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Chapter 8

The honeymoon had been everything they had hoped for. They had never really had time by themselves, no matter where they were someone was always demanding their attention. Even when they had been traveling last fall, there had been dinner meetings and tea with the wives.  It had been wonderful to do what they wanted when they wanted to. Including staying in bed the entire day, making love and planning the future.

As their trip was winding down, Remy’s mother called, she had promised not to call and had held to that promise. Kendra could tell from his body language that it was bad news. His shoulders were slumped, and he was tapping his foot, a sure sign that he was upset.

When he finished the call, it took him a minute to get his emotions under control.

“Father has had a stroke.” He said, reaching for Kendra.

She went willingly into his arms, “How bad is it?” She asked.

“He’s going to be okay, but he’s lost some function on the left side. It’s fairly minor and should return to normal but it’s going to take time.”

“We need to go home. I’ll go downstairs and use the computer, get us plane reservations, and we’ll get there as fast as we can.” Kendra said.

“Okay, I’ll start packing.” He started to get up from the couch, but Kendra enveloped him in a big hug before letting him go.

They landed late that night and went straight to the hospital, Remy’s father was doing fine but Remy needed to see him, just to reassure himself. It was after visiting hours, but the nurse let them in for just a few minutes. His father was awake and happy to see them, but sorry that they had cut their trip short.

They only stayed for a few minutes, promising to come back tomorrow. Remy was relieved that his father appeared fairly unchanged. The doctors said he would make a full recovery and he would be able return to work soon. In the meantime, Remy would fill in for his father, it was winter so the work load was light. He assumed he would be able to handle any minor problems that might creep up in his father’s absence.

Back home they both fell into bed exhausted; it had been almost 24 hours since they had slept. Cuddled up together, sleep claimed them before they could even say goodnight.

The next morning Kendra went to the hospital while Remy went to the office, the staff needed to be assured that it would be business as usual and Remy was the best person to deliver that message. Most of the staff had been with the company for years and were like family, in fact most had been at the wedding.

When Remy walked through the door, everyone wanted news of his father. Once everyone had been reassured that he would be fine, Remy and his father’s assistant Bruce, shut themselves up in the office.

“My dad will be back soon, so I only need to handle anything that can’t wait. I don’t want to bother him while he’s in the hospital, but once he’s out you can bring work to the house. That will help him get back on his feet faster, I think.”

“That will be fine, there isn’t much going on right now, but…” Bruce was obviously searching for words.

“What is it? I know that I haven’t proven myself here yet, Bruce, but I did go to business school. Give me a chance.”

“Remy, it’s not that. There’s a big note due tomorrow. No one else knows, but your father had been borrowing against the business to pay for the upkeep on the estate. He set it up as an installment loan thinking that business would pick up but there’s no money to pay it.” Bruce said, slumping back in his chair when he was finished.

“No money?”

“None.”

“Bruce I’m sorry to do this to you but I’m going to need all the accounting and some help, the faster I know what the situation is, the faster I can find a solution.”

“Anything you need, I’ll go get everything now.”

“Get it all together, if you would, I have to go talk to my father. I wish I didn’t have to, but if he had a plan I need to know what it is.”

Remy made a trip to the hospital only to find that his father had been moving money from one account to another, covering what bills he could and borrowing to pay the rest. He had played it out as far as he could, there was no solution besides selling some property and closing the house. He had already gotten the bank to agree to an extra 60 days on the loan, but that might not be enough time to come up with the money.

Remy was devastated, the business would be gone if they couldn’t come up with the payment on the note. The estate was also heavily mortgaged, and those payments would have to be made as well. He didn’t even want to think about how they would pay the staff and put food on the table. The situation was about as dire as it could be.

Needing Kendra, Remy made his way to the restaurant, and pulled her out of the kitchen. Once she heard the situation, she had called a chef to fill in for her and took Remy home.

“So it’s bad isn’t it?” She asked.

“Yeah, I don’t see how we’re going to get out of this one. I can’t help but think that while I was off playing Good Samaritan, my family business was going down the drain. My dad kept pushing me to come to work but I had no idea things were this bad.” Remy, was feeling about as low as he ever had.

“You can’t blame yourself, your dad should have told you how bad things were. I’m sure he had his reasons for not telling you, but what’s done is done. Let’s see if we can’t find a solution.”

Giving Kendra a big kiss, he said, “Bruce and I are going to put our heads together tomorrow. I may have to kick in my trust fund, but it’s a small price to pay if we can save the business.”

“I would be happy to help if you want me to, I can make phone calls or whatever.” Kendra offered.

“The best thing you could do for me would be to keep my parents happy, this is going to be hard on my mother. That house is her life.” Remy said.

Kendra wondered if she should tell Remy about her conversation with Barbra months ago. It might make a difference to Remy if he knew that his mother was already aware of how expensive the house was to run and that she was getting tired of it sitting empty.