I paused to take a sip of my soda. “I asked him what was wrong. He said he saw something really bad, but he didn’t want to tell me. I kept pestering him to spill it, and finally he told me he saw Daddy and Mindy kissing like they did on Dynasty.”
“He said what?”
“Yeah, those were his exact words. I told him he had to be wrong. But he kept telling me he wasn’t stupid and he knew what he saw. I didn’t believe him. I honestly figured he was trying to create a situation so he could utilize his awesome investigative skills. I was so angry with him for lying. I made him swear never to say anything about it. He didn’t want to, but after I told him how mad you’d be at him, he reluctantly agreed. And as far as I know he never mentioned it again.”
“He certainly never said anything to me,” Beatrice said before sighing deeply.
“I didn’t think he would have. At first he was so afraid of what you would do. Then when he got older he probably realized how hurt you would be if you knew what he saw. He’d never be able to intentionally hurt you.” Brody always was very in-tuned to our mother’s feelings, much more so than me. I decided we’d probably be better off if I moved the conversation away from my brother and what he told me he saw. I asked, “Did you ever think of leaving Daddy?”
“Of course I did. But what would I do? What would everyone think, especially my father? I couldn’t handle facing everyone and admitting my marriage was a failure, so I just pretended everything was okay. I was always pretty good at lying to myself anyway,” my mom said with a small, sad chuckle. “Weekend after weekend Mindy would come over to work with your dad, and I’d invite her to stay for dinner, because that is what he expected me to do. Mindy was very lucky we had Rosie doing the cooking. If I had to prepare the meals myself, I may not have been able to control myself from adding some special ingredients,” Beatrice flashed an evil grin. “It’s funny, I should have known better, but every time she accepted my invitation to dinner I was shocked she decided to stay. I can’t imagine it was comfortable for her to sit opposite me at a table either. But then again, maybe she took pleasure in it. She probably thought I was such a fool, not that she was wrong, of course. I was idiotic and cowardly.”
“Are you one hundred percent sure the affair happened? Couldn’t you be wrong?” I asked, hopeful. I didn’t want to believe the worst of my father. Having an affair was one thing. It was terrible, I know. But to add insult to injury he involved his mistress in his children’s lives and waved his relationship in my mother’s face! It was inexcusable.
“Of course I could have been wrong. I kept telling myself that, day after day.” My mother explained as she crumbled her paper napkin and tossed it in her barely touched salad bowl. “It’s amazing, if you try hard enough you can force yourself to believe your own lies. When your father died, however, there was no denying their relationship.”
My mother reached into her bag and pulled out a red lipstick. Using her butter knife as a mirror she applied the makeup. How she could be worried about her appearance at a time like this baffled me.
I pushed my salad bowl towards the center of the table. My appetite was completely gone. “I don’t understand,” I said, “What happened after Daddy died?”
“Suffice it to say your father didn’t die the way I told you and Brody.” Her words hung in the air as she caught the waitress’s attention and asked for two glasses of pinot grigio.
As far as I knew, when I was away at college and my brother was spending the night at a friend’s house, my dad was in Boston with Mindy, on a sales call. They had a late dinner scheduled with a prospective client. As soon as the appetizers were delivered to their table, my dad clutched his chest, keeled over and fell to the ground. He passed away from a massive heart attack right on the restaurant’s floor.
“What do you mean Daddy didn’t die the way you told us he did,” I asked, as Amy dropped off the wine and cleared away our barely touched salads. “How could you have lied to us?” I asked quietly.
“I couldn’t tell you and Brody the truth. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. It was just too,” Beatrice stopped talking and stared up at the ceiling. I wasn’t sure if she would go on or if she’d just clam up, never to reveal the truth. She sat silent for several moments. I was afraid to say anything so I just remained quiet, my eyes glued to her.
When she returned her attention to me, tears were streaming down her face. I reached into my giant mommy bag and handed her a packet of tissues. She accepted them silently and removed one from the packet. She blotted her eyes first and then her face.
“Sorry,” she said softly. “This is just so hard to say out loud, especially to you. I know how much you loved your father, and how much you looked up to him. But I really think you should know the truth.”
“I need to know, Mom,” I managed to say despite the fact I was choking on my own tears which I was desperately trying not to shed.
In a robotic voice, Beatrice continued, “Not everything was a lie. Your dad had a dinner meeting scheduled with a prospective client from Boston. That much was true. But instead of him and Mindy heading to Massachusetts to meet with the client as he told me, the client came to New York City. Your father and Mindy never made it to the restaurant, though. An hour before their reservation, your dad had a massive heart attack. He was having sex with Mindy at the time.”
“No!“ I exclaimed as I grabbed my stomach. I felt like someone sucker punched me.
“You heard me.” My mother said as she stared straight into my eyes. With venom in her voice, she elaborated, “He died while he was fucking that slut.”
My mouth hung open. No words came out. My heart was beating so fast and my face felt flushed.
