Bitter Business

to all kinds of doctors. They all agreed it was the shock—now they even have a name for it, post-traumatic stress syndrome—but none of them knew how to help him. Doctors, psychiatrists, priests, they all said he would get better eventually, but a year after Mother died, Eugene still hadn’t said a single word.
    “It was a terrible time in the family. Dad was spending all of his time at the plant, and when he wasn’t working he was drinking. We had one housekeeper after another— nobody could handle five kids including one who wouldn’t speak but woke shrieking from nightmares four or five times a night.”
    “So what happened? How did Eugene finally get better?”
    “It was Jimmy who did it,” recalled Dagny. “He decided that the psychiatrists were all wrong. They were saying that Eugene wouldn’t talk because he was so sad about Mother dying, but Jimmy decided that it wasn’t grief that had struck his little brother mute, it was fear. Confronted with the realization that someone you love can be taken away from you at any moment, Eugene was literally scared speechless.”
    “So what did Jimmy do about it?”
    “He never left Eugene alone, not for one single minute. It was summertime and we were all out of school. Jimmy stuck to Eugene like glue. They ate together, slept together, went to the bathroom together. By the time August rolled around, nobody could shut Eugene up.”
    “What an amazing story.”
    “Yes. But it just made it worse when Jimmy died. Naturally Eugene worshiped him. He followed his big brother around like a dog. We used to joke that Jimmy had a shadow.... After Jimmy died, it was like something broke loose inside of Eugene. He started to get into trouble. He was thrown out of four different schools in two years, including some military school in Virginia where they specialize in straightening out the incorrigible. I know that on more than one occasion he got into trouble with the police. Dad’ll never talk about it, and of course Eugene leads such an exemplary life now, what would be the point?”
    “So what straightened Eugene out?”
    “Believe it or not, it took a judge. He gave Eugene an ultimatum—enlist in the military or go to jail. Eugene signed up with the marines. The structure and discipline of military life agreed with him. While he was in the service he met Vy—her dad’s an artillery instructor so she was living on the base. Vy’s very religious and she got Eugene involved in the church. Mother was also a very devout Catholic, so it’s not surprising that one of us would have inherited her deep spirituality. But I guarantee you that there were quite a few years there when no one would have guessed that it would be Eugene.
    “It turns out that Eugene learned a lot about managing people in the marines. I can’t see Philip going to work on the plant floor every day and supervising a bunch of high-school dropouts, half of whom don’t speak English. But Eugene is good at it. He’s tough, but fair. The workers love him. We’ve cut turnover in half since he took over as plant manager.”
    “How do Philip and Eugene get along?”
    “They’re so different, which makes it hard. Philip looks down his nose at Eugene because he’s not educated. Eugene, on the other hand, has a kind of chip on his shoulder from being a marine. I mean, Philip’s been to graduate school, but Eugene’s parachuted out of an airplane at night. Philip thinks Eugene’s coarse. Eugene thinks Philip is weak. It’ll never change.”
    “So what does all this mean if we manage to get your father to agree to buy Lydia’s shares? Do you think we can at least count on Philip and Eugene to present a united front, to go along and not try to change his mind?”
    “I think so. What you have to understand is, the biggest obstacle to a buyback is not going to be my brothers. It’s going to be my father. It’s like the whole fight about giving Lydia a seat on the board. Did Daniel tell you about it?... No?
    “Well, seven years ago Lydia moved back to Chicago from California. Her marriage to her second husband, Rick, was breaking up—he was a plastic surgeon at Stanford; take a look at her nose sometime—she’s had her breasts done, too. She’d spent three years in California and she’d had the total California experience: flotation tanks, meditation training, religious reawakening by walking on hot coals, Tibetan gurus, bending spoons, channeling, crystals.... Lydia did it