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Dad shrugged. “When one door closes, another opens.”
One of Dad’s empty pronouncements. He thought they were nuggets of wisdom. Not even close. New-age gobbledygook.
“Did you at least get a good price?” Gray wouldn’t put it past his father to give the land away for sentiment’s sake.
Judging by Dad’s annoyed frown, he’d asked the wrong question. “Of course I did. I spent sixty years working as a successful businessman.”
Yes, Gray knew that, but Dad had lost his grip on reality. He was eighty years old and changing, reverting to childhood, or something. He should have retired twenty years ago, but what would he have done instead? Retirement would probably have killed him, but in the past months that Gray had been home, he’d finally had to accept that Dad needed to step away from the business altogether before he sent the whole thing down the drain. Dad was still too sharp for this to be Alzheimer’s. This wasn’t a failing, wasn’t even dementia, just a change. But why?
“Isn’t Jeff Stone the one you pay a salary to even though he’s off work?”
“I pay him a reduced salary. An early retirement.”
“Even though he was short of fulfilling his requirements?”
“He’s going blind.” Gray flinched at Dad’s harsh tone. “Jeff worked for me for twenty-nine years. His macular degeneration precluded him from working his final year.”
“He would qualify for disability. Why make the company bear the financial burden of his care?”
“He would make a pittance on disability. He has medical bills. He needs an operation that will cost a fortune. He’s middle class, not a millionaire.” Dad pulled the second oar out of the box but threw it onto a growing rubbish heap when he discovered it was broken. “Paying Jeff is no burden. He worked hard for me and, by extension, since you enjoyed the secure childhood and higher education the business bought, for you. The least we can do is show our appreciation.”
Dad was too softhearted to run a successful company in today’s environment. Disability was designed for this situation, for people like Jeff.
Gray opened his mouth to argue further, but Dad forestalled him. “Selling those greenhouses to Audrey was the right thing to do. Give it some thought and you’ll agree.”
Before he said something too harsh, Gray left the garage. For sixty years, his dad had done everything right, but in the past year, it seemed he’d been getting it all wrong. Or maybe longer. The further Gray dug into records and finances, the more he realized that Dad had been making risky investments and dubious decisions for a while.
Also, he’d caught him lying more than once. No, that wasn’t fair. They weren’t lies, just convenient half-truths so that Gray had to double-check everything Dad told him to find the truth for himself.
His stomach burned.
Did Mom have antacid tablets in the house? He could use a couple. Or the whole bottle.
Inside, he found her sitting in the living room. Where Dad’s grooming was suffering with age, Mom still looked perfect.
Dressed to the nines even this early in the morning, she wore a silk blouse with a soft pastel print and a tweed skirt, her still slim legs encased in stockings and her feet in stylish black heels.
She sat on the sofa reading a romance novel. She had just turned seventy-five, for Pete’s sake. He didn’t need to catch her holding a book with a photograph of a half-naked man clutching a busty woman on the cover.
Even so, when she peeked at him over the rims of her reading glasses, her once-vivid blue eyes faded now, his heart swelled. A cloud of white hair framed a tiny face. Her welcoming smile warmed him. This amazing woman had given him everything, the absolute best childhood.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked, and he meant anything. For his parents, especially Mom, he would do whatever was asked of him. “A cup of tea?” Mom loved her tea.
“I’m fine,” she answered. “I’ve already had four cups this morning.”
“Mom,” he said, hesitating because he didn’t want to offend, but needing to know. “What’s happening with Dad?”
She didn’t seem surprised by the question. “He’s tired. He’s had a lot of weight on his shoulders for a long time. He needs to let go and relax.”
“He said it started when he turned eighty.”
She set her glasses down on top of her book. “Oh, it started well before that. He’s been tired for years.”
Startled, Gray asked, “Why didn’t he tell me? I would have come home sooner.”
Those faded blue eyes studied him shrewdly. “Would you have?”
His mind flew to an image of Marnie with her hands on her hips, obstinate in battle with him. “Yes,” he said, but he’d taken too long to answer.
“Truly?”
Gray slumped into the armchair. “I don’t know. Marnie didn’t want to live here. She loved Boston.”
“You would have had to have made a choice. Your parents or your fiancée. I understood that, Gray, so I didn’t tell you about your dad’s state.”
Gray leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Mom, I love you and Dad. I would have worked out something.”
“What could you have done? You loved Marnie, too, and Boston is not within commuting distance. Would you have lived six months here and the other half of the year there? Like a child in joint custody? What kind of life would that have been, especially once you had children?”
“I don’t know. I would have come up with a solution.”
Mom closed her book and put it on the side table, giving him her full attention. “Why did it take so long for you and Marnie to set a wedding date? You were engaged for five years.”
Mom had always been too perceptive. Getting away with anything in his adolescent years had taken real skill and subterfuge on Gray’s part. “There were things we couldn’t agree on.”
“Like where to live?”
A heavy sigh gusted out of him, and he admitted, “Like where to live. That was the biggest obstacle.”
“So, even though your father and I tried to protect you, you were caught up in our drama anyway.”
“You were aging. There’s nothing anyone can do to prevent that. You’re my responsibility, Mom.”
“Such a shame that we had only one child.”
“What else could you have done? I came along so late.” He was a surprise for his parents after they had long given up hope of conceiving.
Mom smiled, and her eyes got misty. “Yes. We were lucky to have you.”
The conversation had become too maudlin for Gray. He didn’t want to think about feeling alone as a child, about how much he missed Marnie, or about how old his parents were.
“What do you know about Audrey Stone?” he asked.
