A Family Affair (4 page)

“
Christine? Are you
listening? Do you think you’ll be back on the 23rd? I have to go to
New York and I thought you might want to go with me, do a little
business, take in a show.”

“
I don’t know.” Perhaps,
deep down, her father’s lack of acceptance had kept her from
committing to Connor.

“
I know how you love the
city.” He paused, smiled at her. “Besides, I’m meeting with Niles
Furband and I was hoping you could work your magic on him
again.”

“
All I did was talk to the
man, for heaven’s sake.”

“
That’s just it, Christine.
You talked to the man. Nobody talks to Niles Furband, the man. They
talk to Niles Furband, CEO of Glen Systems, or Niles Furband, heir
to the Furband fortune, or Niles Furband, Board of Director for St.
Catherine’s Hospital. They ask his opinion on variable loans in the
current market and leveraged buy-outs, or how many zeros they can
add to whatever donation they’re seeking. Or, and Jesus, this is so
lame, the names of his kids, as if they cared.”

“
I cared.”

“
That’s my point. You
cared. The rest of them are just blowing smoke.”

She tucked several pair of underwear into the
side pocket of her suitcase. “Like you, maybe? Bring me along so
you seem more credible when you hold out your hand?”

He did have the good grace to turn a very
dull shade of red. “I’ve got a good deal for him. It’s not
bullshit.”

“
Are you asking me to go to
New York to spend time with you or are you asking me to go to set
up a deal for you?”

“
I want to be with you.” He
sat up, reached for her hand, stroked her thumb. “You love New
York. I just thought,” he paused, squeezed the soft flesh of her
palm, “ . . . this could be a huge deal, you have no idea how big.”
The stroking started up again, then the white smile. “Just think
about it, okay?”

“
I’ll see.” She stood
there, the touch of his fingers on her skin, the steady movement
brushing back and forth, slow, methodical, and felt
nothing.

***

Christine loaded the BMW the next morning at
6:15 and began the long haul to the cabin in the Catskills. Snow
pelted the windshield in thick, wet chunks as she maneuvered
through the dark, untamed landscape before her. How many more miles
until she reached his cabin? His other home? Was this where he took
her? Was this where they shared a glass of wine, a meal . . . a
bed?

Images rolled over her, seeping from her
brain into every part of her body, organ, tissue, cell. What did
she look like? Young? Oh, God, please not someone Christine’s own
age, or worse, younger. Older? How much older? How had they met?
Did she know he had a wife and daughter? Another life that had
nothing to do with her?

The guessing drove her mad. She’d know soon
enough, and then she’d probably wish she didn’t, because once she
saw with her own eyes, heard with her own ears, the image and the
sound would imbed itself in her memory, and nothing, no amount of
denial, or drugs or therapy would erase it. But still, she had to
know.

She’d spent hours trying to imagine the
confrontation. Faces, inflections in speech, odd little nuances,
even something as unassuming as educational background or
socio-economic condition could help determine what should be said,
and how. Yet all she knew about this woman was her name.

Hadn’t her father ever thought about what
might happen if his family found out? Had he been so consumed with
love, desire, lust, that it hadn’t occurred to him or if it had,
the longing was so overpowering that he discarded the needs of his
family? She hated this faceless woman. As for her father, his lies
had turned her whole life on its axis and it would take time to
sort out truth from lie, love from hate.

She stopped only twice during the trip; once
to refuel and grab a bag of pretzels and a Coke, and the second
time to use the restroom and buy a large, black coffee. Hours and
miles fell behind her in a white haze of nameless highway, her
brain consumed with her destination, filled with both anxiety and
dread. By early afternoon she’d reached the New York state line and
when dusk seeped down from the mountains, she knew she was in the
Catskills. The cabin was located on the outskirts, in Tristan, a
tiny dot on the map, smaller than the head of a straight pin, and
if she’d calculated correctly, about eighty miles from Magdalena,
Lily Desantro’s home.

