A Family Affair (5 page)

The doorbell rang again, twice, rapid
staccato. “Hold on, hold on.” Damn intrusive busy bodies. He
reached the front door, preparing the same speech he told all the
well-wishers. She’s fine . . . needs her rest . . . she’ll be in
touch when she’s up to it. She’d be furious if she had an inkling
that he was blowing off people like Father Reisanski and Judge
Tommichelli, but hell, did she have to be best friends with half
the town?

He opened the door.

It was her.

“
Hello. I’m looking for . .
.”

Her voice was softer than he’d imagined, more
breathy . . .

“
. . . this is a bit
awkward . . . “

Her eyes were bluer than her picture . .
.

“
Lily Desantro. Is she
here?”

That brought him around fast. “Who are you?”
Stupid question, but damn if he’d let on he knew who she was.

She hesitated, a split second extra air
exchange. “Christine Blacksworth. I’m . . . are you Nate
Desantro?”

He said nothing. Let her squirm.

“
Is Lily here?”

“
No.”

“
May I come in?” She tried
to look around him, into the house, into their lives.

He blocked the door. “I don’t think that’s a
good idea.”

“
You . . . you know who I
am, don’t you?”

He stared at her, refusing to acknowledge the
man or his daughter as hatred seeped through him, brought back the
days, months, years, his mother spent alone; four damn days a month
for fourteen years.

“
You called my mother’s
house . . . about my father.”

Her voice wobbled. Good, feel it, Christine
Blacksworth, feel what I’ve felt for the past fourteen years every
time I saw your father’s bathrobe hanging in my mother’s closet,
saw his razor in her bathroom, his glasses on her nightstand. Let
it strangle you . . .

“
I have to speak with your
mother.” The words were firmer, part congealed.

“
She’s not
available.”

“
Can’t you work with me so
we can get this over with?”

“
No, I can’t.”

“
Do you think I wanted to
come here? Do you think I would be standing here if there’d been
any other way?”

“
I don’t know, would you?
Maybe come to see for yourself?”

“
This is just as hard on me
as it is on you.” Her voice dipped, faltered. “At least you knew. I
had no idea. All this time, and I had no idea.”

He almost felt sorry for her but years of
living with Charles Blacksworth’s comings and goings wiped any pity
from his soul. “You think so; you think we’re in the same boat,
Christine? What do you think it’s like to see a man coming out of
your mother’s bedroom in the morning, one who’s not her husband?
And then the bastard leaves her, every month, goes back to his rich
family in Chicago, his prestigious job, his three piece suits. And
he does it year after year after year and she cries when he leaves,
every goddamn time.”

She looked away, pinched the bridge of her
nose.

“
You think you had it
worse? You don’t have a clue.” He gripped the door handle, forced
himself to stay still when every cell in his body wanted to jerk
her head up, make her acknowledge his words, feel his hatred. “Go
home, Christine Blacksworth. You’re fourteen years too
late.”

***

Gloria accepted the fluted glass bubbling
with Dom Perignon, smiled at the young man dressed in black who
hadn’t left her side all night; Jeremy something or other,
investment banker. He couldn’t be more than twenty-eight, a year
older than Christine, and yet she hadn’t missed the way his dark
eyes took in her pale blue gown, moved from the swell of breast to
shoulder, settled on the smooth, tanned skin of her neck. Men had
looked at her that way her entire life, from the time she was
fourteen and discovered that if she smiled wide and long, dropped
her voice a few decibels, and glanced instead of stared at other
boys, she would gain not only their attention, but their
admiration. What a ridiculous game it all was, one she’d never
succumbed to, preferring intellect to sexuality. But then she’d met
Charles.

She sipped her champagne, tried to
concentrate on what the young man was saying.

“
Have you ever heard
Bocelli?” Jeremy something or other was saying, “I saw him in New
York. He’s exquisite, not Pavarotti, but still quite
good.”

“
And blind.”

“
Incredible, isn’t it?” He
took her comment as interest, moved closer, his breath fanning her
ear. “I’d love to take you. We could have dinner at The Presidio
first. Next Saturday.”

