Well, what appeared to us to be minor damage from the nearby tornado to my mother-in-law's roof (she lives in a house we own), will require a replacement roof. While we have insurance, in my part of the country wind damage is common enough that no insurance company will insure an older preexisting roof for full value. So now we wait for an adjuster and find out how much depreciated value the roof has. Fun!

BTW, not being a mom of daughters, I had to scope out on Google what kind of Barbie might be popular, and I hope I described it all right. Also, diaper banks are an important thing, which I had no idea existed until about a month ago. Of course the organization mentioned here is entirely fictional.

Expect the chapters to come fast and furious now. I hope to post Chapter 21 on the 23rd and the Epilogue on the 24th.

Chapter 20

The Bingleys met the Gardiners at a family restaurant and were immediately shown to their table. Jane spent much time greeting each of her cousins. The younger girl, Lucy, seemed particularly impressed by Charles Bingley, loudly whispering to her mother, "He's handsome, tall and nice. Can I marry him just like Cousin Jane when I grow up?"

Her father laughingly told her, "Remember, Mr. Bingley is married to Jane. But we will help you find a nice husband someday."

"If you still want our help," her mother added, "when you are all grown up."

Jane pulled out a wrapped present for each child from a large bag she was carrying, handing them out from youngest to oldest, starting by placing a present on the table in front of the baby in his high chair. As she handed them out, she said "No need to wait for Christmas for these."

Lucy and Peter tore into their paper without hesitation, while Susan (always very proper as the oldest, and most responsible child) asked her mother, "May I?"

Her mother's "Of course" was barely voiced before Susan's paper was ripped aside. Then the three oldest children were exclaiming over their toys, thanking their cousins after being prompted "What do you say?"

Next, Jane watched with much pleasure as her Aunt Margaret tucked the baby's fingers under a seam of the paper and helped him tug.

"What a big boy you are, Edmund!" Jane cooed as the baby succeeded in pulling a long strip loose and then waved it around, screaming toothlessly with delight.

To Charles, it seemed as if Edmund understood what his siblings were doing and was thrilled to be doing the same, even if he didn't know quite what the point was of tearing the paper.

The children played with their toys while waiting for the food to arrive, all but Edmund who was enamored by the crinkly wrapping paper, keeping it firmly grasped in his hand and showing no interest in his actual gift, a soft blue lovey that was half bear and half blanket.

While the children were thus occupied, this gave the adults a little time to talk. Charles asked, "How was your flight? Is it hard to travel with such young children?"

He was curious as he and Jane had been discussing when to start trying for a baby and how many to have. Jane wanted to start right away and hoped for half a dozen, while Charles rather thought a set of two might be just right and wanted to wait so they could enjoy the freedom of just being a couple for a while.

Margaret replied "It was fine, things went rather well."

Her husband Edward, more commonly called Eddie, snorted, "Well in that it narrowly avoided being an unmitigated disaster. Dear, were you just going to gloss over how 'Mr. Poopy' shat out the back of his diaper while we were waiting in the security line? Or how, just as you were changing him in the family restroom, he managed to pee on Lucy's hair, while she sat on the toilet for her own number one, resulting in an impromptu hair washing in the bathroom sink? Did you forget about how Peter snitched Susan's Barbie and then dropped the doll in the airplane toilet and flushed her down because 'Barbie's a bad nut and needed to go down the garbage chute' and then didn't admit what he'd done with her until after we got to my mom's house?"

Charles looked confused when hearing of that last disaster, so Jane whispered to him "Didn't you ever see the Tim Burton version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Veruca Salt gets dumped down the garbage chute by the squirrels after they knock on her head?"

Charles shook his head "No."

"Oh, we totally have to watch that, now." Jane commented.

"These things happen," Margaret replied with a plumb. "No one was injured; Barbies are replaceable."

"Jessica's not replaceable." Susan protested, suddenly paying attention to the conversation. "She's unique."

"Of course, Sweetie," Margaret leaned over and gave her daughter a side hug. "I didn't mean to imply she was not important to you, because you loved her and gave her her own name."

"And a tattoo," Susan added, referring to the dots and swirls she had drawn on Jessica with a blue ball point pen.

"Yes, and a tattoo. I just meant that I'd much rather something happened to her than to you, your brothers or your sister."

