A Family Affair

by Mary Campisi

  “I don’t know, would you? Maybe come to see for yourself?”

  “This is just as hard on me as it is on you.” Her voice dipped, faltered. “At least you knew. I had no idea. All this time, and I had no idea.”

  He almost felt sorry for her but years of living with Charles Blacksworth’s comings and goings wiped any pity from his soul. “You think so; you think we’re in the same boat, Christine? What do you think it’s like to see a man coming out of your mother’s bedroom in the morning, one who’s not her husband? And then the bastard leaves her, every month, goes back to his rich family in Chicago, his prestigious job, his three piece suits. And he does it year after year after year and she cries when he leaves, every goddamn time.”

  She looked away, pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “You think you had it worse? You don’t have a clue.” He gripped the door handle, forced himself to stay still when every cell in his body wanted to jerk her head up, make her acknowledge his words, feel his hatred. “Go home, Christine Blacksworth. You’re fourteen years too late.”

  ***

  Gloria accepted the fluted glass bubbling with Dom Perignon, smiled at the young man dressed in black who hadn’t left her side all night; Jeremy something or other, investment banker. He couldn’t be more than twenty-eight, a year older than Christine, and yet she hadn’t missed the way his dark eyes took in her pale blue gown, moved from the swell of breast to shoulder, settled on the smooth, tanned skin of her neck. Men had looked at her that way her entire life, from the time she was fourteen and discovered that if she smiled wide and long, dropped her voice a few decibels, and glanced instead of stared at other boys, she would gain not only their attention, but their admiration. What a ridiculous game it all was, one she’d never succumbed to, preferring intellect to sexuality. But then she’d met Charles.

  She sipped her champagne, tried to concentrate on what the young man was saying.

  “Have you ever heard Bocelli?” Jeremy something or other was saying, “I saw him in New York. He’s exquisite, not Pavarotti, but still quite good.”

  “And blind.”

  “Incredible, isn’t it?” He took her comment as interest, moved closer, his breath fanning her ear. “I’d love to take you. We could have dinner at The Presidio first. Next Saturday.”

  She took a step away, met his dark eyes, sparkling with one too many Dom Perignons. “I don’t think so, but thank you for the invitation.”

  He flattened a hand over his chest. “You wound me, beautiful maiden. Please reconsider.”

  Oh, Charles, how could you have left me to deal with this? “I could be your mother.”

  “But you’re not.” He took her hand, stroked his fingers up her arm.

  “I just buried my husband two weeks ago.” Was there no respect for the grieving process?

  “I know.” He nodded, his handsome face solemn. “All the more reason.”

  “Indeed.” She shrugged his hand off, stepped away. “All the more reason.” Gloria lifted her glass, saluted him and turned away.

  She almost hadn’t come tonight, not after last year’s debacle. The West Mount Memorial Banquet had always been Charles’s love; he was one of the original organizers, a major contributor and a staunch supporter of the hospital’s research facilities. But this love blinded him, too. When last year’s president asked Charles to double his annual pledge, to help fund research for cancers like your sister’s . . . Charles readily agreed.

  Tonight they were honoring him and had invited Gloria to accept an award in memory of her late husband. How could she refuse such a request? So, she’d chosen a pale, blue Chanel and a clasp of diamonds for the occasion, the muted coolness of color and stone giving her a controlled, untouchable presence; elegant but not overstated, determined in a mask of subtlety but still appropriate for her newly widowed state – her life without Charles.

  She worked her way past the fringes of the ballroom to a tiny sitting area papered in heavy cream. There was a smattering of ornate chairs, cherry, she thought, done in burgundy and cream stripes set up in a half circle around an oval glass table. And in the center of the table was a huge spray of red roses, more than two dozen, maybe three, spilling out of a gold vase, tufts of baby’s breath tucked in between.

  Her gaze followed a petal that had fallen on the slick surface of glass, landed on the edge of a bright blue ashtray. Gloria walked up to the table, studied the ashtray; shiny, clean, unused. She hesitated, fingers hovering over the single petal, its red brilliance not diminished by its solitary state. So much beauty, so much promise . . . She brushed it away in one quick motion, mindless of where it landed, her concentration fixed solely on the gleam of the blue ashtray. Then she flipped open her bag, pulled out the black case decorated with needlepoint roses, and tapped out a Salem Light. Her fingers shook as she lit it, drew it to her mouth and placed it between her lips.

  “Now, this is a sight.”

  Gloria swung around, pulled the cigarette behind her back. “What are you doing here?”

  Harry Blacksworth saluted her with his drink. “I was invited.”

  “As though you cared about contributing to anyone’s charity but your own.”

  He ignored her. “I saw you with that young boy a few minutes ago.”

  She took another puff on her cigarette, held it, blew out a thin cloud of smoke. “Since when did it become a crime to engage in casual conversation?”

  “Don’t embarrass yourself, Gloria.” He emptied his glass and added, “And don’t humiliate Charlie’s memory.”

  She stubbed out the cigarette in the center of the blue ashtray, grinding the butt to a third of its size. “You have nerve, Harry Blacksworth,” she said in a low voice, moving her lips just enough to push the words out for his ears alone. “You’ve disgraced this family for years and now, you have the nerve to question my actions?”

  “You’re Charles Blacksworth’s widow. Act like it.”

  “I intend to.”

  “See that you do.” He turned away from her then, before she could tell him that he was the real disgrace no one had ever wanted to acknowledge, especially Charles. She wanted to scream at him, so loud that the entire room would turn and stare at Harry. You! Yes, you, you’re the disgrace!

  But of course, she couldn’t because he was already gone and even if he weren’t, she wouldn’t. And he knew that.

