Leaving Ashwood Read online

  Leaving

  Ashwood

  Cynthia Kraack

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

  St. Cloud, Minnesota

  Copyright © 2014 Cynthia Kraack

  Print ISBN 978-0-87839-721-1

  ebook ISBN 978-0-87839-991-8

  First Edition: July 2014

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Terrence Scott.

  Published by

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc

  PO Box 451

  St. Cloud, MN 56302

  www.northstarpress.com

  Also by Cynthia Kraack

  Minnesota Cold

  Ashwood

  Harvesting Ashwood

  Contents

  Also by Cynthia Kraack

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  For Grace.

  Chapter 1

  In the deepest year of the Second Great Depression, I became a statistic. Widowed and bankrupt, I lost our home when my mother passed away. She’d left me with only her debts, including too many years of unpaid mortgage payments and overdue property taxes. I joined the millions of homeless.

  Before the sheriff nailed the front door shut, though, I gathered what could fit into three boxes and paid a year’s rent on a storage locker. Hoping the housing authorities were as overburdened as the rest of the government, I stayed another week, then dressed in as many layers of clothes as I could manage, packed a suitcase, strapped a sleeping bag to my back and began walking. In two days I covered thirty miles to St. Paul where I slept on the sidewalk outside a regional housing agency while awaiting placement. The next ninety days I slept in the former walk-in closet of a private house lost to the city.

  Where once I was powerless to protect my family and home, the passing decades brought opportunities to start over, to build financial security and earn the power needed to keep those I love secure. Some feel I have worked too hard and worried too often about Ashwood, with its gray stucco residence and productive acres. Those scarred by the Second Great Depression know that isn’t possible.

  The skinhead boy kissing a frizzhead girl under the early June moon had no idea their passionate interlude would upset their employer’s breakfast. Street-savvy teenagers don’t think of cameras in an apple orchard miles from the city, much less understand why the owner of a large enterprise would be concerned about a few squeezes and kisses.

  Above all our heads an invisible power canopy hid our identities from the air force of drones sent by corporations, government agencies, media groups, and anyone with a nosey personality and money to burn. Opaque netting tented much of the surrounding land to keep giant mutated insects and birds from damaging crops, bothering livestock, hurting residents. These two lusty sixteen-year-olds were amazed by the illusion of open skies, ignorant of what protected them as well as the monitors that captured their actions.

  Before a zipper could be unzipped, a night supervisor had arrived on the scene, encouraged them to break it up, to not mar their records on this fifth night, to get a good night’s sleep before another day of physical labor and academic work.

  They were just two teens doing what boys and girls have done in the dark of an orchard for centuries. That they were able to slip from their dormitories and pass undetected into Ashwood’s orchards was the problem. Our problem.

  The skies changed from feeding our bodies to threatening our lives gradually. For children playing four square in the estate’s plaza, a protected environment was normal. For a man born eighty-seven years earlier on the open plains under the blue canopy of South Dakota’s sky, the changes ate away at what was good about life. As each breath placed more stress on his failing heart, my father-in-law grew to accept his invalid condition.

  Had I mentioned it, he might have teased me out of thinking about last night’s video. He’d told me recently that bright June mornings tickled memories of cookouts, softball games, tulip gardens. But we didn’t talk much anymore about those summers. Better to pretend the world maintained a predictable pattern with a man tired by the struggle of eating breakfast.

  “You’ll call the other kids today?” His words came out whispery. He cleared his throat, coughed, raised a thin hand to his lips. A cultivator accident claimed a half finger before we met. Paul Regan, my father-in-law and business confidante, was waiting for congestive heart failure to finish its course. At his age, he was too old to benefit from current cardiac procedures. “Anne, you’ll be honest and tell them I’m dying.”

  “I’ll call this morning.” I held his other hand, so cool and boney. I would ask them to come home, to say good-bye. “I promise I’ll be honest.”

  He sat back, one eye closed and gave me the look he’d once saved for his late wife, Sarah. The look that implied he trusted me to carry the family through his dying process. “The kids’ lives should be easier after everything we went through during the depression. I hoped they’d be settling down, getting married, and living like people used to live. Those damn multi-corps.” Paul coughed, a weak sound against phlegm collected in his throat.

  I handed him a tissue. We had this conversation most days. The last time my stepdaughter Phoebe was home, Paul was still working with the field crews. His reunion night with Noah, her brother, had been emotional, both seeing the changes etched in the other’s face. Talking about farming was the highlight of Paul’s visit with Phoebe’s half-brother, John.

