[Measure of Devotion 03.0] Measure of Peace

by Caethes Faron

Robert reclined on the sofa in his office. He could no longer sit all the way up. Jason sat in a chair next to him. After breakfast, Kale had called Mr. Conroy and set an appointment with his secretary to call back later. Kale had insisted Jason not worry about him and spend time with Robert. The sight of Kale collapsed at his mother’s grave had shaken Jason. It seemed more important than ever to make an effort with his father. “I’ve never liked them.”

  “I know. Your mother did, though. The smell, that is. She never smoked one.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that.”

  “Your grandfather smoked them, and the smell always made her feel at home. There’s a lot about her you don’t know. Despite what you think, you don’t hold the monopoly on loving her.”

  “I’m not the one who stole her life away. She deserved more.”

  “Don’t you think I know she could have done better? Do you honestly believe there’s a single person in this world who knows better than I that she could have had any man she wanted? I don’t know why she chose me, but she did. Sometimes in life, you learn to just shut up, and be grateful.”

  “She didn’t belong here. She belonged in the city, around culture, the arts.”

  “Yes, and she’s the one who decided to leave it all and live here. I was willing to move to Perdana with her. I was prepared to sell everything and follow her wherever she wanted to take me. She decided to stay here.”

  Jason didn’t even try to keep the shock and incredulity from his voice. “What could she possibly have seen in this place?”

  “She saw that it was a part of me, which is more than you ever have. She thought it would be a good place to raise children. She saw value in building something that we could pass on to the next generation.”

  Jason felt his father’s condemnation. “I’m sorry I wasn’t the son you always wanted, the one who would carry on the family name.”

  “All your mother and I ever wanted was for you to be happy. We wanted the best for you. It’s what we worked for. I’ve never loved anyone else as much as I loved your mother. I would have never allowed her to stay here if I thought it made her unhappy.”

  “You sure have a way of showing it. You acted as if she never existed. I’d just lost the center of my life, and you went on like nothing had happened.”

  Robert paused in lifting his cigar back to his lips and lowered it. “Is that really what you think?”

  “What am I supposed to think? You never talked about her. You put all of her stuff in storage. I didn’t even understand that she had died. Darlene explained it to me.”

  A violent cough racked Robert’s body. Demetri stepped forward, refilled Robert’s water glass, and helped him to drink. When the cough subsided, Demetri retreated back to the corner. “I handled it badly, and I’m sorry, but it’s not because I didn’t love her. When your mother died, I wanted nothing more than to follow her. I didn’t know how I was supposed to continue without her. There were times when I even came close to doing it. One night, I remember sitting right here in this study with a revolver in my hand, just staring at it.”

  A chill filled Jason’s chest. He had never seen this side of his father. “What kept you from doing it?”

  “You. Literally.” Robert chuckled and then coughed. Jason handed him his glass of water. “You came banging on my door, upset that it was locked. It was time for dinner, and Darlene had sent you to come get me.”

  Jason found a vague memory of the event in his mind. Mainly, he remembered being perturbed at his father for locking him out of the normally open study. “I never knew.”

  “Of course not. That was the point. I had to lock away all traces of your mother, or I would have gone insane, and I didn’t have that luxury. I couldn’t be surrounded by her. I had you to think about.”

  “All I ever wanted was to talk to you about her. I thought you didn’t love her or me.” Jason’s world slowly shifted. Everything he had taken as a sign of his father’s apathy had actually been a sign of his love.

  “It would have torn me to pieces to talk to you about her. How was I supposed to talk to my son about the woman I had spent my entire adult life loving? I had no way to relate to you. You had lost a mother, but I had lost a lover, a confidante, a friend, a companion. You couldn’t possibly comprehend at that age the void she left in my life. And I didn’t want you to feel like you had to fill it, because you couldn’t. I thought it was best if I just acted like things were fine. Perhaps if I acted long enough, things really would be fine.” The last words rattled with phlegm, and Robert was overcome by a coughing fit.

  “I suppose I can understand that.”

  “No, you can’t. But thanks for saying it. You were always like your mother. She needed to talk about everything. I was never one to pour my heart out. I was selfish. I should have taken better care of you. I should have realized that you were a scared little boy who needed me to show my love in a way you could understand, no matter how uncomfortable it made me. Except, the person who normally would have pointed that out to me was your mother, and she was gone.”

  “Thank you for explaining it to me now.” This was the most his father had ever said to Jason privately at one time. Jason realized that, even though Robert had raised him, Jason really had no idea who he was. Robert had always just been his father. It was difficult to picture him with a whole other life outside of him.

  Robert continued as if Jason hadn’t spoken. “When you got older and the pain of her passing wasn’t so fresh, I thought about trying to talk to you, but by that time the rift between us was too large.”

  “I thought you hated me.”

  “No, I could never hate you.” Robert’s face softened as he shook his head.

  “You seemed to despise me for liking the things I did.”

  “Never. They were all the things your mother loved. It was painful to look at you and see her. Every day was a struggle just to keep living, and there you were, a constant reminder of the wife I had lost. I didn’t detest those things in you, I loved them. I just didn’t know how to show it when it caused me so much hurt.”

