by Nancy Adams
“My gosh” burst softly from my lips. “You can’t do all this just for me.”
He pulled back a little and looked straight into my eyes.
“It’s nothing more than a series of small complications. Once I’m back at college, I’ll buckle down. Maybe we can get an apartment together.”
These last words shone a smile right through me. In all the tumult, the idea hadn’t occurred to me, but when he said it, I fell instantly in love with the notion of living with him. Sure it was too soon. Sure it went against my slow principles of coupling. Sure it was at least ten steps further than I’d ever taken with a man. But it just felt right.
“I think that’d be our only option,” I commented to him. “Then at least there’d be my salary to help while you finish college.”
His whole face lifted, his pearly teeth glittering in his crescent mouth.
“You mean that?” he felt the need to ask.
“Yes.”
“And no more talk of me making a mistake by leaving my father, no more talk of going back, just you and me against them all. You and me, Sarah and Josh, together, living side by side, equal partners? Because I love you, Sarah Dillinger. Love you with all my being, with everything. You’re worth a million times what he has to offer me back in that apartment.”
Once more we embraced.
Afterward, Josh hailed a taxi and called Charlie on my phone, his own no longer, well, his own. Charlie said it would be more than fine for him to stay with them. “Ma loves you,” Charlie had said to him. “She’ll be fine with you staying for however long it takes.”
“You’re a true buddy, Charlie,” Josh had replied. When we reached Charlie’s, Josh got out the car and expected me to follow. But I had something I had to do first.
“You’re not coming with me?” Josh inquired.
“No, I have to go home first. I have to speak to my father.”
“You should do what you feel is necessary” was his answer, and he leaned forward, kissing me on the lips.
He shut the door, and the cab moved off in the direction of home. I looked over my shoulder out the back window. Josh stood on the sidewalk the whole time, watching me leave with just as much compulsion as I watched him stand there. When the cab turned out of the street, I swiveled my neck back around and gazed forlornly out the window as we trundled toward the next step of my fate.
Before I knew it, the cab had stopped, bumping me out of my reverie, and I looked out the window to see my house. The cabby’s voice as he told me the fare was a distant echo, and I paid him automatically, my eyes fixed to the building’s facade while he handed me back my change. I left the car in a daze and walked up the pathway, my legs growing heavier the closer I got to the entrance. Before I reached it, the door burst open and my two sisters scampered out, having seen my return through the window. They both wore happy, excited faces and took me in their arms immediately, leading me inside, talking ceaselessly all the while, completely inundating me with questions.
“How was it?” one said.
“Did you bring us any presents?” went another.
“What was Josh like? Was he romantic?”
“Did he behave himself?”
“What’s a carnival like?”
“Did you swim in the Caribbean sea?”
“Is Havana as cool as they say it is?”
“Did you get drunk?”
Before I could answer any one question, another would smash it out of the way like the metal balls of a Newton’s cradle. I was completely overwhelmed and merely got to the kitchen and took a seat at the table, the two of them surrounding me like intrepid flies.
“Is Daddy here?” I asked weakly.
Lucy’s face darkened slightly and suffused with a look of worried benevolence.
“Are you okay, Sarah?” she asked, Kay’s face also beginning to imitate the same expression. “You’ve been crying.”
“Did Josh do that?” Kay asked sternly.
“No, but I must see Dad,” I put insistently. “Where is he?”
“He’s in his study,” Kay replied. “He’s on a call with Karl, so he couldn’t come out to greet you. He’s still a little mad you didn’t make the first hearing. But that doesn’t matter—who made you cry?”
“No one.”
“No one made you cry?” Kay said incredulously.
“Please, Kay, I need to see Dad.”
“Sarah,” Lucy said softly, crouching in front of me and softly taking my hands, “did Josh do something?”
“I told you, no. Josh is completely innocent. I just have to speak to Dad.”
“Why?” Lucy put back.
I’d had enough of their questions and the completely useless nature of these proceedings. So I got up and pushed through them, marching out of the kitchen and to my father’s study. I didn’t knock; I merely barged inside. He smiled up at me from behind his desk the moment I emerged, the telephone held to his ear.
“I’ll be with you in a second,” he said.
But I didn’t listen. I closed the door behind me and stepped across the room, snatching the phone from his ear and putting it to mine, saying, “He’ll call you back,” and then placing it down.
“That was very important, Sarah,” my father exclaimed.
“In a second it’ll seem trivial,” I put back to him.
His face went pale as he appeared to notice my teary eyes. I believe that he instantly knew what it was. How couldn’t he; he’d been paranoid that everything would eventually come out, and by the look on my face, I was sure he could tell that it had.
“Okay,” he gulped as I took a seat opposite him, my angry, tear-filled eyes not leaving his own guilty countenance for a second.
SARAH
We sat for several seconds that way, he gazing at me with his face pale and me gazing back across with a stern one, like a deer caught in glaring headlights. After a while I assumed that he wasn’t going to speak, his words all dried up, a look bordering on fear gleaming in his eyes. The silence became ridiculous, so I decided that it would be better if I began, lest this go on forever.
