A Family Affair (3 page)

The whole world was one great big screw up.
Harry sat in the lounge at the Ritz, waiting for Christine to come
out of the restroom. He’d decided to take her here for a drink
before he told her the truth. Actually, he was the one who needed
the drink, several, to give him the guts to carry it out.

Why couldn’t people just be who they were,
womanizers, drinkers, liars, manipulators, instead of pretending
around it all, hiding the secrets like dirty laundry stuffed under
a bed, and then dying, so the grieving got whammed with two losses;
the flesh and blood bodies and the images they thought they
knew.

Charlie should have told him he had something
on the side. Harry would have understood; Gloria was a pathetic
piece of flesh and bone, a real martyr, served up super-size. How
much pain and self-pity should a man have to take? Charlie
should’ve gotten rid of her years ago. So what if she was
Christine’s mother? No woman would’ve pulled that clinging crap on
Harry. He’d never get married. Marriage was nothing but a primitive
form of torture; women strapping their hands around a guy’s balls
and yanking. Move too far to the left, yank, one extra step to the
right, yank. Breathe too hard, yank, not hard enough, yank, breathe
at all, yank, yank, yank!

So, what was he going to tell Christine? He
didn’t like being left to clean up messes, he wasn’t good at them.
Creating the mess, now that was his specialty; trash it and duck
out, move on to the next catastrophe. Nobody ever expected him to
stay around, and certainly not to figure a way out of something
like this. Hell, no. But Christine was the one decent human being
in this screwed up world. Should he lie and buy a little time,
maybe make her think this Desantro woman was some do-gooder out to
save the world or some other bullshit?

“
Uncle Harry?” Christine
slid into the booth beside him. “Are you all right?”

“
Just thinking.” He eyed
the drinks on the table. “I must be thinking way too hard if I
didn’t see the waitress bring these drinks.” He let out a
half-hearted laugh, picked up his scotch and swallowed.

Christine sipped at her wine. “Uncle Harry,
what’s going on?”

“
It’s tough, Chrissie.” He
stared at the scotch in his glass. Three more of these should do
it, mellow him out enough to get the words out.

“
Uncle Harry, who’s Lily
Desantro?”

Harry polished off his drink and set it down.
“The first time I heard the Desantro name was the night your father
died. The phone call,” shit, he did not want to do this. “Remember
that? There was a man on the phone, he was the one who told me
about Charlie, said he hit a guard rail and flipped over.” He
didn’t mention the part about it taking three hours to pry Charlie
from the car. “Anyway, this guy said not to come, he’d have the
body sent home. I asked him who the hell he was and that’s when he
told me about the woman, said she was in the car with Charlie.” He
paused, pinched the bridge of his nose. “She was his mother.”

“
Is she alive?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess so. He
didn’t say she died but I didn’t ask.”

“
So, this woman, what
exactly was she to Dad?”

This was the part he’d wanted to avoid; the
uncertain, almost fearful look on her face, speckled with the
tiniest glimmer of knowing. People played games with themselves all
the time, asked questions to answers they already knew deep in
their gut, yet couldn’t admit, or didn’t want to admit. He saw it
every day, with his married friends who bought their wives
bracelets and two carat rings stuffed with diamonds and rubies. All
signs of romance, love, affection, devotion, whatever in the hell
you wanted to call it, and yet, it wasn’t that at all, it was duty,
and ninety-eight percent of the women had picked out the piece,
designed it, ordered it, and then, told their husbands where to
pick it up. Happy Friggin’Anniversary. These same men followed
every piece of ass, every short skirt, tight shirt, screwing them
with their eyes, sometimes with their dicks, but if you asked any
one of them if they loved their wives, they’d say of course, not
even a second’s hesitation, which always told Harry they were lying
and they knew it. That was the knowing part. They knew whatever
love they’d felt in the marriage had been reduced to trips to
Tiffany’s and their Gold Card, and if they had found something on
the side, they knew too, that it would stay right there, on the
side, because they weren’t giving up their homes, their country
club memberships, their right to see their kids every night, their
401K’s . . . their life. They weren’t giving up their life, and
yet, none of them realized they’d already done just that.

