Family Album

by Danielle Steel

  “Oh my God …” Something terrible had happened to him … maybe Ward had gotten hurt and they had called Lionel. She felt panic rise in her throat. “Calm down. Now come on … tell me what happened …”

  “Dad came … by…” There were great terrible gulping sobs locked in his chest and they were begging to come out. “He … I …” And then suddenly she knew.

  “Did he find you and John?” She imagined the worst, that he had found them in bed and she felt faint at the thought. She herself wouldn't have enjoyed that scene no matter how tolerant she was of her son. And Lionel was beyond being able to reassure her as to what his father had seen.

  He could only force out a single word before collapsing totally on the phone. “Yes …” It was moments before he could speak again. “He said he never wanted to see me again … that I wasn't his son …”

  “Oh my God … darling, calm down. You know none of that is true, and he'll come to his senses eventually.” She talked to him for over an hour, their guests having gone home after several cocktails some time before. She offered to go over and talk to them, but he wanted to be alone with John, and she was just as glad. She wanted to be home when Ward returned.

  When he did, she was horrified by the condition he was in. He had stopped at several bars after the first one, and he was drunk and staggering, but he still remembered having seen Lionel and John and what he now knew of them and he looked at Faye with hatred and despair. He had turned on her too.

  “You knew, didn't you?”

  She didn't want to lie to him, but she didn't want him to feel there had been a conspiracy to keep it from him for years. “I suspected about John.”

  “Fuck that little sonofabitch …” He reeled toward her and she saw that there was blood on his shirt. He had fallen and cut his hand on the way out of the last bar, but he wouldn't let her come to him. “I mean you knew about our son … or should I call him our daughter now?” He reeked of booze and she fell back as he approached and grabbed her arm. “That's what he is, did you know that? Did you know?”

  “Ward, he's still our child, no matter what he does. He's a decent human being and a good boy … it's not his fault if that's the way he is.”

  “Whose fault is it then? Mine?” That's what he was really worried about. Why had Lionel turned out that way? He had tortured himself over it from one bar to the next, and he didn't like any of the answers that came to mind … he had let Faye have too much of a hand with him … he hadn't spent enough time with him himself … he had frightened him … he hadn't loved him enough … he had always favored Greg … the reproaches were legion, but they all amounted to the same thing. His son was queer. Where had he learned? How had it happened? How could it happen to him? It was a personal affront to his own manhood … his son was a fag … the words burned through him like fire, and he looked into Faye's eyes with tears in his own eyes again.

  “Stop blaming yourself, Ward.” She slipped her arms around him and led him to their bed, where they sat side by side, as he leaned heavily against her.

  “It's not my fault.” It was the whine of a frightened child, and she felt sorry for him. She had asked herself the same questions too the year before, but maybe it was harder for him. She had always known it would be. He wasn't as strong as she was, as sure of herself, or what she had given their kids.

  “It's not anyone's fault, not yours, not mine, or his, or even John's. It's just the way he is. We owe it to him to accept that.” But as she said it, he pushed her away from him and stood up unsteadily, grabbing her arm until she winced.

  “I will never accept it. Never! Do you understand? That's what I told him. He's not my son anymore.”

  “Oh yes, he is!” Now she was furious too and she wrenched her arm away from him. “He is our son, whether he is crippled or maimed or impaired, or deaf or dumb, or mentally ill, or a murderer, or whatever he is … and thank God, all he is is a homosexual for chrissake. He is my son until my dying day or his, and he is your son until then too, whether you like it or not, or whether you approve of him or not,” she was crying now too, and Ward was shocked at her words and the vehemence with which she spoke to him. “You can't banish him from your life or mine. He is not going anywhere. He is our son, and you'd damn well better accept him as he is, or you can go to hell, Ward Thayer. I'm not going to let you put that boy through any more misery than he's already been through. It's hard enough on him as it is.”

