Authors: Joanna Rees
November 2009
The cold wind blew sheets of fine rain across the grey Hudson and up the grassy slope of the cemetery in Manhattan, where the rows of headstones faced into the bleak grey sky
like hardy seagulls.
This was considered the finest resting place in New York, and even to get on the waiting list for one of the few remaining plots here with a view of the Statue of Liberty was next to impossible.
The headstones, ancient and new, read like a
Who’s Who
of New York society.
Thea stood by Griffin Maddox’s granite headstone, adjusting the white roses in the simple pewter vase. He’d died two years ago today and she remembered thinking then, as they’d
lowered his coffin into the cold ground, that she’d get something special to stand here beside his grave.
She looked up at the grey marble statue she’d commissioned – an abstract piece from an artist her father had admired. It looked so new, the autumn rain only adding to its lustre, but
Thea wondered now how long it would last. Fifty years? A hundred? Longer than Griffin Maddox’s legacy – the one she’d always hoped he’d have left her to manage alone?
She closed her eyes, remembering the last time she’d seen him alive, regrets overwhelming her about all the questions she’d never been able to ask.
The moment Thea’s plane had touched down at JFK, after her journey back from Australia, she’d rushed straight to the Cedars Private Hospital, delirious from shock
and lack of sleep.
She’d found Griffin Maddox prostrate and barely conscious beneath a green sheet in the intensive-care unit, hooked up to drip-feeds and eerily lit by the banks of monitoring machines
around his bed.
He’d been brought here to recover after the emergency operation he’d undergone following his aortic aneurism. But he hadn’t recovered. Instead he’d suffered a stroke and
two further seizures since.
Thea had already spoken to the consultant cardiologist before coming in. Further invasive surgery would kill her father, the consultant had said. There was nothing more they could do except
hope.
‘Daddy.’ Thea gently took his hand in hers. ‘I’m here.’
Griffin Maddox’s watery eyes opened. She felt his fingers contracting faintly around hers. His hands looked wrinkled and old and, as Thea stared at his face, she saw how much the stroke
had transformed him. The right side of his face appeared frozen, while the corner of his mouth hung down.
‘Thea.’ Her name sounded more like a cough than a word. His speech was slurred and hard to understand. ‘There are things . . . I should have . . .’
A rattling sound came from his chest. She wiped away the spit from his chin. Thea wanted to cry. Her poor daddy. How could this have happened to him?
‘Don’t. It’s OK,’ she said, staring at him, willing him to get better, to be all right.
What if this consultant isn’t the best?
she was already thinking, her
initial shock being replaced by her determination to make this right somehow.
As soon as I leave here I’m going to sort this out, find someone new. We can’t just give up on you.
There has to be someone who can make you well again.
‘I want you to know . . .’ He was struggling even harder now just to get the words out, his eyes searching hers, as the tendons in his neck tightened like wires. ‘I always
loved you – like you were my own. You were always her . . . gift . . . from . . . God . . . But you became mine too, Thea – you became mine . . .’
What was he talking about? Thea’s forehead creased in confusion. None of this made any sense. Was he delirious? she wondered. Did he even realize any more that it was Thea who was
here?
‘Daddy,’ she said, tears running down her face. ‘It’s me. It’s Thea. Of course I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.’
He gripped her hand then. The sudden show of strength shocked her. He gripped her hand tightly and didn’t let go. She tried to pull way, but she couldn’t.
‘No, listen . . .’ he hissed, still not letting her go. He was hurting her now. His ashen skin – she watched it darken and swell with blood. ‘You need to understand . .
.’
He groaned in pain and twisted his head to one side. One of the machines he’d been hooked up to began to beep. It didn’t stop. It rose in volume. What did it mean? Thea was panicking
now. It had to be some kind of alarm.
Griffin’s face was turning purple now. His eyes bulged. A hissing sound came from his mouth, from deep down inside him, as he desperately tried to force his mouth to form the words and
speak.
‘What?’ Thea begged, fear coursing through her now. ‘What is it, Daddy? Please, just tell me – what?’
