Fragments of Ash

by Katy Regnery

  Anders and Damon were not allowed to be my brothers in any real way. We weren’t allowed to swim together or watch TV alone. When I was home on breaks, a woman named Mrs. Grosavu followed me around the house. I was told that she was there to take care of me and see to my needs, but it always felt like she was watching me, making sure that I behaved a certain way, reminding me when I should be more modest, laugh more quietly, or cross my ankles. Over time, I saw her more as a jailer than a helper, and I was relieved, in fact, when I arrived home this past Easter and was told she’d taken a job somewhere else.

  More than once, I watched Mosier dispatch his men after loud cell phone conversations in a foreign language, and though I wondered where they were going, I dared not ask. When I asked my mother, she replied that Mosier’s business concerns were none of our affair.

  At least twice, my mother and I were woken up and sent down to the wine cellar apartment in the dark of night. There, behind a fake door that appeared to be a wall of wine, we had every creature comfort, but an armed guard stood outside the apartment door, prohibiting us from leaving, until Mosier, Anders, or Damon arrived to take us back upstairs.

  I know that Mosier is some sort of criminal, involved in the sorts of business dealings that could get a man, and his family, killed.

  But I also know that he likes the high life, movie premieres and weekends in Vegas— always with a large security force, of course—and regardless of how dismissively he just spoke of her, my mother was a diamond on his arm because of her former status as a supermodel.

  But I never suspected—not even for a moment—that I was a part of his plans. My God, did she know? Tig . . . did you do this to me?

  I close my eyes, clasp my fingers together, and pray: Please, God, don’t let her have known. Please don’t let her have chosen someone like Mosier for me. Amen.

  When I open my eyes, I reach for the shampoo, pour some into my hands, and massage it into my light blonde hair, trying to stay calm.

  Mosier called my school two days ago with the news of my mother’s overdose and death, and the advisement that Eddie and Anders would be coming up to collect me for the funeral the following day.

  At first I didn’t believe the news. For as much as my mother had battled an intense substance abuse problem between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine, she had straightened herself out by the time she married Mosier. And I watched carefully over the next five years—every time wine was poured into her goblet at dinner, every time champagne was passed around at an event, she never took a sip, never even lifted a glass to her lips. I was home one month ago for Easter, and her eyes were sad and withdrawn, but clear. How could she have backslid so quickly and completely? And with Mosier’s watchful eyes on her, how in the world did she manage to obtain heroin, let alone enough to overdose? And how—with a veritable army of security guards and house staff—did no one find her until she was dead?

  I have so many questions, but I am frightened to ask Mosier or his sons what happened. I don’t think I would get a straight answer, for one thing, but after our conversation in my bedroom, there is a more pressing and immediate concern on my mind:

  I am meant to be the child bride of a monster thirty-three years older than me, for the sole purpose of breeding him sons.

  I lean back and rinse my hair, placing my hands over my heart.

  Sex. Something I know almost nothing about. Something my mother knew a great deal about.

  I remember her bringing men over quite frequently when we lived in LA. I was meant to call them all Uncle. Uncle John. Uncle Frank. Uncle Ken. She’d walk in with them, point to me watching TV, and say, “That’s my kid sister. Ash, this is Uncle Wes. Say hi.”

  I’d say hi without looking away from the TV while she’d lead them into her bedroom. I’d turn up the volume of whatever show I was watching so I couldn’t hear her moans and screams, his grunts and groans. When they were done, my “uncles” didn’t stay long. They’d slip out quickly when the deed was done. The front door closing was my cue to bolt it, turn off the TV, and slip down the hallway to my bedroom.

  By the time was eight, I had figured out, more or less, what my mother was doing. I had my first kiss—with the son of one of my mother’s old supermodel friends—when I was ten, and I let a boy from school touch my breasts through my shirt in the janitor’s closet when I was eleven. Looking back, I was probably on track to lose my virginity by thirteen, but that just happened to be the year that everything changed.

  My mother met Mosier the month after I turned thirteen.