  ***

  Nate Desantro was not going to stop her from tracking down Lily. He might think he had a fourteen year edge, but she’d been competing in a man’s world long enough to know how to fight, and win.

  When the sign for Magdalena shriveled to a dot in her rearview mirror, Christine opened her mouth and pulled in puffs of cold air, greedy to clear her mind. She should’ve been the one flinging accusations back there, making demands, not him. But he’d been vicious, the hatred pulsing in the chords of his neck, spreading to his throat, spilling out of his mouth. He’d hated her father.

  . . . fourteen years too late.

  Fourteen years?

  She would’ve been thirteen years old . . .

  She drove on, mindless of the new snow falling, heavy around her; white, pure, forgiving. What had life been like fourteen years before? She tried to remember, tried to pull it back through the haze of work filled days at Blacksworth & Company, four years of college, Senior Prom, further still to family trips in Vail, Palm Springs, even middle school. But she could only snag scraps of memories, a half-formed picture of a girl in braces with pigtails, a blue spruce brilliant with lights and ornaments, a black dog named Jesse.

  Fourteen years of good-byes, promises to be home for Sunday dinner, returning with smiles and sharp embraces, and all the while, going to her. How had she not known? How had she looked into her father’s eyes, listened to his words, and not been able to see the truth?

  Did he really love me? And Mother, what about her?

  They were his family, but had he really loved them, or merely felt duty toward them, obligatio
n, as one does to an old pair of tennis shoes, scuffed and ripping at the seams, that should be tossed out on garbage day but somehow never make it there, instead gets relegated as something else, garden shoes, lawn mowing shoes, anything to avoid being discarded completely. Maybe that’s what he’d done, relegated them to ‘something else’, a lower position, in order to avoid the costly, damaging, choice of permanent separation.

  She thought of all the days he’d been with Lily Desantro, all the years he’d let his real family believe he was somewhere else. Her father was the only one she’d ever truly counted on, the standard for everyone else in her life; friends, boyfriends, business associates, even, and she hated to admit this, her mother. Had it all been a grand lie?

  Christine drove the remainder of the trip replaying the conversation with Nate Desantro. Part of her wanted to go back to Chicago, forget about the cabin and Magdalena, and most of all, Lily Desantro. The other part worried that the woman would not be so easily forgotten. What if she showed up in Chicago asking for Gloria Blacksworth?

  Her mother would never be able to handle this. The thought of the two women, face to face, gave Christine renewed strength to drive back to Magdalena in the morning, confront Nate Desantro again if she must, though hopefully, Lily would answer the door. Then Christine could tell her about the will, the enormous amount of money that would be hers, uncontested, and all she had to do was forget she’d ever heard the Blacksworth name.

  It was early afternoon when she reached the cabin. She’d stopped off at Henry’s Market, a small grocery store that wasn’t much larger than a 7 Eleven, and picked up a quart of skim milk, four raspberry yogurts, a box of Multi-Grain Cheerios, a bag of red licorice, and a small bottle of Palmolive Dish detergent. She’d almost asked the wrinkled man at the counter if he knew Charles Blacksworth. You probably saw him about once a month, she’d wanted to say. He came to stay in the cabin up the road. Of course, you’d remember him if you saw him . . . medium build, silver hair . . . distinguished . . . very polite.

  What if they were all mistaken, what if he really had been living in the cabin and only visited the woman once in a while? The shopkeeper would recognize him, wouldn’t he? She could find out, give herself hope that maybe he hadn’t lied about everything. But in the end, she’d said nothing.

  Chapter 5

  Harry answered the phone on the second ring. “Hullo?”

  “Uncle Harry? I’m sorry. Were you asleep?”

  “Chrissie.” He glanced at the woman lying in the middle of the bed, full breasts pointed skyward. “No,” he reached for his robe, “of course not.

  “I went to Magdalena today.”

  Harry stuffed one arm into his silk robe, then the other, letting the belt hang loose, exposing his nakedness. What time was it anyway? He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. 7:30 p.m. He needed a drink and he needed to take a piss.

  “Did you see her?” He closed the bedroom door, kept his voice low.

  “No. I saw her son, though.”

  “Hard ass. What’d he have to say?”

  “That . . . that . . .”

  “Tell me, Chrissie. What happened?” He poured himself a double scotch, neat, carried the glass and the bottle to the burgundy leather recliner, sat down.

  “Fourteen years, Uncle Harry. Fourteen years.”

  “What? What’s fourteen years?”

  “How long they were . . . together.” Pause. “How long he was seeing her, Uncle Harry. Fourteen years.”

  “Jesus.” He took a healthy swallow of scotch. “Jesus.”

  “All this time, all these years, and he’s been with her.”

  Fourteen years? Harry took another drink, drained his glass. “Desantro could be lying. We never heard the name before two weeks ago. This could all be a scheme to get more money, maybe the woman blackmailed him into leaving her a wad of cash so you and your mother wouldn’t find out and Charlie just figured he’d live long enough to change the will later. Shit, I don’t know. None of this makes any sense, but, I’d believe the mother and son were trying to blackmail your father before I’d believe he was,” he almost said, ‘screwing the bitch’ but reworked it to, “in a relationship with that woman for fourteen years.”

  “Really?”

  There was hope in her voice, clinging to one last shred of possibility, and he could not disappoint her, so he said, “I do, Chrissie. I think maybe they both set him up.”

  “I’m going back tomorrow.” She sounded more like the old Chrissie now. “I don’t care if I have to sit outside of that house all day; I’m going to talk to Lily Desantro.”

  “This isn’t something you should do alone, kid. Let me come, too, it could get nasty. I can leave first thing in the morning.”

  * * *

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5