“I’m sure he did,” she said. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“Our father wants us to be this big happy family but I don’t see how that can be, since Michael hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“He and my wife Rebecca used to date. Did you know that?”
Deborah shook her head. Michael had gone through a lot of women before he married Josette. He didn’t bring many of them home to meet the family.
“Well, they did. Michael sent us a wedding gift and followed that up with anniversary gifts each year. He was taunting me, even before I knew he was my brother. I’d say he hates me.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what gets into Michael.”
Isaac tossed his pencil on the table and slouched down in his chair. “I don’t blame you or him for what happened between your mother and my dad, so why does Michael blame me?”
“Think about it, Isaac,” she said. “Put yourself in Michael’s shoes. It’s easy for you to be magnanimous. You grew up with a father and all of this. We had neither.”
He seemed to consider what she said. “Do you hate me, too?”
She gave his question similar consideration. “I don’t hate you,” she said, “but I hate what you represent.”
“And what’s that?”
“Someone my father chose to love when he didn’t choose to love me.”
“Oh, my God.” Isaac wiped his hand down his face. “I never looked at it that way.”
“Why should you? You’ve always had Abraham. You probably took—take—his love for granted. You have a sense of entitlement that’s been inbred in you, and nobody blames you for it. You’re entitled because you’re a son. It’s different with us. I’m a daughter, but I was never entitled. Just the opposite, in fact. Same with Michael. You’re on the inside and we’re on the outside.”
He picked up his pencil and twirled it between his fingers. “Did you take the job here at MEEG because you felt you were entitled to it as his daughter?”
“That was part of it. Abraham presented it to me as my birthright and I agreed with him. Does that make you feel threatened?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. My mom feels that way—that you’re taking something from us.”
“She’s right. What was originally to be given to one child is now being shared with three. You’re getting two-thirds less than what you would have received had we never showed up. That has to make you feel something.”
Isaac closed his eyes, opened them quickly. “Right now, I can’t go there. I’m still dealing with the fact that my half brother has ruined a relationship that I thought would last a lifetime. I probably hate Michael as much as he hates me. Maybe more.”
“He’s my brother, Isaac, so I have to stand with him.”
“I’m your brother, too,” he said, “your half brother.”
The words were a jolt to her system. He was her brother. “To be honest, it’s not real for me. I don’t even know you.”
“You don’t really know Abraham but you’ve accepted him as your father. Or, you’ve accepted his largesse.”
Deborah tried not to be insulted by Isaac’s words but she found it difficult. “To answer the question that you haven’t asked, I don’t love Abraham like a father but I wish I did. It’s going to be a long road for both of us. There’s a lot of mistrust and hurt between us, mostly on my side.”
“So do you think Abraham’s plan will work?”
She shrugged. “I want it to. It’s in my best interests that it does. What about you?”
“Honestly?”
She nodded.
“My life would be a lot less complicated if Michael were not in it.”
“Well, that leaves us at a stalemate because I’m not going anywhere and neither is Michael. If I have anything to say about it, he’ll be given a position here at MEEG in the same way that you and I were given one.”
Isaac nodded. “I guess we’d better get back to the stated purpose of this meeting. What do you have to tell me about Running Brook?”
Deborah handed Isaac the folder of materials she had prepared for him. She outlined the projects she wanted to keep and why, as well as the ones she wanted to discontinue. He listened intently and asked pertinent questions. When she left, she was more determined than ever to see that Michael’s interests were protected. She also had a greater respect for her half brother.
Chapter Forty
Dressed in a pair of his favorite navy silk pajamas and robe that Saralyn had brought him from home, Abraham sat in the recliner in his hospital room and perused a stack of about twenty national newspapers while CNN blared from the television. He put the hometown paper, the Atlanta Journal, in the trash pile and reached for the Wall Street Journal.
Hearing a knock on his door, he looked up. “Come in,” he said, pulling off his reading glasses and putting them in the breast pocket of his robe.
“Good morning,” Deborah said when she entered the room, followed by her mother. “I hope we’re not disturbing you.”
Abraham shook his head. “Not at all. I’m glad you came by.” As usual, his daughter mesmerized him. He felt his mother’s spirit strongest when she was around. He got up from his chair. “Leah, you can take this chair and I’ll sit on the bed,” he said. He pointed to a chair in the far corner of the room. “Pull that one closer, Deborah, so we can all talk together.”
“How are you feeling this morning?” Deborah asked after she’d pulled the chair over and sat in it.
“If the doctors are to be believed, I’m doing great. They’re kicking me out of here later today or first thing in the morning.”
“That’s good,” Deborah said. “I bet you’re ready to get back to MEEG.”
Abraham had been thinking about that, and he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. If he needed to bow out for a while to ensure that Isaac stayed at MEEG, he was willing to do it. “Is the place falling apart without me?”
Deborah shook her head. “Not at all,” she said. “That’s not what I meant.”