His eyes rolled back. He started to shudder. She realized the beeping sound was no longer intermittent. It had become one long continuous wail.
‘Help!’ she shouted. ‘Someone. Please. Help.’
Griffin Maddox’s whole body was jerking now. He was having some kind of a fit.
A thunder of footsteps. Two nurses rushed into the room.
‘Move,’ one of them told her.
Thea pulled herself free. She scrambled out of the way. The nurses crowded round her father. Like curtains being drawn, they blocked him from her sight. They shut her out. She watched in horror
as one of them punched the panic button on his bedside table. Another, louder alarm began to wail.
Thea stumbled back towards the doorway, right into someone. She turned, expecting to see a doctor – the consultant, she hoped. But it was Brett who was standing there. And even then,
tumbling in the vortex of her terror and despair, from the spark of dark triumph in his eyes she knew that he’d been standing there all along, coldly observing and listening in.
Thea stared across the Hudson and delved deep into the pocket of her black woollen coat, her fingertips worrying once more at the sharp edge of the letter she’d received
this morning.
It could only have been sent by Brett, she’d decided. He’d finally found proof of what Griffin Maddox’s dying words had implied. And now he’d shared it with her. And Thea
still felt numb from the shock.
With the death of her father – or ‘our’ father, as Brett still insisted on calling him – Thea had hoped she’d be able to sever her own and Brett’s
relationship entirely. But Griffin Maddox had had other ideas.
In his will he’d shown no favouritism between Thea and Brett, in spite of the fact that Thea had already been practically a teenager by the time Brett became a part of their lives. If
anything, it was Thea who’d been sidelined. Because Storm, too, had been a major beneficiary of Griffin’s will. Meaning that together she and Brett had inherited the lion’s share
of Griffin’s personal wealth.
Griffin had also enshrined both Thea and Brett’s roles in Maddox Inc., by carefully balancing the board members during his last few months in charge to contain an equal amount of support
for them both. Thea might be Chairwoman now, but her position was a precarious one. If she didn’t perform, or if the other board members thought Brett would do a better job, then Thea knew
she’d be out.
Healthy competition – that’s probably what Griffin had envisaged. The two of them competing, thereby driving the business forward twice as fast. But this wasn’t competition. It
was war.
Brett had even moved himself and Bethany from his apartment into Griffin and Storm’s apartment right at the top of Maddox Tower, while Storm herself now divided her time between there and
Crofters.
Thea had asked Brett several times if she could sort through her father’s personal belongings and go through his private paperwork, but his reply had always been the same: she could come
up any time she wanted. The way he’d said it had left her in no doubt of the danger she’d be in if she did.
Feeling the letter in her pocket now, she knew she should have braved a visit anyway. The self-defence classes she’d taken and the canister of Mace she always carried on her would, surely,
have made a match for him now? She should have been stronger. She shouldn’t have given Brett open access like that to her father’s papers and her family’s past.
And I should have told you
, Thea thought again, looking back at her father’s grave.
I should have told you what he did to me. I should have told you the truth
, she thought,
feeling the letter as she gripped it in her cold hand,
just the same as you should have told me . . .
Thea felt Michael put his arm out to steady her. It had been Michael she’d called that day her father had died. Michael who’d stood beside her here at the funeral, supporting her so
that she didn’t collapse. And Michael who’d been the only person she wanted to be here with her today.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, worry etched across his face. ‘You looked like you were about to faint.’
She felt as if she were unravelling and had no way of stopping herself. She felt weak, insubstantial. Everything she thought she’d ever known – it had all become a lie.
He looked up at the marble statue. ‘You did a good thing here today,’ he assured her, misreading her expression, assuming it was being here and remembering Griffin that was making
her look so upset.
‘If only the rest of my life was that solid,’ she heard herself say.
‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘Nothing.’ The letter in her pocket – she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t know
how
she could even begin. But Michael was still staring at her.
‘It’s just . . . I was always so sure of everything,’ she said.