“I just had a really interesting conversation over a nonexistent dinner with Andrew Kelly.”
“He found out who you were, then?” my father replied in a weak tone.
“Yes, he did,” I said sharply, my tears beginning to fall from my eyes once more at the recollection of that spiteful man’s words. “Went so far as lifting a fingerprint from the yacht. Recognized my eyes, he said. Suspected he’d seen them somewhere else. And where do you think that was?”
“Your mother” managed to break from his lips.
“Yes. He suspected me the moment he first saw me. Never believed the ruse for a second.”
“I knew he wouldn’t. He always was a sharp son of a bitch.”
“Oh! You cuss?” I let out. “In so many years not one swear word and the mere hint of your past and your cussing.”
“Please, Sarah,” he pleaded. “Get to the point. What did he tell you?”
“Everything. That you had an affair with Josh’s mom for five years. That you had various affairs with many men’s wives in that time, including the daughter of one of your partners at Dillinger-Mitchell. That he and his associates—your former friends—ran you out of town and that’s the truth behind your great change.” I couldn’t help throwing my hands up for some reason here. “Your great change,” I added in a malicious voice, overflowing with the acid of vitriol. “The great change of Roy Dillinger. Watched his beloved pass away and decided to become a model Christian. Was this an act of redemption? Of free will?” His head bowed like a dog’s in front of me. “Or was it more that you had no choice?”
“None of those reasons, and all of them,” he muttered.
“Don’t speak in riddles,” I spat back. “Not when the last fifteen years has been nothing but riddles.”
“I told you what you needed to hear. Not what you deserved, but what you needed.”
“You lied to
me, and you lied to my sisters. You painted yourself as this saint who loved his wife and couldn’t handle her death. A man who got down on his knees, crossed himself, and gave up all his possessions and prestige so that he could serve a higher order. But the truth was that you didn’t give them up; they were taken from you. You were stripped of it all, and you would never have given them up willingly.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Yes. He said you begged them not to.”
“What father wouldn’t try to protect his daughters’ birthright? They took it all from me, everything I worked so hard for. I wanted to keep a part of it for you girls so you had something. I only pleaded with them to at least not punish you for my actions. But they wanted me totally ruined, and my beseeching only spurred them on. So, yes, I admit I pleaded with them.”
“And the affairs—did you do that for your family?”
His head hung once more, and his eyes turned away in guilt.
“I had a problem,” he mumbled in a low tone so that I almost couldn’t hear him. “A real problem. I was a sex addict. Plus, something inside me spurred me on to take those terrible risks. I was a power man, and what better way to flex your muscles than taking another man’s wife or daughter to bed without their knowledge? In the boardrooms and offices we were all power hungry, and what better proof than to fuck another alpha male’s wife on his own marital bed?”
“Oh, Daddy,” I softly cried, shaking my head at him and wiping my tears from my drenched cheeks.
“I was trapped in that world, and yes, at first, I did miss it terribly. But now—now I know what real life is: virtue, compassion, benevolence. Now I know these things, I wouldn’t go back to that hollow place if the Devil himself dragged me.”
“But what about Mommy, huh? Was your behavior in any way responsible for her alcoholism? All these women?”
His head drooped further still, and a black cloud spread across the wilderness of his face.
“It was,” he muttered. “I knew it then. Not consciously, but deep down where I’d hidden the knowledge of it all. And I know now for sure that I killed her.” Here his head raised itself up, and his eyes glinted into mine. “You see, I don’t deny it,” he went on. “I won’t deny it. I pray every day for what I did to her.”
“Did you even love her?”
Here he looked me in the eyes, and tears began to trickle from his own. A strange look took hold of his features then, twisting them up, as though a great debate were going off in him.
“I did love your mother,” he finally admitted. “But in the end, I became so cold that I’m not sure I loved anyone. I forgot about her and about you girls while I was playing stupid games.”
“With other men’s wives,” I added for him.
“Something was very wrong with me then. A worm had grown inside of me, a black worm, boring its way into my brain. When I was young, I had it all straightaway: wealthy folks, privileged friends, and women. They threw themselves at me because I was Roy Dillinger, just like Josh is Josh Kelly. I believed it my right to have whatever I wanted, and when we all became grown-up, married, had children, I was suddenly so very bored. I needed to keep feeling that I could pluck from the tree and eat any fruit I wanted. Your mother had been the first and only woman that I’d ever loved, and she bore me three beautiful girls, but in my world of entitlement and privilege, this was never going to be enough. My thirst for fresh fruit was never quenched. I betrayed her over and over, and she forgave me over and over. In the end, she gave up fighting me on it and merely consented in an apathetic kind of way.”
“Is that why she drank?”
“I believe it is,” he mumbled sadly. “She allowed me my fun, but slowly killed herself while I had it. That was her revenge, you could say, her way of scorning me in the only way she thought she could, by destroying the one thing I truly loved: her.”
“Did you really love her?” I had to ask once more.
