“I’m sorry. I’m being rude. It’s just—”
She stopped like a red light blinked on my forehead. I finished the sentence for her.
“I look like him?”
My father.
“A little, especially your eyes.”
His wife’s smile was pleasant enough, but we both stood as if unsure what to do next.
“I’m sorry. It’s just you remind me of Will when we first met.” She quickly turned away and began to move down a long hall. “Would you like something to drink?”
I silently dropped my bag near the door. Despite coming here, I wasn’t sure how long I would stay. Just as she turned to see if I was following, I moved in that direction.
A formal sitting room was off to the left. We followed a hall all the way to the back which opened to a what had to be called a chef’s dream kitchen. A large family room was just beyond that.
“What would you like?” she asked, standing near a double-sized refrigerator.
I wanted a drink, but a glass wouldn’t do. A bottle would be on order.
With kind, motherly eyes appraising me, I answered, “Water, please.”
“Still or sparkling?”
I might have frowned. “Either.”
Water was water, right?
She handed me an Evian almost too frosty to touch. I twisted off the cap and drank deep. I had a feeling I was going to need it.
“Will’s not here,” she began. “I asked him to give us some time alone.”
“Why?” I hadn’t thought the word, just said it.
As we both stood there trying to figure each other out, I watched as she put more distance between us. I’d towered over her.
“I’ve wondered about you for so long.”
I held my breath. It seemed all my preconceived notions about everything was wrong. I assumed she’d only found out about me recently.
“If your curiosity is satisfied, I can leave now.”
Her faded smile made me feel like an ass for how rude that sounded.
“That’s not why I called,” she said.
The call had come almost immediately after I left Susanna. It was as if she had a tracking device on me.
“Why did you?”
She looked down at her clasped hands as I fisted my own at my sides.
“Will told me you put the house he’d gotten you up for sale. I worried you didn’t have a place to spend the holidays.”
Her kindness shouldn’t bother me, but it did. Where was she all the years I lived like a prisoner under Mother’s thumb?
“Why do you care?”
I held her gaze until she adverted her eyes.
“That’s fair. I deserve that.” She stood up and her abrupt movement had me straightening my spine. “None of this is your fault, of course. But you must understand my position. You were the evidence of my husband’s infidelity. As much as you were innocent, meeting you would have destroyed the fragile relationship I was working to repair with Will.”
It wasn’t that I couldn’t see her point, but that didn’t explain her summons despite her let’s play family for the holidays reason.
“Why now?”
I shoved my hands with stiff arms into my pockets, certain of what she was going to say.
“I know, and I feel terrible that somehow I played a part in what—”
“In nothing. You weren’t there.”
My body tensed. I was ready to bolt. I didn’t come there to be reminded of why my life was fucked up.
“No, but if I hadn’t been selfish, you could have lived here with us.”
My laugh was such a shock to us both, she jumped.
“You have no reason to feel guilty for any of it. I asked him to take me away and he didn’t, enough said.”
Her silence to my revelation was only fleeting.
“You need to see something.”
She left her perch at the end of the counter and beckoned me to follow after her like a chastised puppy. I found myself two steps behind her as we ascended the winding staircase.
At the T-junction landing, we headed straight down a wide hall. About halfway to the end, she stopped to open a door on the right. She stood just outside and held a hand toward the entrance for me.
I turned and nearly sucked in air. The room was large, of course, and the painted blue walls with decorative waves stenciled in matched the clouds of the sky on the ceiling. The centerpiece of the room was a very expensive replica of a wooden boat that held a twin-sized bed. It was probably every little boy’s dream, and if I could remember an unjaded moment of my childhood, maybe it might have been mine.
“He never had any intention of leaving you there,” she said, breaking the silence.
Her words held no meaning as I focused on the built-in at the end of the room. The custom shelves and desk filled a wall in grand fashion to equalize the anchoring bed.
Though it wasn’t the shelves that had captivated me. It was the framed photos spaced out like artwork that held my attention. I hadn’t realized I’d moved in that direction until one such frame was in my hand.
There hadn’t been a lot of pictures of me about the house I’d grown up in. The few only materialized when Father was expected for a planned visit. Then they would disappear behind closed cabinets not to be seen again until he returned.
I didn’t recognize the boy in every picture. The one smiling or playing baseball or whatever sport for the season. The only reason I knew all of them were me was because of the birthmark that had started out like a freckle and eventually changed into a mole. On an annual visit to the doctor, no doubt required by my father, Mother had asked about the damn thing. He’d explained that moles were common even in babies, but had a tendency to evolve over time. Since I only had the one, he didn’t think it was necessary to test for skin cancer.
She spoke, reminding me of her presence into the past I’d sunk into.
“He came home after that visit and told me he planned to bring you here. I balked, of course, and made threats of leaving him if he did. He wouldn’t back down until I reminded him that he’d barely been on the Hill long enough to make a name for himself. When was he going to have the time to raise a son? I threw it in his face that he’d end up leaving me and a nanny to take care of you.”
