“Sit down and help me create a budget and a to-do list.”
Harry squirmed and cracked his knuckles. Felix and Ella never discussed money in front of Harry, but he needed to man up and learn how to budget. The thought left Felix nauseated.
“Let’s start with Max’s home phone number so I can coordinate booking flights with his parents.”
Harry gulped loudly. “Couldn’t you just book the tickets and ask them to reimburse you?”
“No. I prefer to keep the finances separate.”
Harry gnawed on his thumb.
“I promise to be on my best upper-class Brit behavior,” Felix said. “How’s that?”
“’Kay.”
“Let’s assume the two of you can stay with your mother’s old roommate. That will help keep the cost down.”
Harry nodded.
“Do you know how to draw up a budget?”
Harry shook his head.
“It’s a simple math problem that involves listing income and expenses, and then balancing the two. Since income is irrelevant here, we’ll list your expenses, and it will be up to you to stay on target.” Felix smoothed down the first page on his pad and wrote Harry’s trip. “What’s the date of the open house?”
“February twenty-seventh.”
“I’ll call the admissions office and sign both of you up for the tour.”
“Great. That’s great, Dad. Will you be okay—I mean, you and Mom, here by yourselves? If something should happen—”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
The concern was surprising and sweet. But sweet could only carry you so far. Sweet also meant others could take advantage of you. Was sending Harry out into the world by sanctioning this trip a horrible mistake?
“Dad, there’s a problem.”
“Only one?”
“How are we going to tell Mom? I mean, I’m sort of terrified to tell her anything that isn’t ‘I’m fine, school is fine, Sammie’s fine.’ Will she freak out—about me going on a plane by myself, although I won’t be by myself because I’ll have Max and she knows I’m not nearly as anxious if Max is with me?”
“I have no idea, Harry. I’m making everything up as I go along.”
“Does she know about you stepping down from the partnership?”
“No.” Felix wasn’t entirely sure why he’d told Harry about this when Ella was back in hospital, but after the panic attack he’d been more worried about Harry than Ella. Felix had wanted—needed—Harry to know that their lives would not spin out of control, that Felix wouldn’t let things get worse.
Someone turned up the volume on the movie in the bedroom. Music played and Eudora giggled. Katherine joined in. Felix didn’t hear Ella laugh.
“Why are we keeping stuff from her, Dad?”
Felix slumped back in his chair. “Because we’re trying to protect her?”
“Like she always protected us,” Harry said quietly.
Did he use the past tense intentionally? Felix fiddled with the family signet ring. “Do you want to sit in on a class if I can arrange it?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Harry cleared his throat several times.
“A history class, I assume?”
“Nah.”
“I thought you wanted to major in history?”
“Changed my mind. Psychology. I want to be a clinical psychologist.”
“When did this happen?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. History’s kind of useless, you know.”
“I read—majored in—history.”
“I know, Dad. But there was a different world order when you were my age, a different world economy.”
Harry had a point. Maybe his son actually did have a grand plan.
“Why psychology?”
“Why not!”
Felix sighed. So there was no grand plan.
“I think the world needs more psychologists,” Harry continued. “Good ones. I mean, you never met my first psychologist, but she redefined useless. Also, I want to help people.”
“An idealist, huh?”
“I guess I want to make a difference. Pay it forward. Tell messed-up people that life is peachy even if you’re as weird as me.” Harry stopped and scrunched his mouth into a thoughtful pout. “Dad, did you ever have a friend like Max?”
Sometimes the trajectory of Harry’s thoughts was as mysterious as the unexplored depths of the ocean. “I didn’t need one,” Felix said. “I had a big brother.”
“Most people wouldn’t see that as a good thing.” Harry grimaced and blinked, grimaced and blinked.
“I wouldn’t have survived my childhood without your uncle.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“The shrink is in?”
“I’m a good listener, Dad.”
“But I’m not a good talker. I never talk about Tom.”