A bitter smile crossed her face as she remembered what he’d told her before she’d gone to Australia, about how
she never let anything get in her way
. Thea no longer felt like
that. She no longer recognized that woman at all.
‘But now,’ she said, ‘every time I try and reach for the truth – about who I am . . . what I am – everything just seems to crumble into dust.’
Michael was still looking confused. ‘What is it you’re trying to say?’
‘It doesn’t matter . . .’ Thea said dismissively, shaking her head in frustration.
But Michael stayed exactly where he was. ‘You know you can tell me anything, Thea,’ he said. ‘Anything at all.’
She turned once more to face him and saw only kindness and concern reflected back in his eyes. He was the strong one now, not her. She realized he was also probably the only true friend she
had.
She took her hand out of her pocket. She did it quickly, surprising even herself. She handed him the letter before she had time to change her mind. She knew she could no longer handle this
alone.
He read her name and address on the envelope,
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘Just read it. Then tell me what you think.’
Quickly
, she thought.
Do it quickly, before I snatch it back.
Michael took the creased typed letter out of the crisp new envelope. It was dated June 1970. Thea watched his face as he read the kind but firm words of Dr Myerson telling his patient, Griffin
Maddox, that he was sorry to inform him, but this new set of fertility tests was conclusive. Griffin’s active sperm count was zero. And due to the complications of his wife Alyssa’s
previous pregnancy and the extreme unlikelihood of her ever being able to conceive again, they were not going to be able to have children.
‘So you see,’ Thea said, as Michael finally looked up, ‘they weren’t my parents.’
‘But . . . ’ Michael started to object, but his words ran out.
‘That’s what he meant when he died,’ she continued, as Michael stared unblinking at the letter again. ‘When he said, “I always loved you like you were my
own,” that’s just what he meant.
Like
his own. Because I never actually was.’
‘Oh God, Thea.’ Michael looked up at her, ashen-faced. ‘I’m so sorry . . .’
‘All my life,’ Thea said, trying to keep the anger and resentment from her voice, ‘my mother called me her “gift from God”. My name – Theadora – even
means that. But it’s only now that it makes sense. Because I was a gift – a present. Someone else’s baby that they took as their own.’
Michael was nothing but a silhouette now, blurred by her tears.
‘All I keep thinking is that, if he really loved me, then why didn’t he tell me the truth? If you love someone, you tell them the truth, no matter how much it hurts.’
‘I don’t know,’ Michael said. ‘Maybe he didn’t think you needed to know. Maybe he didn’t think it made any difference.’
‘No,’ Thea said, and this time she couldn’t hide her anger any more, ‘it wouldn’t have made any difference if he
had
told me. Not telling me – lying to
me –
that
makes all the difference in the world.’ She rubbed furiously at her tears. ‘And not just him. Mom.
Her
. I don’t even know what to call her any more.
Both of them lied to me every day of my life.’
‘They still loved you, Thea.’ Michael reached out to touch her shoulder. ‘Isn’t that the most important thing of all?’
Thea shook him off. All of it made sense now. All of it. Why Griffin Maddox had favoured neither her nor Brett in his will. Because they’d both been adopted, so of course he’d treat
them the same. And it explained why Jenny in Australia had looked nothing like her. Because she
was
nothing like her, because neither of their parents were the same.
‘You’re still you, Thea,’ Michael said. ‘This . . .’ he waved the paper at her, ‘. . . this might change where you came from, but it can’t change who
you are.’
‘No.’ Thea was shaking now. Her voice began cracking as fresh tears welled up in her eyes. ‘This could have changed
everything
. Everything I’ve ever done –
every day I’ve ever worked – I did it for him, for the man I thought was my father . . . To make him proud. To prove that I could be just as much of a Maddox as him.’ Thea’s
tears wouldn’t stop. ‘And all the time I kept smiling, I kept smiling for him . . .’ She hauled in a great shuddering breath, her words rushing out in a torrent now, a torrent she
just couldn’t stop. ‘And I bit down on them – on all those disgusting, dirty secrets . . . on everything Brett did, everything Brett did to me – I did all that to protect
him. And for what?’