Somewhat mollified, Susan returned to playing with her new "color reveal" Barbie, who was a mermaid but currently sporting a metallic blue tail and whose true color would not be revealed until she took a dip in icy water (Susan had seen the commercials and knew all about it). To an uninitiated adult, it might appear that the mermaid was simply contemplating how to drink out of a human-sized glass, but Susan was itching to dip this Barbie in the water.

Susan really wanted to see which color mermaid she had gotten, but she also wanted to show she was truly mature. After all, she was the only child to get a real glass, rather than a Styrofoam cup with a lid and a straw. Susan was hoping for permission, that her mother would just know what she wanted. She was too scared to just ask and risk a decided "no."

Meanwhile, Margaret finally admitted, "Yes, the trip was not the easiest, but no one threw up, no one lost a shoe and we didn't miss a connecting flight."

"So it wasn't as bad as the last trip we took before Edmund was born, that doesn't exactly mean it is easy to travel with children," Eddie rejoined.

"True, but don't you remember how helpful that woman was in line?"

"Is she going to be another one of your projects?"

Jane's and Charles's faces must have revealed they were lost.

Margaret explained, "I met a sweet woman who has obviously been trying very hard to be a tough New Yorker, huge heels, shortened name, but she didn't have that impassivity so many have . . ."

Margaret demonstrated by making her face bland and dull. Charles had seen Darcy make that very face, was it really just his "New Yorker" face?

Margaret continued, "but Midwest and Southern roots will always show. She helped us get through the security line and then coincidence of coincidence she ended up on our flight to Indianapolis, too, and in the same row with me and Lucy (Edmund's still a lap baby, of course).

"I think she could be a great asset to the foundation. You know we've been looking for an accountant we can trust after the last one . . ." Margaret grimaced in remembering.

"Oh Margaret, you are trying to mother her, like you do with all of the employees?" Eddie gently chided.

"Well, what's wrong with that? There are a lot of little lost lambs out there. We had a good long talk on the plane, she's had a lot to deal with, growing up, not knowing her father and then finding out she was the product of an affair. There is this primal need to have a father, to make him proud. He was an accountant, too. She never really felt like she had the connection with him that her siblings had, and then he died a few years back."

"You'll never see her again," Margaret's husband predicted.

"I might," Margaret countered. "I gave her a card and told her I wanted to talk to her about a job. She thought I wanted to offer her a babysitting job." Margaret twisted her mouth with amusement as she remembered.

"Let me guess, she was less than thrilled," Charles responded. Something was sounding familiar about the woman Margaret was describing.

Given the exact same clues as her husband, Jane's mind was traveling the exact same track as Charles's was. She voiced what he would not. "She sounds kind of like Charlie's little sister, Caro."

"Caro?" That was her name! Margaret exclaimed. She whacked her forehead with her palm. "She even said her last name. How did I not make the connection?"

Margaret, Eddie and Jane discussed the matter further, but Charles was lost to his own thoughts. He had never really thought much about what his little sister might or might not have wanted from their father. He wondered then if Caro had been disappointed when his father left the business to him. Charles as his son had never had to worry about his future, had never been deprived of anything and had never expected anything different. It had always been private schools, a sports car when he got his license to, as his dad had told him, "catch the eye of whatever girl you want," fancy vacations, plenty of cash "show a wad when you are paying for a date and the right girl will be yours as long as you want her," pretty much anything he could have ever wanted.

Charles had enjoyed that life, had dated plenty of pretty women, but it had always felt a little hollow, before he had met Jane and found out there was a great, wide divide between being with someone who cared about who you were and your money, and someone who actually cared for you, even if he had doubted whether she really did care. Charles turned to look at Jane. He smiled at her and she smiled back. He mouthed "I love you."

Jane pursed her lips and blew him a kiss. He mimed catching it and smashing it onto his lips.

Jane smiled again, and mouthed "I love you, too."

Eddie and Margaret in noting this exchange, gave contented smiles. It was clear that the Bingleys adored one another.

The food arrived and as they ate the adults talked about this and that. When the food was finally eaten, the drinks drunk, and the ice almost entirely melted from everyone's glass, Susan couldn't wait anymore. She had tried to be content with opening up the accessories to the mermaid Barbie, but she still needed more. "Mom, can I dunk my mermaid in the water and swirl her around? I want to see which one I got."

"Are you done with your water?" Just then her mother noticed that not a single drop had been drunk from the tall glass.

"Yes."

