Magdalene (38 page)

I stared at Nigel, my jaw slack. Cleaning
up?
My
life? In
pieces
?

“Now, wait a minute—”

“Shut up,” he snarled at me. “I’m
god
damn sick of your martyrdom, too.”

The kitchen was silent, but Mitch’s thumb
caressed the back of my hand. I didn’t dare look at him, so I
looked at my daughters, who gaped at Nigel, shocked. Mitch’s
children looked more curious than anything else, but were too
polite to reveal just how morbid their curiosity might be.

“Now,” Nigel said, taking a bite of his
chili before relaxing into his seat, as if he hadn’t just kicked
the planet off its axis. “I figure this is as good a time as any to
get it all out on the table. Mitch?”

“I agree,” he murmured, a hint of amusement
in his voice making me glance at him, but no. His face was as poker
as it ever was.

He was far too calm about this. Had been all
evening, letting Clarissa run her mouth like she had, bearing the
entire conversation with equanimity as if he had known how it would
unfold, so nothing surprised him.

“You two planned this,” I said tightly,
looking between Mitch and Nigel.

“Well,” Mitch drawled, fiddling with his
utensils, “I wouldn’t use the word ‘plan.’”

“You and
he
—” I waved a hand across
the table at my traitorous best friend. “—decided to put all the
ingredients together and turn up the heat to see what it’d do.”

He pursed his lips. “More or less.”

“You
bastard
.” I was so angry I could
barely keep from screaming at him.

Mitch shrugged. “Here or a therapist’s
office. We figured this’d be more efficient.”

“I didn’t know
Bishop
Hollander was
invited to this meeting.”

He merely chuckled and lifted his arm,
settling it around my shoulders and pulling me into his side. And,
angry as I was, I reluctantly took comfort from his strong body,
his warmth. I leaned my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes for
a second to breathe in Mitch’s scent.

“Talk,” Nigel murmured, but it wasn’t
directed at me. I had nothing to say.

“I...” Gordon cleared his throat. Took a
deep breath. Looked up at me. “I’m sorry,” he said. Clearly.
Decisively. “Yes. I really do want your forgiveness.”

My heart pounded in my throat so hard I
couldn’t ignore it. This was something I had never, in my wildest
dreams, thought would happen, his willingness to come clean. Our
daughters stared between us, their faces betraying
some...fear?...of whatever Gordon had to say.

“Gordon, no. Don’t—”

Nigel glared at me. “Be. Quiet.”

I shut my mouth.

“Cassie, my first mistake was marrying
you.”

The girls gasped, but I only nodded.

“My second was teaching the girls to be
contemptuous of you, taking my anger with my father, the situation,
out on you. No matter what else I did to you,
that
was the
worst.”

My mouth tightened, and I looked down at the
table, unable to breathe because I didn’t think he’d ever realize
that.

“You,” he said, his voice going around the
table. “Helene, Olivia, Paige.
Clarissa
.” She was terrified,
and I reveled in the moment. Quite clearly, she had never thought
Gordon would express any overt displeasure with her. Olivia
sniffled and Paige bit her lip. Helene simply stared up over our
heads. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“It’s not important,” I murmured, now that I
had gotten what I wanted, never having wanted it at all. “Gordon, I
just wanted to know you’d do it, so— Leave it alone now. It’s
okay.”

He looked relieved and I knew he would’ve
left it, but Helene finally spoke.

“It’s
not
okay,” she whispered, her
face as pale as Clarissa’s, looking down at her lap, twisting her
napkin. She raised her eyes to me, then, her mouth trembling. “It
is
important.
I
need to know, even if nobody else
does.
Some
body is lying.
Please
, Mom.”

The silence descended because
I
had
no intention of dragging out inconsequential skeletons.

“I never had any money,” Gordon finally
said, throwing his napkin at the table and sitting up, planting his
elbows on the table and lacing his fingers together in front of his
mouth. “The house was never mine. It was St. James’s and he gave it
to Cassie free and clear in reparation.” He paused. “I would’ve had
nothing without your mother, and I punished her for it.”

