The Sins of the Mother (32 page)

“He doesn’t know who he is at this age.”

“Yes, he does. Just like you did at his age. What if I told you that I was ashamed of you because you’re attracted to women? Could you change that? Would you want to?”

“He’s not gay.”

“Yes, he is,” she said firmly, in the voice that made strong men quake. She meant business. She was a lioness defending her grandson. “What right do you have to tell him what he is? He knows better.”

“How did you get into this, Mother?”

“He told me this summer. And I encouraged him to tell you and Sarah. I told him you’d understand. He didn’t think you would. And I’m ashamed of you that he was right. If I’d had any idea you would behave this way, I’d have told him not to tell you. I love you, but I’m very disappointed in you. Alex needs our support, all of us. If his family doesn’t support him, who will?”

“I’m not going to support his carrying on with boys in my house.”

“Then he shouldn’t live with you, because he’s gay, and he has a right to do that.”

“What are people going to think?”

“Come out of the dark ages, for God’s sake. They’re going to think you’re a total jerk if you don’t, and they’ll be right. What about Sarah? Is she as backward about this as you are?”

“She’s heartbroken. She hasn’t stopped crying since he told us.”

“Neither has he, and he has more reason to than you do. His father is an idiot. And what does Sarah have to be heartbroken about?”

“First, she couldn’t have more kids, now she’ll never have grandchildren. She’s devastated.”

“She might. Lots of gay men have children now, of their own or they adopt them. And that’s beside the point. This is about Alex, not about her. You all need counseling so you can deal with this decently for Alex’s sake.”

“When did you get so modern?”

“When he told me. And I’m telling you right now, I’m not letting him come home to you until the two of you get your act together and can treat him right.” John was shocked. “And you can take me to court if you don’t like it. I’m not sending him home with your attitude and Sarah’s. You’ll damage him forever.”

“He’s already damaged.”

“Then he needs your help more than ever.”

“What’s he going to do about school if he’s in Bedford? He never should have left.”

“Tell them he’s sick. He wants to drop out.”

“He can’t do that.” John was outraged.

“That’s what I told him. But I’m not sending him home until you shape up. So for now, he stays here.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” John said and hung up. But at least they knew he was safe, and not lost.

Alex still looked depressed when he got up the next day and his grandmother cooked him breakfast. Olivia told her office she would work from home that day. And Liz went to see John and Sarah. She told her mother afterward that all they did was cry. Both of them had stayed home from work. She had suggested counseling to them too. And Sarah had called someone at the university before Liz left. They were going to see the counselor the next day.

That evening Olivia took Alex to a movie, and out to dinner in Bedford. It did him good, and he looked better when he got home. But he hadn’t heard a word from his parents. They called him the next day. They had been to see the counselor, and he had set up sessions for them for the next month, with Alex if he was willing, or without him if he wasn’t. He told them the attitude adjustment was theirs to make, and he was very clear about it. John sounded like someone had died. His fantasy son. The real one was alive and well and still needed his father and mother.

Olivia stayed home with Alex for another day, and then she invited him to come to the office with her. She had some meetings she had to attend. She knew John had taken the week off, so Alex wouldn’t run into him. Once he heard that, Alex went into town with her. And Phillip was surprised to see him in the office.

“How’s your dad? He’s been out all week.” Phillip had been told he was sick.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him,” Alex said bluntly. “I’m staying with Grandma.” That came as a surprise too. They were all full of surprises these days. He told Alex he had just left Amanda. Alex then told him he was gay and his father couldn’t deal with it, so he was staying at his grandmother’s, who was fine with it. Phillip looked shocked, and called his brother to discuss it. Basically, Phillip agreed with his mother and Liz. John had to find a way to accept it. He took Alex out to lunch after that. And by the end of the day, Alex was in decent spirits, and he was chatty all the way home to Bedford. And he went into town with Olivia the next day too. John called her in the office and said he and Sarah wanted to come out to Bedford on Saturday, and Olivia told him not to come unless he could be supportive of his son. The counselor had told him the same thing.