Slowly, I set the frame down, feeling as though it might break in my hands if I held it any longer. I didn’t turn around, though anger vibrated through me.
“He still didn’t give up. He had this room designed and papers drawn up with our lawyers,” she said.
“He didn’t come.” I folded my arms protectively across my chest as if I could hold in all the hurt when he left me with that woman.
“It wasn’t like he could just take you. Legally you weren’t his. There were channels.”
Her voice shook. No matter her tears, I had a lifetime of unshed ones. I wasn’t buying it. How could he have this waiting and not one time had he brought me here? As far as I knew of my parents’ conversations, he hadn’t asked to take me for a visit.
“What stopped him?”
“Me. I reminded him how awful it would be as a mother to have your child taken away.”
What she was really saying was she’d guilted him because she’d lost the ability to have a child. She used the only card she had left to stop him.
“He finally saw reason. Probably because he knew how much I’d wanted to be a mother all my life. A child is such a precious gift. That’s when he ordered his lawyers to start managing the money he gave her for your care. I didn’t know—”
Her sentenced was choked off.
“I was left in the hands of a monster,” I finished, turning to face her.
She’d covered her mouth with a hand and nodded vigorously. When she released her hold, she added, “How could I know that a mother would be so cruel?”
The laugh I spat out was clipped and sounded villainous.
“Cruel isn’t exactly the word. That suggests that occasionally she was o
ther than that. When she wasn’t.”
“I’m so sorry, Ashton.”
“What are you sorry for? You didn’t make her sell me off when I was no longer an easy payout.” Her sob was cut off by her hand again slapping over her mouth. “I guess sold is the wrong word. I was rented out.”
“Ashton,” she cried out as I moved for the door.
The trip down memory lane was about to end in disaster. I’d say something I couldn’t take back, or break every piece of furniture in the sham of a room. Its purpose was so he could pretend he was a father, when he hadn’t been one at all.
“I have to go,” I announced, making my way into the hall.
The brusqueness of my tone was just the undercurrent of rage I felt.
“Ashton.”
That time the voice wasn’t soft and feminine. I glanced up to see my father leaning one shoulder on the wall. How long had he been standing there?
“I’m leaving,” I said.
He pushed off and stood to block my path. I should have gone around him. The hall was large enough. But I wasn’t as unaffected as I acted. Between Susanna’s story, his wife, and that shrine of a room, every notion I had about my father was shattered.
His hand landed on my shoulder. I blamed the fact that his skin had touched a barrier for why jolting pain didn’t light up my neural pathways. Though when I stiffened, his hand fell away.
“It’s getting late. Stay. Not in there, of course. Take your pick of rooms. I’m sure you have jetlag from your overseas flight.”
It was like I’d taken an uppercut to the jaw. I took a stumbling step back. He shouldn’t have known where I was.
“You sent me to Prague? Was this your plan to somehow get me here?”
I felt betrayed yet again. When his wife had called, I hadn’t told her where I was coming from and hadn’t used a private plane. Only his brows were as furrowed as mine were in confusion.
“I did.” I turned around and faced the woman behind the man as she said, “I set it up.”
“The Vanderbilt Club?” I asked.
She shrugged as I clenched my hands, trying to put all the pieces together. How much did my father know?
“My father had been a member. Will is. I know what goes on. And I needed you to know all that I do. The truth,” she said.
What was the truth? If anything, I was more in the dark than I had been before.
“It isn’t easy to find out your husband cheated, especially when you’d been fighting for your life. I hired someone to look into her and watch him to see if he would see her or anyone else again.”
“Stephanie.”
Dad sounded like he’d be strangled.
“Will, I had to know. Your word wasn’t good enough.” Her focus moved from over my shoulder to back to me. “The detective found Susanna. For money well spent, I met with her and she told me all she knew about Victoria. Will made no other missteps after that and I eventually forgave him. When he told me you wanted nothing to do with him, I found a way to put that information in your hands to find. He’s as innocent as you or me to a point. She seduced him with words of friendship and pretended to be a confidant. She worked on him as I pushed him away. I was selfish in my pity for not feeling like a woman. I opened the doors for her to use alcohol and loneliness against him. So you see, it’s my fault really. If you want to be mad at anyone, let it be me.”
Nothing in the world was black or white. From everything I’d learned up until this point, we all had shades of victims and villains in our past. Wasn’t I a villain for sending my mother in the cold? Shouldn’t I have been the better person? I’d also never given my father a chance. He had a story too and it wasn’t so clear-cut as I’d thought.
“None of us are right or wrong,” I said, deflated from the heat of anger.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” my dad said.
Dad. The word had slipped so easily in my mind. It wasn’t like I was going to hug him or even call him by that name. But it had felt like the broken part in me over our non-relationship had unlocked. That maybe I could give him a chance.
I met his eyes, prepared to still walk away.
“Stay… please,” he begged.
The longing in his voiced felt genuine.
“Stephanie’s made dinner.”
“She cooked?”
