by Amelia Wilde
I give her a hug mostly because it looks like she needs one. “Thank you so much for giving me the chance to be here. I’m sorry if I stressed you out, but I just wanted to do a good job.”
She bursts into tears and ends up crying into my velvet-clad shoulder about how shitty the New York art scene is and how this might actually save her. Mostly I get through that encounter by telling myself that it’s not really happening, that I fell asleep slumped against Medusa last night and now I’m still sleeping under Christopher’s watch.
Professional art movers have already brought over the other pieces, which are being carefully hung beneath heavy spotlights. Caterers are setting up a table of hors d'oeuvre with cheese and olives and sesame-seed-covered pita chips to dip into truffle hummus.
Daddy shows up a half hour before the doors will open and squeezes me tight. “I’m so proud of you, Harper. And so glad I got to see this.”
The words strike me as odd, and I squeeze him back. “I’m sorry you had to cancel Japan… but also not sorry. It’s no 4.0, but it’s all I’ve got.”
“I don’t care about your GPA.”
That makes me roll my eyes. “Sure you don’t.”
He cups my face in his hands. “I’m serious. The world is a crazy place, but you already know that. That’s why you painted that gymnasium in the first place. I just want you to be safe and secure, and if that means making grades and doing what society expects, that’s the only reason I’ve ever wanted that for you.”
My heart squeezes tight, because I know that’s true. Maybe he wanted to understand me better. Maybe I would have liked to understand him better, but I always knew he wanted what was best for me. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“Now give me a tour of this show before the whole world wants a piece of you.”
So I show him around the paintings of Medusa’s life and death. Only when we get to the final piece do I find Mom standing there, staring at it as if transfixed.
“Hell,” Daddy breathes.
Mom turns back with a slight smile. Her dress is glimmering and couture, showing off a figure some twenty-year-olds would kill for. She’s always been a beautiful woman, but never a happy one. “Look at what our girl did.”
Daddy clears his throat. “She’s… incomparable.”
Only I don’t think he’s talking about me.
And for a moment, with both my parents in the same place, not fighting, not throwing anything, with Christopher in the same city and planning to come to my show, everything is perfect. After my childhood I should have known that perfection is only ever an illusion. A shine you put on things that are too broken to ever be fixed.
9
Cautionary Tale
The room is packed by the time the curator drags me to the makeshift platform to give a little speech. I give a small wave to my professor, who looks so different in a black lace dress instead of the brown tweed suits she wears to class. Christopher leans against the back wall, looking impeccable in a suit but somehow distant from everyone.
Someone who should belong but doesn’t.
I’m not twenty-one yet, but Mom gave me a glass of champagne. It left my throat dry and scratchy, or at least that’s how it feels as I look out at mostly strangers. They’ve been exclaiming and complimenting my work since they showed up.
My central piece is still up for auction.
Those display walls are glorified plywood; they don’t even reach the ceiling. The curator was more than willing to take a chunk out of the maze for the publicity. The audience seem to like the whole surprise element of the main portrait, because the auction has already risen to crazy proportions even without Daddy bidding. I’m not sure if it’s really the painting they love or the story around it, but either way that’s a lot of money for charity.
I grasp the microphone, pretending my hands aren’t slick with sweat. Pretending my voice doesn’t quaver. “The story goes that Athena cursed Medusa with hair made of snakes and a face so horrible it would turn men to stone. We are told that she did this as a just punishment, because she was so offended that Medusa was raped in her temple. Except how would that be just, to blame Medusa for something that she didn’t want and didn’t cause?”
The crowd looks back at me, a little aghast, a lot uncomfortable that I would talk about this while they’re wearing diamonds that cost the same as a whole car.
“I don’t think Athena cursed her, not really. I think she gave Medusa what she wanted most—weapons to protect herself with. Power, when it had been taken from her.”
It strikes me then, how close Daddy and Mom are standing next to each other. As if they’re a couple, when they could barely stand to talk to each other to arrange visitation.
“Do you know,” I ask the crowd, “that there is no recorded instance of her turning a woman to stone? Only men.”
Christopher might be made from stone, that’s how still he is as he watches me with those mysterious black eyes. It’s like he’s holding his breath, and maybe he is. Waiting to see how the story ends, even if we think we already know.
“In the end, it wasn’t enough. Men found a way to use her, taking her power for themselves, using her head to defeat their enemies. Medusa is a cautionary tale. She always has been, but I don’t think she’s warning us away from rage.” The last words I say directly to Christopher. “She’s warning us to use it better. To use it more. That’s our power, in the end.”
The crowd claps for me while Daddy hoots and whistles, because he can’t help but show his support for me. It feels like absolute exhilaration, stepping down from the platform and accepting the handshakes and hugs from people around me.
Mom squeezes me in a delicate hug, and Daddy puts his arms around us both. How long has it been since they hugged me at the same time? I can’t find a memory to place this with; it’s in a box all its own. And then they let me go—too soon.