Mother perked up. “She’s the most interesting thing to happen to this town in years. I’m so glad she came back home to live. Have you seen her?”
He’d run out on breakfast, so he explained what the emergency had been.
“What was she wearing?” Mother asked, clearly excited.
“Wearing?” She’d thrown him. He’d just told her that Audrey had the means to scuttle a huge deal for the family and Mother wanted to know what the woman was wearing?
He rubbed his hands over his face. As dear as his aging parents were, he didn’t have time for their eccentricities.
“Well?” Mom persevered.
Gray pointed to a large illustrated hardcover on the coffee table. In a full-page photo on the cover, Jackie Kennedy wore the pink suit she’d had on the day her husband was assassinated.
“She wore a suit like that, but it was gray with white trim.”
His mother caught her breath. “A vintage Chanel? I always knew Audrey had class.”
He thought of the full curves shaping the suit. Class? Yes, but also a whole lot more.
“No hat?”
He mentioned the red hat that had matched her lipstick and her nail polish and the glimpse of her toenails he’d seen through her open-toed black suede pumps, which looked as though they’d come straight out of the forties.
“Describe the hat.”
When he finished, Mother nodded her approval. “A pillbox. You don’t see those anymore. Was she wearing gloves?”
Thinking of those bright red nails, he shook his head.
“Ah, well,” she said, “I guess times have changed. Too bad she hadn’t really completed the outfit, though, if you know what I mean.”
He didn’t have a clue.
“Have you thought anymore about what we discussed last night?” she asked.
What they’d discussed many nights since he’d moved back home had been his getting married and having children. His parents wanted to meet their grandchildren before they died. Gray still had to produce those grandchildren. First he needed a partner. It should be the least he could do, but he thought of Marnie and held his breath until the pain passed.
“I’m thinking about it.”
Mother smiled. Honestly, he lived to make her happy, but how did a man snap his fingers and, poof, there would be a wife, ready and willing to bear his children?
He headed upstairs to his bedroom. He needed to change his shirt. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock in the morning and the day not yet hot, but under his business jacket, he’d been sweating like a linebacker. Since the car accident, his body had been betraying him in strange ways. A giant rodent gnawed gaping holes in the cool, collected persona he’d cultivated in business, and he didn’t have a clue how to boot the offending creature from his body.
He picked up a letter that had arrived yesterday, addressed to his father, but Gray handled all of his parents’ correspondence these days. They’d relinquished that responsibility happily, and thank God for that. What if Mother had opened this instead of him?
The thought sent a shiver through him. Mom would have been devastated. He had to protect her at all costs.
He read it yet again with a creepy fascination, as though rubbernecking at a traffic accident.
I have three children to support. Their father is dead. My oldest son has Duchenne muscular dystrophy. I can’t pay for his therapy. He needs a wheelchair. I need money. I’m desperate. I’ll go to the newspapers.
Shelly Harper
Who was this woman? This Shelly? Was she for real? Were her accusations true? That Dad was her father? He checked the postmark. Denver. Too close to home for comfort’s sake, only an hour away.
At heart, Gray was a cynic and took nothing at face value.
And yet, he had an eerie suspicion that everything she’d said was true.
She’d enclosed a birth certificate, hers, with his dad’s name on it, along with a photograph of herself that showed a strong likeness to Dad. The final shot, though, of three children, one of whom was the spitting image of himself at around nine or ten, left him shaken.
It all seemed legit. These kids looked like family. The woman bore an eerie resemblance to him.
Nonetheless, after he’d received the letter yesterday, he’d posted one back to her. I need proof. Give me a DNA sample for testing.
Let’s see if she had the nerve to provide one.
His gut screamed she was telling the truth. In business, he trusted his instincts all the time—they rarely steered him wrong—but how could this be real? Dad couldn’t possibly have committed adultery. Could he have? Dad?
If the woman’s allegations were true, Gray would need quick money to buy her off. It took time to come up with the kind of cash she demanded—four hundred thousand dollars.
Four hundred thousand dollars. Mind-boggling. He started to sweat again.
Yes, his business was successful, but he wasn’t a millionaire. He didn’t have buckets of cash lying around.
He’d already started things rolling yesterday with instructions for his CFO to liquidate certain of his own assets, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough.
Farm-Green was willing to buy now—the ultimate answer to this mess.
The woman’s threat filled him with cold dread.
How could Gray ever let Mom find out? How could she survive the betrayal once she knew that her husband had been unfaithful, that she’d been wrong about his character throughout her marriage?
He dropped into his old desk chair. It squeaked under his weight. He wouldn’t let Mom be ruined by this. He threw the paper on to the desk—not while he had any say in the matter. But what could he do? If this woman was telling the truth—and it sure looked as though she was—she had a real need.
Then again, if what she claimed was true, she was his half sister and only a year older than he.
Man, that floored him. He’d been a happy child, but so alone. For a long time, there’d been an emptiness inside of him, a wish for more, a sense that he’d lost something he couldn’t name and couldn’t get back.
For years, he’d wanted a sibling.
Was he willing to accept this woman’s assertions too easily because of a long-buried wish for a brother or sister? For something to combat being alone in the future after his parents died, and to assuage his current loneliness?
How was her existence even possible? Dad had adored Mom all of his life. Dad, the epitome of ethics and morals, a man whose backbone and strength of character were admired by all, couldn’t have had an affair.
Gray, though, was stuck considering the unthinkable, that his dad had fathered an illegitimate child while married to his mom.
Talk to Dad.
Can’t. What if I find out it’s true?
Suck it up and ask.
It would shatter Gray, make a mockery of his history and his parents’ history.
