. I also don’t want to have to make those annual trips to Kansas City and to Nashville with milk cans full of our best. What do you think, Barney?”

I smiled at my sister’s husband, and said, “I’m for it as long as I still get a little to taste at the house.”

That broke my sister up. She said, “Mr. Straight and Narrow has found that he likes the special blend that goes into Beck’s Best.”

I asked Burt, “Will this give you that much more income? You guys work hard to make what we sell, and it’s always dependent on if we get the right amount of rain for our crops. Is this fair to you?”

Burt said, “We’ve had enough room to grow a lot more corn, barley, oats, rye, and sugar cane since you bought the Miller place. We sell a lot of our grains and sugar, but we have the raw materials to just about double the production if we were to increase how much we distill. We’ll have to buy twice the amount of good oak barrels and find places to store them.”

I told Burt, “I’m for trying, and I’ll do my best to take time off from work while you’re brewing.”

Burt said, “See, that’s what I’m talking about. I can hire people to do the hard work and continue to do business just like your grandfather did, and wouldn’t have to worry about the revenuers if we were legal.”

Suzy said, “There’s a lot of recordkeeping for the Feds, but I think we can do it. We’ll have to build a road up to the caves where the Best is aging so that it can be bottled and we’d be in a legal business.”

Juliet added to the conversation by asking, “That still doesn’t answer the question of what you’re going to do with the old farm house?”

Suzy said, “No, it doesn’t, but I’ve kept the place clean and made sure that the water is flowing properly. We’ll have to work with the preacher to find someone deserving to live there. We might even find someone who’s willing to work with the liquor as well. It’s no different than those big time whiskey makers in Kentucky. We’ll have some good stuff that is known more locally than nationally.”

Josh and Carol had us sit down in our main sitting room and brought Gamma’s big earthen jug and four glasses that night. Josh said, “Carol and I want to get married by the preacher in Columbia who cared so much for Juliet. I think we want to live in the big house for a while, but we’ll come back down often.”

Carol asked, “Do you think we can trade the limousine in for a regular car? It would be cheaper to drive back and forth down here.”

Juliet said, “I’ll make sure my aunts make you a free and clear deal for something you like. Go to the dealership and pick out what you’d want. The limousine is in great condition, and should be worth a lot in Kansas City or St. Louis. I’ll make sure all the taxes and registration for your new car are taken care of.”

My office now had two additional attorneys and four more legal secretaries. I asked Hazel, my initial legal secretary, “How did we become so popular that we have to have four attorneys and six legal secretaries?”

Hazel smiled at me as she said, “You need to quit going out to sign up more and more people to represent. You now have all the resorts in Branson, and most of them up in the Lake of the Ozarks. We’re handling cases in Springfield and just about every community around. We could use another two or three attorneys and legal secretaries. Even your wife says that we’re getting too big. She says that she can barely do all the billing by herself and it’s keeping her from your kids.”

Well damn, I didn’t realize growth could be a problem.

One thing I had learned in law school was to always listen to those around you and immediately confront any problems. This was a problem, so I had a meeting out at the house. It included all the office staff, Juliet, and me, of course.

I opened the meeting with, “I haven’t been paying attention for a while, and our office is producing more than is almost possible. I’ve just found out we had to farm out a couple of cases that had to be handled in St. Louis, and another one in Kansas City. It’s hard to believe we can’t handle everything that comes our way with the staff we have. Another problem is that Juliet is overwhelmed by trying to continue to do the office billing. I think we’re going to have to have a separate billing center, and let Juliet become a home body. We’re here to come up with solutions on how to do what needs to be done. You all have legal pads with plenty of pencils, so write your thoughts down so that we can discuss each of them.”

There was initially no conversation, but it began after about fifteen minutes, and everyone was sharing what they were thinking and writing. This was exactly what I wanted to have happen.

Hazel made the first general statement, “I think we need additional offices in Springfield, Jefferson City, and up in Columbia. We’ll probably have to find at least two or three attorneys for each site.”

Juliet said, “That would make it easier to bill for each office. I think Barney should buy the two houses next door to our office, tear one down for parking, and use the other as a central billing office. That’s going to be a lot of overhead, but I think we’ll be in great position to collect what’s owed us with the increased business from two or three new offices. We’ll have to find the person who can manage that kind of billing operation.”

We cussed and discussed what needed to be done until almost three in the morning that Friday night and Saturday morning. I had everyone leave all their scratch paper so that I could go over all their musings.

Juliet and I went to bed and were snuggling together as we began to make love. Juliet said, “How about using one of those nasty condoms. I think that I’m ready to say enough with all these babies. I love mine so much and that it was you and I who created them, but I think we should stop making babies. How about we both do something about not creating more life in me? Now, put one of those things on with lots of lube, and screw me into submission.” I did that.

The kids didn’t let us sleep late and were up at their usual time. The babies always want mommy’s attention right away in the morning, so Maria helps change them and lays them at Juliet’s breast. I tickle their feet sometimes if I’m in bed with them, but we found that it makes them pee again and diapers have to be changed mid-breastfeeding. I had to do the diaper change because I caused the problem.

