“Worth!” my mother’s voice was excited as she found me in her doorway. “Come in, darling!” she invited, kissing me on the cheek and pulling me indoors where it was warmer but stormier than even the sleet I’d left behind.
“Is he here?” I asked in a sober voice. I was concerned about her welfare after I left today. Her life could go on uninterrupted, or it could be devastated. It would all depend on the man in the study.
“You know where to find him,” she said, her voice filled with natural concern. She knew I wasn’t there on a social call. She knew it meant trouble. Perhaps that’s why she headed upstairs as soon as she let go of my arm. It was self-preservation to stay out of the way of random artillery fire.
He knew I was there. He’d sensed the moment I pulled into the drive, like a wolf that can smell the scent of prey a mile away.
He pretended to not see me but unlike the cowering child who would have once stood in the doorway for hours waiting to be invited in, I simply walked in and fell into the wingback opposite his desk.
“We need to talk,” I stated.
He looked up. Perhaps it was the tone of my voice, perhaps he smelled the scent of danger in the air. “Do we, indeed?” he snarled, tossing his pen down and sitting back in his chair, his hands brought together in a prayer-like gesture of contemplation. It was not a prayer to God. Father didn’t believe in any church but the Temple of LaViere where his word was never doubted.
“It stops today,” I said in a solid, but quiet voice. He heard the dead calm behind my words and perhaps it caused him to perspire a bit. Cowardice can do that.
“It stops when I say it stops,” he snapped back and turned to pour himself another bourbon. Even at my distance, I could see that his hand was shaking.
“I know about Santa Anita,” I spoke the words quietly but slowly so there was no question about what I was saying.
He whirled around. “And just what do you think you know?” he asked sarcastically.
“I’m not that big of a fool. If I tell you, I happen to know you have a little button beside your left knee that activates a recording device. I’m not about to go on record.” I got up and walked around his desk, pouring myself two fingers of his best bourbon and downing it in a single gulp. I set the glass back, upside down, causing a ring of the liquid to form on the surface of his cherry desk. I knew it would enrage him; he was very proud of that desk. His hand shook as he ached to retrieve the glass, but it would be a sign of surrender. He couldn’t afford that. The stakes were too high.
“What do you want?” were his simple, but oft-repeated words. I was no longer innocent enough to believe they signaled resignation. They often were more a sign of retaliation. Not this time, though. This time, I was in control.
“Call off your dogs. Pay them off and neuter Jervis.”
“Or?”
I laughed callously. “You need to ask? You forget. I’ve learned from the best.”
“You won’t get away with it,” he said.
“You thought you could,” I pointed out, “and you were wrong.
His face tightened, his only sign of emotion. “Damn you for a hound from hell.”
“Father, and I use the word genetically, if there is a hell, it is one you created and you will languish in for a very long time. I trust we have an arrangement?”
“Get out!” he screamed, his face a mottled red and he threw his glass at me. I tipped my head and he missed.
I walked to the doorway and laughed as I looked over my shoulder. His head was on his crossed arms.
I walked to the base of the stairs. “Mother?” I called to her and she appeared at the top. “Get a bag. You’re coming with me for a few days. It’s time you knew your daughter-in-law,” I said. She didn’t argue, didn’t even question the reason why. If anything, there was relief written all over her face.
“I’ll be right there,” she said, nodding. She was. In fact, she was down the stairs in under five minutes. I stood guard in the foyer and when she came tripping down, I opened the front door and helped her into my car.
“What happened?” she asked as we pulled out onto the roadway.
“I believe you might call it the end of an era,” I said and she nodded. She didn’t need the details.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Worth
When I ushered Mother into the condo, Auggie’s face lit up. “Hello!” she called out and came forward.
Mother’s face lit equally when she saw Auggie’s shape. “Worth! I didn’t know!” she exclaimed and hugged us both. “When is it due?” she asked, reaching out to touch Auggie’s blossoming tummy.
“About Christmas,” Auggie answered. She looked to me for an explanation.
“Mother will be staying with us for a bit. I’d like her to get to know you and it won’t hurt for you to not be alone so much,” I said and Auggie nodded and smiled in total approval.
“Auggie, I never had the chance to welcome you to the family. Well, such as it is,” she said, looking to Worth for approval.
“It’s fine, Mother. We know you have no part in this,” I assured her.
“Good. Auggie, will you call me Margaret?” She hugged Auggie again, for good measure.
“May I get you something, Margaret?” Auggie confirmed the gesture.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a cup of tea, would you? I’m chilled to the bone and although it’s probably not due entirely to the cold, Halloween is tomorrow, isn’t it?”
“Come in the kitchen and let’s talk while I brew it,” Auggie invited. “After all, it is the time of year for a good brew,” she joked.
My mother was enchanted with the condo. I could tell she liked it by the way she lingered in each room as we took her on tour, touching the carved trims and the marble baths. While her own home at the farm was quite comfortable, it was dated in the old money sort of way and I knew she missed having something new and open to her personal sense of design. The farm where she and Father lived had been in the family for generations. There was nothing new about it at all.
I was feeling rather satisfied with myself. Timing this morning had seemed so without options and now here I was, a solution on the table and the people I loved the most under my own roof. It was a contentment I’d never experienced and I thought about the children Auggie and I would be having and how our family would grow. My guiding motivation would be to never be anything like my father. He was the antithesis of a good parent, an abomination as a husband and a cunning and vile wolf when it came to being a human being in general.
We sat up and talked long into the night and I finally gave up, citing a need to get to the office early. Auggie climbed into the bed beside me. “I really like her,” she whispered, then turned, backed her bottom into me and fell promptly asleep. I lay there hard and wanting her for a very long time, the skin of her bottom caressing my throbbing penis. I didn’t have the heart to disturb her so I realized I would have to get accustomed to the yearning, for a few months at least.
I fell asleep peacefully.