“Yeah, but you’ve mentioned him loads since Mom had her, you know, thing.” Harry’s elbow flapped.
“Heart attack, Harry. She had a heart attack.”
“I don’t want to use those words.”
“Weren’t you the one who told me the things you’re too frightened to face are the things that grow into monsters?”
“I guess.”
Felix drew in a huge breath and closed his eyes. He exhaled slowly. To say the words, to shine a spotlight on his own weakness, his own failure, would change everything between them. He might just as well strip naked, show Harry his scars, and ask for pity. Felix opened his eyes. “Your grandfather whipped me. With a riding crop he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk.”
Harry slammed his fists onto the table and Felix jumped. “The . . . the . . . bastard.” Harry’s head and upper torso convulsed. “The f-fucking bastard. I-I’m glad . . . I never . . . never met him.”
“I’m glad you never met him, too, Hazza, because you’re right. He was a bastard.”
Out in the forest, a pair of hawks cried back and forth, their screeches bouncing off the trees like sonar. The tic passed, and Harry slumped back in his chair as if he were a punctured inflatable snowman, one of those horrendous holiday decorations that littered people’s yards every year after Thanksgiving. Felix took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“I hate him, Dad. I hate him for what he did to you.”
Thank you. Felix slid his glasses back into place. “Now tell me what happened to your mother,” he said softly.
“She . . . she had a heart attack.”
“A big one. But she survived, and she’s surviving every day.” Felix sat up. “Just as I survived your grandfather’s brutality.”
Harry nodded.
“Your mother will move beyond this. And so will we, Harry.”
A week ago, he and Katherine had made a pact: only positive thoughts ahead. And he was trying. God only knew how hard. But someone had blasted his life to smithereens with a cannon. What if the remaining pieces were too small and too fragile to glue back together?
THIRTY-TWO
Five days later, Felix stood in the hall holding up Katherine’s sheepskin coat as she grappled to push her arms through the sleeves. She flicked her hair out of the collar and turned with a smile. “Right, I’m off to the store before panic shoppers clear the shelves. You’ll remember to check the news for school closings when you get up, assuming we still have power?”
“The prospect of freezing rain doesn’t bother me in the least.” Felix walked into the kitchen and moved Katherine’s wine glass to the sink. “Although I appreciate this means the entire Triangle will predictably shut down for days.”
And necessitate cancellation of the school Valentine’s Day dance. So much for the romantic dinner he’d planned for tomorrow night. The first time he and Ella would have celebrated February 14, and the weather gods were plotting against them. Well, his wife was bedridden and he could barely cook, so he used the verb celebrate with some irony.
“But you did go to the store and stock up?” Katherine said.
“I refuse to do so.” Felix washed the glass, then put it upside down on the draining board. “Southern histrionics about the mere chance of winter precipitation are a turnoff for me.”
The recessed lights in the kitchen ceiling flickered.
“They’ve upgraded to ice pellets.” Katherine grabbed her bag from the floor and strapped it across her chest. If not for her designer coat—left over from her days as a fashion journalist for American Vogue, she’d told him earlier—she could have been mistaken for a grad student. “I don’t remember ice pellets as a weather label before. Global warming’s turning out to be one helluva bitch this winter.”
“Global warming or climate change?”
“You say tomato, I say tomah-to.”
Felix gave a breathy huh that was almost a laugh. “You’re welcome to stay if you have concerns about the weather.”
“Nah, I’m good. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind being iced in for a few days. Provided we don’t lose power. Think of all the writing I’ll get done.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Adding to your strain. Messing with your deadline.”
She held up her hand. “We’ve moved beyond this, Felix.”
“If you change your mind, please come back. I’ve extended the same offer to Eudora.”
“I’m assuming she also turned you down?”
“Indeed. I’m surrounded by stubborn women.” Felix paused. “But if we do get inclement weather, you’ll call and check in? Let me know you’re alive?” He had meant to say us, not me.