My mother waited a moment before she continued. With sympathetic eyes she said, “I know you can imagine how hard it is to receive a call telling you someone you care about has been hurt. But can you imagine what it was like to get a call from a hotel manager telling you he believed your husband passed away in one of their suites,” she snickered. “I kept arguing with the poor guy, insisting he had to have dialed the wrong number. I was adamant my husband was in Boston and not on the upper east side of Manhattan. He must’ve thought me the fool.”
Beatrice took a sip of her wine. “The manager was a patient man, that’s for sure. I probably would have never continued the call if I was him. But he wasn’t going to let me hang up. He kept on providing me with information about your father until I had no choice but to come to terms with the fact he was indeed telling me the truth. He wouldn’t give me any details about what happened but he did give me the name of the hospital where they brought your father.”
My mother took a deep breath before continuing. I hung on her every word. “I don’t know if you will believe it or not given what I just told you, but despite everything, I cared deeply for your father. In many ways, I loved him. I didn’t give his lies a moment of thought. I just reacted. I rushed out to my car and drove to the city. My mind was racing as I tried to process everything.”
My mother picked up her glass of wine, but put it back down on the table without taking a sip. She seemed in a trance as she spoke. “I knew it was going to be bad. After all, if your dad were okay the hotel manager wouldn’t have told me he thought my husband was dead. I don’t know how I got there so quickly, but I made it to the hospital in about a half hour. I threw my car keys at the valet attendant and ran into the emergency room. Mindy was there, pacing. She raced over to me and engulfed me in her arms. I hugged her back, in fact I clung to her.” My mother started shaking her head at the memory.
In a soft voice, she continued. “Mindy whispered into my ear ‘He’s gone, Bea.’ Then she started running her hands up and down my back in an attempt to try to soothe me. While she was holding me she said, ‘Don’t worry, Beatrice I don’t think he felt any pain.’ She tried to comfort me, can you believe that?” My mother banged her fists on the table before she took a large gulp of white wine. I reached for my glass as well.
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br /> “It was a very strange moment, Annabel. It was completely surreal. For a moment or two, we held onto each other, our cries becoming one. We were both lost in memories of the man he was, the man that we both cared about. Then realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I pulled away from her; I didn’t want her embrace or her sympathy. In that instant, I noticed what she was wearing.”
“Do I want to know?” I asked.
Beatrice shook her head. “Probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyway. She was wearing the skimpiest bathrobe I have ever seen in my entire life. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t think she had anything on underneath it. If I had any doubts about your father, they instantly disappeared. As I stared at her half naked body, the pieces of the night quickly fell into place just as the puzzle that was my life instantly became crystal clear to me. I didn’t utter another word to her. You have no idea how hard it was for me to control my tongue. I wanted to rip her to pieces. I wanted to curse and scream at the top of my lungs. But I didn’t. Instead of vocalizing all the bitterness and anger I felt inside, I slapped her across the face with everything I had. She looked dumbfounded, but for the first time in a long time I felt great. She stood there in shock clutching her face with her hands. She didn’t utter a word either. Unable to handle the sight of her for one more second I found a nurse who compassionately confirmed my suspicions. At least Mindy was truthful with the hospital. She explicitly explained to them exactly what your father was doing at the time of his death...”
I reached across the table and grabbed her hands and squeezed them tightly. “Oh, mother I can’t even imagine what you felt like. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks, Darling.” My mom held onto my hands for a moment, and then she continued her story. “Mindy came to the funeral. I expected she would show up, how could she not? Fortunately, she had enough brains to stay away from me. She didn’t speak to me, which I was thankful for. She simply sat in the last row of the chapel with the rest of the people she and your father worked with. It was funny all these years everyone thought I married your dad for his money. The truth was he married me for my father’s. Sure, your dad was successful, but without my father’s connections he never would have had his job in the first place. After the funeral I went to his office to pick up his personal belongings. I filled his boss, my father’s longtime friend, in on Mindy’s extracurricular activities. Needless to say, Mindy didn’t remain at the firm long after. I heard she moved to California where she had some relatives. I haven’t seen her since the funeral.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. I wasn’t sure what do. But my mother was being honest with me; I felt I owed it to her to be honest as well. I took another sip of wine. “She did move to California, but she only stayed there for about nine months. She met a man at a work conference who lived in Seattle. A long distance relationship wasn’t working for her, so she moved there to be with him. They were married about a year later and they adopted two little girls from China.”
“How do you know this?” my mother asked. She looked so hurt.
“I stayed in contact with her. She was always so nice to me.” A tear trickled down my face. “I’m sorry. I thought she was my friend. I had no idea she did what she did. Oh God, I wish you would have told me this before.”
CHAPTER 11
MONDAY MORNINGS were always the worst. No matter how hard I tried I was never able to get Violet moving, which was pretty ironic considering how much my child loved school. In fact at the beginning of the school year, she requested to sit directly in front of her teacher. When I went to the first parent teacher conference of the year I feared she was sitting there because she did something wrong. I never expected it was her choice.
