Chapter 11
Lisa grabbed a towel and dried her face. She hardly recognized the woman staring back at her. Her eyes were puffy, hair disheveled, and she desperately needed a bath. She had been by Frank’s side for the past two days. He had suffered a severe anxiety attack, and the doctors said that he would be fine, but the whole ordeal had taken a lot out of her. Since Lisa was unable to confirm how long he had been unconscious, they admitted Frank for observation to determine what, if any, long-term damage he might have incurred as a result. Lisa was relieved but still shaken. As quietly as possible, she eased the door of the tiny sterile bathroom closed and tiptoed to the sofa bed to lie down.
It was pretty late at night, and Frank had been sleeping for most of the day. He hadn’t spoken at all except for a few inaudible ramblings. Seeing him so vulnerable forced Lisa to think over the choices she made, both during their brief courtship and their marriage. She had gotten with Frank to better her own life. It wasn’t about love and commitment to her but survival. In many ways, he rescued her. She trusted no one but Frank. He had provided for her and allowed her the space she needed to feel comfortable in their relationship. She had not been faithful to him, but she did not want to be without him. Despite her indiscretions, she didn’t think she could handle that. Who else could love and accept her as Frank had?
Buzz . . . buzz . . . Her phone vibrated. Lisa rolled her eyes in annoyance. It was Lewis again. He had called at least ten times in the last few hours. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. She was still reeling from his last visit and, frankly, she did not see cause to speak with him. She had no idea how she was going to come up with the money, and she was fairly certain Lewis knew something. He had an uncanny knack for being able to tell when she was holding out. He always seemed to be a few steps ahead of her. Lisa was still salty about him refusing to let her out of their agreement after she gave him the four million. She couldn’t talk to him without having a plan in place and certainly didn’t want anything to happen that could worsen Frank’s condition. Her past needed to stay where it was. She had done all she could to give herself a new life, and she wasn’t going back.
Buzz . . . buzz . . . Her phone rang again. This time Lisa answered.
“Momma!”
Brianna’s voice came screeching through the phone. Lisa kept a low even tone when responding. Brianna had a tendency to be a bit dramatic, and Lisa didn’t want the conversation to get out of hand.
“Sweetheart, your daddy’s okay. Take a deep breath. He’s going to be fine. Are you okay?”
Lisa could hear Brianna trying to regain her composure, faintly talking aloud to herself.
“I’m fine.” Brianna lamented, but Lisa was not sure how true that was.
“I’ve been trying to reach you. I was getting worried.”
“I’ve been busy. My schedule has been pretty full lately with the 508 Park Avenue Project and everything.”
“Oh, okay, I figured it was something along those lines.” Lisa assumed Brianna had simply been avoiding her, as usual. She was skeptical about why her daughter was telling the truth . . . or not, but the thought that she was busy gave Lisa some comfort, if only for a moment.
“What happened to Daddy?”
“Well, he had an anxiety attack and was unconscious for a little bit. They are holding him for observation, but his vitals are good.”
“Anxiety attack? Over what?”
“I wasn’t home, but whatever it was must have had something to do with money.”
“Why would you say something like that?”
Lisa heard the venom in her question. The attitude Brianna never could hide from her, and, if she was honest with herself, maybe her daughter never tried to hide it. No one could say anything wrong about her daddy. Lisa envied their relationship and wished that Brianna could come to her defense just once. To have someone that would love her blindly and without condition was something that Lisa coveted more than anything. Unfortunately, no one ever had, not even her own daughter. Her response was tepid. “It’s one of the two things he loves most in the world. The other is you.”
“Well, I’m coming up there. Are you at Baylor?”
“There is no need for you to come up here now. We’ll probably be headed home soon.”
“Are you sure?”
“He’s fine. We’ll see you soon.”
“All right.”
“Oh, Bria, can you go by the house and make sure everything’s okay? I left hastily, and I can’t remember if I secured the house.”
“I’m here already.”
“Oh, you’re there now?”
“I have been here since Saturday.”
“Ah, yes, well, OK, great. We’ll see you when we get home. Love you.”
“Love you too. Kiss Dad for me.”
Lisa gripped the thin mattress of the sofa tightly, entering into her own interrogation room. Her mind raced, contemplating what information had caused Frank to respond in such a way. Different scenarios coated her memory, coaxing her deepest fear to the surface.
“Where is all our money, Lisa?”
Frank’s voice cut through the air like a knife pressed against her throat. Lisa’s heart sank. She gasped and turned to Frank. She searched his face, prepared to grovel but found him sound asleep. Frank was still heavily medicated. She expelled the air that had gotten trapped in her throat with his question. She took a deep breath and tried to relax. When she settled down, she remembered that while he had moments of lucidity, they never lasted long. The medication he was on made him extremely drowsy. Still, this last question shook her to the core, but she couldn’t figure out why the question rang like a church bell in her ears. Had she summoned the question with her own fear? How could Frank know that their millions were gone? She hoped she was only dreaming, but something told her otherwise.
