Chapter 28

Mrs. Ibarra stood smiling at the door when I opened it. I wasn't sure if I was happy or sad when I saw that her arms were empty. No gift of lunch today.

"Good morning Edwina, please, come on in," I smiled in return, opening the door and waving her inside.

"Thank you Cooper," she said and I followed her through the entry and into the living room.

"I thought we might sit in the kitchen, if you'd like. I've got tea water on, or lemonade if you'd prefer something cold."

"The kitchen, of course, and I would love a glass of lemonade."

I fixed her glass, and grabbed mine from the breakfast bar, bringing them both to the small country kitchen table that sat at one end of the kitchen.

"I'm pleased of course to see you haven't been throwing wild biker gang parties since I was last here," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

"The gang had other plans for the holiday weekend, sorry," I laughed. Then there was a long pause.

"So," she hesitated.

"So, Edwina," I continued for her. "I've been giving our situation a lot of thought in the past few days."

"Our situation?" she laughed.

"I need help, there is no doubt about that, but I"m not sure if the level of help you gave my parents is the level of help I will need."

"Well," her smile weakened a little, and her eyes went sad. "I would find it very unlikely that you would need the level of help I gave your parents. If your concern is whether you will be able to offer me the same kind of employment or pay that they did, please know I don't expect you to even try."

"Mostly I need a cook," hoping to counter the impending sadness I thought I was seeing. "Also, someone to do the household shopping."

"What about laundry and house cleaning?" she asked.

"Laundry? Probably not. I would have to own a whole lot more clothes and be going through multiple outfits a day before I could be convinced that I needed help doing the laundry. House cleaning? You would know better than I do how often things need to be dusted or vacuumed or polished or whatever. I was thinking that it could be a once a week thing, with the occasional extra day thrown in to clean up after having company or dinner guests, maybe even a non-biker gang party, once I make enough friends here to be able to have one."

"But you do plan to stay?"

"I plan to make this my home," I assured her. "I can't say yet how much time I will spend in it yet, only because I don't know for sure what I'll be doing."

"Are you looking for work then?"

"Not exactly," I snorted a laugh. "I've got a meeting this afternoon with the investment people that were handling mom and dad's retirement funds, and I'll know better then what my situation is. From what I've seen just in the legal papers so far, those things readily available outside that investment portfolio, I'm comfortably well off. On top of that they were heavily invested in a company called FiberDyne. I own ten percent of it, and have to talk to a Lloyd McCoy there to arrange a meeting."

"Lloyd McCoy was a frequent guest of your parents here," Edwina told me. "They were good friends with him and his wife Deidra. They had much more than a business relationship."

"Thank you, that's good to know. It will make my approach to him much easier."

"Have you looked through your mother's photos yet? She asked.

"Some," I said. I was mostly looking at the older ones from back east though.

"There's a picture of Mr. McCoy in there, if I'm remembering correctly. He's a tall, thin man with a prominent Adam's apple and red hair. He's a loud person without trying to be, but a good man."

"I'll look forward to meeting him then. Why my parents would have chosen to invest so heavily in a technology company in California – why they even moved to California in the first place is a mystery to me."

"I believe I can shed some light on that," Edwina said softly, the sadness creeping into her eyes again. "Cooper, Your father was very sick. He had a serious heart condition that kept him in bed most of the past three years, except for visits to the hospital and business and doctor's appointments. That was why they moved so suddenly and so far. The heart specialist they were hoping could keep him alive is here."

"My god!" I echoed feeling Cooper's shock as I/We said it together.

"And that wasn't all of it. Shortly after the move into the new house, your mother had a bit of a nervous breakdown. Her doctor back in New Jersey had prescribed something for anxiety and she unwittingly abused it, causing a, - well, I'm not a doctor, so I shouldn't say more, but it was explained to me as something of a pseudo-schizophrenic state that had her in and out of rationality for almost a year and a half before they got her stabilized and on the proper medication."

"I knew nothing of any of this," Cooper thought and I repeated his thoughts aloud for Edwina. "You weren't there housekeeper, you were their caretaker," I sighed. Old Harley Scoville knew all about needing a caretaker.

"Yes, well your father was still sharp as ever mentally, so he was able to continue dealing with the bills and legal matters as they occurred. He wasn't allowed to drive though, and for that first 18 months, neither was Mrs. James. After her recovery she had her license restored and she was able to do everything."