Because it was Saturday, Barney Jr. showed me everything he had been doing this past week while being allowed to be outside by himself. He had weeded over a third of the garden, separated hay bale strings on all our loose hay, and had begun clearing a straight road or trail through the forested area between our house and Suzy’s. He said that he would need help getting some of the trees cut down, but he wanted a trail wide enough to drive one of the carts between the houses so the kids from both families could play together.

BJ and I used Grandpa’s cart and went to the old farm to get the twenty-four inch chain saw. We cut the trees that were blocking our trail as close to the ground as we could so that we could drive right over the top of them. We were close to three quarters of the way to Suzy’s and Burt’s before lunch. It’s only about a quarter of a mile between the houses, so this was going to be a well-traveled trail. BJ was determined to get this done, so we finished it that afternoon, then went back and cut the brush up so we would make some rabbit dens. I saved a couple of the large trees to dry out and use for fireplace wood the next year.

I was amazed at BJ’s planning when we had the trail cleared, because you could look out our kitchen window and see straight down the trail to Suzy’s kitchen window. Mothers on either end could watch the kids travel to the other home and not worry about them. I could see that BJ was going to be someone to watch if he could reason and plan that way before age six.

I spent Sunday going over what it would cost to buy the two homes next to my office, plus the remodeling required to make one of them a business office. The man who owned the two houses was an old grouch who always thought his property was worth double what the real value was. He had two old oaks that were dying on the property and kept shedding limbs. The trees should have been cut down several years ago, but the grouch was also cheap and didn’t want to spend the money.

The town condemned the two properties because of the danger of the trees, but old Mr. Hannigan wouldn’t reduce his price. This was summer and our area was subject to some really bad thunderstorms, and we occasionally did suffer some tornados. A freak storm came through town a couple of weeks later, uprooting the two big oaks and nearly destroyed the two homes. My building was left alone and didn’t even lose any shingles. The property was even worse now because the houses were so badly damaged.

I made Hannigan an offer that included the cost of tearing the buildings down. It took the man only overnight to consider the deal and we closed on the properties in a week.

One of our local contractors had been out to begin making estimates and had his men cut up the two trees that had been uprooted. It’s so amazing to see the power of tornadoes and how selective they can be. There was an old barn just outside of town that had been destroyed, and those two houses and the barn were the only places where the funnel touched down.

The contractor surprised me when he came to me with an offer. He said, “Both houses were built very well and didn’t suffer that much damage, Barney. I’ve had the men put tarps over the roofs to keep the rain out. You mentioned that you wanted to tear one of the houses down for a parking area. Consider this, the back yards of all three houses are very big, and just the office building parking area handles your current employee and customer parking. I recommend that you repair both houses, and rebuild their interiors as office spaces. You could lease the office space out in one of the buildings, and that would offset your purchase price. We’ll repair the building you won’t need, but leave the interior open so that you can divide it and do a buildout to suit another business. Let me show you the numbers for doing this.”

What the contractor wanted was less than I had thought it would cost to demolish the houses and build a small office building. Keeping the homes intact will make the three two-story houses appear much friendlier.

I sent an attorney to Springfield to survey the other attorneys there and to get a handle on what it would cost for a small office to handle an attorney and secretary. We had agreed on what would be needed, and they were anxious for our firm to spread out. The office staff voted on another attorney going to Columbia and one to Jefferson City, to do the same thing. Those three offices would be buzzing very soon if these three attorneys went out to solicit business the way I did in the beginning.

All the construction and expansion kept me from going to St. Louis to have the clip job I needed. Juliet had scheduled the procedure that she needed to stop her from conceiving, and had it was performed without any problem. She was going to be on restriction for a little over a month, so I made the appointment and had the mostly painless procedure done. The two of us were very loving toward each other because we would soon be able to be wild again and enjoy the great physical love we’ve always had.

The business office opening was a busy time requiring Juliet to be at the office hiring and training for a month. Juliet found she had a problem at home when she was able to hand the office over to the lady who was going to be in charge. Maria had found a young man who she wanted to marry, but he lived in Arkansas. It wasn’t that far if she wanted to commute, but Maria wanted to have babies and be a stay at home mom.

Josh and Carol had come here to live for a while, and helped out as Juliet became the housewife she had wanted to be. The problem was that the office still needed her at least one or two days a week. The search was on for someone to replace Maria, who the kids, Juliet, and I all liked.

Carol brought a lady out to the house to meet Juliet and the family. She had been a junior high school teacher in Philadelphia, but had been robbed twice and even raped in her apartment by a home invader. She was temporarily living in Springfield and considering applying with the school system. Carol found her while shopping in a dress shop in the mall there. They became friendly and Carol convinced her to come out and see our home and meet the kids.

She came on a rainy summer day, so the kids were all inside. I think the first thing that surprised Sharon, Carol’s friend, was that none of the kids were watching television. Julie was reading a children’s book to Deb and Jeb, who were now almost three. She would read the page, and then read it again while pointing at each of the words, and the two who are still toddlers would repeat the words after Julie read them.

