Page 201 of Sing with Me

“Phases.” Riley nodded. “This too shall pass.”

“True.”

“Hello, Ned. I didn’t forget you.” Riley smiled.

“Of course, you didn’t,” Dad said. “You’re only my favorite daughter-in-law.”

“Your only one.”

For now.Diehl tapped his iPad.

“The kids are watching a movie in the living room so if you hear loud noises, you know what that is.” Riley adjusted something or other on the table. “So what brings us to the table today?”

Diehl prayed there would be peace between Dad and Riley. Those two hadn’t always gotten along, not even when Parker had been alive.

For the new Brooks future to work such that Diehl could move to St. Simon’s Island and be with Skye—if she would have him—someone had to take some of the burden off him.

“Let’s just get to the bottom of it,” Dad said. “Diehl is burned out.”

Diehl pursed his lips. He didn’t know whether that was a good start to the meeting, but it wasn’t kind. Here he was at forty years old and burned out.

“Diehl?” Riley asked, as if she did not believe Dad.

“I was,” Diehl said. “I came out of it with a new perspective on what I want to do with the rest of my life. I believe I am overworked running three subsidiaries of Brooks Investments. We want to know if you would be willing to continue Parker’s legacy by managing the subsidiaries he started, considering you’re invested in the stock options for those two.”

“Brooks Transportation and Brooks Manufacturing,” Riley said.

“Precisely.” Diehl tried to read her facial expressions, but there were none.

“I don’t want to be negative or anything, but Parker shouldn’t have acquired Brooks Manufacturing,” Riley said. “I advised him against it, but Parker was Parker, as you know.”

“Yep. Parker was Parker,” Dad echoed. “I still miss him.”

“We all miss him, Ned.” Riley sat back on the sofa. “Thing is, if you list all the subsidiaries, you can see that manufacturing is unrelated to the rest of what the Brooks family is best at. You have real estate, renovations, restorations, properties. Transportation is somewhat related because you need to transport building materials. But manufacturing?”

Dad and Diehl nodded at the same time.

“You might not know this, but Parker admitted to me that Brooks Manufacturing was a mistake. It stretched him to the point of no return.”

“No return?” Diehl asked. “What do you mean?”

“Your perfect brother was so stressed out that he was drinking every night. How did that help his mental faculty in the morning?”

Diehl never thought Parker had been that bad off.

“Six years. Now you tell us?” Dad asked. His voice was snappy. It meant he was angry.

Perhaps he was angry that his firstborn son’s good reputation was being sullied now by his widow.

“I’m telling you the truth.” Riley pointed to Diehl. “Your brother burned out many, many times over. He never lifted a fist at me, but often, I had to take the kids to my parents’ house so that they did not see him in that state of drunken stupor, cussing out the Brooks family name, and blaming himself for expanding the family business too quickly.”

Diehl placed his iPad on his lap. He didn’t know what to say or think.

Poor Parker.

“The night before he went deep sea fishing with his buddies, he was drunk out of his mind,” Riley said. “I told him not to go. One of his friends in the boat had just gotten a new job as CFO of MacPherson.”

“No way.” Dad grunted. “Bruno MacPherson?”

---