All Of Them (eBook)

CHAPTER 4

The next week, things didn’t improve. Frank finally declared one night that they weren’t going to waste their time turning on the gloom and doom of evening news programs anymore. It was just too much for them to deal with. Their focus was in searching for employment. Frank and Didi spent their mornings looking through the daily newspaper ads. The majority of the listings now were for telemarketing jobs. It was hard to stay positive in light of such poor employment offerings.

Lauren and Karl conducted online searches for possible jobs in their fields. Even their impressive faxed-in resumes earned no responses. They opted to move back into Karl’s old room at the family home to save their last month of rental money and get their deposit back. It was a tight squeeze for the three of them in his old bedroom but they all did the best they could to get along.

The family was grateful for the mutual support they could give each other in these difficult days. With all the instability of the stock and housing markets, they realized how lucky they were to have a roof over their heads and food on the table, albeit temporarily. The retirement investments Frank made the previous years in the ever-rising stock market were lost in a matter of hours when the market collapsed. Heartsick, Didi was glad that she had insisted on putting a portion of their money into a savings account. They were using it now to survive day to day.

Kim generously added her paycheck every two weeks to the family coffers to help out with their costs even as she was paying on her car and insurance. She still owed money on her student loans, but for now Fannie Mae had granted her request for a deferment on payments. Meanwhile, Kim still continued to search in vain for a school psychologist job to utilize her college degree. She knew the money would be good working for a school district and she could pay off all her college debt quicker. But since districts were cutting their staff across the board, it was clear to her that she shouldn’t hold her breath. She still held out hope that one of the applications she had sent out statewide would catch someone’s eye. There had to be a county office somewhere in California that needed someone with a psych degree. But until she heard back from someone willing to hire her on, she knew she needed to help her family as best she could.

Adding more drama to their issues, Lauren had just been put on bed rest by her doctor for the remaining three months of her pregnancy. There had been a scary trip to the emergency room when she started having labor pains and spotting blood. Losing their medical insurance along with his business had thrown Karl into a lather. He was desperate to make money to afford the doctor bills and for Lauren’s upcoming hospital stay. Every company he applied to were facing major layoffs themselves. Unable to find any job openings in his field, he went online to advertise his computer skills. Surprisingly, he received a lot of requests to set up new computer systems as well as calls for ridding computers of viruses. With these side hustles Karl kept the money coming in. He worried that his wife might need help while he was out on a call. Lauren was set up in Karl’s bedroom where she could watch TV for company, and even had a bedside bell that Didi had found for her to ring for help. Both Lauren and Karl managed to keep the family upbeat with their positive attitudes and ability to laugh at the ridiculous run of bad luck that had seemed to befall all of them. They realized that they could all choose to cry over what was happening or choose to laugh about it. They consciously chose to take the lemons that life was handing them and make lemonade.

Soon a comfortable routine began making the most of their family time. In the evenings, Lauren would be helped downstairs and set up on the couch. Then they would all share a nice simple dinner together on TV trays. To prevent mealtime from becoming an unpleasant chore, the family had competitions creating the best meal of the week. Even Karl had joined in to create a spicy chili that everyone enjoyed. Both Karl and Kim worked as many hours as they could to help keep the utilities on and food on the table.

One afternoon they were all sitting together in the living room when the phone rang. Everyone looked nervously at each other. Most of the calls now were from angry creditors. Frank was surprised the phone was still working since they received a notice of disconnection in the mail that day. He noted to himself the need to put their cell phone numbers on future job applications instead of the soon defunct landline. Deciding to take a chance in case it was a reply to one of their many job applications, Karl answered. A gentleman introduced himself as a lawyer who was looking for a relative of a William Pike, Didi Fuentes. Karl looked over at his mom who was eyeing him suspiciously. He gestured for his mom to come over to the phone. She raised her hands to signal she didn’t want to talk. When he continued to wave her over she sighed and came over.

“Yes Sir, Didi is right here. Hold on a moment.”

Karl pushed the phone into the reluctant hands of his mom.

“Mom, don’t you have relatives with the last name, Pike?”

An excited look came over her face as she nodded.

“Yes, my great-aunts were all Pikes. Why?”

Karl explained that a lawyer wanted to talk to her about a family member that had passed on. Didi’s brow furrowed with this sudden surprising news. She took the receiver from her son and spoke into the phone identifying herself. As she listened on the other end she nodded in response while the family stood around watching curiously. Didi bit her lip and appeared to be trying to remember something. She covered the mouthpiece and whispered to the family.

“He says that my great-uncle William died.”

Kim sighed dramatically and threw her hands up in the air.

“Great! Just what we needed, more good news.”

Frank gave Kim a stifling look. Kim shrugged and grinned back. Frank stood and moved next to Didi. He whispered in her ear.

“I don’t remember you ever talking about a great-uncle before.”

Absently Didi held up a finger to let Frank know she was still listening to whoever was speaking on the other end. She continued to nod and then finally answered the lawyer.

“We never actually met. No one really talked about him. All I had been told was that he had been involved in something rather scandalous and because of it the family disowned him.”

Lauren sat forward from her spot on the living room couch radiating curiously and whispered to the group.

“What in the world did he do to get himself disowned?”

A suddenly shocked exclamation came out from Didi.

“A HOUSE? Seriously?”

Everyone stood in surprised silence, listening as Didi made arrangements for a meeting the next day. Finally hanging up, Didi paused for a moment to catch her breath as she looked around at everyone.

“Well, guys. I have to drive into Riverside tomorrow to talk to Mr. Quattlebaum. He is the lawyer handling the estate of my great-uncle William Pike. Apparently, he has left me a farmhouse on a piece of land! So, Frank, after we hear the details at his office we can go look at the property and decide what we want to do with it.”

Everyone stood in shock. Suddenly, they unleashed a barrage of questions directed at Didi. She held up her hands.

“Woah, woah! I’ll answer all of your questions, but there is a lot I don’t even know about.”

“Riverside?” questioned Lauren. “Where is that? Which direction is it from L.A?”

Didi turned to her husband with a questioning look. They waited as he pulled out the Thomas Brothers Book from the bookshelf. Frank turned the pages until he found the destination and answered.

“It’s about fifty miles east of us.”

Holding open a page with a map view of California so everyone could see, he pointed towards an area to the right of Los Angeles. Kim leaned in closer.

“Is it close to Palm Springs?”

“Not that far. It probably is about an hour’s drive from there to Palm Springs.”

Kim exasperatedly repeated Lauren’s earlier question.

“Okay, so WHO is William Pike and WHY did he get disowned by the family?”

Didi laughed and shrugged.

“I don’t really know much about him! He’s the younger brother of my great-aunts who helped raise me. I only heard his name a few times. None of my aunts would talk about him. I remember asking them about him one time when they came to visit my mother. We were looking through old photo albums. There were pictures of them together with their brother when they were in their teens. Because of their reactions and the way they cut short my questions, I just figured he must have done something awful. After that I just put him out of my mind.”

Both of Didi’s parents died when she was in her teens. Her thirty-five-year-old mother, Garnet Pike-Reyes, died of the same rare type of cancer that had taken her mother. Garnet’s grandparents had immigrated from the eastern part of Norway. Living in Lillestrom, her grandfather had been a fisherman. When they arrived in America, he chose the name Pike for his family.

Didi’s father, George Reyes, had been killed in a tragic construction accident just a year after her mother had passed while digging in a pit without reinforcements. By the time he had been pulled out of the collapsed site, it was too...