Chapter 12
Brianna sat in her dad’s office chair, looking over the papers he had left strewn about. She realized that he signed for the package, but she couldn’t find it anywhere. She had spent the past couple of days looking for it. Whatever was in it must have upset her father enough to trigger an anxiety attack. Now she wanted to find it more than ever. She was glad it was not a heart attack as she had suspected. She had several missed calls from her mom, and when she finally got around to checking her messages, she was too upset to call her back. She decided that, whatever it was, her mother was probably to blame. She couldn’t figure out how to address her mom without tipping her off that she knew something was going on. She searched everywhere she knew her dad might have kept important packages, but she hadn’t come across any information that seemed particularly startling.
“Next to Me . . . ooh hooo . . . Next to Me . . .”
Brianna picked up her phone and read the display. “Hey, Michelle.”
* * *
“Bria, I just got your message about your dad. Everything okay?”
“Yes, he’s OK. I haven’t seen him, but Lisa has been at the hospital with him.”
“Well, what happened, Bria? Don’t keep me in the dark.”
“He had an anxiety attack. I think he saw whatever your friend sent me. I’ve been looking all over the house for it, but I cannot find it. I know he has a secret spot, but I have never been able to locate it.”
“Guess that’s kind of the point,” Michelle giggled over the phone.
“Soooooo, not helping.” Brianna relaxed and fell back into the chair laughing.
“Give me the address, and I’ll come help you look. I miss you anyway.”
Brianna didn’t expect her parents for at least another day or so, and she could use a fresh pair of eyes. Michelle had an unnatural knack for finding things.
“Sounds good. I’ll text you the address. See you in a bit.” She disconnected the call, relieved that Michelle was on her way.
Chapter 13
Lewis was greeted by the unsavory scent of Pine-Sol and bleach when he gingerly pulled open the back door of his home to enter
into his expansive kitchen. It was hard to determine if it was the fragrance or what the scent implied that beckoned Lewis back to the car. The house was Gotham, he was Batman, and that smell was his signal to leave. Sophie was upset about something, and he did not feel like dealing with whatever it was. Lewis did, however, want something to eat, and he didn’t need to turn the light on to see that his wife had not cooked dinner. He was going to blow a gasket. The women in his life seemed to be losing their minds. Lisa was ignoring him, he still had not spoken with Charlie, and now, Sophie? Enough was enough. “Sophie! Sophie! Where are you?”
Lewis yelled out for his wife, walking through the house in a desperate search, peeking into each of their six bedrooms before finding her in the den, barely visible, in the dark.
“Sophie, why haven’t you cooked dinner? I’m starving.”
Sophie did not respond, and Lewis felt rejected. He felt the distance between them. Something was wrong; he could sense her sadness. It was heavy and blanketed the air. Lewis felt weak. The floor offered itself as a soft place to land, and he momentarily regretted insisting on the hardwood floors over Sophie’s desired carpeted ones. He remembered the time when Michelle had been hospitalized during a bout with pneumonia. She was only a toddler at the time, and they nearly lost her. That was the last time he had seen his wife this way, and he dreaded what she may say.
“Sophie, what is it? Did something happen to Michelle? Oh, God . . . Is she OK?”
Lewis found his wife in the darkness. Even on his knees he still towered above her. He felt the tears on her face, and while releasing his own, he tried to pull her close to him. She resisted his touch, gasping at the feel of his calloused hands against her soft, ivory skin.
Confused, Lewis fell back on his haunches, trying to read her face in the moonlight. That’s when he saw them: the photographs she held in her hands. He snatched them away from her and looked through them, frantic to know the contents of the evidence that caused her pain. Lewis was in every frame. The last three months of his life all caught in the flash of someone’s camera. Faceless women and how he loved them. He felt his world crashing around him. He furiously tore what pictures he had into pieces, frustrated at the irony. Those very same pictures that now lay in pieces had ripped and left Sophie’s heart in the same condition. He looked at his wife and wished her heart didn’t tear so easily.
“Sophie, I never meant to hurt you,” he whispered. “I love you.”
He continued, but Sophie did not have anything to say. There were no words that could accurately describe her angst. The absence of light allowed his chocolate frame to disappear into the darkness. Only his pearly whites were visible, and she was tempted to snatch all thirty-two of them out one at a time. Sophie was dangling off the edge of nowhere, and Lewis’s Hallmark utterings only served to pry her fingers loose. Her heart physically ached with each breath as she felt a thousand needles invading her chest.
She received a package earlier that day and had been awaiting Lewis’s arrival. Perhaps they could have discussed what she had seen had he come at the expected hour, but Lewis was more than two hours late, and the wound was no longer fresh, or raw, or susceptible to the touch. It no longer needed treatment or attention. The injury started to mend itself. She reached the point to where she no longer required an explanation. She wished with all her heart that she had left when the opportunity presented itself. Perhaps more than ever before, she wished she had taken that money, and Michelle, and run far from Lewis.