  Ward's eyes blazed into hers. “That's why he's the way he is. Because you've protected him all his life. You make excuses for him, you let him hide in your skirts.” He sat down in a chair and began to cry again, as he looked up at her. “And now he's wearing your skirts, damn you. We're lucky he isn't walking around in a dress for chrissakes.” The way he spoke of their son tore at her heart so terribly that she reached out and slapped him hard across the face, and he didn't move from where he sat. He just looked at her with eyes so cold and hard that they frightened her. “I never want to see him in this house again. And if he comes here, I will throw him out myself. I told him, and I'm telling you, and I will tell everyone else, and if any of you disagree, you're welcome to leave too.

  Lionel Thayer no longer exists. Is that clear?” She was speechless with rage, and she would have liked to kill him with her bare hands. For the first time in her life, even with all that had happened to them before now, for the first time she was sorry that she had married him and she told him so, before slamming out of the room.

  She slept in Lionel's room that night, and the next morning at breakfast, Ward broke her heart again. He looked as though he had aged ten years overnight, and she remembered now what she had said to Lionel before. She had been afraid then that the truth would kill Ward, and it looked now as though it might, but by the time she was finished, she wished it would. He drank a cup of coffee in silence, stared at the paper without picking it up, and then spoke up in a numbed, flat voice to all of them. Oddly enough, it was one of the few times that they had all had breakfast together in months. But Greg was home for another day before going back for his big game, the twins were both up, which was miraculous, and Anne had come downstairs only moments after them, and they all sat there now staring at Ward, as he told them that, in his eyes, Lionel would no longer exist from that day forth, that he was a homosexual and having an affair with John Wells. The girls sat and stared at him in open horror and Vanessa began to cry, but Greg looked as though he might throw up. He jumped to his feet, shouting at his Dad as Faye gripped her chair.

  “That's a lie!” He said it more in defense of his old friend than his brother, who was, in some ways, a stranger to him. “That's not true.” His father looked as though he might hit him and pointed at his chair.

  “Sit down and shut up. It is true. I walked in on them yesterday.” Anne's face turned to ash, and Faye felt as though her entire family, her whole life, were being destroyed. And she hated Ward for it, for what he was doing to all of them, and most of all their firstborn. “Lionel is no longer welcome in this house. As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't exist. Is that clear? You are all forbidden to see him again and if I find out you have, you're welcome to leave too. I will not support him, or see him, or speak to him ever again. Does everyone understand?” They all nodded woodenly, and all eyes were damp, and a moment later he was gone. He got in his car, and drove to Bob and Mary Wells, as Faye sat at the breakfast table staring at them all, and they stared back at her. Greg was fighting back tears, and he kept thinking of what his friends would say when they found out. It was the worst thing he could think of, and he wanted to die. Most of all he wanted to kill John Wells, the phony little shit … he should have known when he wouldn't take the scholarship to Georgia Tech … fucking fruit … he clenched his fists and looked at them all helplessly as Vanessa searched Faye's eyes.

  “Is that how you feel, Mom?” Vanessa asked. There was no point asking if it was true, no matter how unbelievable it was. Their father had said he had walked in on them, and none
of them could imagine anything worse. It sounded mysterious and frightening and terrible, and they all imagined obscene acts going on before his eyes, instead of two boys in front of a fire, with one's head in the other's lap. But it had all been very clear, and there was no argument now.

  Faye looked at them all and then Vanessa again. She spoke in a measured, quiet voice, and she thought she had never known such pain. He had destroyed everything she had built for almost twenty years. What would happen to these children now? What would they think of Lionel? Themselves? Their father for banishing their oldest brother from their lives, their mother for letting him do it? … She had to speak up. To hell with Ward. “No. That is not how I feel. I love Lionel, just as I always have, and if that is how he feels, and what he is, and he is a decent upstanding man, no matter what his sexual preferences are,” it was time to be honest with them, “I will always stand by him. And I want you all to know that right now. Whatever you do, wherever you go, whatever mistakes you make, and whatever you become, whether it be good or bad, or something I approve of or not, I will always be your mother and your friend. You can always come to me. I will always have a place in my heart and my life and my home for you.” She went then and kissed each of them as they cried, all four of them, for the brother they had just lost at their father's hands, for the disappointment they felt, the shock of the secret revealed. It was all a little beyond their ken, but their mother's message was clear.