Without fail, week after week, I barely had enough time to scrape together lunches for everyone. I usually managed to end up with some kitchen related injury. Today I sliced my thumb when I put the knife I used to cut celery and carrots in the dishwasher. Leave it to me to hurt myself while not actually using the knife. I always vowed to plan better the following Sunday, but I never did. I could never bring myself to get a head start on the week.
Today was no different. I had no idea how, but I somehow managed to get both my children to school on time. I on the other hand was late for work, as usual. I was lucky though. I’ve been working at the same company since right before I graduated college. I started as a marketing intern and now supervise a team of five. My boss is the most understanding and supportive woman imaginable, probably because she has four grown children of her own, so she understands my struggles as a working mother. Despite, or maybe because of, her sympathetic nature I always felt guilty every time I arrived late.
“Finally! You’re here,” Cecelia said as she stood outside my office door.
“Very funny. I actually have been here,” I paused and looked at the gold bracelet watch that I was wearing, “a whole fifteen minutes.”
“Then my timing is perfect. You need a break.” She announced.
I rolled my eyes.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be so serious, Annabel. Besides, I’ve got muffins!” She dangled a bag from the bakery down the street. The smell of fresh blueberries filled the air.
“Well in that case, why are you still standing in the doorway?” I asked, as my stomach growled.
Cecelia closed the door behind her as I shuffled the many manila folders on my desk to the side to make room for her to sit and eat. While my desk always looked like a war zone I knew exactly where everything was, well most of the time.
“Did you happen see the email from McGrevor yet?” She asked, concerned.
John McGrevor was one of our newest and most difficult clients. He was the managing partner in a mid-sized CPA firm that was founded by his grandfather. He hired my company to help him modernize the image of the company, which currently screamed 1942. My team and I were working on his branding. We were trying to create a new logo for them as well as come up with some catchy tag lines for him to use in his brochures and business cards. We were striving to create something that would bring the firm’s history into the present day. Cecelia and her group were working on launching a website for the firm, as well as helping them create a blog so he could update his clients on new tax trends. Practically our entire company was involved in some manner, shape, or form with the account, and he has been horrible to every person he has come in contact with. When we sent our staff photographer to his office to take photos for the website he had the poor girl in tears. She was so traumatized by his belittling she missed an entire week of work. I was positive she was going to quit as a result.
“No. I didn’t get to check my emails from home this morning,” I said as I pushed my muffin to the side and wiggled my mouse to remove my screen saver.
“If you didn’t see it yet, it can wait a few minutes. Come on. Don’t let him spoil your appetite. Eat your muffin first, then we can deal with him.”
I was dying to see what McGrevor’s issue was this time, but I also wanted to put off the inevitable just a little longer. I had sent him some logo mockups over the weekend and what I was able to gather from Cecelia was that he wasn’t happy with them. I was disappointed because I really liked some of them. My personal favorite was, For decades you take the credits and we process the debits.
“Well if you insist.” I smiled and picked at the bottom of my muffin. I always ate the bottom first, saving the top for last.
“So, I’ve been dying to know. Did you call Mindy?”
I had been debating on whether or not to reach out to her. Connie and Cole had been trying to convince me not to call. Cecelia on the other hand, practically dialed the phone for me several times last week.
I bit my lip. “Yeah. I called her yesterday morning.”
“And?”
“Cee, it was awful!” I ran my fingers through my hair. “She sounded so happy to speak to me. She was asking all about the kids, and told me about the trip she and her husband just took to Mexico. After about fifteen minutes of small
talk I told her that my mother finally told me the truth. I asked her point blank how she could have had an affair with my father, parading herself around my house, pretending to be me and my brother’s friend.”
“What did she say?”
“She laughed,” I said as I brushed some muffin crumbs off my desk.
“You’re joking?”
“No, she laughed and then she asked me why I was acting like she did something wrong.”
“She did not!” Cecelia sounded outraged.
“Oh yes, she did. Then she had the audacity to say she was proud of everything she did. She said that my father was the love of her life, and she was more of a partner to him than my mother ever was. She also said Brody and I were lucky to have had her in our lives. And then, if all that wasn’t bad enough, she said if she had her life to live over she wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Wow,” Cecelia shook her head in disbelief.
“But you know what hurt me the most?” I asked as I nervously twirled a strand of hair.
“No.”
“She said that she was positive Bea told me about the affair years ago. And when I kept in contact with her she just assumed I felt the same way. She thought I would have been happy my dad had her to love him. How could she think I would ever feel that way? My mother is far from perfect, but how could I want someone to hurt her? How can she think I was so cruel? Do you think I would have felt that way, given everything?”
“Oh, Sweetie. Don’t go there, and don’t let her get to you. She’s just trying to rationalize her actions.”
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