Page 56 of An Irresistible Force (Vancouver Vice)

From the strained look on my mother’s face, I realized that was the wrong thing to say. I had been so busy feeling sorry for myself that I forgot how much worse it was for her.

She gazed off into the distance. “I try to imagine how your father would react to so many things. He was not always predictable.” After a long pause, she focused on me again. “But I believe that Vince hoped that he instilled his own values in his children.”

There was a short silence after that. I heard my mother’s message loud and clear: He’s gone. You need to stand on your own two feet.

And I had been. Through hard work and everything I’d learnt at biz school, Greg and I had managed to control the team’s losses and create a more businesslike atmosphere. And maybe with Chris’s direction, there would be a profitable future. Who could predict what would happen? But she was right; my father wasn’t going to send me signs from the afterlife on what to do. I needed to make the tough decisions myself.

I took a deep breath, then I finally said what I had known all along.

“Well, we should wait for the final decision from the mediation next week. But given what I believe now, I don’t think Uncle Thomas should be running the team any longer. Maybe this lawsuit will teach him something, but since he’s denied everything the whole time, I have to wonder.”

“Get rid of Thomas? And then what? You and Gregory would run the team?”

I shook my head. “No. To be honest, the very best thing for the team is to sell to the Millionaires.”

Her eyes widened. “Sell? Your father’s last business?”

“Daddy always said that business was no place for sentimentality. Besides, he only owned the team for a couple of years. Chris has been convincing me that the Millionaires have the resources to put the Vice back into a competitive position—salaries, prospects, marketing, everything. We need an NHL partner to make things work in the long term. All the AHL teams have them.”

“I don’t know. This is all so shocking. I’ll have to think about it. And what if Thomas wins the lawsuit?”

I stretched my neck and tried to ease all the tension built up in my shoulders. No matter how things were resolved, we would never know exactly what happened between Uncle Thomas and Stella, or why and how it happened. Even the two of them would remember it differently.

But I knew which side I was on. “If he wins the lawsuit, that doesn’t mean nothing happened. Maybe all it means is that he had more credibility and an expensive lawyer.”

“Amanda! Really.”

I sat down in the armchair. “We’re lucky. We have money, and therefore we have choices. To be a feminist isn’t easy, but it’s a lot harder when you’re trying to earn a living as a single mom. If a man at work hassled me, I could walk away and not suffer anything other than the inconvenience of finding a new job. I don’t have to worry about the rent, a spotty résumé, or repercussions. But since I have advantages, I need to use them to help other people.”

She smiled. “Ah, this is how you’ve always been. Protecting the little guy. You used to look out for Gregory and protect him from bullies. And remember that time you got after the boys who were catching mice?”

“Mummy, that’s on a totally different scale.”

“The principle is the same. And you’ve already put a new protective policy into the office, so it’s a better place to work now. Listening to you talk like this—sitting there in your father’s chair—you remind me so much of him.”

“Me?”

“Of course. He would be so proud to see everything you’ve done for the Vice, how you’ve taken control of a very bad situation. It’s exactly what he hoped and planned for.”

I frowned. “That’s not true. I was never going to follow in his footsteps. That’s what sons do.”

My mother nodded. “You’re half right. That’s what he believed when he was younger. But as the two of you grew up, it became quite clear that Gregory wasn’t cut out for the corporate life. He’s very good with numbers, but he can’t handle stress and conflict. He’d much rather be making his music.”

“Then why did Daddy keep employing him? First at Rich-Witty and then at the Vice?”

“Those were really Gregory’s decisions. I think he wanted to please your father. And he was worried that being a D.J. would not keep him in the lifestyle to which he was accustomed.” We had trust funds, but my father was a big believer in us earning our own way. “But Vince thought of you as the family’s future.”

I was stunned to hear this. “But, how? I mean, I didn’t even do my MBA until after he died.”

It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out that my going to biz school was some kind of apology to my father after his death. However, I had enjoyed the experience tremendously, in spite of my questionable rationale for going. And I had relished my time managing the Vice. The team was almost like a case study in mismanagement, and I loved identifying problems and solutions.

“You’re smart, and you have a good head for business—just like your father. Amanda, do you really have to go back to Toronto? It’s so nice to have you here again.”

I had been thinking about this as well. “I don’t know. What would I do here once the team was sold?”

She sniffed. “You are not without connections here.”

“Yeah, believe me, I know that.” That was the worst part: never knowing if I was going to get a job because I was good or because I was named Richardson. But I was still reeling from the idea that my father had wanted me to take over the family business. It was the opposite of what I had believed for so long. “Are you sure about what Daddy wanted? I mean—we argued all the time. I always felt guilty about that, you know... after he....”

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