I find myself standing in front of Christopher, a lingering smile on my lips. Even my embarrassment over the rejection last night can’t touch me now. We may not kiss again, but this man is a friend. Maybe the best friend I ever had.
“You blew them away,” he says.
“You helped.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not taking any credit for lock picking.”
“It’s a very interesting skill. You’ll have to tell me where you picked it up.”
His mouth opens, but I don’t hear anything. There’s a rush in the crowd, a heavy jostle that leaves me unsteady on my green-velvet heels. For a minute I think they must have released fresh trays of champagne from the kitchen. Maybe filled with bonus diamonds?
Until there’s a scream from behind me. I whirl to see my mother kneeling on the ground beside Daddy, who has his hand clutched to his heart, his eyes staring up at nothing.
Something dark moves through me, a sense that I caused this somehow. With my paintings or my hopeless dreams. That this is my fault.
“No,” I whisper, but I can tell from the sound of my mother’s mournful wail, like the sound you hear far away in an untamed desert, haunting and stark, that he’s gone.
“Fuck,” Christopher says, the word harsh.
My head feels light, and I realize in a split second of surprise that I’m going to faint. That my body would rather shut down than face what’s happening. I’m falling, again, and this time there are strong hands to catch me.
10
Empty-Handed
The funeral takes place four days later in a historic cathedral in Boston. It’s a private affair, with only me and Mom and Christopher and a handful of very close business partners. One of them gives Mom a look of undisguised hunger and makes her promise to let him know if she needs anything. Another one of them gives the same look and extracts the same promise from me.
I walk through the whole thing in a daze. Vaguely I’m aware that I’ve taken a leave of absence from school, that I should be dealing with grief. And maybe I could, if I could bring myself to really believe that it happened. Mostly
I keep waiting to wake up.
Keep waiting for a hand to reach into the water and pull me out.
Christopher doesn’t approach me at the funeral.
He doesn’t write any more letters.
It’s like a second blow, his absence, a fatal one where my father’s death has maimed me. I try not to think about it, the same way I try not to think about Daddy.
While the funeral was a quiet affair, I’m dreading the reading of the will, because it will be a circus. Every single one of his wives and most of his past stepchildren will be in attendance to see if anything was bequeathed to them.
“Please don’t make me go.”
The words come out as a hoarse murmur, because I’ve only said them for the millionth time. It’s not like my inheritance is a raffle ticket that will be forfeited if I don’t show up. The actual will reading is just a formality. An anachronism. A public stoning. Someone will tell me what Daddy gave me, whether it’s two dollars or two billion. It doesn’t matter whether I’m present at the will reading. And God, I don’t want to be there.
Mom sits on the sofa beside me, her eyes rimmed red from crying. She’s mourned the loss of him more in the past two weeks than she did in the decade they had been divorced. “You and I are the only ones who deserve to be there.”
She thinks he’s going to give her something, and it kills me. Could he have changed that much? God, the child support arguments were so bitter. So freaking specific. By the end he had seemed to soften toward her. At the art studio there had been a moment when he’d looked at her and I’d had the thought that every child of divorced parents has at least once, a desperate hope, a terrible dream that they might get back together.
I shake my head. “Neither of us should be there. It will be terrible.”
“We hold our heads high. All of those money-hungry bastards can sit there and be embarrassed when it comes out that they aren’t getting anything.”
And what happens when it comes out that you aren’t? “Mom, whatever happens… you know that whatever I have, it’s yours. Right?”
“You think he’s going to leave me out?”
I look away, at the nondescript painting on the nondescript hotel wall. We’re living on borrowed money right now, paying for this hotel room on credit because surely Daddy will have left us money.
Except I’m not so sure.
He loved me; I know that. And he even loved my mom in his own way. But he was always tied up about money. I could see him leaving me nothing as some kind of character-building experiment. I would have to quit Smith College without any way to pay the tuition, but I’m not as worried about me.
I’m more worried about what would happen to my mother’s fragile sense of self if she holds her head high against all those wives and then ends up humiliated. She hasn’t even met most of them. I’ve met them, on my annual spring break visits.
There would be glee, to see the first and most coveted wife taken down.
“I just think it doesn’t make sense to put ourselves through that. Everyone’s going to see someone else get taken down.”
“They’re going because they think they were important to him.”
I’m not sure Daddy was that black-and-white. He cared for his other wives; at least he didn’t treat them with disdain. But they got their small piece of their fortune with the ironclad prenup he made them sign. He won’t give them more than that, but not for the reasons that Mom thinks.
The other children will be there, too. Not biological children. I’m the only one he had, but there are plenty of other stepchildren through the years.
Including Christopher. Will he be there?
It will kill me to see him salivating for Daddy’s fortune. Except why wouldn’t he? He’s always wanted money, and Daddy’s money is as good as any.
“Whatever happens, we’ll be okay,” I say, but I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince.
Mom gives a firm shake of her head. “He wouldn’t leave us empty-handed.”