BJ and Bill were playing chess on the floor, joking about the mistakes the other was making. Maria was all over Sharon to make her feel comfortable, and then came Josh and Carol to almost over welcome Sharon. Juliet said she could see that Sharon couldn’t believe the kids were so well-behaved when she greeted her.

Juliet told her, “We’ve tried to teach them all to enjoy each other. We found out that each having a toy wasn’t as good as having one toy and the three learn to share. We would explain to them that having a brother or sister was something special, and it’s good to share things instead of one hogging something.”

I heard Josh say something to Julie in German; she answered him and said something to BJ. Bill was still learning but without Gamma now. Josh turned to Sharon, and said, “The children wanted to know if you would take over teaching them now. They really enjoy languages and the two oldest speak, read, and write German well. They are as good with Spanish and have a lot of practice with some of the garden workers. Their great-great-grandmother was also teaching them French when she died, and they want to learn more. Now that Carol and I are visiting for a while, I’ll teach them some more French unless you’d like to do that.”

Juliet told me that Sharon took hold of her arm and said, “You must hire me to be the nanny for your children. I do speak French, but only a little German. I’ll learn from Josh as long as he’s around and is willing to teach me. How advanced are the children?”

Juliet said, “It’s my husband’s fault. He and his sister are exceptional people and learn at a much faster rate than most people. The kids seem to follow in his ability. Julie is doing high school work now, and BJ isn’t that far behind. Bill will be five next week, and is doing third grade work. As you can see, Julie enjoys teaching the words to the twins. She speaks Spanish to them as well as German, so they are able to understand when Maria forgets and talks to them in her native language.”

Juliet took Sharon around the house to show her where her rooms would be, and then asked, “Do you cook? Part of the job is to help with meals, especially lunches for the kids. We often have the sister’s kids here for lunch, but she only has three and they are mostly older than mine. Those kids will be homeschooled with mine, so this job is a busy one. We’ll get another helper if we need one, although Maria was able to do most everything. She learned along with the children, so it was a good relationship.”

Sharon turned to Carol, “Can you take me back to Springfield to get my few belongings? I still have most everything in boxes.”

Carol said, “We’ll use Juliet’s Suburban so that there will be plenty of room. I forgot that you don’t have a car and depend on public transportation. Let’s go get that done so you can begin to learn how Maria takes care of the house.”

Juliet told me that she asked Maria to find her another girl to help with the family. Juliet also told me that she didn’t want to act like a spoiled wife, but she wanted to be free to help at the office and to spend even more time with the children. I think her great-grandmother had influenced her a great deal.

Maria’s wedding was special because we were able to have it at our place. We had plenty of room for all Maria’s and her new husband’s relatives, and it was while all the families were celebrating that Juliet and Sharon found a girl in her late twenties who was very reticent to mingle with most of the others. The girl, Ria, was following Juliet and Sharon by the end of the evening. Julie and BJ spoke to her in Spanish a couple of times which made her feel comfortable. Sharon and Juliet set a time to meet Ria at her home on Monday.

I was unaware that Sharon and Juliet had found someone who was going to be an additional housekeeper, cook, and child care person. This stranger came to sit across from me when I came home from work and sat with the twins while they told me of their day. Deb said, “This is Ria. She’s going to take Maria’s place. She is very smart and speaks, reads, and writes English. She told me that she is one of many children in her family, and it is good that she is going to go to work for us.”

I looked at Jeb as he had the family’s male qualities, and he smiled. He softly said, “She’s very nice and very soft. She hugs nice.” There it was from the male perspective. He didn’t care whether or not she was smart, but thought that it was good that she was soft and hugged nice.

Bill was the quiet one. He didn’t offer an opinion, but smiled at Ria while with his siblings in front of me.

Juliet came in and sat on my lap, displacing the twins. They were used to that and didn’t complain. Juliet explained that Ria had been learning from Carol and her all day, and she thought that the young lady would work out well. She did indeed come from a very large family who were all illegally here in the U.S. I was surprised that the children sixteen and older who weren’t in school were all employed at various labor intensive jobs. Juliet said, “You haven’t done any immigration work, but I’ll bet that at least one or two of your attorneys have. I want you to help Ria and her family to become legal. The children like Ria, and I like her too.”

A new mandate from the mistress.

Later, when the children were all in bed and the other adults let Juliet and me snuggle on the couch, I told Juliet, “You know that Friday is your thirtieth birthday. If you remember from your grandmother’s will, she said that you had a surprise coming later that you would find was more valuable than being a part owner in the car dealership. I can’t divulge what it is, since I only know because of executor’s privilege. You and I are going out to eat Friday evening so that I can tell you about your surprise.”

Juliet looked at me strangely, and said, “What more could Gamma give us? I know your grandfather paid for some of this beautiful home, and I thought that Gamma paid for the bulk of it.”

I smiled when I told her, “Most of the cost of building this place actually was from my investment account that came from Scott Jr., the same money that paid for the remodeling of the two new buildings. We didn’t use your trust money because we haven’t needed it. I know from handling a lot of the dealership’s legal work that your aunts haven’t used theirs either. Your family doesn’t have to be, but are very frugal considering their wealth.”