Abraham chuckled. “I was teasing you,” he said. “How are things with Running Brook? I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you settle in.”
“That’s all right. Alan stepped in and showed me the ropes. He’s been a lot of help during my adjustment. So has Isaac.”
Abraham smiled. “I like hearing that. How are you and Isaac getting along?”
“So far, so good,” she said. “He seems fair. That’s all I can ask.”
“He’s a good boy,” he said.
Leah grunted, her first contribution to the conversation. “He’s a man, Abraham, for goodness sake.”
Abraham didn’t know how to respond to her snappish remark. Apparently, neither did Deborah because she just stared at her mother.
“Sorry,” Leah said. “It’s early and I didn’t have my coffee.”
Deborah’s widened eyes told him Leah was lying. It was unclear why.
“No problem,” Abraham said, wanting to smooth over the situation. “Besides, you’re right, but I still think of him as my boy. I guess I’ll always think of him that way.”
Leah gave him a too-sweet-to-be-real smile. “I know what you mean. That’s how I think of Deborah and Michael. No matter how old they get they’ll always be my kids.”
Abraham felt her words as if they were a strong blow to his chin. In her sweetness, she had reminded him that he hadn’t been there for Deborah and Michael in the way he had for Isaac. He glanced at Deborah. “I’m sorry if I put that badly.”
“It’s fine,” she said, but her voice was tight and her smile was gone.
He was a smart man. How could he make such a dumb, insensitive comment? “How is Michael?” he asked.
Deborah leaned forward in her chair, all business. The loving daughter who’d entered his room a few minutes earlier was gone. “We wanted to talk to you about him.”
“Is something wrong?”
Deborah nodded.
Deborah sat back a bit. “That’s what you say,” she said, “but your actions show differently.”
Abraham’s defenses shot up. He felt as though he was being attacked, and he didn’t like it. He glanced at Leah for support, but her face was blank. He turned back to Deborah. “What do you mean?”
“I head up Running Brook Productions at MEEG, and Isaac is acting MEEG CEO and president. We both have seats on MEEG’s board. What does Michael have?”
“He has a seat on the board,” he reminded her. “I explained to you that Leah was holding it for him.”
“I know what you said, Abraham, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense and it’s not fair to Michael. How do you think the setup makes him feel? Certainly not like a son.”
He turned to Leah. “I thought we both agreed that Michael couldn’t be trusted to make decisions at MEEG because he was too angry with me.”
“We did,” she said, “but Deborah has a point. You—we—made the decision thinking first about what was best for MEEG. We should have been thinking about what was best for Michael. As his mother, I know that’s what I should have been thinking.”
Abraham shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what you want me to do.”
“All you have to do is honor your word. Deborah and I have decided that Michael is ready for his seat on the board. We’ve told Alan. Were you still incapacitated, it would be a done deal. But, as it is, we know you can override us. We’re here to ask you not to do that.”
Abraham stood and began to pace the room. “I don’t know,” he said, thinking of all the hard work and love he’d put into MEEG. He wasn’t ready to open her up to someone who didn’t have her best interests at heart. “I don’t trust Michael. The things he’s done, including fighting with Isaac at the board meeting, that’s not the attitude I want at MEEG.”
“You’re being too hard on Michael,” Deborah said. “You say you don’t trust him. Have you considered that he doesn’t trust you? You don’t have the best track record where we’re concerned.”
Abraham heard the anger and pain in her voice, and his heart ached. This woman was his child, flesh of his flesh. So was Michael. “You’re right, but this is business.”
Deborah shook her head. “When you asked me to come to MEEG, you told me you were giving me my birthright. Well, where is Michael’s birthright? He’s still a little boy looking through the department store window at his father buying toys for another kid. How do you think that makes him feel?”
Abraham went back to bed and sat down. He felt tired, very tired. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“And—”
“That’s enough, Deborah,” Leah said, causing Abraham to shoot her a thank-you glance. She turned to Deborah. “Why don’t you give me a few minutes alone with Abraham?”
“But—”
Leah shook her head. “It’s fine. Go ahead.”
Abraham watched the daughter he didn’t really know leave his hospital room. “I didn’t realize she was still so angry,” he said to Leah.
“Then you’re a bigger fool than I am.”
He flashed angry eyes at her. It was one thing to take a verbal beating from his daughter. He was not about to take one from Leah. “Make your point,” he said, kicking off his shoes and stretching out on the bed.
She came and stood over him. “I was too easy on you, Abraham. I should have made you do better by them when they were growing up, but I had my pride and I was determined to make a good life for them without you. We can both see how successful I was with that.”
Abraham closed his eyes as the weight of guilt oppressed him. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to do what Deborah asked. For once in your life, I want you to put Michael and Deborah first. For once in your life, I want you to do something to make them happy.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing these last four months? I’ve been reaching out to both of them. I can’t help that Michael won’t give an inch.”
