Really?

It’s raining it’s pouring

The old man is snoring

Got into bed and

Bumped his head and

Couldn’t get up in the morning

At least this was the police conjecture.  But we know better.  Don’t we?

Scrooge was a miser.  Donnelley was a miser plus.  You’ve probably wandered through one of his furniture stores and never wondered about the people behind it.  He wasn’t the kind to put his family up front, making all sorts of cutesy ads.  With Donnelley it was always value for money.

You’d think with this philosophy he would have invested more in his children instead of making them work their way through college, “So you’ll know what the value of your education really is,” he justified.  His wife’s Easter outfit?  He bought her a sewing machine.  She explained that a dress and hat would have been cheaper.  But he said, “This way you can make all your clothes.”

The salespeople in his stores worked on commission.  If they didn’t make a certain amount a month, he fired them.  If they made extra, he gave them no bonuses to keep them.  So the best of them moved on.

Due to his being too cheap to use contraceptives, the Donnelleys had four children, two sons, two daughters.  All were in therapy.  And after their mother died, they rarely saw the old man.

Then one day he summoned them.  They came, mainly to see one another, as they were spread out over the country and kept in touch mainly by text and FaceTime.  Donnelley told them he was retiring and had sold his stores to a larger chain than his, a national chain.  Then he smiled that grim smile of his and said, “You know, my lawyer has advised me, now that I’m out of the business, to finally make a will.  He said you have four children, you don’t want to leave them in the lawyerly lurch.  And I said to him, what have my children ever done for me?  None of them joined the business.  None of them came to live with me after their mother died.  So I’m going to leave all my wealth to my charity.”

“Dad, you don’t have a charity,” his eldest David informed him.

“Not yet.  But I will.”

“Do what you wish,” his elder daughter Jill said dismissively.  “You’ve never helped us before.  Why should we expect anything now?  And by the way, we’ve all done pretty well for ourselves without your help.”

“So what I’m telling you now that you’re all here,” the father continued as if no one had spoken, “this is your last chance to get to the house and see if there’s anything you’ve left behind, because I’m selling the place and moving on.”

If Donnelley expected to rile his children, he was mistaken.  Because they really had made full lives for themselves.  David had become a pharmacist.  Jill, had her own business, making and marketing handmade soaps.  Bob, the old man’s second son, was an electrician, and Cathy, the youngest, had joined the army, attaining the rank of major, so far.  Their father never needed them and they didn’t need him.

Except—

“It’s funny that Dad never made a will,” David said, after they left their father and were dining at a restaurant in the middle of downtown.

“He never thought he would die,” Jill responded.  “And now a charity.  What a joke.  Whom has he ever supported except himself?”

“You know, if he dies intestate—“  Bob let the thought dangle.  And then they all looked at Cathy.  She, after all, had seen combat.  Her reaction was to laugh.  “Hey, I’m in the engineering corp.  I’m not a sharpshooter.”

David sighed.  “I guess we better get to the house and give it one last run-through, although I think we took all we wanted when Mom died.”

“Except her sewing machine,” Jill said bitterly.  “That was her memorial.”

So they got into rental cars and made their way to the house of their youth.  Meanwhile Donnelley stewed.  He’d hoped he’d get more of a reaction from his children, he thought they would finally show him at least the respect he deserved if not the affection.  He sighed and thought, oh well.  A charity it would be, but who should benefit?  Who was worthy of his help?

That evening he went home.  Despite giving his children one last chance to get what was theirs, he saw no difference in the house at all.  He considered calling for food delivery, but he had a frozen meal he could nuke, and that’s what he had with his nightcap of fine Irish whiskey.

After watching a bit of television, mainly to see his competitors advertising, he started up the stairs toward his bedroom, noting on the landing that it was pouring out.  He applauded himself for his foresight in getting the gutters cleaned from winter’s detritus last week.

Upstairs he went through his usual nighttime routine, took his pills, washed his face with some of the soap his daughter had sent him at Christmas.  Then he made his way to his bedroom, feeling, he had to admit, a bit woozy.  Too much whiskey.  He decided to turn on the bedside light to read a few book chapters to ease himself into sleep.  But, as soon as he pushed the switch, the bulb blew.  The extra bulbs were in the basement, and he had no intention of going down there this late at night.  So he’d sink into bed and count sheep, as his grandmother always told him to do.  He closed his eyes and had fond thought of his youth and this, his grandparents’ bed he was lying in, with the heavy mahogany headboard.  They didn’t make furniture like they used to.

As he was drifting into the netherland of sleep he had the feeling of falling.  Too much whiskey again, he assumed.  Donnelley never realized the bed itself was sinking and the mahogany headboard was toppling over on top of him until it was too late.  He tried to push it off of him, but, he found he just didn’t have the strength.

The police did a wellness check two days later.  Old man Donnelley was dead.  Died intestate.  Something ironic about a furniture store magnate being done in by furniture.  Or maybe—done in by something else?