She took a step away, met his dark eyes,
sparkling with one too many Dom Perignons. “I don’t think so, but
thank you for the invitation.”

He flattened a hand over his chest. “You
wound me, beautiful maiden. Please reconsider.”

Oh, Charles, how could you have left me to
deal with this? “I could be your mother.”

“
But you’re not.” He took
her hand, stroked his fingers up her arm.

“
I just buried my husband
two weeks ago.” Was there no respect for the grieving
process?

“
I know.” He nodded, his
handsome face solemn. “All the more reason.”

“
Indeed.” She shrugged his
hand off, stepped away. “All the more reason.” Gloria lifted her
glass, saluted him and turned away.

She almost hadn’t come tonight, not after
last year’s debacle. The West Mount Memorial Banquet had always
been Charles’s love; he was one of the original organizers, a major
contributor and a staunch supporter of the hospital’s research
facilities. But this love blinded him, too. When last year’s
president asked Charles to double his annual pledge, to help fund
research for cancers like your sister’s . . . Charles readily
agreed.

Tonight they were honoring him and had
invited Gloria to accept an award in memory of her late husband.
How could she refuse such a request? So, she’d chosen a pale, blue
Chanel and a clasp of diamonds for the occasion, the muted coolness
of color and stone giving her a controlled, untouchable presence;
elegant but not overstated, determined in a mask of subtlety but
still appropriate for her newly widowed state – her life without
Charles.

She worked her way past the fringes of the
ballroom to a tiny sitting area papered in heavy cream. There was a
smattering of ornate chairs, cherry, she thought, done in burgundy
and cream stripes set up in a half circle around an oval glass
table. And in the center of the table was a huge spray of red
roses, more than two dozen, maybe three, spilling out of a gold
vase, tufts of baby’s breath tucked in between.

Her gaze followed a petal that had fallen on
the slick surface of glass, landed on the edge of a bright blue
ashtray. Gloria walked up to the table, studied the ashtray; shiny,
clean, unused. She hesitated, fingers hovering over the single
petal, its red brilliance not diminished by its solitary state. So
much beauty, so much promise . . . She brushed it away in one quick
motion, mindless of where it landed, her concentration fixed solely
on the gleam of the blue ashtray. Then she flipped open her bag,
pulled out the black case decorated with needlepoint roses, and
tapped out a Salem Light. Her fingers shook as she lit it, drew it
to her mouth and placed it between her lips.

“
Now, this is a
sight.”

Gloria swung around, pulled the cigarette
behind her back. “What are you doing here?”

Harry Blacksworth saluted her with his drink.
“I was invited.”

“
As though you cared about
contributing to anyone’s charity but your own.”

He ignored her. “I saw you with that young
boy a few minutes ago.”

She took another puff on her cigarette, held
it, blew out a thin cloud of smoke. “Since when did it become a
crime to engage in casual conversation?”

“
Don’t embarrass yourself,
Gloria.” He emptied his glass and added, “And don’t humiliate
Charlie’s memory.”

She stubbed out the cigarette in the center
of the blue ashtray, grinding the butt to a third of its size. “You
have nerve, Harry Blacksworth,” she said in a low voice, moving her
lips just enough to push the words out for his ears alone. “You’ve
disgraced this family for years and now, you have the nerve to
question my actions?”

“
You’re Charles
Blacksworth’s widow. Act like it.”

“
I intend to.”

“
See that you do.” He
turned away from her then, before she could tell him that he was
the real disgrace no one had ever wanted to acknowledge, especially
Charles. She wanted to scream at him, so loud that the entire room
would turn and stare at Harry. You! Yes, you, you’re the
disgrace!

But of course, she couldn’t because he was
already gone and even if he weren’t, she wouldn’t. And he knew
that.

***

Nate Desantro was not going to stop her from
tracking down Lily. He might think he had a fourteen year edge, but
she’d been competing in a man’s world long enough to know how to
fight, and win.