  Within three weeks of meeting Mosier Răumann via a high-end Hollywood matchmaker, my mother married him and moved us to his home outside New York City. She told me that he was her sugar daddy and we’d never have to worry about anything else for the rest of our lives. She told me that New York would be just as fun as LA and we were going on an adventure. She told me I’d have a new father and brothers, and a chandelier in my room, and wasn’t I just the luckiest kid who ever lived?

  Once we got there, I didn’t feel very lucky. My favorite clothes were taken away and replaced with a Mosier-approved wardrobe. I was no longer allowed to leave the house unaccompanied. I was not to speak unless spoken to. I was enrolled in a religious boarding school, away from my mother, after just a few weeks there.

  We arrived at his house in June, and all summer, Tig’s bright blue eyes lost a little more luster every day. Once, when I asked her if we could go back to LA, Tig told me, without much confidence, that it would get easier, and besides, she added, Mosier would take care of us . . . no matter what.

  It’s recalling that “no matter what” now that sends a chill down my spine and makes me think that Tígin did know of his plans for us—and, ultimately, for me.

  Turning around, I rinse the conditioner from my hair and quickly soap and rinse the rest of my body.

  Mosier promised I could return to school until graduation.

  Which means I have exactly one month to figure out what to do.

  ***

  At dinner, Mosier sits at the head of the table, I am seated at his right, and his twin sons sit across from me to his left. The last time I visited, my mother sat between me and Mosier, but I have taken her place now, and it feels all wrong to me. I wish, just for tonight, we could have left her seat vacant in remembrance, but Mosier has already outlined his plans for our future, and remembering my mother doesn’t fit with the fantasy he’s created.

  Mosier invites Anders to say the blessing, and Anders offers it in Latin, which is standard at Răumann family dinners. Even my mother knew how to give at least one blessing in proper Latin.

  “Amen,” mutters Mosier, picking up his spoon with a sigh. “Now we eat.”

  Mealtimes have been mostly quiet affairs, with Anders and Damon forbidden to glance up just for the sake of looking at me or my mother. They were only permitted to look at us if one of us was speaking, and even then, their expressions were carefully schooled to be impartial. To be honest, I was always grateful when we managed to get through dinner without conversation, which means my stomach is a mess of butterflies because I have something to say tonight.

  “Mosier,” I begin softly, keeping my eyes down, waiting for his permission to continue.

  His spoon clinks against the side of his soup bowl with annoyance. He is still upset with me for vomiting on him. “What?”

  I gulp, looking up at him. “I haven’t been to confession in two days, and my classes resume on Monday. I wonder if I may return to school tomorrow?”

  He stares at me, his eyes slipping down to my chest and resting there. My breasts are covered by a navy blue silk blouse, but the heat of his eyes makes me feel naked.

  “No,” he grunts.

  My whole body tenses. Is he reneging on his agreement to let me finish school? Oh, God, am I trapped here? Does my sentence begin now?

  “I have to be in Newark tomorrow,” he says. “I can’t take you until Wednesday.”

  I relax, my shoulders
lowering and my swimming head clearing a little.

  “Oh,” I murmur, looking back down at my soup.

  “I can take her,” offers Damon.

  My neck snaps up because the Răumann twins and I rarely spend any time one-on-one, and it’s a daring suggestion.

  “You? Ha! And I’ll send a fox to take care of my sheep.” He shifts his gaze to Anders. “You’ll take her.”

  Anders has always been the quieter son, the smarter son, the son that Mosier trusts more.

  “I was supposed to join you in Newark,” says Anders softly, his handsome face tightening in protest.

  “So what?” demands Mosier. “Now you’ll go with her.”

  Anders clenches his jaw as he nods. “Yes, Tată.”

  “Yes, Father,” mimics Mosier, picking up his soup spoon. “She is pious. Pure. Devout. She wants to confess her sins with a priest, for God’s sake! You could learn something from her devotion, you fucking mongrels.” He slurps a mouthful of soup. “Now we eat. All of you, shut the fuck up.”