He had the entire table’s attention now. “I
refused to look in a mirror and see who I was. My father knew.
Everybody knew I was gay. Except me. And
he
didn’t want a
confirmed bachelor running around, just waiting to discover his
sexuality. He threatened to cut me off if I didn’t marry
this...pretty little girl...with stars in her eyes.”

I swallowed.

“But if I did, I’d have unlimited cash flow.
Of course I took the deal, but he’d lied to me and swindled your
Grandfather St. James. All the money we had was your mother’s, but
she was smart—brilliant. And you know how frugal your grandparents
are. Well, she knew how to make money and save money—even then.

“But I didn’t. Oh, was I pissed. Because not
only did my father cut me off anyway,
then
it turned out my
barely legal new wife was as tightfisted as her parents—and here I
was, almost thirty years old, begging for money from a teenage girl
I didn’t love and didn’t want, who had full and sole control over
her trust, who wouldn’t give me any of it.

“So I forged her signature and dug into her
trust. And then I started getting loans in her name, mortgaging her
property. She was millions of dollars in debt before she was
twenty-five, and she didn’t even know it. And now I’m as broke as I
ever was. But your mother isn’t.”

I swallowed even as Clarissa stared at me as
if she had never met me. “So...the house? Our trusts, school...” I
looked away, unable to bear the look of devastation on her face.
“Everything?” she whispered and looked back at Gordon. “But
how—”

“She gives me money to give to you,” Gordon
said flatly. “She buys your birthday and Christmas presents and
says they’re from me, because I don’t know you like she does, what
you’ll really like. She’s always done it, from the time you were
little. I bought you things, but it was what you pointed out to me.
I was always with you when I bought you things, and I never paid
attention to what meant most to you. Or I gave you the money to get
what you wanted. She pays your tuition and school fees, funds your
trusts, and lets you think I did. She pays for everything.”

Olivia slowly buried her face in Paige’s
shoulder, and Paige’s head was bowed. Helene wiped tears off her
cheeks.

Gordon looked at me, silently begging me for
forgiveness and I nodded. “Why?” he asked softly. “Why’d you do
that?”

“I was exhausted,” I said, staring down into
the chili I had no appetite for, clutching Mitch’s hand. “Exhausted
from telling you—and them—no. Exhausted from fighting you.
Exhausted from hearing the constant ‘I want’s, listening to the
tantrums. Then having to listen to you bitch at me because no
matter what I gave, it wasn’t enough. Five against one. So I gave
up. Finally. When I had the money. You got what you wanted and I
didn’t have to listen to it anymore. All I had to do was throw
money at you every so often. The girls were perfectly satisfied
with whatever they got as long as it came from you. So...whatever
resentment you all have is...worth it. It’s worth any amount of
money not to be constantly hounded for anything and everything that
never pleased anybody anyway.”

I couldn’t bear to look at my family, but I
did glance up at Nigel. He’d never figured it out, and he looked
back at me, abashed. The remonstrations, the lectures— I kept
waiting for him to make the connection...

“All those years,” Helene whispered. “You
sewed our clothes and gardened and canned, made bread and fixed
‘poor people food,’ made our birthday presents, and we made fun of
you, wouldn’t wear what you made, wouldn’t eat what you fixed—” I
tensed. “We really didn’t have any money, did we?”

I didn’t answer that.

“Why not?” Clarissa demanded.

“Because I spent it all,” Gordon snapped,
and Clarissa shrank into herself. “Aren’t you listening? I spent
every dime I made, every dime your mother had and millions she
didn’t.”

“But—” Clearly Clarissa couldn’t process
this. “Where did it go?”

He stabbed his temple with his finger.
“
Think
about it, Clarissa. European vacations. Cruises in
the Orient. Skiing in the Alps. Personal shoppers. Private schools.
French and Spanish lessons. Piano lessons. Dance lessons. Being
wealthy takes work, Clarissa.
Acting
wealthy is expensive.”
He barked a humorless laugh. “You don’t remember your mother coming
along on those trips, do you? No. She was trying to save money in
the only way she could. She couldn’t keep up with me. You. Us. She
was drowning. I left her to it, and I left her with you four as
ballast. She didn’t steal my life. I stole hers.”

My heart hurt. I had never wanted them to
know this, how close we had come to destitution and that it was all
Gordon’s fault.