When the sign for Magdalena shriveled to a
dot in her rearview mirror, Christine opened her mouth and pulled
in puffs of cold air, greedy to clear her mind. She should’ve been
the one flinging accusations back there, making demands, not him.
But he’d been vicious, the hatred pulsing in the chords of his
neck, spreading to his throat, spilling out of his mouth. He’d
hated her father.

. . . fourteen years too late.

Fourteen years?

She would’ve been thirteen years old . .
.

She drove on, mindless of the new snow
falling, heavy around her; white, pure, forgiving. What had life
been like fourteen years before? She tried to remember, tried to
pull it back through the haze of work filled days at Blacksworth
& Company, four years of college, Senior Prom, further still to
family trips in Vail, Palm Springs, even middle school. But she
could only snag scraps of memories, a half-formed picture of a girl
in braces with pigtails, a blue spruce brilliant with lights and
ornaments, a black dog named Jesse.

Fourteen years of good-byes, promises to be
home for Sunday dinner, returning with smiles and sharp embraces,
and all the while, going to her. How had she not known? How had she
looked into her father’s eyes, listened to his words, and not been
able to see the truth?

Did he really love me? And Mother, what about
her?

They were his family, but had he really loved
them, or merely felt duty toward them, obligation, as one does to
an old pair of tennis shoes, scuffed and ripping at the seams, that
should be tossed out on garbage day but somehow never make it
there, instead gets relegated as something else, garden shoes, lawn
mowing shoes, anything to avoid being discarded completely. Maybe
that’s what he’d done, relegated them to ‘something else’, a lower
position, in order to avoid the costly, damaging, choice of
permanent separation.

She thought of all the days he’d been with
Lily Desantro, all the years he’d let his real family believe he
was somewhere else. Her father was the only one she’d ever truly
counted on, the standard for everyone else in her life; friends,
boyfriends, business associates, even, and she hated to admit this,
her mother. Had it all been a grand lie?

Christine drove the remainder of the trip
replaying the conversation with Nate Desantro. Part of her wanted
to go back to Chicago, forget about the cabin and Magdalena, and
most of all, Lily Desantro. The other part worried that the woman
would not be so easily forgotten. What if she showed up in Chicago
asking for Gloria Blacksworth?

Her mother would never be able to handle
this. The thought of the two women, face to face, gave Christine
renewed strength to drive back to Magdalena in the morning,
confront Nate Desantro again if she must, though hopefully, Lily
would answer the door. Then Christine could tell her about the
will, the enormous amount of money that would be hers, uncontested,
and all she had to do was forget she’d ever heard the Blacksworth
name.

It was early afternoon when she reached the
cabin. She’d stopped off at Henry’s Market, a small grocery store
that wasn’t much larger than a 7 Eleven, and picked up a quart of
skim milk, four raspberry yogurts, a box of Multi-Grain Cheerios, a
bag of red licorice, and a small bottle of Palmolive Dish
detergent. She’d almost asked the wrinkled man at the counter if he
knew Charles Blacksworth. You probably saw him about once a month,
she’d wanted to say. He came to stay in the cabin up the road. Of
course, you’d remember him if you saw him . . . medium build,
silver hair . . . distinguished . . . very polite.

What if they were all mistaken, what if he
really had been living in the cabin and only visited the woman once
in a while? The shopkeeper would recognize him, wouldn’t he? She
could find out, give herself hope that maybe he hadn’t lied about
everything. But in the end, she’d said nothing.

Chapter 5

Harry answered the phone on the second ring.
“Hullo?”

“
Uncle Harry? I’m sorry.
Were you asleep?”

“
Chrissie.” He glanced at
the woman lying in the middle of the bed, full breasts pointed
skyward. “No,” he reached for his robe, “of course not.

“
I went to Magdalena
today.”

Harry stuffed one arm into his silk robe,
then the other, letting the belt hang loose, exposing his
nakedness. What time was it anyway? He glanced at the clock on the
nightstand. 7:30 p.m. He needed a drink and he needed to take a
piss.