  “I really enjoyed talking with John. That young man’s got a good head on him.” Paul pulled in a rattle-like breath. “He reminds me of David as a boy. When he isn’t acting like you.”

  My ear bud buzzed to let me know of a seven o’clock conference. “Time for you to rest,” I said as I stood. “Let me get rid of your tray. Any plans for this morning?”

  Paul cleared his throat again. “You gotta make the most of the
good days. I might sit outside for a while and admire the roses.”

  Chapter 2

  Lately when difficult work and family matters demanded simultaneous attention, I thought about how I might have been a retired schoolteacher if not for the Second Great Depression. Born in the Millennial generation, I spent a happy childhood living in a suburban house, and came to maturity in a world teetering between the great recession and what media hucksters call G2D, or the Second Great Depression. A bureaucrat decided I was worth more to the nation as an agricultural business manager than a teacher. They were right. I was so ridiculously good that when the first century of the twenty-first millennium passed its halfway point, Hartford, Ltd., was named one of the top 100 privately held companies in the United States.

  Eating breakfast with Paul cut into my morning office time. We had not told him about a hostile takeover effort on Hartford, Ltd., by Deshomm, one the world’s largest multi-corps. Our company could be a boutique agricultural producer and marketing brand within the gargantuan multi-corps. A very profitable boutique. It was no secret that Paul’s shares would change ownership within the family when he died, but with no means for public trading of Hartford’s stock, Deshomm’s aggressive stance was perplexing. Nine family members and a handful of management employees owned one hundred percent of our company. I knew the details of my father-in-law’s will. My husband, David, and I thought we knew that none of our children would open Hartford, Ltd., to such risk.

  As assured as I originally felt, managing the Deshomm threat dwarfed everything on my agenda as Hartford’s chief executive officer. Somewhere I’d find time to make the calls Paul requested. Phoebe, my stepdaughter through David’s first marriage, promised she would be available. My son, Andrew, was traveling.

  “Anne.” Clarissa joined me for the walk from the family residence to Hartford’s executive business offices, a structure built decades ago by the Department of Energy to house David’s research group. “A group representing ELH appeared at the main gate at seven claiming they had a meeting scheduled with you. Nothing’s on your calendar. They insisted on parking along the road until we ironed out this misunderstanding.”

  A few years older than I, she wore her gray hair short and her standard business outfit tailored. Clarissa earned my respect and trust. We would never be warm friends, but over seventeen years of working together she had become the one critical person every executive needs—half assistant and half chief of staff. Her relationship with Andrew was less successful. Sister to Andrew’s father, Clarissa brought my son to Ashwood after her brother’s death.

  “They’ve caught wind of Deshomm’s shenanigans and want a piece of the action,” she said. “I suppose if you don’t give them time they’ll jam communications again.”

  “No time to meet with them today and no interest. Let Sadig know there could be security interference.” We walked side-by-side making the most of the very short distance to Hartford’s executive suite. “I’m surprised Deshomm hasn’t tried more serious communications tactics.” We stopped for security scans. The office doors opened. “They’re like little boys showing interest in a girl by putting a worm in her desk.”

  “How is Paul?” Her voice softened.

  “Holding his own for another day. I need time today to call Phoebe and Andrew. They have to know how he is doing. And about Deshomm.” I knew my schedule had no breaks until after dinner that evening.

  “I cleared time with Phoebe’s communicator. If we push back morning assembly for a half hour, you could call her. Andrew is traveling. When you’re available I’ll initiate contact.”

  “Tell them to hold the assembly without me, Clarissa. I’ll contact Phoebe right away.”

  She headed for her workstation and I poured myself a cup of coffee before going to my office. Not even seven thirty and every staff member was at work. To play against the multi-corps, we had to be on top of the market around the clock.

  The Second Great Depression created the need to develop a different world financial model. As the United States lurched into an odd socialist structure to keep people fed and safe while rebuilding its economy, we couldn’t fathom returning to the old private market system. The government became employer, producer, and marketer. We were confused, but grateful. When big businesses re-opened, they were colossal in size with global investors pooling funds. They nudged governments out of the market place and recast their former regulators into providers of educational and social systems. Common people saw only good as the multi-nationals exerted their power to force the shut down of terrorist organizations that threatened global business. The price for living in a safer world hasn’t been determined.