He cleared his throat. “The reasons I went
to prison— They were true. Every last charge.”

Paige, Olivia, Helene nearly collapsed, but
Clarissa’s face reddened. “Not—”

Gordon looked her in the face. “Yes. Even
that
one.”

“Don’t blame your father,” I said hastily.
“
That
was an aberration. Other than that, he
never
—”

“
Why?
” Helene growled, staring at her
father, her face betraying anger I’d never suspect her of. “What
did she do that would warrant...
that
?”

He blanched. Looked down at the table. “She
made me confront the fact that I was gay,” he mumbled. “She knew.
All she wanted was for me to acknowledge it somehow. Get a nice,
quiet divorce. Share custody and be at peace—as much as we could’ve
been. Or stay together for you girls, and I could take a lover. So
between the money and that— It...hit me where I lived and I wanted
to hurt her, to break her. So I tried.”

I could see Helene’s rage, feel it vibrating
the air. She burst out of her chair, Gordon her target, but Trevor
was faster, and caught her around the waist. She didn’t fight him,
but my quiet, observant daughter had been pushed beyond her limits,
and her chest heaved.

I went to her. “Helene,” I murmured. I
touched her, took her from Trevor, turned her to face me, away from
Gordon. “Helene. Look at me, love.” She focused. Finally. “Listen
to me very carefully. If he had not done that,” I said slowly to
make sure she understood, “I could
never
have gotten out of
a very bad situation. It was awful. It hurt. I was terrified and I
fought, but even while it was happening, I knew it was the key to a
better future for all of us. Can you understand that?” She
blinked.

“Your father was Rivington’s pawn, just like
I was. He had nowhere to turn, no one to talk to. I do
not
blame him for that. Any of it. He gave me the only thing I could
use as a weapon to get out from under your grandfather’s thumb.

“And don’t you forget— No matter what, your
father has always adored you, wanted to make you happy, and he
does. He always has. Everything turned out fine.”

“Helene,” Gordon said gently. “Prison was
the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ve told you that before.
Now you know why.”

“It’s done. Past. It was a
good
thing. Let it go.”

I could feel the tension in the room fade as
Helene’s faded, and she plopped back into her chair, helpless. She
pushed her food away, laid her arms on the table and put her head
down. There was nothing more I could do, so I returned to my seat,
at Mitch’s side, glad to have his solid body against mine.

Then I noticed Clarissa’s dead-on stare.
“But
prostitution
?”

I shrugged and looked away.

“You have an MBA!”

“
Think
about that a minute, Clarissa!
I could only get my MBA afterwards, when I had the money and time
to do it. Otherwise, I had no marketable skills and quite frankly,
I wasn’t sure I could market
that
one, either. I wanted to
be home for you,” I said, only now willing to admit to myself how
deeply I resented that Gordon had the life I’d wanted. “I didn’t
want to be like the other mothers—the ones who hated me, by the
way—who went off and left their children with nannies.” I paused.
“I guess nannies would’ve done a better job raising you.”

“No!” she yelled and pounded the table as
she stood. “There’s
got
to be another reason.” She pointed
at me. “You can’t tell me you did it because you were bored and you
can’t tell me you did it for the money and you can’t tell me you
did it because you wanted to be home with us or because
Dad—
Gordon
—raped you. Those might be true, but that’s not
all of it.
Why?
”

* * * * *

Hadassah

I looked Clarissa in the eye, and stared at
her until she sat back down, slowly, hypnotized. Of all of my
girls, she would be the only one who could suss out the
inconsistencies and discern something deeper.

“I was turned into a whore the minute
Rivington figured out I had a crush on your father,” I said flatly.
“I was fifteen. Then I was sold just after my eighteenth birthday,
and your grandfathers were my pimps. It took me years to realize
that.”

Gordon slid down in his chair and covered
his face with his hands. Nigel patted his shoulder.

“So you did do it for the money?” Paige
asked, more fascinated than horrified.

“No. My father bankrupted himself trying to
get me out of that mess. Nigel bailed me the rest of the way out
and kept me afloat until I could earn some real money—and I paid
every bit of my own debt back to him.”