A faint remnant of the long, hot summer lingered in the early October evening as the man and woman emerged from the fine dining restaurant, comfortably arm in arm. The male was a portly figure with grey hair that held only faint traces of the black mane of his former youth, with a round clean-shaven face and a short nose, upon which rested a stylish pair of silver-rimmed glasses. He carried himself in a gait stiff with pride; though occasionally there was a decided wobble in his step. The female companion was of medium build and moderate height, with long brown hair and an ovular facial structure that was a vague extraction of the man’s. Her laughter was boisterous. She had a firm grip on his arm as the two exhibited an obvious familiarity.
“Hey, how about you let me have the keys,” the woman requested with a good-natured smile as the two made their way unsteadily across the macadam parking lot.
“It’s okay.” The male assured with a dismissive wave of his thick hand.
“You’ve had too much to drink.”
“I know my limits. I’m fine.”
“Dad, let me have the keys, please.”
“What, and have you drive my car? May I remind you that this baby isn’t even a year old yet. Besides, you’re no better off than I am.”
“I only drank two glasses of wine,” the woman protested. “You’ve had four scotches and a cognac.”
“You were keeping track?” he asked, brow furrowed in incredulity. “Did you also happen to count the calories in my dessert?”
“I think you’ve had a just a bit too much to drive.”
“Wendy, I’m almost sixty, not sixteen. Don’t you think I know myself by now?”
“You seem a little tired.”
“We’re both a little tired after what we’ve been through this week.”
“Look, I’ve just lost my mother, I’m not about to let anything happen to you, or me, for that matter. Make both our lives easier and hand over the keys.”

When they heard the diagnosis they were not wholly surprised. After occasional bouts of illness over the past half decade, if anything was going to cut down the energetic and vivacious heavy-smoking dynamo that was Sonia Schiff it was going to be cancer. Still, there was a tremendous disbelief when the lung cancer was deemed terminal and the death clock had been started. It didn’t seem possible that there was going to be a time when her infectious laughter did not fill the house, but the cancer had developed so profusely that no amount of treatment: conventional, homeopathic or otherwise, was going to prevent or even postpone the inevitable. They had to come to terms with the fact that one was going to lose her mother, the other the love of his life, and from that very moment it changed the way the father and daughter related to one another.
“I don’t want you to stand in your father’s way when I’m gone. Let him be his own man.” Sonia commanded as her daughter kept a bedside vigil.
“Do you think I could?”
“All I’m asking is for you to not be overly judgmental if he moves on with his life. Your father’s still a young man.”
“Christ Mom, you’re still in his bed, yet you’re talking about the next woman!”
“It’s just a possibility I want you to be ready for.”
“He loves you. The way you’re talking it’s like he’s going to be chatting up women at the funeral.”
“I know he loves me, but I’m not going to be here. I know your father and he’s not going to want to stay in this house all by himself.”
Another woman in the family home, cooking at the same stove as her mother, sitting by the large fireplace in the den, sharing his bed, was one of the many incomprehensible possibilities that Wendy Schiff was struggling to absorb.

“This is ridiculous,” the father protested. “Will you just shut up and get in the car.”
“I will not.” The defiant woman pulled away.
“Come on, let’s not spoil a lovely evening.”
“I agree. Let’s not ruin things by getting killed.”
“Jesus Christ, Wendy. Can’t we just go home?”
“As soon as you hand me the keys. It’s only four miles.”
“The fact we’re arguing about this proves you’re flagged.”
“I am not!” the father protested, pushing up his glasses.
“You are not driving, and that’s final. Now, don’t make me lay on the hood.”
“Shit, and I thought your mother was stubborn.”
“I’m not stubborn, I’m tenacious, and I got it from you.”
“You’re right. You are stubborn, otherwise you would have come to work for me years ago.”
“Oh, here we go again!” Wendy sighed, slapping her thighs.
“What’s wrong with a father wanting his child to join the family business?”
“Construction has never interested me, you know that.”
“There’s no other field where you can get the satisfaction of having built something that will outlast your life. Thousands of children were educated in the schools my company built. Just think of those churches; the weddings, funerals, and baptisms that took place in something I helped create, all the lives touched, people I never even met.”
“I wanted to find my own way.”
“Well, you have found your way, always have, ever since you were that wiry and precocious kid who ran puppet shows in the back yard and roared like a carnival barker. You’ve proved to yourself, and to me, that you are a success. I’m very proud of you, so come with me now and run things when I retire.”
“I’m an accountant, I don’t know anything about building. You want me to cast aside the client base I’ve been building for almost a decade and jump into a completely new field?”
“Well, yeah. It would be a challenge, but I know you love challenges. We have a great team in place and I’d be there to ease you into things. I wouldn’t just drop you off and say, ‘here, run this ten million dollar-a-year company.’ You’d have to learn how things are done, step-by-step. First we’d start off by seeing how you do with making the coffee and go from there.” he winked.
“Are you listening to yourself? You must be drunk. I mean, what are we doing, playing out the scene from The Empire Strikes Back?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Join me and we can rule the galaxy as father and daughter. All this because you didn’t have the son you wanted.”
“That’s not true and not fair.” he said with a correcting wave of finger.

