Page 174 of Sing with Me

“Was. She snapped out of her funk this year.”

“I don’t know…”

“Does a recluse decide to spend a month touring Europe?” Diehl asked.

“I don’t know.”

“All the reclusive people I know rarely leave their homes.”

“Whatever.”

Diehl cleared his throat. “The point is, Petra is now seventeen, and Zach is thirteen. I’d like to suggest that we ask Riley if she wants to get back into the corporate world.”

“She might not,” Dad said.

“She might.” Diehl wondered why Dad was negative about Riley.

“She’s been keeping up with company activities because she has Parker’s shares.” Even as Diehl reminded Dad about it, he realized he hadn’t talked to Riley about this idea.

“Would they want to move back to Atlanta? Her kids would have to change high schools and find new friends.”

“Remember how the kids were devastated when Riley moved them to their summer home on St. Simon’s after Parker passed away? They missed their friends at their school in Atlanta. Now they get a chance to reunite with their old friends again.”

“They’re on vacation, right? Europe somewhere?” Dad seemed to have forgotten.

“Yes, touring the entire summer. I haven’t kept up, but we can ask Brin when they’re due back.”

“Ah, yes, I seem to remember that now. They rented a chateau here and there, taking the train to places.”

“Sounds fun.”

“While the rest of us have to work.” Dad grinned.

The same grin that Parker had inherited.

I miss my brother a lot.

If only Parker were alive to run Brooks Investments, Diehl could live wherever he chose and love whoever he wanted.

Diehl swallowed. “If you and I agree, we can ask Riley to think about it. She might want to think fast because it’s June already, and school starts back up in August.”

“If she says no?”

“Then I propose we sell the subsidiaries that neither of us wants to manage anymore. Or we hire a VP for each of them and see how long we can hang on to the business,” Diehl said. “However, if she says yes, she can continue Parker’s legacy.”

That was all the argument Diehl had for asking Riley to join Brooks Investments as the CEO of the two subsidiaries her late husband had started. Would she be up to the task?

“If you bring up Parker’s legacy, how could she turn us down?” Dad said. “Then again, when two people are in love, and one dies, the other might never get over it. Sometimes it could be hard for them to revisit old places. I’m not saying Riley is like that, but I know for a fact that she and Parker were madly in love with each other.”

“Is it possible to love that much?” Diehl found himself asking.

“For sure. When my mother died, it affected Dad for the rest of his life. He thought of her all the time, and he saved all those musical instruments in her memory.”

Diehl recalled how Grandpa Brooks had bequeathed those instruments to only Brinley, and not to her brothers. Eventually those violins and pianos would end up in a music museum that Brinley was still building.

Family had clearly been important to Grandpa Brooks. He had taken care of his only son well. Dad then passed on that family heritage to his three children.

Could Diehl be the father that his children needed? What about in the here and now? They had spent one year of school in Hawaii, and now they would come back to Atlanta for the fall. However, if he could hand over two-thirds of the family business to Parker’s widow, Diehl could possibly move the rest of it to St. Simon’s Island.

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