“Of course,” he said solemnly, gazing directly into my eyes. “I never stopped loving your mother. Buried it, perhaps, when I was with other women. But the moment I was back in that house, I only had eyes for her and my girls. And that’s all I have eyes for now: you and your sisters. In the past fifteen years, I haven’t been with one woman. Not one. Believe me, Sarah, believe me when I tell you that I did go through a change. I’m sorry I could never tell you the whole truth, that I was more of a scoundrel than I made out. But what good would it have done, huh? Why spoil things even more. My change happened and however it did doesn’t matter. It is not the path we take that is important, but the destination. The change happened. Yes, it was foisted on me. Yes, I was stripped of all my prestige and my privilege. But it was only then that I realized that I didn’t need it, that I was better off without it. Did Andrew tell you about the night your mother told everyone?”
“Yes.”
“You see, I hated her for it then, but she did it for a reason. She used to beg me to come clean to everyone, to stop lying, to stop playing games behind people’s backs, to stop all the contempt. She said it would be better to be stripped and thrown to the wolves than to walk around an iniquitous fraud. And she was right. It is better now.”
“You miss none of it?”
“Of course I do—the luxury, the traveling abroad, the fine dining, the respect shown to you. I miss those things, of course. But I wasn’t a good person within that world. I was petulant. And there is nothing more cruel than a spoiled child—and I was a spoiled child, Sarah. It did me good to get away from it. I’m ten times the man I was back then, and I pray every single day that your mother is sitting on some star watching it all. I hope she can see the man I am now and know that she was right. I wish I could have made the change without her death, shared in it with her. You girls have missed so much without her, and so have I…”
My father broke down into tears and buried his face in his arms. I watched him for a while, and all my anger toward him gradually evaporated. I got up from the chair, walked over, and placed my hand across his back, rubbing it gently.
“I forgive you,” I said to him. “I forgive you, and so would Mom.”
He looked up at me from his arms, his face so pitiful in that second that I almost burst back into terrible weeping.
“Are you going to tell your sisters?” he asked.
“No,” I stated firmly.
“What about Josh? Are you and he still together, or did Andrew run you out of his house for good?”
“Both.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, we’re still together, and Andrew did run me out of his house. He gave Josh a choice: me or him.”
“And he chose you, I assume?”
“He did.”
“Not much competition really between you and Andrew.”
He allowed himself a small smile, and I too smiled gently at him, my hand still rubbing his back. I truly loved my dad and really did forgive him his terrible ills and deceit. He was right—he had changed. Perhaps not exactly in the way he’d led myself and my sisters to believe, but he’d still changed nonetheless. So what if it had been forced upon him. I still believed him when he said he was ten times the man he was back then. Plus, I had the last fifteen years to remind me of what a truly exceptional and caring father he had been. Was that not enough proof of his change? It was very much like he said: the path was different, but the destination had remained the same.
“Daddy, I love you,” I said softly. “But I want you to tell both Kay and Lucy the truth.”
His eyes widened slightly to this, but they quickly settled as it sunk in that this was always going to be so.
“I know that you’ve been afraid,” I continued, “and that, given the choice, you would have chosen to keep this away from us all our lives, and that this was why you resented my dating Josh, but if you are to ever truly find redemption, you must end these final lies and confess to your daughters. I won’t say anything myself, but you must. Before a month is over, tell
them.”
“Okay,” he muttered. “I will.”
“Good. Then my father is exactly who I thought he was.”
We sat in silence for some time as we both gathered ourselves, wiping our tearstained faces. Our emotions having abated, I kissed him on the forehead and called a cab, feeling a little better than I had on the ride over.
Upon leaving the study, my sisters were again full of questions. I merely waved them away and explained that things would become clear soon and that it wasn’t for me to say. Lucy had gone quiet at this, and I felt that she had guessed something, not the whole picture, but that it was something to do with Dad’s past. She always was the more intuitive of us. Kay continued to probe me, but Lucy pulled her away and I was allowed to wait for my taxi in peace.
When it arrived, my father appeared from the study and hugged me goodbye. And do you know what? Despite Andrew Kelly’s scorn, I still loved my dad with all my heart. Instead of driving a wedge between my father and I, he had actually strengthened us. Because in that moment, during that warm hug, I felt closer to my father than I ever had. So much for the truth hurting people. Because no matter how hurtful, the truth is always just that: the truth. It should never be shied away from. The greatest sin is cowardice, because all other sins essentially come from it. Lies are the coward’s coin. Don’t be a coward.
SARAH
The night of turmoil, as I’ve come to know it, ended with me returning to Josh at Charlie’s. There, we sat up until the late hours discussing our immediate future. It was decided that the very next day we would began looking for somewhere to live.
Over the next week, we found ourselves a little nest. The place was nothing special, cheap and affordable, but also dank and in dire need of work. Our budget was very modest, as we’d come to the decision that for the foreseeable future, I would be the only wage earner in the house, Josh too busy with college to be able to offer any real support. So the rent would have to be easily covered by my single salary. He’d offered himself up to getting work, but I had quelled this urge in Josh by reminding him that his studies were far more important than our present economic concerns. No. Affordable accommodation was what we needed.