As much as Greg Schiff loved his darling little girl, it was a painful blow when Sonia announced that she could not bear him any more children, not another precious girl, or the son he longed for to carry on the legacy of Schiff General Contracting. The company, which had been started in May of 1934 by his father, William Schiff, as a one-man masonry contractor, specializing in laying up block foundation walls, had grown into a respected firm that employed thirty-five field and office staff, and it had been his dream to see his children follow him into the business that had been so good to the Schiff family.
William Schiff had been an enterprising man with a friendly face and big ideas, attributes that were not always trusted in the years following the depression. He had a belief in himself and the great country into to which he had been born, and his optimism was infectious. He knew that being trustworthy and getting people to believe in him was going to be the key to his success, so he took his tools around to many of the local builders and offered to do his best for them. He was given a chance to prove himself, which he did through long hard hours of toil and craftsmanship.
Word of William Schiff’s skill, honesty and proficiency began to get out, and after two years he was able to hire an assistant, a laborer who would do the unloading and mixing. Within five years he had four employees and was working from an office trailer. By the tenth year he had built a home, which would serve as the business office for the next twenty years. When Greg Schiff joined his father in 1973, they were just getting into development work and purchasing land for residential subdivisions. At present, the company was one of the largest homebuilders in the county and owned seventy acres of land zoned for commercial use, where the long-term plan was to develop the site for office and retail use. He had hoped to pass on the good fortune to the next generation of Schiffs, but with no children in the business there was an acute sense of pointlessness now.

“Your mother was the stubborn one,” Greg Schiff recalled, leaning against a black SUV. “I could never get her to cave in. Once she set her mind to something—that was it, she was intractable. The first thing I’m going to do tomorrow is throw open all the windows and air the house out.”
“Mom loved her cigarettes,” Wendy reflected. “Remember how she used to sit by the fire, smoking, sipping wine and reading her Danielle Steele books?”
“She would sit in that chair of hers for hours on end. I hated leaving, especially at night, but she insisted I go to those planning commission meetings. ‘I need a little peace and quiet,” she used to say.”
“Your civic duty called. Besides, it gave us girls a chance to talk. I’m going to miss those conversations.”
He took his daughter’s hand. “I know it might not seem like it, but I worry about you.”
“I’m fine, Dad.”
“I want you to have somebody special in your life. I don’t like you being alone.”
“I’m not alone—I have you.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I used to worry about finding a man, but now wonder what I would do if I had someone and lost them as you did Mom. How are you going to cope, Dad?”
“By taking things one day at a time. I learned long ago that life itself is no different than running a business. You treat others as you would want to be treated and appreciate what you have achieved. Success is measured by how you confront the day-to-day challenges. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but if you meet and beat the problem of the day the victories become cumulative, and when you look back you suddenly realize you have a track record.”
“I like when you get all philosophical.”
“Is that what you call it? I thought you were going to call me pompous.”
“Not at all. I love you, you do know that right?”
“Of course I do.”
“I didn’t think I could again, not after the affair.”
“Do we have to bring THAT up NOW?” Greg Schiff groaned. “I’m just saying you mean a lot to me, even after everything that’s happened. I was a confused young girl and you really hurt me. When you ran around with that woman behind our backs you violated a trust and made me question everything I thought I believed in, everything that was rock solid. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I’m so unlucky in love.”
“That was a long time ago, a mistake I regret to this very day. I know I disappointed you, not to mention your mother, but surely you don’t blame me for your romantic situation?”
“You don’t know what my romantic situation is. For all you know, I could have lots of men in my life,” Wendy blustered but soon deflated. “No, I don’t blame you for my romantic situation, or lack thereof, and I don’t mean to come across like a resentful bitch. I guess I’m just being the tough little daddy’s girl.”
“I raised you the best way I knew how, and that probably meant treating you like a son sometimes, rather than a daughter, but I was only trying to pass on what I knew as a man. I’ve had very little experience being a woman.” he smiled weakly.
“Were you disappointed that I wasn’t a son?”
“Not at all. I have always loved you. If you want to know if I’m disappointed not to have had a son, then that’s a different question. Your mother and I tried having other children after you were born, but after she’d suffered two miscarriages, the doctors said your mother would never be able to carry another child to full term. That’s when I was disappointed. I was disappointed in her. There was a time when I thought she couldn’t be the woman I needed or deserved, and that problem was with us throughout our entire marriage, but we dealt with it day to day. I admit, I wanted a son, someone to craft in my own image, to take hunting and share all those unique manly things, but that’s just ego, I guess.”
“I’ve tried to make you proud.”
“And you have. Your mother and I are very pleased with the amazing person you have become.”