  I lift my spoon and chance a quick glance at Anders, surprised to find he’s doing the same: glaring back at me with narrowed eyes. We stare at each other for a long second, for as long as we dare, before turning our attention back to the soup.

  ***

  The next morning, I look out my window to see Mosier and Damon slide into the backseat of a town car and Eddie slam the doors shut. I breathe a huge sigh of relief, knowing that I won’t see Mosier again for a month. Though I haven’t the slightest idea of how to escape his clutches, I am determined to figure out an alternate future for myself once I return to school.

  I am packed and ready to go at eight o’clock when Ana arrives at my room. She tells me that Anders is on a phone call for Mosier and wants to leave at nine. With half an hour of quiet time, my mind turns, once again, to Tig.

  When Tig was twenty-one, after two years of splitting her time between Manhattan, Milan, and Paris, she settled down in LA, where she was cast as a prima donna supermodel in a sitcom about a fashion magazine. That was when her addiction began in earnest. During her years of modeling abroad, she’d gotten a taste for champagne, martinis, and cosmopolitans, but it hadn’t become a problem . . . yet. She’d been jet-setting; she was very popular and in constant demand. Being so busy had kept her from the viselike grip of addiction. But once she settled down in LA, where she rented a bungalow and hit the club circuit every night, her behavior deteriorated quickly.

  After three years on Lure Me, she overdosed one night.

  I found her in the bathroom, out cold on the tile floor in a pool of drying vomit. I called Gus, who called 911 and my grandparents. My grandparents stayed at a hotel near the hospital until Tig was discharged and admitted to a rehab center in Ojai. Then they returned home to Ohio. Gus stayed at the bungalow with me. I was eight.

  Those sixty days when I lived with Gus? They were, arguably, the happiest days of my life. He often had early calls for makeup and hair, but he’d take me with him, slipping out to drive me to school at eight. He was waiting for me every day at three o’clock on the dot, his blue chrome VW bug shining in the California sun. He was a loving and patient substitute parent, feeding me dinner at the same time every night and reading me a story before bed. For those two months, he didn’t go out at night and leave me alone, and I knew a safety and security that I’d lacked since moving to LA.

  When Tig came home, I knew I should have been happy, but I felt a deep, almost profound, sense of loss. A pure, unalloyed sadness. Saying farewell to Gus was gut-wrenching. Though I still saw him often, it wasn’t the same. I missed having him around all the time.

  My mother was fired from Lure Me following her overdose, but it didn’t matter. Her name had been in all the magazines and newspapers, and all publicity is good publicity. Modeling jobs started coming in again. People celebrated her recovery, and Tig basked in her revival. For a little while, at least. But the problem with rehab is that it didn’t change my mother’s surroundings. Old habits die hard no matter how much you want to change. Three years later, Tig was using again: out drinking at clubs every night, snorting cocaine, and occasionally shooting up in her ankles to avoid track marks on her hands and arms.

  And then one day, just after I had turned thirteen, we went shopping together on Rodeo Drive.

  Shopping with my mother wasn’t an unusual activity. She loved dressing us up, then posing for pictures when we were spotted by paparazzi. She was wearing sunglasses, of course, to hide her bloodshot eyes.

  Her credit card was denied that day. I remember it clearly because it had never happened before. She pitched a fit at Fendi, throwing a three-thousand-dollar powder-pink leather clutch at the saleswoman when she cut up Tig’s denied credit card. We were escorted from the store by security, and I vividly recall Tig hissing, “Fendi is shit. This whole street is nothing but overpriced shit!”

  That must have been the day Mosier saw us walking together.

  Was it before or after the scene at Fendi? I wonder, standing up from my bed and crossing my bedroom to the door. I unlock it, opening it as quietly as possible, and peek out at the hallway. My mother and Mosier didn’t share a bedroom, and before I leave, I want to take a look in her suite of rooms. I don’t even know what I’m hoping to find. I only know that I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being lied to about her death, and I want to know the truth.

  I step into the hallway.