  Why hadn’t Jason ever been able to look back on his childhood and see his father’s point of view? They had each been wrapped up so tight in their grief that they hadn’t been able to help each other. Jason was too young to have realized it at the time, but as he got older, he could have given his father a chance. Instead, he’d viewed him as the enemy, the antithesis of his sweet mother. “I’m so sorry I ever doubted you.”

  “I didn’t give you a reason not to. I thought I was showing my love for you by providing for you, paying to send you to university even though I felt I was losing the last little bit of Lena when you left. If she had been here, she would have boxed my ears and told me to love my little boy the way he needed to be loved, not the way I wanted to love him. Who’s the adult anyway?” Robert chuckled again. “She liked to use that phrase on me.”

  “I can picture that.” Jason smiled as his mind constructed the image.

  “I noticed you would go into her sewing room as a child. I suppose you found her journals.”

  “Actually, I only just found them the other day.”

  “Really? I couldn’t bear to read them. I didn’t need to. I already knew all there was to know about her. I always assumed you read them.”

  “No, I’m reading them now, though, when I have the time.”

  “Good. You should. I know you loved her as your mother, but there was so much more to her, things you would have learned to appreciate about her as you grew older.”

  Jason hesitated to confess his next concern. However, Robert had overcome his fear of judgment and laid himself bare. Jason could do the same. “As I’m reading them, I try to picture her, but I can’t. I don’t remember what she looked like.”

  “Oh, Jason.” Robert patted his son’s hand. The light frailty of the touch astonished Jason. “That’s all right. It’s natural. Memories fade. Do you know, sometimes I’ll be thinking about her and realize I
’m remembering something that never happened? I’ll have made up an entire story just because I miss her so much. It’s no wonder you don’t remember her. We don’t have many portraits of her, but what we do have are in the attic.” Robert looked to the corner. “Demetri, when I’m asleep, you should go to the attic and bring down the paintings of Lena. Jason deserves to see them.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “How could you stand to go so long without seeing a picture of her when they’re right there in the attic?”

  “I cheated.” Robert reached down and pulled out his pocket watch. Flipping open the cover, he revealed a miniature portrait of Jason’s mother. “I see her every day.”

  Jason gasped. For the first time in almost twenty years, he saw his mother’s face. His mind travelled back to his childhood when his father constantly checked his watch. “It wasn’t punctuality you were obsessed with, was it?”

  Robert grinned. “Hell no. Lena could never get me anywhere on time. It was the one thing I allowed myself. I always carried her with me. It helped me keep it together around you. Without it, you would have been in the awkward position of comforting your old man.”

  “I would have been happy to do it.” All Jason had wanted to be was a comfort to his father, but he had never been given the chance.

  “I know you would have, Son, but you shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t have kept her pictures from you. Feel free to display them. It’s long overdue. Besides, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of her just now.”

  “I will, Father.”

  “You don’t have to be afraid to talk to me about her. Ask me anything you like.”

  Jason had so many questions. For some reason, one memory nagged at him. It was one of the clearest from his childhood. “Did she used to cheat when we played Hide the Thimble?”

  Robert laughed. “Oh, I wondered if you ever figured it out. That wasn’t really her doing, but mine. She insisted we play games together as a family when you were a little boy. There was an age when you simply adored her thimble for who knows what reason. As a toddler you used to climb up on her as she was sewing and pull it off her thumb. As you got older, she introduced you to Hide the Thimble. Every day that you were a good boy and didn’t steal it from her while she was working, she would hide it for you in the evening, and we would direct you saying hot or cold until you found it. She thought this was a marvelous idea.”

  “I can remember waiting for the six chimes of the grandfather clock when she’d let me search for it.”

  “That’s right. It was always at six o’clock. That one we learned the hard way. If we didn’t have a set time, you simply pestered her all day. Anyway, the first night of this game, you took over an hour to find it, but you wouldn’t let anyone else find it for you, and you wouldn’t let me give directions. Anytime I tried, you would stomp your foot and say, ‘No. Mutter o’ly.’ After about fifteen minutes, I stood up to go get it, and you burst into tears. I was about ready to give you something to cry about, but your mother shushed me and told me to sit. She said it was important that you learn and that you’d improve with time. You didn’t. After a week of this, I was beside myself, so I convinced Lena to hide multiple thimbles. You didn’t know she had more than one, and I pointed out that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. She didn’t like it, but for the sake of my sanity, she agreed. She started out by hiding three. That night, it took you a mere fifty minutes. The next she went to five. I think she was starting to get tired of the game as well. Eventually, she was hiding two dozen thimbles, and you would run to her after five minutes having found one, beaming with pride.”

  Jason joined Robert in a full-bellied laugh, the happiest he’d been since he’d arrived.

  His father told story after story about his mother, and Jason asked every question he could think of. As the time passed, Robert’s coughing fits grew increasingly frequent, and each seemed to tire him a little more. Jason would have to leave him to nap soon.