11
Liquid And Otherwise
The will reading takes place at my father’s lawyer’s office, which is on the thirty-eighth floor of a building that overlooks a park blooming with pink and white cherry blossoms. It’s strange to see the world so full of life when we’re wearing black and facing death.
Mr. Smith, that’s the name of the lawyer. A plain name for a rather plain man. He looks like he would follow the letter of the law down any path it would take him. Quite the rule follower, and it makes sense that Daddy would have used him for this purpose. Lord knows there are a large group of people who would love to contest even the smallest loophole. It’s standing room only, the wood door propped open to let wives seven and eight peek their heads in from the hallway.
It’s actually as much of a circus as I feared, with my mother and me being granted the dubious honor of the two chairs in front of the desk. It also means everyone can watch us.
Christopher is here, standing in the corner, looking as if he’d like to be anywhere but here—which must be a lie, because he didn’t have to come. Unless he wants the fortune.
Acid burns my throat. So, he’s as money hungry as everyone in this room. I wish I didn’t know that about him. It would have been better not to come, if only to avoid facing that fact.
That Christopher wants Daddy’s fortune.
“Thank you for gathering today,” Mr. Smith says in a voice dry as leaves in the fall. “While many wills are handled via mail, this is a rather unusual case. I have asked any interested parties to attend so that we may all have closure and put an end to the numerous inquiries to the firm.”
In other words the phone must be ringing off the hook with people wanting some of Daddy’s money. My stomach feels inside out. Did he know what kind of mess he would leave behind? He must have thought about it when he wrote whatever’s on that piece of paper the lawyer’s holding. Did he think of how it would feel to be surrounded by so many ex-wives and stepsiblings, all of whom are essentially strangers?
Did he know that Mom would be holding her head high, certain he would stand by her in the end? I sure as hell hope so. We’re about to find out in the most public way.
A violent, hacking clearing of the throat. And then Mr. Smith begins to read. “If you’re reading this, that means I’m finally at peace. And though I’ll miss a good many things on this earth, one of them won’t be the exorbitant amount of money I’ve paid lawyers over the years.”
There’s a nervous laugh from the side that’s abruptly silenced.
In the same monotone Mr. Smith continues, “To the son that I never had, Christopher Bardot, I bequeath Liquid Asset as well as a small trust with which to care for her. I wish we could have sailed together more than once.”
I’m jolted out of my grief-stricken stupor at the sound of his name. A ripple of excitement runs through the room. Christopher isn’t his biological child, which means there’s hope for everyone else in this room.
“As for the rest of my assets, both liquid and otherwise,” Mr. Smith reads, “I bequeath them in entirety to my daughter, Harper St. Claire.”
There’s a gasp in the room, and I’m painfully aware of the looks of pure venom being shot in my direction. All I can do is stare straight ahead, shocked at hearing my father’s final words, even if spoken in a voice so unlike his own. It’s strange that hollowness can feel so solid, a physical sensation that threatens to bend me at the waist. Daddy, come back.
Nothing is so cold and so calculating as money in a void where love and hope had been. I don’t want his billions of dollars, or however much his fortune amounts to. I never did. If there’s one upside in all of this, it’s that Mom will finally be able to relax. A small comfort.
“I have a stipulation for Harper, who is still young and impressionable as I write this. The money will be placed into a trust, which will only transfer to her when she turns twenty-five.”
A heavy hum of conversation pierces my haze. That’s seven years away. Se
ven years before I can return to Smith College. Seven years before my mother can stop marrying whoever will have her.
“Of course I don’t want to cause undue burden to her, so she may access money as needed for her education and living situation. But only for her. No one else may use the money, including my ex-wife.”
“No,” I say, my voice rusty. “Stop.”
He can’t do this to her, not in front of all these people. How can he humiliate her this way? He must have known. God, he must have known.
Mr. Smith gives me a pitying look before reading on. “To that end I name Christopher Bardot as the executor of the trust. I know that he will make sure my wishes are honored and that my only daughter is well cared for in my absence.”
The paper has barely brushed the gleaming wooden surface of the desk when the room erupts into chaos. There are demands to confirm the validity of the will, insistence that they will contest it. When I bring myself to look sideways, I see my mother has turned to stone—she’s frozen in place, a look of polite acceptance on her face.
It’s too horrible.
I grab her hand and drag her from the room, pushing through people I don’t even recognize in my quest to reach the wide marble hallway. How are we even going to find a taxi in this mess? We’ll be flagged down, caught on camera. This is what rich people have bodyguards for, but we’re not rich regardless of what just happened in that lawyer’s office. We have nothing, maybe not even a way to pay the hotel bill. I spin in the hallway, useless. There’s nowhere to run.
Christopher appears out of nowhere. “Come on, there’s a car waiting.”
I’m too frantic to even ask a question, like where we’re going. He could say we’re driving into the depths of hell, and I’d probably still follow him, taking Mom by the hand, pulling us both into the cocoon of a darkened limo. The press see us as Christopher moves to step inside, running toward us with their microphones outstretched and video cameras hot on their heels as the door shuts. Then the limo eases forward, taking us far away.