  Phoebe liked to say she was a woman with three mothers—the surrogate who carried her, the blood mother who died, and me, the one she calls Mom. Perhaps the passing of Phoebe from surrogate’s womb to her mother’s arms, into my care in only eight weeks foretold the complex life my stepdaughter would lead. At twenty-five years of age, one of the nation’s Intellectual Corps, Phoebe was a brilliant, beautiful, genetically engineered woman. Raised on a Minnesota farm, she proved to be ill-equipped to live the grueling lifestyle chosen for her by our government’s Bureau of Human Capital.

  Although she hadn’t been here for more than a few days in five years, Phoebe called Ashwood home. She referred to her eight-hundred-square-foot apartment on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive as an “upscale holding cell were cares took care of her basic needs.” Meals were brought to her, housecleaning services just happened, clothing appeared. Cares were always watching, always keeping the outside from disturbing Phoebe’s productivity. Family ranked high on the cares’ list of annoyances. My attempts to contact her were frequently blocked.

  While the holo request made its way through IC loops, I looked out my office windows and thought of the large windows in Phoebe’s place. The beauty of the ever-changing waters of Lake Michigan are soothing for me, but frightened Phoebe who had no history with a body of water bigger than the ponds on our estate. Shortly after we moved her to Chicago, we once waded knee deep into Lake Michigan and the sand washing out from under her toes convinced her she might be swallowed alive by the water. Her hand gripped mine as a child’s might, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Waiting for Phoebe, I wondered how she might look today. Physically her father’s child, tall and graceful, her face was beautiful with a noble-looking broad forehead and elegant trim nose. Phoebe’s curly dark hair and green eyes came through her mother. We’d watched all kinds of odd behaviors pop up during Phoebe’s Intellectual Corps lifestyle, so many possible signs of her mother’s emotional instability. I’d had such faith in nurture over nature. Until parenting Phoebe.

  My hologram appearance caught Phoebe in the middle of collecting her boyfriend’s athletic jerseys from shelves and chairs. Her hair, curls pinned up in random clips, captured light like a finely built halo. My picture faded as she moved in and out of sunbeams.

  “Phoebe?”

  She stood still, some unknown passion drained from her face as she pulled on the look adult children show when talking with their parents. “You’re looking good, Mom.” Sitting down on a low-slung upholstered bench, she dumped Ahlmet’s shirts on the floor. “If you’ve been trying to find me the last few days, I was in a secured lab. No connectivity allowed.” Her breathing slowed. “How is everything? I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”

  “Someone told Clarissa this would be a good day to talk.” The same comment made to a staff member wouldn’t sound scolding. “Things are happening here you will want to know.”

  “Go ahead.” Transparent with her feelings, I heard irritation. “Is this about Deshomm?”

  “Partially. Interesting you’d say that. What do you know?”

  “Noah said something was going on a few weeks ago. And my communicator is pissed about the distraction at this time in my project.”

 
“It’s a complicated story. To be blunt they’re attempting a hostile takeover of Hartford, Ltd.”

  “Who would sell out? You’ve been thorough with all the legal junk.” Her eyes slipped to the windows. “Did you mess up when they wanted to purchase Dad’s herd? This would kill Grandpa. I hope the field workers aren’t talking about it when he’s around them.”

  That she could chose to forget that her grandfather was ill, very ill, annoyed me almost more than the blatant blame of the herd sale fiasco. I brushed a hand through hair that had been unwashed one too many days because of time spent with Paul, pushed a strand behind my ear.

  “Let’s talk about Grandpa first.” Behind her head I saw her apartment windows, wished I could see the lake.

  “Everything’s okay, right?” I heard sleepless nights under her voice and a request for assurance to give her permission to head back to her lab or to Ahlmet or whatever she does when she isn’t working. “What’s up, Mom?”

  “Grandpa isn’t doing well. He wants to see all of you soon. If you can arrange to be away from the lab, this is the time to come to Ashwood.”

  Her hands quieted as she sat upright. She turned to me with intensity, wanting to be told this wouldn’t be like her grandmother Sarah’s passing away. No one here had ever asked her to drop work.

  “How about a holo-gathering, Mom? Maybe two or three hours this weekend? I’ll make all the arrangements with Noah and John. I’ll even contact Andrew. Would that make you feel better?”

  My youngest daughter, Faith, popped her head into my office. For a few seconds I was distracted as she tried to ask me a question. She left without an answer.

  “Work is calling me,” Phoebe said. The problem with her work was that she could be telling the truth or protesting my intrusion. “Figure out a schedule for getting together. I really have to go.”