Page 37 of Get A Fix

“Okay, then, hit me.”

“My father—and you probably got this from the file my agent sent your boss—was Coleman Walder. I imagine that means nothing to you, but his family made their money in railroads and steel back in the day, and then he moved the company into oil and natural gas when he took the reins in the late fifties.”

“So he was a very rich man.”

“Yes. When he passed away, five years ago now, he had billions.”

“I’m sorry you lost him.”

“Thank you, but we weren’t at all close. The important part here is that he came from old money and then made more himself, and it all grew from there. The company, Walder Industrial, still makes a mint.”

“And where do you come in?”

“My mother, Barbara Lennox, who teaches high school English now, was a secretary in his office, working her way through college to become a high school English teacher. This was in the late eighties, in New York. They met when he was between wives.”

“They fell in love,” I said, smiling.

He scoffed. “No. He knocked her up and offered her money to terminate the pregnancy.”

“This isn’t a very good story.”

Instantly, he put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “I love that you care.”

“Go on.”

“Well, once he realized my mother was keeping me, he had her sign an NDA, which she did, and he gave her a lump sum to cover child support until I was eighteen. But she also made him create a college trust fund for me, as she knew he’d done for all his other children—she’s always thinking ahead.”

“I already like your mother.”

“Yeah. She’s scary in the best way.”

“What about her family?”

“Her parents and sisters were very supportive of her moving out of state to Denver so no one could see her unwed and pregnant.”

“Ah. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. She’s always steered her own boat, you know? Once she got the money, she left New York for the west.”

“It had to have been lonely for you, growing up without grandparents or aunts and uncles and cousins,” I said sadly.

My family was huge. My father was the youngest of seven, my mother of eight. There were always what seemed like hundreds of people around all the time, and even more during the holidays. I still saw everyone all the time, and I couldn’t imagine anything different. I had no idea what I would have done without the giant safety net that was my family.

“Not at all. No one makes friends faster than Barbara Lennox. Complete strangers will unburden themselves to her on buses and in line at the bank. It’s insane. I can leave her for like five minutes, come back, and she’ll say, that poor woman is having such a terrible time with her son, but we’re all crossing our fingers that rehab will take this time.”

I smiled. “She sounds just like mine.”

“Oh, that’s good,” he said, grinning. “They’ll be fast friends.”

“Go on,” I prodded him, touched that he cared about our mothers becoming pals.

“So two years after we moved, she met a man named Sherman Todd, another teacher who taught photography and shop, and finally figured out what true love was all about.”

I sighed deeply. “I take it back, this is a very good story.”

“Yeah, I knew you’d like that.”

“Did they have any kids?”