It was pretty sad that he could see this when
none of the others could. His women were the same way, all thinking
they’d change him, love him so much that he’d want a wife, a
family, a child . . . an SUV. And then came the mothering. That’s
when they had to go.

And now, Christine was staring at him, not
wanting to believe what her gut must be telling her. Shit. He
reached for another scotch, swallowed, let the burn fill his
throat, consume his lungs.

“
You know, this is really
hard, Chrissie, especially for me.”

“
That’s why I’m asking you,
Uncle Harry. You’re the only one who’ll tell me the
truth.”

She was relying on him for the truth. Now
that was just damn sad. “If I were a betting man, and I’ve been
known to be that in my lifetime,” he said, covering her hands with
his own, “I’d say your father was . . . involved with this Lily
Desantro.”

“
You mean an
affair?”

Christ. “Looks that way. Charlie loved you,
Chrissie. This has nothing to do with you.”

“
And my mother?” Her voice
wobbled. “Did he love her?”

“
I’m not the one to ask
about love, you know that.”

“
Is that where he was going
every month? To see her?”

Jesus. “I don’t know.”

“
Well, I’m going to find
out.”

“
Chrissie, let it go. It’s
over. Charlie’s dead. Finding out isn’t going to bring him
back.”

“
I need to
know.”

“
Sometimes it’s better not
to know. Nothing can change what is or what happened and digging
around in the past is only going to make you miserable.”

Her eyes were bright, shiny. “I don’t care. I
have to know.”

Harry shook his head, reached for his drink.
“Remember Pandora’s Box? This is the same thing. Don’t open
it.”

“
How can you expect me to
forget what you just told me?”

“
I said she probably
was.”

She threw him a disgusted look. “Uncle Harry,
I’m not twelve years old. She was his mistress.”

Harry shrugged, took another drink.

“
And knowing that changes
everything.”

“
It doesn’t change the fact
that he loved you.”

“
But everything he told me,
about honor and integrity, was it all a lie?”

“
Of course not.”

“
And this woman, who was
she? What kind of woman could make him leave his family to be with
her?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I can’t live my life with
this lie. I have to find out.”

“
So, what do you plan to
do, just pack up and take off on an excursion? Close up shop?
Charlie wouldn’t like that.”

“
Phil’s a perfectly capable
CEO. He’ll be fine with me leaving for a week or two. Besides, no
one expects me back in the office so soon after the
funeral.”

“
And your mother?” This
would send Gloria over the edge. She’d be popping those Vicodin
like Sweet Tarts.

“
This would kill
her.”

“
She doesn’t have to find
out.”

“
She can’t find out.” She
rubbed her temples. “She just can’t.”

“
Relax. She
won’t.”

“
Uncle Harry, you have to
help me. We’ll say I went to clean out Dad’s place in the
Catskills, which is part true, and I’m taking care of a business
deal he started up there, which is also part true.”

“
What business
deal?”

“
A few months ago, he told
me he put up the collateral for some machine shop. I guess the guy
was having a tough time making his payments and Dad was going to
help him out, set up some alternative financing or something and he
wanted me to get involved. I could check that out while I’m up
there.”

“
Chrissie, we don’t even
know if this Desantro woman is still alive. She could’ve been
killed with your father.” Jesus, why couldn’t she just let it go?
The most she could hope to gain was a piece of the truth and that
would end up haunting her for the rest of her life. He should know;
thirty-two years ago he’d begged for the truth and it had almost
destroyed him.

“
I have to know. Don’t you
see that, Uncle Harry?”

The damn, sad fact was that he did see. He
knew exactly how she felt, how she needed to search out the truth
so she could understand the pieces of her life that no longer made
sense.