She nodded. “Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope Ella likes the ring.”
“Thank you. And thank you for helping me choose it. Oh, wait.” Felix dried his hands on the tea towel and retrieved a small gift bag from behind the bread bin. “I hate people opening presents in front of me and then gushing, so I’ll say you’re welcome, and please accept this as a mark of gratitude for all you’ve done for the Fitzwilliam family.”
“Totally unnecessary.” Her mock scowl disintegrated into a Cheshire cat grin when she peeked inside and saw the gift certificate for a massage. “But much appreciated. Thank you.”
Clasping the gift bag to her chest, Katherine let herself out.
Felix sipped his single malt, then opened his laptop and clicked on the local weather website. The map for central North Carolina greeted him.
Oh shit.
Cracks and booms continued throughout the night, and they lost power around 2:00 a.m. A full-fledged ice storm, then. Ella and Harry slept through it all. Felix knew this because he checked on them numerous times. There would be no school today; there would be no work; there would be only the three of them trapped in a cold, dark house. What would this do to Ella’s emotional stress level, something he now obsessed over as much as her ejection fraction?
Happy Valentine’s Day, Fitzwilliam family.
Felix had never believed in fate, but the unpredicted severity of the storm did cause him to question whether there was some grand, insidious plan working to unravel his life thread by thread. Tonight was meant to be a rebirth, a renewal—a commitment to the decades that would follow. He’d bought shrimp and lobster tails and chocolate-covered strawberries. (Eudora had briefed him on how to grill the lobster and make the sauce for the shrimp.) And Katherine had helped him choose a simple garnet ring from Ella’s favorite English jewelry designer. Garnet, the stone of love and devotion. The shipping had been astronomical.
At seven o’clock, daylight crept through the woods and across the patio. The natural world took shape, coated in a thick glaze of ice. The trees—white and feathery—were beautiful and dangerous. Most of the smaller pines were bent double; some would not survive. Felix counted three giant root balls in Duke Forest. Mature trees were down. Ella’s camellias bowed toward the ground, dripping icicles; branches littered the patio as if tossed there by divine beings playing pickup sticks. Nothing moved or breathed except for the birds participating in a frenzy of activity on the feeders.
Felix reached for the phone to call Eudora. No service. It had been a mistake to let her leave last night. He would send Harry over to check on her later—provided he could be careful. Ice and Harry seemed a lethal combination.
Around eight, Harry shuffled into the living room, wrapped in his duvet. “Power still out? It’s got to be, what, six hours at least?”
So Harry had known what was happening during the night but had chosen to deal with the situation alone. That was promising, showed backbone. The apocalyptic sounds of an ice storm could easily terrify.
“School’s closed today. No surprise there. I took a few things out of the fridge last night and left them in a cooler for breakfast and lunch. Some ham, some cheese, some lettuce. The milk. Please don’t open the fridge until the power’s back on. And I defrosted a chocolate croissant for your breakfast. Obviously, it’s not warmed.”
“Thanks.” Harry hurled himself onto the sofa. He grimaced and blinked, grimaced and blinked. “Do you think they’ll cancel tonight’s Valentine’s Day party?”
Felix collapsed next to him. “I’m sure they have already.” He glanced sideways at Harry. “Sorry.”
“I’ve never had a date to take to a school dance before.”
“Maybe you and your friends can persuade the school to reschedule?”
“I guess.” Harry popped his jaw—open and closed, open and closed. “I was just, you know . . .”
Felix nodded.
“’Course, I can’t dance, so maybe I’ve saved myself some major embarrassment.” Harry held up his hands and jiggled his fingers like a gospel singer. “In the immortal words of some famous and rather wise dude, shit happens.”
How could his moods be so mercurial? Had Felix been in Harry’s position, he would have fallen into a bottomless funk.