Abraham noticed the tears in Leah’s eyes and his guilt turned to hopelessness. “All these years,” she said through her tears. “All these years I made excuses for you because I could always point to that little bit of money that you sent us. How do you think I felt when Saralyn told me that she was the one sending the money, not you? I can’t believe you, Abraham. You had your wife write checks for your mistress and your illegitimate children? What kind of unfeeling monster are you?”
Abraham closed his eyes. He almost wished for the return of the days when he’d been in a coma. “I have no excuse, Leah,” he told her. “That’s the man I was then but it’s not the man I am now.”
She wiped at her tears and her clear eyes met his. “Show it,” she said. “Show it by doing right by Michael.”
Without waiting for him to respond, she turned and headed out of the room.
Chapter Forty-One
Isaac pushed back his desk chair and stared out the window. He rolled his shoulders forward to get out the kinks. He knew he should stand and stretch but he was too tired to move. His new work responsibilities coupled with his worry over his dad’s health and the demise of his marriage were taking their toll. He was exhausted, physically and mentally. Now would be a great time for a cruise, a week or two away from everybody and everything.
Thoughts of the cruise brought memories of Rebecca and happier times in their marriage. Their first cruise had been her birthday gift to him. She’d packed his suitcase, put him on a plane to Miami, and only revealed their ultimate destination when the plane landed. He hadn’t been that excited about the idea of a fourteen-day South American cruise but he was deeply touched by her gesture. The trip turned out to be one of the most relaxing vacations he’d taken.
Rebecca. He’d had such high hopes and so many plans for their life together. Those plans were now gone. His life had become destabilized all around. The father, whom he’d always looked up to as larger than life, had shown that he was instead merely another deeply flawed husband and father. And his new half brother and half sister were at the heart of all of it. Sometimes it was too much.
His phone rang as he opened his desk drawer and pulled out the bottle of pills his doctor had prescribed. “Yes, Val,” he said to his father’s secretary.
“A Mrs. Josette Thomas is here to see you.”
Josette? He wondered what she wanted. “Send her in,” he said, quickly popping a couple of pills and putting the bottle back in the desk drawer. Then he got up to meet Josette at the door.
“What brings you by?” he asked. “Is it Michael?”
She shook her head. “Nothing like that. I had lunch with Deborah and thought I’d drop in and thank you for letting me cry on your shoulder the other day at the hospital. I can’t seem to control the tears these days.”
He smiled. “That’s all right. As long as I have a shoulder, you’re welcome to cry on it.”
“That’s sweet of you to say,” she said. “How’s your father?”
“He’s going home in a day or so.”
She nodded. “That’s good to hear. I guess that means he’ll be coming back to MEEG soon. Are you going to stay on after he does?”
Isaac wiped his hands down his face. “I don’t know,” he said.
She studied him. “All this is tough on you, isn’t it?” she asked.
Isaac realized that he wanted to talk about it. Josette had shared her concerns about the family drama with him, so he’d try to do the same with her. “I thought I was handling it,” he said, “but every day there is something else.”
“Does Abraham have other children out there?” she asked.
Isaac laughed a dry laugh. “I certainly hope not. It’s just that I keep learning more about the two he has.”
“Give yourself a break, Isaac,” she said, patting his forearm. “It’s okay to need
some time to adjust to Michael and Deborah’s presence in your life.”
“Deborah I can handle,” he said. “Michael is another matter. Have you forgotten that we got in a fistfight at the board meeting?”
“I haven’t forgotten,” she said. “Michael shouldn’t have come. I tried to talk him out of it but he didn’t listen. He’s unreasonable when it comes to things about Abraham, and that includes you. He’s my husband and we’re about to have a child together, but you have to know that you shouldn’t trust him.”
Isaac appreciated her honesty. “I know,” he said, thinking of Rebecca. “He takes pleasure in ruining the good things in my life.”
She looked away briefly. “I try not to think about it so much,” she told him, rubbing her belly. “Focusing on the baby helps. You should focus on the good things in your life—like your relationship with Rebecca.”
Isaac laughed. “If only I could.”
“Are you and Rebecca having problems?” she asked.
He met her eyes. “We’re getting a divorce.”
“Oh, no,” she said, covering her mouth. “I’m so sorry. Are you sure you two can’t work it out?”
“Positive,” he said.
“Look, Isaac, I know I’m the last person you want advice from, but let me offer some anyway. You and Rebecca can get past your problems, if that’s what you want. Look at Michael and me. After I learned of his lies, I wanted to get as far away from him as possible.” She rubbed her belly. “Now I’m determined to make our marriage work.”
He looked at her stomach. “Maybe things would be different if we had children or if Rebecca were pregnant. As it stands, it’s easier to say it was a mistake and let it go.”
Josette shook her head. “Don’t give up so easily, Isaac. You love Rebecca, don’t you?”
He eyed her. “Love doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me.” He paused and then asked the question that had been on his mind for some time. “What is it about Michael that draws women like you and Rebecca to him?” As soon as he asked the question, he wanted to take it back.
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