  “Do you think Daddy will change his mind?” Val's voice was subdued, and no one had noticed Anne slip away a moment before.

  “I don't know. I'll talk to him. And I suppose in time, he'll come to his senses, but he just can't understand it right now.”

  “Well, neither can I.” Greg slammed a fist into the table and stood up. “I think it's the most disgusting thing I ever heard.”

  “How you feel about it, Greg, is up to you. I don't give a damn what they did. As long as they don't hurt anyone, as long as that's the way they are, I accept them as they are.” She looked her son in the eye and saw the distance between them now. He was too much like Ward. His mind was closed, and now so was his heart. He ran upstairs and slammed the door, and once he had left, Faye noticed that Anne was gone. She knew what a blow it would be to her, and she resolved to go upstairs and talk to her, but when she did, the child's door was locked and she wouldn't answer her. The twins went to their rooms too, and the entire family acted as though someone had died. Faye called Lionel a little while later, and he and John knew by then that Ward had gone to the Wells.

  They were all hysterical and Bob and Mary Wells had called. There had been rivers of tears, and after the phone call, John had gone to the bathroom and thrown up. But for all the shouting and screaming and reproaches they made of both boys, they wanted John to know that he was still their son, that they did not share Ward Thayer's view, that they still loved him, and they accepted Lionel as well. It brought tears to Faye's eyes when she heard, and she was secretly pleased when Lionel told her that Bob Wells had thrown Ward out of their house.

  And Faye went to see both boys that afternoon. She wanted Lionel to know again how strongly she supported him, and mother and son stood holding each other for a long time, and then she turned and hugged John. It wasn't easy to accept, and it wouldn't have been her choice for him, but it was what he was. And she also wanted him to know that he would always be welcome in their home, that he was still part of the family no matter what his father said, and that from now on, she would be supporting both his school career and his living expenses. If his father wanted to cut him off, that was up to him, but Faye would always be there for him. She would take the responsibility on now, and Lionel cried as she told him, and promised to get a job to help support himself. And John did too. His parents had already told him earlier that they would continue to support him as long as he was in school, that nothing was going to change for him.

  But Ward stuck to the same party line, when he returned that night. He had disappeared all day, and Faye could tell from the way he looked when he got home that he had been drinking all day. He reminded everyone at dinner that night that Lionel was no longer welcome in his house, that he was dead as far as he was concerned, and as he said the words, Anne rose and stared at him with hatred in her eyes.

  “Sit down!” It was the first time he had ever spoken harshly to her, and she stood up to him, much to everyone's surprise. It was a time in their family that no one would forget soon.

  “I won't. You make me sick.”

  He walked around the table and grabbed her arm, forcing her into her seat, but she wouldn't touch her food, and then with measured tones she stood up at the end of the meal and glared at him.

  “He's better than you are.”

  “Then get out of my house.”

  “I will!” She threw her napkin into her plate, on which nothing had been touched during the entire meal, and disappeared into her room a moment later. They heard Greg's car roar away moments after that. He was having trouble coping with it all, and Vanessa and Valerie looked at each other with concern. They were both frightened for Anne, and what this would do to her.

  And that night she slipped out of the house, and hitched a ride to Lionel's house. She rang the bell, and knocked on the door, and she could see lights upstairs, but they wouldn't answer her and when she went to the corner and called on the pay phone there, no one answered the phone. They had heard it ring, and they were sitting quietly in the living room. But it had been such a nightmarish twenty-four hours for them that they couldn't take any more. John thought that maybe they should answer the door. But Lionel disagreed.

