Housekeeping

The next week seemed to fly by as the Barrett family spent half of each day at the hospital with Grandma Laura. They were rebuilding their long set aside relationship and working to build toward the future they wished to see. Laura's strength was returning quickly, and the family was overjoyed to see the return of her health.

Each day after the hospital visit Tim would join Caleb at Barrett Tower to build a framework that would better help the two men to run the company from Norde City. Heath became integral to the men's plan and soon he was promoted to the position of Senior Executive of Global Integration for the purposes of facilitating Tim and Caleb's ability to run the company from long distance.

For Heath, the position came with his own top floor office, more authority, more responsibility, a significant pay and benefits increase, and most importantly a large boost in prestige. Heath was thrilled. The new position finally afforded him the affluence to marry his longtime girlfriend. Now that he could offer his girlfriend a notable life, he knew her father would finally accept his proposal of marriage. In return for the opportunity, Heath vowed to always do his job with the utmost integrity so that Tim and Caleb never had a reason to replace him.

As Tim, Caleb, and now Heath built new systems to better facilitate the running of Barrett Group from across the globe, Mia considered several prospects. There was the new collaboration between Aide Castle, Barrett Group, and Vestel Shipping Company that she was considering.

Mia also worked on designs for Nicholas to keep her promise to him to redesign his home and she was looking at a business office tower in Diplomat Hill that she thought might make a good base of operations for her, Tim, and Caleb. She was researching the property and planned to bring it up as soon as she had received all the information on it.

Mia liked the idea of having an actual corporate location for Her's and Timothy's business endeavors. Mia also thought it would be nice if their home life had some separation from their business lives.

It was exactly one week after arriving in Bern City when Timothy went to see his mother at Barrett residence. The first thing he noticed upon entering the residence was the smell. The place was noticeably dirty and there was a garbage problem throughout the house. Piles of laundry sat on the living room floor and in several other places. Sharon and Veronica were obviously terrible housekeepers.

Timothy called the housekeeping staff for the house that he had been keeping on retainer and recalled them. He could not allow the women to live like this any longer. Tim hoped they had learned their lesson, but he doubted it. Either way, he would not allow Laura to come here to collect her belongings with the house in this state.

Tim had found Sharon and Veronica in his mother's sitting room. This room at least appeared to be the most maintained but still the women were diminished from what they had been when they lived the lives of socialites. Tim simply wanted his mother to not interfere with his life with Mia, he did not want her misery.

Sharon wanted to know why Timothy was in Bern City. He told her he had business that required his presence. Timothy told her he was lifting the restrictions upon her for Bern City and would pay the expenses of Barrett residence, but her personal expenses would be covered from her own accounts.

From this day forward she would not set foot in Norde City, or he would revoke her return to society. Furthermore, if Timothy heard a whisper of her behavior resembling what it had been before he would make sure the next punishment would be public disownment. Sharon was not to speak of Mia and their children unless it was favorable. Anything else would be met with banishment from her life as a Barrett.

Sharon listened to Timothy in silence knowing that to argue at this juncture would result in repercussions that she didn't want. She didn't want to accept Mia but knew better than anyone when her son had been pushed too far. He could be a real bastard and she wasn't willing to provoke him further.

There was another reason Sharon chose not to push Timothy. Recently she had developed a strong need to know her grandchildren. What was an old woman without their future generation at their knee. Sharon asked her son if she might meet his children, He told her that currently such a visit was not an option.

Tim had turned to leave but then halted, telling her that in the future perhaps that might be an option if Sharon would choose to treat Mia more favorably. She had known this would be the trade-off. She had some hard decisions to make on what she valued in this life.

Tim left Barrett residence hoping that his mother would find a way to make a quiet life for herself that would not cause problems in his life with Mia. Sharon hadn't been a great mother always worried more about her own self-image than her son's actual welfare, but she had at least been present. Now he had done all he could for her in providing her with a home for her later years and the leeway to choose how their future interactions would go.

When Tim arrived back at the hotel there was an air of celebration in the room. Five days ago, Timothy had been dismayed when Caleb returned from his dinner with Jasmine and had not been engaged. Caleb had said that he had run into some old friends at the restaurant and Jasmine had invited them to join them for dinner. Their presence had taken over the dinner and the timing had not been right. Then four more days had passed and still nothing. Tim thought his friend had cold feet but hoped he would overcome it.

Today Caleb had asked Jasmine to go to a street fair with him and they had a fun day. When they had been walking through the park after finishing their excursion to the fair, they had come across an old bridge that passed over a rippling stream. Caleb had looked around realizing they were completely alone. The moment was peaceful and truly perfect in every way.

Caleb said he had not been nervous for the first time since deciding that he wanted to marry Jasmine and he dropped to one knee with no doubt that she would agree to marry him. Jasmine had said yes immediately with such a look of happiness that he knew he would never forget it. They had rushed back to share the news with their friends.

Tim and Mia congratulated their friends with true sentiment. Mia thought that the union of these two individuals couldn't be better. They were both great people and for them to have found each other couldn't be more perfect. Mia offered Barrett estate for the wedding if the two wished.

Mia told them she wished she could make an exception at Aide Castle, but she could not do so even for herself without a loss to her reputation. Caleb let Mia know they would discuss what they wanted to do and let her, and Tim know. Tim was just happy that Caleb had found someone to complete his friend the way that Mia did for him. It would be nice to see his best friend settled with a family of his own.