stiffened. “You weren’t told because I didn’t know I had a son until two hours ago. A long time ago, when I was just a lad, there was a young lady…It’s a long story. I was a commoner, she wasn’t. I left to go on to other things, and I assumed she went back to her family in South Africa. Not only do I have a son and a daughter-in-law, I have three grandchildren. None of whom I knew about. It seems my son wanted it that way on orders from his mother, who is deceased.
“I have to go. I want you all to understand I have no other choice.”
Overhead, the solid whump-whump of the helicopter could be heard.
“And you expect me to believe that?” Myra shouted, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Charles’s tormented voice hung in the room like a death knell. “Yes, Myra, I do expect you to believe that. Because it’s true, and I’ve never lied to you. I have to say good-bye now. I’ll be in touch when I can.”
Speechless, the women just stared at Charles as he bent to pick up his duffel bag.
“Don’t bother getting in touch and don’t bother coming back,” Myra said coldly, the tears drying on her cheeks as she turned away to stare out the kitchen window at the darkness outside.
“Myra…please…try to understand…” When he realized Myra was not going to back down, Charles let his shoulders slump. He started toward the door. A second later he was gone, the door closing softly behind him. There was a sense of finality to the sound.
The women rushed to Myra, all of them babbling and jabbering, but it was Annie who grabbed hold of Myra’s shoulders and shook her like a rag doll. “Don’t be a fool, Myra. Are you out of your mind? That man needs you right now, the way you needed him when Barbara died. Hurry, you can fight with him on the flight. If you don’t go you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Go!”
The others pushed Myra toward the door. “But I’m not dressed…he lied to me…Well, maybe he didn’t lie but he should have woken me to tell me…I can’t just…go. I need my things.”
“You don’t need your things. You have your pearls, you don’t need anything else,” Annie shouted to be heard over the landing aircraft. “Run, Myra!”
The women raced from the room, out onto the porch, down the steps, across the compound as they half-dragged and half-pulled Myra to the helicopter pad. Somehow they managed to catch up to Charles, who was so stunned that he stopped in his tracks, his arms extended to clasp Myra to his chest.
The other Sisters stood in a huddle, the wind from the helicopter blades almost blowing the hair off their heads. They waved furiously, shouting words that couldn’t be heard.
When the bird in the sky was just a speck, they trudged back to the main cabin, Annie in the lead.
Back in the kitchen, they fell to their assigned tasks and within minutes they had breakfast on the table.
“Eat! You know Charles’s rule: first we eat, then we talk,” Annie ordered.
The Sisters made a valiant effort to eat the pancakes and eggs, but for the most part all they did was stir the food around on their plates. Murphy and Grady waited patiently, knowing the food would find its way into their food bowls.
The minute the table was cleared and the dishwasher was humming, Isabelle poured fresh coffee. “Let’s talk,” she said as she plopped down in her chair.
“Charles has a family he didn’t know about. How is that possible? Charles knows everything. How could he be ignorant of an entire family? If it was a secret, how did Her Majesty know about it?”
Something funny was going on, they finally agreed when all the questions they asked one another had no answers.
The Sisters’ concern turned to themselves.
“We’re rudderless. There’s no one at the helm. What are we supposed to do?” Kathryn demanded.
“It’s not exactly like we’re busy,” Nikki said. “We’re missionless, if there is such a word, at the moment.”
“Yes, but what if something comes up? What do we do then?” Alexis asked. “And I hesitate to mention this, but we haven’t heard a word from our president-elect and the pardon she promised us. Maybe this is a good time to, you know, sort of look into it.”
“Why don’t we have a party?” Yoko suggested. “We can invite Lizzie, Maggie, Jack, and Harry, and anyone else we think it is safe to invite.”
“That’s definitely out of the question. That’s one of Charles’s rules. We can’t go against it, as much as I would love to have some fun and see Jack,” Nikki said.
“So…we just sit here on this damn mountain and wait to see if Charles comes back. He said straight out he might not return. We need to make some plans,” Kathryn said.
“Girls! We are not rudderless. I am, as of this moment, appointing myself as our new PM and will take the helm,” Annie said.
Her Sisters laughed. “Annie, they only have prime ministers in England. You can’t be a PM,” Alexis said.
“No, no, no. I didn’t mean prime minister. I meant point man. Or, in this case, PW, which means point woman. I considered saying point person, but PP doesn’t seem quite right.”
A couple of the girls snickered.
“That’s another way of saying I’m taking charge! If there are any dissenters, now is the time to…uh…dissent.”
A rousing chorus of yahs echoed in the kitchen just as Annie’s cell phone rang. The Sisters looked at one another, their eyes full of questions. Annie put the specially encrypted phone to her ear, murmured a greeting, and then listened to the excited voice on the other end of the line.
Annie’s expression went from disbelief to utter disbelief when she said, “Pearl, I have my own crisis right here on the mountain, and I can’t get excited about what’s going on in Utah. Besides, it isn’t even light out, so it has to be around three o’clock in Utah, which raises the question: What the hell are you doing out there on some back road in the middle of nowhere at this hour of the night? I’ll get back to you when I have time.”
“What? What?” the other Sisters demanded.
Annie shrugged. “Like I know. I could barely understand her. Somebody’s bus broke down. Not Pearl’s.”
Annie’s phone rang again, then Nikki’s pealed. Yoko pulled her phone out of the pocket of her robe just as it rang.
“Will someone answer the damn phones already?” Kathryn blasted.
Everyone started talking at once, on the phones and among themselves.
Five minutes later the Sisters were pacing.
“I’d say Pearl does have a crisis. But, I don’t see how we can help,” Nikki said.
Annie’s phone rang again. She barked a greeting, then said, “We’re discussing it now, Pearl. What do you mean, what should you do? Sing songs. Play games. That’s what we used to do