Sarah and John looked mournful when they arrived, but they were civil to their son. There were tears and recriminations and questions, but in the end John put his arms around him and told Alex he loved him. It was a major adjustment for them. And on Sunday, Olivia drove Alex back to Princeton. He said he would try going home and see how it worked out. But Olivia could see that John was trying. His acceptance wasn’t going to come overnight, but Alex had learned that his uncle and aunt and grandmother accepted him as he was, and his parents would have to get there in their own time. Alex was willing to live with that. He went back to school on Monday, and he called his grandmother every day. He told her that after two days in her office, he was more certain than ever that he wanted to work there one day.

“Then you’d better stay in school and go to college,” she told him, and he laughed. She hadn’t, but the business was far more sophisticated and complicated now.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. And he reported to her that his parents were doing better. They were trying. It was all she could ask for, and they’d gotten through it. It had strengthened her bond with her grandson. She was his defender, protector, and ally.

“Thanks, Grandma,” he said before he hung up. “For everything. I love you.”

“I love you too.” And she loved her son too, even if he had a long way to go to understand Alex and accept him as he was. It had been a lesson for all of them. And for John most of all, that things don’t always turn out as we expect or even hope. The only thing that mattered in the end was that he loved his son, and that Alex knew it.

Chapter 21

P
hillip’s lawyer had very sensibly advised him that Taylor could spend nights with him, but it was smarter if she didn’t actually move in. With the benefits of no-fault divorce, Amanda couldn’t sue him for adultery, but there was no point annoying her unduly. Sooner or later she was going to find out about Taylor, and it was easy to guess that her fury over it, and jealousy, were going to cost him. The fact that he was moving on with his life so quickly, and that Taylor was sixteen years younger than Amanda, was bound to cause some pretty severe waves. So Taylor kept her room at the apartment in the Village, but she spent almost every night with him.

He found a furnished apartment on upper Park Avenue, which was sunny and pleasant, and by mid-October he had moved most of his clothes from his house to the apartment. As he had suspected she would, Amanda wanted him to give her the New York house in the divorce, and she also wanted the house in the Hamptons. Her lawyer said he could keep the boat. Their pre-nup said she could have neither since he had bought both homes, and their lawyers were battling it out. He didn’t go to her induction, but sent her flowers and a note. He had no battle with her personally, he just wanted out. Despite the more modest but reasonable terms of their pre-nup, she wanted a million dollars for each of the nineteen years they’d been married. Phillip wasn’t surprised, and Olivia was livid. She told her mother that the woman’s greed was beyond measure.

As always, Maribelle was very supportive of her grandson when he came to visit. She told him she was sorry about the divorce, and asked him about the new woman in his life. He had told all of them about her, but none of them had met her yet. Phillip wanted to let the dust settle. All they knew was that she taught school, was very young, and they had been together for two months. It had been a whirlwind romance, which they all realized had toppled his chilly marriage to Amanda. They could hardly wait to meet her. Their passionate love affair was astoundingly unlike him. In two short months, he seemed to have mellowed, and was being much nicer to their mother. Liz and Olivia had talked about it a lot. John and Sarah were less interested, they were still trying to adjust to Alex’s announcement. And Maribelle had told Cass about Phillip when she called from the tour with Danny. They were in Dallas.

Phillip was at the Southampton house with Taylor, by prearrangement with Amanda, when he finally told her about his mother. The small house was filled with beautiful contemporary furniture and expensive art. Taylor didn’t recognize all the artists, but the overall impression was one of exquisite taste and valuable objects. It was a peaceful place, and they spent a quiet weekend there, walking on the beach, and cooking together. It was a beautiful Indian summer weekend.

“Do you think you’d have gotten divorced anyway, if we hadn’t met?” she asked him. She felt guilty at times for how quickly his house of cards had come down, and although he didn’t complain about it, she sensed that they were battling hard over real estate and money.

“Maybe,” he said honestly, “probably. I was too lazy, and maybe too scared to deal with what I wasn’t getting. I got used to the way things were. I think everyone else saw what I didn’t, or didn’t want to, how cold she was, and how greedy. She’s not a happy woman and she’s very ambitious. I thought her coolness was a challenge and at first I liked it, but we’d drifted apart more than I knew. She’s driven by her ambitions, socially, professionally, and financially. And the stunt she pulled about my job would have done us in anyway. She’d gotten very insulting about it for the last few years. Once she went after the federal judgeship, she wanted me to be more ambitious too.”