  Not long after that day on Rodeo Drive, my mother got a call from Chanel Harris-Briggs, the top Hollywood matchmaker, who had her own reality TV show called Soul Mates. She said that she had a new client, a very wealthy businessman from Manhattan, who was insisting on a dinner date with Tig.

  My mother laughed at the phone call at first, but when her credit card bill came the next day, she called Chanel back and said she’d take the date. In a gesture that totally got Tig’s attention, Mosier sent his jet to LAX to fly her to New York for an overnight date. When she got home the following day, she said we were moving to the East Coast.

  I’d never met Mosier. She’d only met him once.

  “He’s a sugar daddy, Ash. He’ll take care of us,” she said, wiggling her fingers so that the five-karat diamond solitaire ring would make rainbows all over our bungalow.

  The main condition of Mosier’s marriage proposal?

  No more drinking. No more drugs.

  Tig ignored this condition for the two weeks leading up to our move, partying her ass off all over Beverly Hills on Mosier’s dime as a moving company carefully packed all our belongings and had them shipped to New York. When we arrived, my mother and I were separated at the airport without explanation. I found out later that she was taken directly to a detox facility, while I was driven to a hotel in Manhattan, where I remained with my grandparents in adjoining rooms for ten lonely days.

  On the eleventh day, we were collected by Eddie and driven to an Orthodox church in Brooklyn.

  My mother didn’t smile when she saw me. In fact, she didn’t even make eye contact with me. But I’d never seen someone so changed, so quickly. Her cheeks were hollow, and without Gus to do her makeup, she looked sick instead of chic. Her hair, which had always been blow-dried stick straight, was heavily curled and piled on her head like a Disney princess at the prom. Though a simple white slip dress would have been her choice, her wedding gown had a massive, poofy ball-gown skirt, and was covered with hundreds of beads that shone like diamonds in the June sun. She went through the motions of the day in a quiet, dutiful manner that was foreign to me. She smiled for pictures, but otherwise kept her eyes down and her thoughts to herself.

  But her hands didn’t shake like she needed a fix.

  I never saw them shake again.

  Moving quickly, I scurry down the hall and turn the knob to enter her room, sliding inside and closing the door behind me as quietly as possible. My mother’s perfume has permeated every surface of this suite, and I stand just inside the door, leaning against the paneling. I let my
eyes close, and I breathe in the scent, half expecting to hear her voice.

  Kid? Is that you?

  Sudden tears burn behind my eyelids.

  Yes. It’s me.

  Did you know? Did you choose this for us? For me?

  How did you die, Tig? How and why?

  I make my way through the dimly lit foyer, my feet making no sound on the plush carpet as I near her bright bedroom, where morning sunlight streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. But as the room comes into full view, I stop short. A man sits at the foot of her bed, his head cradled in his hands. Staring more closely at the back of his head, I realize it’s Anders, and the subtle movement of his shoulders tells me that he’s crying.

  Then I notice something pink sticking out from under Tig’s mattress. I squint, realizing that it’s the tip of a hot pink feather. I’m curious about it, but I’m not supposed to be alone in a bedroom with Anders. It’s probably best if I slip out and—

  “Get out,” he mutters without lifting his head.

  I have never been particularly close to Anders, but the agony in his voice makes my breath catch.

  “Get the fuck out,” he says softly, still hunched over. “You can clean in here later.”

  He thinks I’m the maid.

  My eyes skitter to the pink feather, and I step forward, reaching for it.

  “GET THE FUCK OUT!”

  I pull hard, and a journal, with a hot pink feathered pen securely attached, slips from between the mattress and box spring. I grab it before it can smack on the floor, then bolt from the room before he turns around to see me. Cradling the book against my chest, I slam the foyer door shut, then race down the hall to my room.

  Trembling, I bury the book at the bottom of my suitcase, hoping to find some answers later . . . as a hundred new questions fill my head.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ashley

  The drive to New Paltz takes about an hour, and we are driven in a town car by Mosier’s secondary chauffeur and part-time gardener, Cezar.