Not sure why that popped out of my mouth. It was surprising. Mother and Sawyer’s mom hadn’t exactly been in the kitchen unless it was to eat.
He laughed, breaking some of the tension. “Yes, she cooks, all the time in fact. We can eat turkey dinner and talk.” He held up a hand when I felt my spine straighten. “Not about the past, unless you want to. I’d really like to hear about your future.”
Any lightness I’d started to feel, fled.
“I’m not interested in politics or heading a Fortune 500 company,” I admitted.
I waited for him to frown, but it didn’t materialize.
“That’s good. I wouldn’t recommend either.” He chuckled some and added more when I only stared at him. “I just want you to be happy no matter what it is. Go backpacking around the world if you like. I just want to get to know you.”
It wasn’t as though the hell I’d been living in disappeared, but it wasn’t quite as hot. I followed them down the stairs, trying to figure out how drastically my life was changing. I fingered the edges of my phone. I hadn’t heard back from Willow. I’d replied to her text, but I wasn’t good at words. She hadn’t responded, which led me to believe that she’d accidently texted me or once again I’d said the wrong thing.
37
Willow
* * *
How stupid had I been to text him?
Mother had an older phone. We’d switched out the sim card, and the first thing I’d done was send him turkey emojis.
It had been a little past midnight, marking it officially as Thanksgiving Day when I’d done it. I blamed the wine we’d had with dinner. Mom kept pouring to smooth the tension between Dan and Celeste, and I’d gotten a little more than tipsy. So much so I was pretty sure I’d accidently dumped said phone into the trash when I’d been helping clean the kitchen. Or that was one theory. I’d lost the replacement and hadn’t found it in my room or Celeste’s.
Dan’s foul mood hadn’t changed all weekend, so there was no way I was going to bring it up that I’d destroyed or lost yet another phone.
“What is it with you and phones?”
I glanced up at Celeste who was pacing. She’d been fidgety and wanted back on campus. Now that we were there, she stared at her phone, willing her unborn child’s father to return her message.
“Maybe you should send him an S.O.S. or a message in a bottle,” I teased.
“Funny,” she said, but her expression was far from humorous.
“Mom says scowling can create premature winkles.”
Her eyes only hardened on me. I held my surrendering hands up. “Okay, I’m just trying to lighten things.”
“Maybe you should call your boyfriend.”
Boyfriend? I had no boyfriend. Derek and I had only been out a few times over the last few weeks. I hadn’t even let him kiss me yet.
She laughed before I could correct her, only it wasn’t from amusement. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have a phone.”
She went back to glaring at hers, probably willing it to ring with the other ninety-five percent of her brain.
Just as I opened my mouth to explain things, the doorbell rang. We both jumped out of our skin, having been living in silence except for our brief conversation. She moved before I could. She did a damn good impression of the Flash as she headed for the door.
It was like déjà vu. The door opened to a bouquet hiding the man who held it. For a second, I thought Kent had returned. But I hadn’t spoken to him in forever, happy to leave that relationship in the past.
The flowers shifted and there stood Derek. Celeste deflated while I waited for my heart to skip a beat.
It didn’t. N
o flutter in my belly either no matter how much I willed it to come.
“Willow, your boyfriend is here.”
Her proclamation was unnecessary, and I flushed. He was less than a dozen feet away from where I was on the couch. When he gave me a beaming smile, I decided not to correct her and potential embarrass him. I got to my feet and met Derek halfway.
“They’re beautiful,” I said.
The colorful tulips were a relief. For some reason, roses would have felt more serious when I had to confront the fact that this relationship really wasn’t going anywhere despite the title. In fact, Derek and I hadn’t discussed the subject at all.
“You’re beautiful.”
He leaned in and instinctually I turned my head, letting his kiss land there.
“None of that here,” Celeste said, dismissing us.
Damn, if I couldn’t have kissed her for that, even though she was so engrossed in her phone, I was surprised she’d seen the move.
“I tried to call you—” he began.
His nerdy but superhero in the making looks weren’t enough to make my heart go pitter-patter.
“Yeah, I lost my phone,” I said hastily.
“She does that a lot.”
Celeste had spoken as if she was an active participant in our budding conversation, when in fact she was only half here.
“Oh,” Derek said. “I was hoping maybe you’d like to hang out. There is a thing.”
“What thing?” Celeste asked. “And can I come?”
That surprised me. I didn’t think she wanted to go anywhere until she’d spoken to the guy.
“Actually, it’s just a bunch of couples,” he replied.
“Oh,” she said, never looking up from her phone. “Well, go then. Leave me be.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt. Then again, it was better than him going into my room. We would have to confront the state of our non-relationship when I had yet to decide what to do. Give it more time maybe? I’d been telling myself that for weeks.
When I followed him outside, I was surprised to see the sleek vehicle at the curb. It didn’t seem like Derek. I wasn’t a car lover and didn’t know the make by the side view. When he opened the door for me, I slipped into soft leather seats and spotted the Jaguar symbol on the wheel. As he went around to enter the driver’s side, I glanced up to our apartment window and spotted my sister.
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