“What’s wrong with your job?” Taylor asked with a look of surprise, lying on the beach next to him, and looking at the expression in his eyes. There was a deep hurt there that he never explained and that she sensed was about him and not the divorce. They were still getting to know each other, although he felt as though she’d been part of his life forever, but there were things he had not yet shared, and she always felt them. She didn’t want to pry, but he peeled off his layers and revealed himself like an onion. She had told him all the things that mattered most to her and that she cared about, along with her old griefs and sorrows, like the loss of her parents, but she was younger and less complicated, and despite her parents’ death, she had already understood that her home life had been happier than his. He talked a great deal about his memories of his grandmother and father, but very little about his mother, and she knew that his parents hadn’t been divorced.

“Amanda thought my job wasn’t important enough,” he explained as they lay on the sand. His eyes were gentle, and he looked happy, more so than he had in years, possibly in his entire life. He had a profound, peaceful sense that all the decisions he had made recently were right. It was wonderful to feel that way. “She wanted me to be CEO, so she could say she was married to a CEO.” He had mentioned it before, but Taylor didn’t know just how far she had gone to try and force his hand. He hadn’t wanted to share all the details, and tried to keep his battles with Amanda separate from her. It seemed cleaner to him that way.

“CFO sounds great to me,” Taylor said generously, and it was obvious that he had done well if he had a house in the city, the one they were staying in in the Hamptons, and a boat. She hadn’t lacked for anything with him. She was in love with him, not what he had. And he was young enough to make back whatever he lost, if that was what he wanted. She didn’t really care. She was used to living on a great deal less and was happy as she was. “Besides, you can’t just walk into your boss’s office and say, ‘Hello, I want to be CEO.’ You have to get there over time. That sounds pretty crazy and not very reasonable to me.” Phillip smiled as she said it.

“In theory, that’s true. I had kind of a leg up, though, and Amanda wanted me to use it. I didn’t. She was furious about that.”

“What kind of leg up?” Taylor asked casually, she couldn’t imagine what it was. And then he laughed.

“My mother is my boss. I work for her.” It was the first time he had admitted it to her, but he couldn’t put it off any longer. She had to know.

“You do?” Taylor looked surprised. She was a bright girl, but she had no experience with the lofty circles he had access to, or the kind of money. “She works for The Factory too?” she asked innocently, and he kissed her.

“No, she owns it. She started it, out of a hardware store my grandmother inherited. My mother started working there when she was twelve, and turned it into what it is now, with stores around the world.” He almost sounded proud when he said it, but not quite.

“She did? That’s fantastic!” Taylor said with a look of amazement. “She must be an amazing woman.”

“So I’m told,” he said quietly, and then conceded, “She is, but I was upset as a kid that she was always away working. You don’t build an empire like that overnight.”

“I’ll bet you don’t. So your brother works for her too?” She knew they worked together. He nodded. “Does the whole family work at The Factory?” She was curious about it now. It sounded intriguing, and so did his mother. She had to be an unusual woman with an incredible amount of vision and drive. Taylor was impressed, which only made Phillip mildly uncomfortable. He wasn’t afraid she was after the money, but he wasn’t looking for allies for his mother, or fans, he wanted his own. He always had, even if it meant condemning her.

“No, just my brother and me,” Phillip answered her question. “He’s head of creative and design. He designs all the furniture you like so much, like your bookcase, and figures out all the new trends with my mother. I told you about my sister Cass in London. And my other sister, Liz, has been trying to be a writer all her life. She just sold some kind of fantasy book a few weeks ago. My grandmother got out of the business early and left running it to my mother. She took care of us, and my father was the CFO, like me. He was an accountant and he helped my mother manage the business end of it. I basically have his job now, although he was a lot smarter and more creative than I am. I just keep the boat steady, but everything is already all set up. That’s what Amanda was upset about, she wanted me to have a bigger job. I guess I’m like my father. He was always the behind-the-scenes man, and he liked it. My mother was the star.