There was a loud crack and a crash from the street, and Felix jumped. Please God, that was not a tree falling on one of the cars.
“I hope the cars are safe,” Harry said.
Felix looked from the empty fireplace to the icy world outside the wall of glass. “We should have brought in firewood last night.”
Harry shivered. “Temperature’s plummeting.”
“The house wasn’t designed for brutal cold.” All the glass didn’t help.
Another crack that sounded horribly close to the bridge. If they lost the bridge, they would be trapped.
“Is Mom okay?”
“She’s still asleep.”
Harry blew into the air. “Look, I can see my breath.”
Felix got up. “I’ll see if I can start a fire.”
“I’ll help!”
“No. There could be live cables down, weakened branches, and—”
“I get easily distracted?”
“I don’t want you to go outside until I’ve had a chance to reconnoiter.”
Harry gathered his duvet around him. “I think I’ll go back to bed. Stay warm.” He shuffled off, clearing his throat.
Felix walked through the house to the side door, opened it, and then closed it quickly. A huge limb lay across the bridge, and the black walnut had split down the middle. Half of it was on top of the log pile. Terrific. He would have to hire someone to come out with a chainsaw.
“Harry!” he called as he retrieved his jacket and gloves and scarf from the hall. “I’m going to need your help after all.”
Harry bobbed out of his room. “’Kay.”
“But dress warmly and do exactly what I say out there.”
“Gotcha. Should I go to Eudora’s, see if she needs anything?” Harry grabbed his jacket.
“Let’s do one thing at a time. We’ll get a fire going, and then I’ll go next door and see if I can bring her over here.”
“Did you call Duke Energy? Report the outage?”
“Yes, Harry. That I did manage to do.”
“What did they say?”
“They have no idea when the power will be back on.” Why did that feel like a
recurring theme in their lives?
The fire sizzled and popped as Ella leaned toward the faded board that was part of their fifty-year-old English Monopoly set. It had belonged to Tom. The guys had dragged the sofa over to the fireplace for her, and she was tucked up with more layers of bedding and blankets than a little old lady in a nursing home. Truthfully, she felt like a little old lady in a nursing home. Even the simple act of moving a game piece exhausted her.
Eudora, who had complained of not feeling well, had opted out and was asleep in the guest bedroom. Since she had seemed fine before dinner, this rapid-onset illness had to be a ploy to allow them a family evening. An extremely generous ploy, since their elderly friend had willingly forgone the warmth of the fire. Every other corner of the house crackled with cold.
Ella held the small metal top hat over the board. Felix had chosen the iron, Harry the old boot. If she landed on Mayfair, which Felix had covered with hotels, she would be sunk. She threw the dice and counted out spaces.
“No,” she groaned, and landed on Mayfair.
“Just you and me, Dad,” Harry said. “Prepare to lose!”
Her breath tightened. One of the candle flames guttered and went out.
“Mom? I think you need to lie back.” Harry was at her elbow in a flash. “You’ve gone pale.”
Felix squatted in front of her, hands on his knees, and those eyes locked on hers, those eyes that had always made her heart spin like a flamenco dancer. She tried to smile; he tried to smile. Harry tried to smile.
All God’s creatures try to smile.
She was definitely losing it. Even armed with a daily antidepressant, she couldn’t shake the sense of dread that followed her from room to room. A shadow of fear.
Ella watched the reflection of the fire in the stone of her beautiful new ring.
“Darling?” Felix said.
She practiced her deep, slow breathing the way the ER nurse had shown her after the panic attack. “Just a bit dizzy. This has been a wild and crazy night for me. More activity than I’ve had in weeks. And look. Still up at ten o’clock.”
“Baby steps, Mom!”
“I know, but swallowing my own advice sucks. I’d much rather swallow more of that delicious lobster.” She’d barely tasted the lobster—so much chewing involved—but she had forced herself to eat an amount deemed acceptable by Harry.
The Perfect Son Page 26