Chapter 17 - Thanksgiving with Family

Chapter 17: Thanksgiving with Family

Thanksgiving had arrived.

For the first time I could remember both sets of grandparents were coming to our house to celebrate the event.

My Dad’s parents lived in New York, for some reason my Dad didn’t like visiting them, so it had been rare for me to see them.

It hadn’t bothered me, since I never really enjoyed the time when we went to see them anyway. His Mom was lovely, doting on her son and daughter in law, plus she showed me how much she loved having a grandson every chance she could. His Dad however was always cold and distant with everyone, making the atmosphere strained when he was about.

I knew Dad had a brother, but from what I could gather, he lived in the west so we didn’t ever see them either, his brother had a daughter, but she lived with her Mom, who he had divorced years before, so I had never met her.

My Moms parents lived in California, so it was the distance more than anything that meant we didn’t see them that often, though I loved it when I saw Moms parents, they were great. Mom was an only child, so I was the only grandchild they had.

Mom and Dad had invited them to our new home for the thanksgiving celebration, his Dad had grudgingly agreed, Dad had paid for the tickets for Moms parents to come, but I didn’t know if he had done the same for his parents.

It would be nice having the family here, but to be honest I was more excited that the time had arrived for Rory and I to go to the racetrack for the advanced driving course.

Dad had agreed on me spending some of Thanksgiving doing the course, long before the arrangements with the grandparents had been confirmed, so he said it was still alright for me to miss some of the weekend.

Rory was really excited about the advanced driving course, he was hoping that he would have passed his test by then, but that hadn’t been finalized yet.

During the week prior to Thanksgiving, Dad came to me to explain the reason why his father may come across as cold during his visit.

“Jack, your Grandad has always been disappointed that neither of his sons followed in his footsteps, going into business somewhere in the city as he calls the business district of New York.”

“Why is that Dad? New York business is just the same as anywhere else.” I queried.

“You and I might believe that, but he believes the hub of our nation’s main money movements happen there. In the main he is right, more high rolling businessmen live and deal in that city, than anywhere else in the country.” Dad explained.

I wasn’t too happy with that, so without Dad knowing, I got Andy to put together a portfolio of both my corporation trust, and the business I had set up for Dad, to be got to us before the weekend. If Grandad got on his high horse with Dad, I wanted the information available so that I could put him straight.

I loved my Gramps and Gram, Mom’s parents, and my Grandma was also someone I loved spending time with, so I was looking forward to their visit, but they were a lot older than me, so we didn’t have many common interests.

For that reason I was actually thankful that it was the weekend I had arranged the driving course for. I really wanted to excel since it hadn’t been easy for Andy to get them to agree for me to do the course in the first place. So I had watched lots of videos of racing drivers, rally drivers and stunt drivers, as well as paying more attention to just watching my dad drive. He had allowed me to practice driving his truck up and down the lane to our house so I was familiar with the controls.

The Grandparents arrived on Friday evening, I had just got home from school when Gramps and Gram arrived, Grandpa and Grandma arrived an hour later, and I enjoyed the love that was shown by everyone except Grandpa of course who stayed aloof as usual.

That evening I had an hour of embarrassment forced on me by Mom, although there hadn’t been any pre ‘date’ photos taken, someone at school had done a video of our dancing, which had been put on the web. Chloe had been told about the video, so she had been watching it on the house computer. She had been so amazed at how we had glided around the floor, that she hadn’t noticed her mother watching over her shoulder, who had informed my Mom about the video. So Gram, Grandma and Mom had spent ages cooing over how cute the two of us looked, while watching the film over and over.

Saturday morning was when the fun and games started, when I got down to breakfast, Grandpa was asking Dad about how he had afforded the new house, since it was a lot bigger and nicer than the last house. Dad wasn’t about to announce to his Dad that I had bought it, not them, so was just keeping quiet.

“Grandpa, why is financing so important to you?” I asked Dad gave me a scared look, wondering where I was going with this.

“Jack, I have long hoped that one of my sons would have my business acumen and followed me in high finance in the city.” He stated. “Unfortunately neither was good enough to make it good where it counts.”

“How much money do you have to earn to have a good business acumen?” I replied.

“More than your father or his brother will ever make, if they were good businessmen, they would have been working in New York like I did till I retired.” Grandpa stated.

“So you have to work in New York to make millions of dollars, is that what you’re saying?” I asked with an innocent look on my face, Dad was trying not to laugh at where this conversation was going, Mom had disappeared when she saw what I was doing. Neither set of grandparents had been informed of what I had done in the market.

“That is the only place where you can make serious money.” Grandpa agreed.

“Dad, can you get your company portfolio from the office please to show Grandpa.” Dad gave me a puzzled glance, before going to do as I asked.

While Dad was gone, Mom had come back in with the rest of the Grandparents, who all took seats.

When Dad returned he was looking through the portfolio in astonishment, although I had told him previously about the company he owned, he had never seen the full details. He looked up at me in surprise, before a wicked smile crossed his features, if you hadn’t been looking at him intently you wouldn’t have seen it though, since he wiped it from his features before he passed his Dad the folder, keeping a second slimmer one back. Now he knew what I was up to.

Grandpa perused it for a few minutes with a growing frown, he flipped back to the front to double check the details on the ownership of the company, Dad was the primary owner with Me and Mom having voting authority within the company.

“So you own a company which has shares in several companies, so what.” He demanded. When Dad collected the portfolio, I had left a note to say not to pass across the financials of the company until I told him to.