  “I have one more question for you. Don’t be mad.” Jason felt like a child again, about to ask something that he felt was taboo. “I’ve always wondered…the baby mother had…I never knew…was it a boy or a girl?”

  Deep sorrow etched Robert’s face. “It was a girl. You had a little sister. Your mother wanted to name her Lydia.”

  “But her grave marker says Baby Wadsworth.”

  “Yes. It made it easier on me. We had dreamed about little Lydia for years. Lena always wanted a sister for you. I couldn’t stand the thought that we had lost her, that bringing her lifeless body into the world had killed your mother. I didn’t want to picture our little Lydia under the ground. Your mother never even saw her. How could she be our Lydia if Lena never saw her?” Robert’s voice cracked. It was the first time in Jason’s life he had heard his father’s voice falter with emotion.

  Jason took Robert’s hand in his. “That’s enough, Father. Thank you. I always wanted to know.”

  Robert nodded. “I think I should sleep now. For a little while. You go check on Kale.”

  “All right, Father. Sleep well.” Jason stood and kissed his father on the forehead before departing. His heart ached for how few days he had left with the man he was only just getting to know.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Mr. Conroy, this is Kale Wadsworth from P and C Enterprises.”

  “Yes, Mr. Wadsworth, my secretary told me. What business do you have with me?”

  “I understand you have a valet named Thomas. My company would like to purchase him from you.”

  “Thomas? Why would you want to do that?”

  “Our company is in possession of his brother. We want the other to make a matching set.” Kale swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. This was all for Thomas’s good.

  “I see. Well, he’s quite a capable valet. I would have a hard time replacing him.”

  “We are prepared to compensate you adequately.”

  “I don’t think you understand the hassle this is going to cause me. I’m going to have to wait for an acceptable slave to become available and then train him to my tastes.” Kale really didn’t want to consider what Mr. Conroy’s tastes included. “I bought Thomas a couple of years ago. Prices have gone up for good slaves. I could be out a lot of money and time. I don’t need to tell you that time is a valuable thing.”

  “No, you don’t, Mr. Conroy, and I don’t want to waste yours. I think it is you who doesn’t understand. We are willing to pay forty-two thousand for your trouble. We certainly don’t want P and C to get a reputation for stinginess.”

  “Forty-two thousand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would you pay forty-two thousand? What’s so special about him?”

  He’s my brother, you greedy prick. “Nothing other than his value to us as a match in appearance to his brother. The price is more a sign of the value we place on your time and cooperation. It should be plenty for you to find a suitable replacement and even rent one in the interim.”

  “All right. I hate to see him go, but if you’re fool enough to offer that much for him, I won’t be the fool who refuses it.”

  “Excellent. If you can have the paperwork ready, I’ll be by tomorrow to sign it and take possession of the boy.”

  “Bring cash. I won’t accept anything else.”

  “Very well, cash it will be. I will probably arrive by early afternoon.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll have the registration and title ready for you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Conroy. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” The call disconnected. It was done. All Kale had to do was get the money, and he would see his brother in a day. He had one more call to make.

  “Martin?”

  “Kale? How are you doing? I was sorry to hear about your mother.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.” Kale remembered he was talking to a friend. “Or at least as fine as I can expect to be. I’m doing a lot better, thanks to you. I just got off a call with Mr. Conroy. He’s agreed
to sell me Thomas for forty-two thousand.”

  “That’s great news.”

  “Yes, it is. He wants the payment in cash. I was hoping you could speak with the bank and arrange for me to pick up the money from the branch in town today. I don’t want the regular delays from withdrawing such a large amount.”

  “Of course. Consider it done. I’ll be able to make the call before you can get there.”

  “Thank you.”

  Martin didn’t balk at the amount. He knew how much had been paid for Thomas previously. Kale had half expected Martin to fight him on spending so much money. He should have thought more of Martin, especially after all this time.

  After the call disconnected, Kale went in search of Jason and found him in the dining room eating a sandwich.

  “Here, I had one made for you too.” Jason slid a plate in Kale’s direction.

  “Thanks.” Kale seated himself and bit into the roast beef sandwich. There was just the right amount of horseradish and cheddar cheese. The lightly toasted bread had a pleasant crunch.

  “How did it go with Mr. Conroy?”

  Jason’s attempt at a neutral voice was amusing, and Kale was tempted to have a little fun with him. However, he couldn’t help the grin that split his face. “I’m going to the bank as soon I’m done eating to get the cash. I’m picking Thomas up tomorrow.” The reality began to sink in, and a happy flutter tickled his stomach.

  “That’s excellent.” Jason threw down his sandwich and crossed to Kale, planting a sloppy kiss on his cheek. “I told you it would all work out.”

  Kale wiped off the breadcrumbs Jason had left on his cheek. “Yes, well, it’s not a done deal. Plenty could still go wrong.” Kale tried to rein in his excitement.

  “Things are done going wrong.” Jason took a big bite of his sandwich, storing it in his cheeks as he chewed like a little kid.

  “I hope so. But even if everything goes right, there’s no guarantee he’s even going to like me.”

  “How could anyone not like you?”

  “You didn’t when we first met.”