  “If it's one of the guys coming home early, they've all got the key. It's probably my father drunk again.” They'd been through enough. They both agreed about that. They didn't even look out the window to see who it was. And downstairs she fished a pencil out of her coat pocket, and tore a piece of newspaper off the garbage can, scribbling a note to Lionel. “I love you, Li. I always will, A.” Tears filled her eyes. She had wanted to see him again before she left, but maybe it didn't matter now … she slipped the piece of paper into the mailbox. That was all he needed to know. She didn't want him to think she had turned on him too. He had to know she never would. But she couldn't stand it anymore. It had been unbearable ever since he moved out, and now it would be worse. She would never see him. She had only one choice, and she was surprised at how relieved she felt.

  That night as they all slept, she quietly packed a small duffle bag, and slipped out her bedroom window, as she had done when she had gone to see Li. There were easy footholds all the way down the side of the house. She had used them before, plenty of times. And she slipped quietly down now, wearing sneakers and jeans, her hair in a long blond braid, a warm parka on. She knew it would be cold up there. And she had everything she cared about in the one small bag. She didn't even look back as she left the house. She didn't give a damn about any of them, any more than they did about her. She stealthily crept down the road, and walked all the way into L.A., and there she hitched a ride on the freeway heading north. She was surprised at how easy it was. And she told the first driver that she went to Berkeley and had to get back after the Christmas holiday. He didn't ask her anything else, and drove her all the way to Bakersfield before dropping her off.

  And by then, Faye had found her note. She had left the door unlocked, and the note on her bed.

  “That makes two of us you're rid of now, Dad. Goodbye, Anne.” No word to anyone else. Nothing to Faye. Her heart almost stopped when she found the piece of paper left on Anne's bed, and they called the police immediately. She called Lionel too, and he had found the scrap of newspaper by then. It was the worst time in her life Faye could ever recall, and she wondered if she'd live through it, as she waited for the police to arrive. Ward was sitting, stunned, in a chair in the den, the note still in his hand.

  “She couldn't have gone very far. She's probably at a friend's.”

  But Valerie took care of t
hat hope. “She doesn't have any friends.” It was a sad statement about Anne, but they all knew it was true. Her only friend had been Lionel, and her father had banished him. Faye sat watching him with unspoken rage, as the bell rang. The police had come. She just prayed they would find Anne before something happened to her. There was no telling where she had gone, and she had already been gone for hours.

  CHAPTER 22

  After the first driver who picked her up left her in Bakersfield, it took Anne several hours to catch another ride, but this one took her straight up to Fremont, and she caught another ride easily from there. It took her a total of nineteen hours to get to San Francisco, but on the whole she was surprised at how easy it was, and all of them had been nice to her. They thought she was just another college kid, “a flower child” two of them had teased. None of them would have guessed that she was a few weeks shy of being fourteen years old. And when she reached San Francisco, she walked down Haight Street, feeling as though the streets were paved with gold. There were young people everywhere, in bright, homemade clothes. There were Hare Krishnas in soft orange robes with shaved heads, boys with hair to their waists in jeans, girls with flowers braided into their hair. Everyone looked happy and pleased with life. There were people sharing food on the streets, and someone offered her an acid tab for free, but she smiled shyly and refused.

  “What's your name?” someone asked, and she whispered softly, “Anne.” This was the place she had longed to be for years, free of the strangers she had been related to and hated for so long. She was glad, in a way, that it had come to this. Lionel had John now, and maybe soon she would have someone too. Lionel would know that she loved him no matter what, and as for the others … she didn't care. She hoped she'd never see them again. On the way north, she had thought seriously about changing her name, but once on the streets of the Haight-Ashbury, she realized that no one would care. There were others who looked even younger than she, and no one would suspect she'd come here. She had said nothing to anyone. And a girl named Anne was as anonymous as anyone could be. Her looks were plain, her hair an ordinary blond, unlike Vanessa's pale golden hair, or Val's, which looked like flame. The twins couldn't have gotten away with this, even if they wanted to. But she knew she could. She could fade into any crowd. She had been doing it right at home for years. No one knew when she was there, when she was not, when she arrived, or when she disappeared, and she was so used to everyone asking “Where's Anne?” that she knew that she could easily do the same thing here.