“
I think you’re making a
mistake.”

“
I have to
know.”

“
And if what you find out
is worse than not knowing? Then what?” He felt it all rushing back,
the words, the lies, the pain. “Then you’ve got a face, a voice
that will haunt you for the rest of your life, Chrissie. It could
friggin’ destroy you.”

“
I know. But if I’m going
to end up hating the man I loved most in the world, then I want
everything about that woman, her face, her voice, the color of her
fingernails, embedded in my brain, so every time I think of my
father, every time I wonder why I can’t forgive him, I’ll think of
her and I’ll know I have a reason to hate him.”

Chapter 3

“
So why exactly, are you
going away?”

Christine folded another sweater, a tan
cashmere, zip in the back, placed it in the open suitcase on her
bed. “Connor, I told you. I’m going to the Catskills to close up my
father’s place.” She turned away so he wouldn’t see her face, not
that Connor had ever been able to detect anything she hadn’t wanted
him to. When she’d called him the night her father died and he
offered to come over, she told him no, it was late and he had to
get up early; he’d left it at that, hadn’t insisted on coming, or
better, hadn’t just showed up on her door step, pulled her into his
arms and held her the way she’d needed him to.

“
I don’t get it,” he said,
crossing his arms under his head and stretching his long body on
the bed. “I guess I just don’t get this whole trip thing. Why’d he
go there every month, anyway?”

To see Lily Desantro, that’s why. “It was his
way of relaxing, I guess.” She pulled another sweater from her
drawer, black angora, tiny pearls. “An escape from the pressure of
his job.” An escape to another woman.

“
Couldn’t he just go to the
health club? Or play a round of golf?”

“
I don’t know, Connor. I
don’t know why he had to go there. He just did.”

“
Okay, don’t get all
testy.” He smiled at her, white on white against his tanned skin.
“Just trying to figure it out, that’s all.” Connor James Pendleton,
age thirty-two, fourth generation graduate of Princeton and heir to
Pendleton Securities, Inc. The Pendletons believed in the stock
market, Ivy League educations, and first class. Christine and
Connor had been together almost two years, had sunbathed side by
side in Hawaii, snorkeled in Cancun, skied in Aspen, and taken the
Concorde to London - twice. With Connor, it was only the best,
always; the hotels, the restaurants, the theaters, the people. The
only part that lacked was their relationship. It was third rate,
maybe less, and no matter how she tried to dress it up, with pearls
or diamonds or a package deal to Trinidad, it was still just that,
third rate.

Being with Connor was like investing in blue
chip stocks; they might be a safe bet and look good in a portfolio,
but they’d never give you the ride a tech stock would. Weeks could
pass without making love and it didn’t seem to bother him, in fact,
he didn’t seem to notice. But then, neither did she. That wasn’t
exactly true; she did notice, it just didn’t bother her. How sad
was that? Some days, she’d catch herself listening to her
assistant, Elena talk to her husband, about inconsequential things
like what would he like for dinner, and could he pick their
daughter up at daycare. It wasn’t what Elena said, but how she
said, it; soft, caring. Christine had tried that once with Connor,
called him for no reason just to chat and tell him she was thinking
about him. He’d put her on hold, just for a minute so he could talk
to Tokyo, and five minutes later Bette, his secretary came on the
line and told her Connor would be tied up longer than expected,
‘closing a deal you know,’ and then asked if there was a message.
There was no message, none that he would understand, anyway.

People expected them to get married; her
mother, Connor’s parents, everyone who saw them together. You make
a beautiful couple, her mother had told her. You with your fair
skin and black hair and Connor with his classic good looks,
everyone notices the two of you. Connor’s father was more straight
forward; Great gene pool, can’t wait to see the kids. Her own
father had been polite with Connor but there’d been no ‘join our
family’ sentiment in his words or his behavior and certainly no
references to extending the family with Connor’s ‘gene pool.’