Final Option

house, and Barton is going to work every day trading futures. Reporters are following my children to school, trying to take their pictures. And every time I turn around there’s Ken Kurlander whispering in Barton’s ear about his responsibilities until my poor husband can’t sleep at night. Damn it, Barton and I already have a life. We don’t need to take on his father’s.”
    “Things are at their most intense now,” I said. “It will get better as time goes by. And if nothing else, there’ll be the new baby to be happy about.”
    “The thought of starting with a new baby when I’m so drained...” she shivered. “It’s hard. I have to be strong for so many people. I need to listen to Barton and be supportive. After all, he’s just lost his father under horrible circumstances. I have to be reassuring and matter-of-fact for the kids. Some hateful child at nursery school told James that bad guys had shot his grandfather in the head—bang, bang. So naturally, James is having nightmares. I know it sounds awful, but I’m furious at Bart for dying, let alone getting himself murdered. It’s awful to say, but it’s not like some burglar shot him. I’m sure it was someone whom he wronged in some way. He did something awful, and now we’re the ones getting slimed.... Oh God, I can’t believe I said that. You must just think I’m a witch.”
    “I think you’re a nice person who deserves better than what’s been handed to you recently,” I replied honestly. “I think you feel it’s unfair because it is.”
    “And yet I feel guilty about that, too. How can I expect anyone to understand it? That’s the irony. We’ve inherited millions of dollars, and I’m crying because it’s unfair. But I don’t want the money. I hate it. I wish it had died with him.”
     
    Barton Jr. was standing by the front door saying good-bye to the last of the visitors. Pamela was relaxing in a wing-back chair, her head bent in conversation with an old friend who was preparing to take her leave. Margot hovered nearby with Brooke in tow, hopping impatiently from one foot to another waiting to catch her mother’s eye. Krissy, composed but shooting wary looks at me whenever I passed, was in the dining room supervising the cleanup by the staff.
    Barton closed the door and leaned against it for a moment, his shoulders slack, his cheeks hollow. Framed against the black timbers of the door he was the very picture of exhaustion. Slowly he loosened his tie and ran his fingers through his hair.
    “I can’t talk about Savage tonight, Kate,” he said. “I’m dead. I’ve got to just find Jane and go home. I’ll call you when I get up.”
    “That’s okay,” I answered. “We can do it over the phone. Jane’s already gone. She was exhausted. I told her that I’d give you a ride home.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “I’ll just get my coat.”
    Margot, I noticed, had finally gained an audience with her mother. Brooke was raising her hand in an awkward farewell. Margot bent to kiss her mother, who quickly turned her head away. Margot grabbed her coat from a nearby chair, pulled Brooke by the hand, and walked past me without saying a word. She opened the door and let her friend pass through before her. Then she turned, flipped her mother the finger, and wordlessly stepped out into the night.
     
    Recently, I’d been getting flack from Cheryl and Stephen (I suspected a conspiracy) about getting myself a new car. True, the Volvo had seen better days. But it was the car that Russell and I had bought together our last semester of law school, planning for the day when we’d fill it with children. And while I finally had gotten myself to the point where it didn’t seem a wrench to replace it, I found the matter of choosing a new car much more difficult than I anticipated.
    I loved driving Stephen’s BMW but balked at the rigamarole of keeping an expensive car in a neighborhood inhabited by car thieves. Stephen’s building had a doorman and an attended underground garage. Parked in the alley behind my apartment, an expensive German car would have a half-life of less than a week.
    For a while I toyed with Cheryl’s suggestion that I celebrate my ascension to partnership with a sleek Miata roadster. But when I took one out for a test drive, the number of lewd offers I received from male pedestrians surprised me. One aspiring stud in a tank top and tight jeans even suggested, at the corner of Grand and Ohio, that if