"You'd better drink about two inches down," Margaret measured the distance with her fingers on the side of the glass, "and then you can carefully dunk and swirl her."

Susan dutifully drank and then exclaimed, "Watch me, watch me, Jane, Mom, Lucy, Charlie." She looked at each one as she named them. "Watch me Dad, Peter, you too Edmund." When she was assured most of the eyes were on her, Susan carefully lowered her "fashion model" (not doll) into her glass and swirled.

Everyone watched as the water turned blue. Susan pulled the mermaid out to reveal "She's pink and purple, my favorite! Oh thank you Jane. She's perfect. I am not ever gonna let her go!"

Susan hugged the wet mermaid to her while glaring at Peter and warning "If you ever put her down a potty, I'm gonna cut your hair off."

Since Darcy had awoken from his nap, Elizabeth had changed the wet cloth on his face three times, checked his temperature twice, given him medicine, helped him stand up when he needed to get to the bathroom, given him more sparkling cider and now homemade turkey noodle soup. She had also adjusted his blanket, found him a second pillow, put on a movie he liked and when it had ended read to him from Jane's battered copy of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe after Georgiana had commented that Darcy used to read it to her when she was sick, as it was a favorite of both of theirs.

Darcy enjoyed every bit of the coddling he was receiving from Elizabeth, even though his throat and head ached and he felt exhausted. She was one of the readers who made different voices for the different characters. Aslan sounded like a lion, for there was a roar in his words. Darcy could imagine Elizabeth reading to children the same way. Our children, his heart whispered while his head once again told him, Hold on, too soon, too soon, don't even think it and certainly don't say anything that might scare her away.

The alternating medicines had done the trick in mostly knocking out Darcy's fever, and even in his physical distress he could not mind being sick because Elizabeth was there! With every kind thing she did, Darcy began to imagine their future together, more certain than even the afternoon before that someday he would be asking this woman (whom he had not yet even dated for twenty-four hours) to marry him. He focused on that, rather than the fact that he was supposed to fly out of Nashville on Sunday.

Elizabeth finally voiced a thought that had been on her mind that morning. "I don't know that you are going to be fit enough to fly back tomorrow."

Darcy, who had two important meetings scheduled for Monday, replied "I wouldn't mind staying here longer with you; work can wait."

Elizabeth wrinkled her brow, "But I've got to get back myself. I have Monday morning classes, finals are coming up and those grades will be important in who will accept me for graduate programs, so far I've got A's for the semester, but finals are worth so much! Also, I am supposed to move in with Charlotte this Sunday." She was as distressed at the thought of leaving Darcy as Darcy was at the thought of her leaving.

Darcy considered, "Your studies are important," he conceded, trying to focus on the fact that hopefully Elizabeth would get into a graduate course in the city and then he could see her all the time, that is when he wasn't working, she wasn't in classes and she wasn't studying. Darcy then greatly regretted being sick. He wondered if he would even get to kiss Elizabeth another time before he had to leave for home.

Caroline spent her morning (once she was up), trying to stay out of Darcy's and Elizabeth's way. Yes, she knew he was sick, but Caroline found it sickening how sweet Elizabeth was with Darcy and how he just seemed to lap it all up, be the cat who got the cream.

Anne was a good distraction for this. She was excited to find out about the board games that had been bought the day before and Caroline, Louisa and Anne played about six rounds of Jenga before taking a break for lunch, a rather good turkey noodle soup that Elizabeth had cooked.

When Georgiana finally emerged for a late lunch, she brought the Monopoly game with her, and the four of them played together, with Georgiana and Anne playing as a team so Georgiana could teach Anne how to play. Caroline and Louisa conceded to play the variation that Georgiana said she always played, where an initial $500 and then everything paid not to another player was put into the center of the board, available to be won by whomever landed on the "free parking" space.

Caroline found the game rather tedious as she only managed to get two of the worst monopolies on the board, Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue, and the Electric Company and Water Works. Even though she had loaded up the former with four houses a piece, everyone always seemed to land on "Go," "Community Chest," or "Income Tax." What was worse, Louisa had a veritable zone of death, having monopolies on the red, yellow and green spaces, with hotels on most, and Caroline had deliberately remained in jail rather than risk moving around the board.

Georgiana and Anne had the railroads, Park Place, and the orange properties with a hotel on each (having traded with Louisa a red for an orange, with an additional $200). The remaining properties save for Broadway were divided amongst them.

