The Last of the Stanfields(85)

George-Harrison gently wiped away my tears and took a long, hard look at me. “I know it’s a lot to swallow, everything he told you. But it seems to me you’re most bothered by having your own father hang up on you. If you ask me, you should call him back.”

“Are you kidding? Not a chance!”

“He’s probably just as upset about it as you are. But it’s on you to take the first step. It must have taken a hell of a lot out of him, coming clean like that.”

I shook my head, but it was clear George-Harrison wasn’t going to let me off the hook.

“You know you’re lucky to have a father like him. You need to stop acting like a spoiled brat, even though it’s kind of cute. I probably would have steered clear of you at school.”

“Excuse me? What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, just saying: you must have had all the boys drooling.”

“You’re full of it!”

My phone vibrated. George-Harrison smiled knowingly and had the good grace to give me some privacy, returning to his truck as I picked up the call.

“What the hell did you do to Dad to put him in such a state?” asked Maggie, coming out swinging. “I got worried when he was gone so long and found him shell-shocked, just sitting on his bed with a crushed look on his face. I mean, really! Even from the other side of the globe, you manage to wreak total havoc on our night!”

I couldn’t stomach a dustup with my sister, not now, and I had already made a resolution to stop fighting with my family. Instead, I laid everything out for Maggie, calmly and steadily, the whole saga step by step. Every time I paused at the end of a sentence, I’d hear Maggie sigh and whisper, “Oh, shit.” By the end of the tale, she must have said it at least ten times. Then, when I revealed that we—Michel, Maggie, and I—were all descendants of the illustrious Frederick Stanfield and a prestigious American family, the grand finale, my sister let out a more expressive burst of expletives—running the gamut from fuck fuck fuck to son of a fucking bitch. That was Maggie, through and through.

“Okay! Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said, frantic and excited. “For the umpteenth time, I’ll fix things between you and Dad. Give him time to sleep on it, then you call to apologize first thing tomorrow.”

“What exactly am I supposed to apologize for? They were the ones who lied to us our whole lives! If I hadn’t received this stupid letter and come all the way here, Dad would have kept us in the dark forever.”

“Right. But they’ve loved us like crazy our whole lives, too. You are going to apologize because you have the best father in the whole world, the envy of all our friends, and he’s probably the most generous person I’ve ever met. He is essentially perfect, minus the sweet tooth and the ridiculous, inexplicable attachment to that car. When you’re lucky enough to have a father like that, you suck it up and swallow your pride!”

Although I was the older sibling, I was already in the midst of my second full-on regression of the day, so I decided to keep my mouth shut and just take it.

“And while I take care of Dad, you go track down that blasted treasure, whatever it is. I don’t believe for one second Mum would be stupid enough to give up her cut. It’d be nice to finally move closer to London, and not necessarily to Fred’s place, if you follow me. So, I am counting on you, Elby. Get to work. And keep me posted.”

“Get to work, please. Keep me posted, please,” I corrected her.

“Tell me: How’s your whole Beatles thing coming along?” she asked, meaning George-Harrison.

“It’s not.”

“That’s a relief. Like I’ve been telling you, he could still be in it just to make off with the loot. I still haven’t heard anything to convince me he’s not the poison-pen, or that he’s not just using you to get closer to the treasure.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If there’s one subject I’m an expert in, it’s men. Talk to you tomorrow, sis.”

As I said goodbye to my sister, I realized the truth was out and there was no turning back. I was part of a family I would never meet, people whom I knew nothing about. Out of respect for my mother’s memory, I vowed not to look for their final resting places. Visiting their graves would do nothing except make me feel like I was betraying her. However, I was intrigued by Sam Goldstein. My mother had taken his name as her own, so he must have had some redeeming qualities. I was eager to learn more about him. And about the Stanfields, too, to be quite honest.

I approached the pickup to find George-Harrison waiting for me behind the wheel. He gave me a questioning thumbs-up, clearly concerned over whether my father and I had patched things up.

Maggie was dead wrong. One look was all I needed to convince me George-Harrison couldn’t be the poison-pen. No way.

“Everything okay?” he asked as he opened the door for me.

“Yes, or at least it will be first thing tomorrow.”

“Perfect. Where to now?”

I felt guilty thinking once more that my side of the investigation was advancing so rapidly, while his seemed to be at a standstill. The best I could do was apologize, but he just shrugged it off.

“I’ve been waiting so long, so what if it’s not this week, this month, this year . . . or even this lifetime?”