My nights were sleepless. My mother, long dead, had been an insomniac—something she willed to me. She also willed me her fortune by way of my grandfather, a steel baron. I thought of her as I sat up in bed, sketching, staring out the large picture window that offered me a corner of Manhattan skyline, brilliantly lit against a midnight sky. I could not see any hard little stars, but the skyscrapers were magnificent, and unattainable. I was restless after my dinner with Tad.
At the end of my bed was an antique table, and on that a stack of books. There was a three volume engineering handbook, written by my great grandfather Jonathan C. Finch. They were hefty books, important looking and solidly constructed, much like great grandfather Finch himself. My mother had spoken of him often and wit