Caroline did what she could do (which wasn't much, and of course she eventually had to pay and leave jail), knowing her time on the board was limited. Louisa's victory looked more and more likely, but Caroline landing on Free Parking narrowly saved her from bankruptcy when on her next turn she landed on Marvin Gardens. Caroline knew that one more bad roll would do her in, but then she bypassed the green monopoly and landed on Park Place. Caroline had to mortgage Water Works and the Electric Company to do it, but she bought Park Place as she was not about to let Louisa buy that property from the bank at auction.

Then Caroline pulled out her secret move. "Anne, Georgiana, I really need to make a phone call. Therefore, I am giving you my properties, money, everything. See if you can take Louisa down."

Louisa, of course, protested. But she couldn't protest too vigorously, not when Anne was her opponent. It would be like kicking a kitten, so after a few muffled complaints, the game proceeded with Anne having Caroline's assets. Caroline had not even left the room before a hotel sat on the prime real estate. "Tell me how it turns out," she instructed as she went back to the guest room.

Caroline really did plan on making a phone call, maybe. She wasn't firmly committed to the idea, but she definitely wanted to get out of the Monopoly game.

Caroline flopped on the day bed and spent a moment sniffing the comforter. She could still smell the fabric softener and its artificial floral, tropical scent (it smelled like wildflowers and mangoes in Caroline's mind) was reassuring. People always did that in the Downy and Gain commercials, but Caroline always made sure never to sniff clothing, towels or anything else in front of an audience. She wasn't sure that it was really acceptable to do it.

But a good whiff of fabric softener always made her feel safe. When her mother was between jobs, or had run into some unexpected expense, she never bought fabric softener (either the liquid or the anti-static cling dryer sheets). Depending upon how long the financial turmoil lasted, all their clothing could get pretty stiff.

In contrast, at her dad and Mimi's house, everything was fluffy and smelled nice, always. Caroline, of course, now made sure she always had an ample supply of fabric softener. She was probably the first one among her set to buy the "Scent Boosters" for the wash. Caroline didn't like wearing perfume, because she preferred the scents she had already baked into her clothing, but she wore expensive perfume because she thought she was supposed to wear perfume.

Caroline spent several minutes sniffing the comforter before she even pulled out the card she had received from Margaret and turned it over in her hands. The front of the card read "Swaddling Love," imprinted over the picture of a diaper with a faint pink heart in the middle of it, and in small letters below stated "Your gift is tax deductible." The back read "M. Gardiner, CEO" and had a New York City phone number.

Rather than call or text, Caroline immediately did an internet search and found a rather basic website, which explained that Swaddling Love was a diaper bank in the city and accepted donations of diapers and wipes. She saw that it had ten sites throughout the Boroughs.

Caroline had to Google what a diaper bank was, but when she read about them, saw what an obvious concept it was. Of course poor people did not always have diapers for their children, and of course that was not the sort of thing that any governmental aid provided for at all.

Then Caroline got out her phone and got on Charity Navigator. She quickly found out that the charity was a 501(c)(3) and did not have enough income to have a rating, but the data it did have appeared to mean it was doing things right. It even had the salary of the CEO and listed Margaret Gardiner, with the amount being a modest total for any professional working in New York City, and the same as two other key officers: Mercedes Kaʻanāʻanā and Lordes Garcia.

Caroline brushed the edge of the card against the palm of her hand as she thought, listening to it twang, feeling it sweep against her skin. She sniffed the comforter again: once, twice, thrice. Finally she told herself "What do you have to lose?"

Before Caroline could change her mind, she put the number into her phone, not to call but to text. Her bravery did not extend that far, especially not on a holiday weekend. Caroline texted:

It is me, Caroline Bingley from the plane. I am just getting back to you about a possible job offer.

She waited, half hopeful, half fearful. Margaret texted back right away.

So good to hear from you, Caroline! (Smiley face) I didn't realize when we met earlier, but your brother is married to my niece, Jane Bingley. I guess you are staying with them for the weekend. We just had brunch with them, met them half-way and my husband is driving us back now. If I would have known, I would have asked them to bring you. Yes, I would definitely like to talk with you further about whether you might be interested in an accounting job with Swaddling Love. We've had some growing pains in trying to expand to the tri-state area and really need someone to handle the books. It is a full time job.

Caroline quickly found herself with a meeting scheduled for the following week.