“I want Uncle Dan to be one of my pallbearers.” Sonia Schiff instructed with a commanding wave of one of her beloved cigarettes.
“After the way he acted at your Aunt Florence’s funeral?” Wendy protested, recalling the drunken escapades and the police lights.
“Dan was just sending the old bird away in the best way he knew how, and he’s sure to do the same for me. And then there are the hymns; we have to find something more uplifting than Amazing Grace. I don’t want everyone standing around crying the whole time; I want them to have a little fun. Maybe you can pick out something nice by the Beatles. Oh, I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking about my own funeral as lightly as if we were discussing recipes.”
“Dad and I just want everything to be the way you would want.”
“It’s weird to be planning your own party, one which you can’t possibly attend.” the frail woman choked amid a burst of tears.
“It’s okay, Mom.” The child said, looking away. She could barely stand to look at what the cancer had done to her mother’s body. The woman was like a ghost already; flesh pale and hanging alarmingly from her thin frame.
“Sometimes the reality of this thing overwhelms me and it’s hard to take,” she gasped, regaining her composure. “You know, I’m not a religious person. I believe in right and wrong, but not necessarily some all-powerful being. There’s too much evil suffering in the world for there to be a god, but I’ve found myself praying every night ‘please, just give me on more day,’ and the next day comes and I say the words all over again, ‘just one more.’ I don’t know who or what is listening, but I say it all the same. I pray for you too.”
“Me?”
“I had hoped to see you married before I slipped away.”
“I’m sorry that hasn’t worked out, but George Clooney has been busy.”
“There’s no need to be sorry. I just want you to be happy. What about that nice boy, Paul Becker? He was really sweet on you there for a while.”
“Mother, I haven’t heard from him since he went to Philadelphia to finish pharmacy school. That was ages ago. He’s probably married with kids by now. I’m fine. There’s no need for you to worry.”
“I’m a mom, it’s my job to worry.”
“Don’t. I’m not abnormal or anything. I just haven’t found the right man—yet. Who knows, one day the miraculous might happen, and I’m sure if the day comes you’ll be looking down from above, commenting on my dress. Enough about my party already. What about yours? Can you think of anything else you would want to have?”
“Whatever else happens, don’t let Aunt Pat get up to tell that story about me and her and those two brothers from New York!”

“Your mother loved this place,” Schiff said, staring at the candlelight flickering through the windows of the old stone building. “She said they served the best filet mignon. We were here for Valentine’s Day. I didn’t imagine it was going to be her last.”
“I keep wondering what Christmas is going to be like without her. She really loved the holidays and made them so special.”
“I was thinking the same thing. All I know is, I’m not decorating the house like she did. That’s way too much work. Maybe we should go away for the holidays, make a total break from tradition.”
“That could be great.” Wendy agreed. “Where would we go, London? Paris? Rome?”
“I was thinking more like Tampa, but an overseas adventure might be fun. Are you sure you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with an old drunk like me?”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re the one that’s going to have to put up with me and my book fetish.”
“After living with your mother for thirty-three years I’m sure I can manage you for a week.”
“I’m going to miss her so much.”
“I know.”
“I never realized how close we were until she was gone,” Wendy said, eyes welling with tears. “How I needed to share things with her.”
“Well, we can’t sit here all night, kid.”
“I don’t know, it’s been kinda nice,” the daughter sniffled.
“Yeah, it has. Hey, why don’t we call a cab?”
“In that case, we may as well go back inside and have another drink.” Wendy suggested. “To Mom.”
“No doubt about it, you’re my daughter all right!”
Greg Schiff took his child by the arm, and together they headed back into the restaurant, to remember the past and forget the future.