Chapter 32

Nothing made sense to Clara.

June’s sudden death had shocked everyone. Her new friend—the one who’d just taken steps to start living her best life like Clara had—was gone. The life she’d reclaimed was already over. Now Francesca was leaving for Beirut to support the people who relied on Maroun Industries for bread on their tables.

“It’s so unfair, Arthur.” She eyed the martini Clifton had made for her, his heart in his eyes at the news of June’s death. “I want to change it all, and I can’t do anything except pat people on the backs and donate money.”

“You do more than that.” He curled his fingers around hers. “We both do. But I know it doesn’t feel like enough right now. June’s loss… They say death comes like a thief. I want to rip his face off. Amelia and her sisters can’t stop sobbing. God! If I can’t make sense of it, how can they? The article I’ve been working on with Amelia more than stalled when Connor became ill. I’m not sure it would be wise to resume it after this. ”

Clara nodded in agreement. “They lost their father, and now June. It’s too much. It’s simply too much. Doesn’t God or the Universe have some kind of overload understanding?” Then she stopped herself. Bad things happened every day to people who’d had enough of them. 

“Quinn’s going to lose Francesca a second time.” Arthur cursed uncharacteristically.

“And she him.” Because it was a loss. Clara had seen the woman’s face before dinner. She’d sat with a somber Alice and with Clifton, who hadn’t spoken a single word. There’d been no sign of Quinn.

“I want to bash their heads together, but I understand the untenable position her father put her in. She can help a lot of people experiencing horrible times. Even before the pandemic, Lebanon’s economy was in shambles. Women were trading dresses for baby formula and diapers, for heaven’s sake.”

“Women need formula and diapers in the U.S. too.” The online stories she came across daily were heartrending. She fingered her diamond bracelet absently and then looked down at the gems sparkling like Irish rainbows after a storm. God, who was she to be wearing diamonds with the kind of economic suffering in the world? When she started to take them off, Arthur stilled her hand.

“You don’t stop being who you are or living your life,” he told her, his blue-jean eyes steady on her face. “You like to wear diamonds and you can. Besides, what are you going to do? Give all your money away? You’ve given half to bail out more Merriam employees.”

Even with everyone donating from their personal fortunes, they were only going to be able to give everyone a one-thousand-dollar bonus, plus whatever severance they were due. “It isn’t enough. What will become of them?”

He touched her cheek. “Clara, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from covering tragedy, it’s this. It’s important to have compassion—empathy even when it’s possible—but the world isn’t better for anyone if we choose suffering. Wearing diamonds brings you pleasure, and selling them won’t do much to someone who’s lost a job, a company, or a loved one. Your guilt won’t help either. So maybe you don’t buy any more diamonds. Fine. But instead of focusing on what you perceive as your flaws, try thinking about all the good you’ve done. All the good you’re doing. I’m proud of you, love.” 

She closed her eyes, feeling a little weepy. Not her normal. Arthur pulled her onto his lap and held her. She inhaled his cologne, a mix of bergamot, leather, and orange, crafted by Caitlyn’s perfume maker, Ibrahim. Something was missing. “You haven’t been chewing red hots much or handing them out.”

His sigh gusted out. “Maybe it’s my version of diamonds. I usually hand them out to comfort people, but candy seems like such an insignificant gesture right now. It can’t make hurts this deep better.”

She felt something inside of her shift as she smoothed his hair. “You bring those red hots back, Arthur Hale. I miss them, and I’m sure I’m not alone. They not only inspire connection; they inspire comfort and normalcy.”

“Well said, my dear.” He kissed her softly.

“Where do you have them tucked away?” she asked.

“In my sock drawer, where I put everything else,” he said, patting her backside as she rose.

His handprint was warm on her fanny, a touch which had her mouth curling. Oh, how she loved this man. She found a bag of red hots in his sock drawer. She grabbed a handful and returned to the sitting room. “You put these in your sweater pockets and start handing them out again. But I would like to have one first.”

“You would, eh?” He extended one to her and shoved the rest in his pocket, secreting one for himself.

They unwrapped their candies and popped them in their mouths. She sat back on his lap, the cinnamon firing her every taste bud, ones that had been dead lately even amidst the nonstop onslaught of delicious food and drink from Clifton and Alice and the others.

“Are we really going to do nothing to help Quinn and Francesca?” she asked after silently musing. “Are you not the Matchmaking Jedi?”

“I don’t know how to help there,” he said, the candy clacking against his teeth. “Their problems are beyond anything we’ve faced.”

“Except when Michaela fell ill, we hiked into the bush to find a healing flower to save her.”

He crunched his candy angrily. “The path seemed clear. This one doesn’t.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she answered, biting into the red hot herself in frustration. “Do you think Clifton might have an answer? He’s been ever so helpful in these matters.”

“We can ask him. None of the Merriams know what to say either—not even Assumpta.”

And her sister-in-law usually saw matters of the heart in black and white.

They were doomed.