She hated him, and probably more so, she hated herself for loving him, for choosing him. She had long since stopped asking herself the obvious question: why. Each time, a little of her power dissipated as she bothered to dredge up an answer. Regardless of whatever fancy verbiage she dressed it in, the bottom line was obvious: She had made a mistake. Lewis presented himself as the man of her dreams. He was her every fantasy in real time and had given her everything . . . except himself. A beautiful, two-story brick home. A beautiful daughter. Financial security. But the one thing that she desired most—his heart—was never even on the table. She thought her pregnancy would open the door to his heart, that conceiving a child would allow for a deeper connection, but nothing changed. Had it not been for the love she felt for her daughter, she may have had no feeling at all.
They had been together for the better part of a year when they learned of the new addition. Her family forced her to choose: either abort the child or leave. She remembered the events like they happened last week.
Richard dismissed the help to their quarters in the west wing of the house after Sophie gave him and his wife Katherine the news. It had been too much for Katherine to process, deciding to go to bed early. He thought it was best anyway. She did not need to be present for the conversation he planned to have with Sophie. He closed the large oak door to his office and now stood in front of his desk, trying to rope in his emotions before speaking.
“Damn you. Did you learn nothing from your sister, Sophie? I will not allow you to smear our family name! I won’t have it!”
He spewed his words with such venom it made Sophie’s ears bleed. She blinked back the tears that began to well up behind her eyes, trying to pretend that she didn’t see the shame squared into his jawline or notice the malice in his heart.
“Why are you saying these things? Angela and I are not the same, Dad. I have done everything you have asked of me. Everything. This was not my fault. You told me to date him!”
Sophie had been careful not to cause the same kind of crisis as her older sister. She followed instructions with military-like precision, including her relationship with Lewis. Her every move had been drawn out for her. She didn’t deserve his punitive disregard.
“No one told you to sleep with him! Can you imagine? My daughter behaving like some dirty little thug’s whore? And you want to have the bastard’s baby? You are going to see Naomi at Planned Parenthood—and that’s final!”
Richard looked incredulously at his daughter. He thought she could handle this. It was feasible to infer that he acted prematurely. Sophie was not yet a woman, although he treated her as such. To his credit, this was no different than what he had asked of her before. What made this boy special? Why now? The two, she and the boy, were only meant to be seen together to bolster his popularity among black voters in Dallas, but this was not part of the plan. He was in the midst of his mayoral run and would not risk losing his most generous campaign backers because Sophie failed to keep her legs closed. The Freemont family had sacrificed too much for him to allow his naïve daughter’s indiscretions to undo everything.
“Dad, I didn’t intend to get pregnant, but I’m keeping my baby.”
Richard grabbed his putter and swung in no particular direction. Sophie fell out of her chair and toppled to the floor. She balled herself up into a knot, afraid to move. Richard stood a good three feet from her, but his shadow loomed over her, covering her completely.
“Not in this house, you won’t. I will not allow you to ruin this for us. That child will never be welcomed here!” With each word, his putter tore through the air. Sophie scrambled to the door, jerked it opened, and scurried to her room. Fearful of his wrath if she found herself in his line of sight, she remained there the rest of the night. Lewis came for her early the next morning.
Everything she was permitted to take fit nicely into her Louis Vuitton carry-on. Her parents refused to bid her good-bye. Their front porch was empty except for Nanette, the maid, who braved the tide to offer one last plea. To Nanette, Sophie was her daughter. Though she had none of her own, she practically raised her. Watching her depart that way was nothing short of devastating.
“Don’t do this, Luce. They’ll come around, chile.”
The lie started her stomach churning something awful and left a bitter taste in her mouth. She had seen the underbelly of the Freemont clan. She knew where all the skeletons were buried. Image was everything to Richard as the patriarch of the family, and he would likely never change his
mind, but at seventy years old, Nanette simply did not care what he wanted. She had taught him to cherish his family above all else, but that wretched Freemont blood had taken his mind and poisoned his heart. Lucille needed to stay home where Nanette could guide her until she was ready for the world. She had already lost Angela, and she did not want to lose Sophie too.
“Nan, I’m going to miss you most.”
Her parents were dead to her. Richard and Katherine had relinquished their titles. No one ever discussed her sister, not even Nanette. Sophie was not going to hang around and allow the same thing to happen to her.
“This just don’t feel right at all. You’re just a baby. Not nearly a woman. Ain’t the proper way to do thangs.”
Nanette wanted to drag her back into the house and lock her upstairs in her bedroom. Had she been a few years younger, she would have done exactly that. “I was the one that named ya. Sophie Lucille Freemont. I raised ya like you was my own. I know what’s best. I would never tell ya what to do. It’s your life, but maybe you could stay until he’s settled some. That boy got a lot of livin’ left in him. I can see it in his eyes. Now, I’m tellin’ ya what I know, chile.”
Nanette’s frail body shook as she spoke. Tears were streaming down her face. But she tried to smile for Lucille, to give her some joy to take with her.
“I love you, Nan, and I’ll keep in touch. Promise.”
“Just as stubborn as your papa. Be careful, ya hear? Be careful. If you need anything, call. Write. Something. Don’t disappear on me. My heart can’t take that.”
“I won’t, Nan. I won’t.”
“I love you, Luce.”
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