Everyone has their good days and their bad days and on a sunny day in mid-May Harry O'Hern experienced both kinds of days big-time, making it an unforgettable day.
On that day Harry was promoted to the top editorial job at the newspaper The Sentinel, against all odds, really making Harry's day. Later that afternoon Harry lay dazed and bruised in his company car, splattered with the blood of his fiancée beside him.
Some would say Harry killed Teresa, his golden haired darling as a result of his reckless driving.
An unforgettable day it truly was.
Harry couldn't focus on himself properly at the newspaper next day because he had his own job to handle as well as the work of Sierra, his missing deputy.
Major decisions had to be made, reports compiled and presented and liaison maintained with senior staff as well as dealing with the police investigating Teresa's road death.
Thus guilt and grief hung over him like a hovering shroud.
Then a big diversion occurred. A newspaper tip was received that four men had died underground in an unexplained accident at a local mine
The newspaper threw its resources at covering the tragedy and published some amazing pictures of the grieving widows surrounded by friends and family, their faces etched with emotion.
The city editor and his team were gloating over the coverage, believing it was superior to television and other newspaper reports including their upstart rival, The City Bugle.
Later in the day Harry posted a congratulatory memo on the work of those reporters but perhaps because of his own grief, he remained uneasy, sensing something wasn't quite right.
That thought nagged at him for a couple of hours and then he reacted, calling a meeting with city editor Frank Ryan and the frontline team involved in reporting the disaster.
No one was able answer Harry's question why mine officials had acted so defensively when questioned at the scene and failed to offer any explanation why the system supplying air to the miners apparently had failed.
"They're covering up something," Harry said, emphatically.
"Oh yeah? You and I weren't at the scene Harry," Frank the news editor reminded his editor-in-chief.
"Well, just humor me Frank. I want a three-man team to investigate this - to scratch around the site as well as they can; talk to shift workers despite mine management banning all workers from speaking to the news media and then question retired miners, particularly supervisors, engineers and maintenance workers - and hunt down independent experts on mine air supply equipment."
"Are you sure Harry? From what you've said you've just given a couple of reporters a month's solid work."
Harry replied to his old buddy. "Make those three reporters, one a female to talk to wives including the widows. And Frank, give them up to two weeks to finish and you okay big ticket items such as travelling to anywhere in the country as necessary."
"Geez Harry that will blow editorial's budget."
"Then I'll find more money. And keep this hush-hush - we don't want other media following our lead."
Days of self-imposed mourning and the focus of monitoring the investigation curbed Harry from breaking out, ending up drunk.
He'd twice had a nightmare of indiscriminately crying his grief over the sweaty nude body of a former flame and then drowning his remorse next morning by strapping a heavy weight to his body and jumping into a river heavy to cruelly spread grief through his family by leaving them with his body to bury.
Not that he would ever do that to his family; come on!
Life sucks, as they say, he thought, muttering "God help you, Teresa", determined after the burial of his late fiancée to try to resume life without Teresa being foremost in his mind.
He sighed deeply when thinking no more tomorrows were left for Teresa.
* * *
Harry Sebastian O'Hern was the older child of a financial markets analyst, Harry Owen O'Hern and wife Elaine. The oldies were in their late fifties. His stroppy sister Betsy was nineteen, in her first year at university where her mother was a lecturer.
Harry was almost old enough to be Betsy's young uncle, being thirty-two and his career rocketing for one so young.
Betsy used to adore Harry because he'd won the battle for her four years ago to have her parents accept no longer was she Beatrice.
For almost two months it had been virtually warfare in their household - Beatrice the wannabe Betsy developed a rash and lost a couple of pounds of puppy fat during that stressful time. Several times the pressure almost overwhelmed her and she was ready to capitulate but Harry wouldn't allow that.
Finally he won the day - it was their parents who folded and the name Betsy was accepted and the change registered to make the name change official.
But big brother heroes can lose their elevation, and so it was with Harry.
Betsy now disliked him enormously (although the venom was losing its sting) because Harry killed the adorable Teresa who was only three years older than Betsy and had treated her like the sister Betsy never had.
On the day of Teresa's death, Harry was promoted to editor-in-chief of The Sentinel, the youngest controlling editor since the newspaper's establishment by Franklin Q. Bycroft 164 years ago. The appointment was announced midway through a board meeting by company chairman Duncan Bycroft to the two contenders for the position.
Duncan hadn't expected the news to be accepted without some display of emotion from the unsuccessful contender and that assumption was spot on. In announcing the decision to the pair Duncan almost had to run for cover, his beautiful daughter letting it rip.
Sierra had assumed that the vacancy for the top job, formerly called executive editor, was hers as she held the deputy's position. On learning of the decision Sierra berated Harry for not withdrawing and foul-mouthed her father and advanced on him, hissing and eyes flashing before turning and fleeing from the chairman's office in tears.
"Sorry for that exhibition," Duncan said, shaking Harry's hand and congratulating him. "I guess it confirms why she didn't get the post."
Sierra has not communicated at all to Harry her boss since that drama, and neither had she spoken to her father since the day he announced his decision.
When Harry emerged from his 'cave' he was aware Sierra was due back any day from 'sick leave' that she'd spent touring the ski fields of Austria and shops and elegant cafes of Paris, taking a tiny chunk of her parent's fortune to buy clothes and accessories to pacify the suffering experienced in being leapfrogged by Harry.
He anticipated a fiery reunion.