The road that led to the cabin was little
more than a single lane, covered with snow, and dipping off at the
edges, no guard rails or posts to guide or protect. What if she
slid off to the right, over the embankment, rolled the car? No one
would find her for days. She gripped the wheel tighter, inched
toward the middle of the road. There were trees all around, thick,
ominous, pushing her along the slick road, forcing the BMW through
a vortex of dense brush and overhang.

She slowed to a crawl. The snow had started
again, huge, wet splotches beating the windshield. Christine
rounded another bend, spotted a mailbox off to the right draped in
white. The driveway lay tucked between a copse of evergreen and she
passed by it, then had to back up to find the turn off. The cabin
stood straight ahead, a small log structure surrounded by evergreen
and thick-waisted, naked trees whose coverings had long since
fallen. Snow lay in pure, scalloped drifts along the perimeter of
the cabin, edging its way to the front door.

Christine shifted the car into park, fished
the key to the cabin from her coat pocket, and stepped outside. She
left the headlights on to carve a path through the gray of dusk
that enveloped her.

She fumbled with the key, forced it into the
lock; the door opened with a slight push then a grudging creak. She
stepped inside, reached for a light, and flipped it on. There was a
couch done in blue and cream plaid, a chair, navy blue, a rocker,
matching blue and cream plaid cushion, worn and slightly faded, and
a small coffee table. A single hurricane lamp rested on the coffee
table alongside a ceramic ashtray. This would be the living room.
The kitchen snaked to the right, a tiny oblong packed along the
edges with a gas stove, a white refrigerator, a stainless steel
sink and countertop, a single wicker chair, and a set of four TV
trays with sailboats on the front.

There were two doors past the short half
hallway that butted up to the kitchen. She opened one, flipped on
the light and found a double faucet sink, dingy white with rust
around the silver fixtures, a white commode and a porcelain tub
with claw feet and a plug dangling on a chain that had been wrapped
around the ‘cold’ fixture. A cracked bar of soap sat in a white
plastic tray. No toothbrush, no shaving cream, no sign that anyone
had been here a week ago.

She turned away and opened the door on the
opposite end of the hall. This was the bedroom. She stood in the
semidarkness, staring at the bed. It was a double, covered with a
light chenille spread, no accent pillows or fancy afghans draped at
the foot like her mother preferred. Was this the bed? Christine
turned away and closed the door.

She worked her way back to the living room,
sat in the rocking chair, coat still on. He’d come here every month
for years and yet the place looked unused. Where were the copies of
the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, James Michener’s, The Centennial,
a gift she’d given him at Christmas? Hadn’t he told her he was
taking it with him on his next trip? Where was anything that hinted
a body moved about, within these walls, lived a life, even if it
were only four days a month?

The answer was sitting there, around the ring
of rust in the bathroom sink, on the coffee table filmed with a
fine layer of dust, in the shininess of the navy ceramic
ashtray.

He’d told them all a great, fantastic story
of the rejuvenating powers found in this cabin hundreds of miles
away from everything, where he could think. It had all seemed so
noble then, inconvenient, yes, but noble. How many other lies had
he told? Tomorrow she’d have her answers.

She didn’t know how long she sat in the
rocking chair, coat on, hands clenched together, staring into the
blue emptiness of the ashtray perched on the edge of the coffee
table. Eventually, she got up, went to the refrigerator and found
it empty except for a box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. She
quietly closed the door and made her way to the bedroom, kicked off
her shoes and laid down on the left side of the bed, the side her
father always slept on. She didn’t pull down the chenille spread,
not even to rest her head on the pillow. And then exhaustion took
over and she slept.

***

Magdalena was exactly seventy-eight miles
from Tristan. Christine woke up to the pre-dawn sounds of birds and
some other unnamed wood creatures. Her back was stiff, her legs
sore, her head pounding. And she was starving. Food wasn’t
something she thought about much, not the way her mother did,
arranging and presenting it with such dignity. Christine preferred
ordering out or microwave ready, the faster the better, easy
cleanup, better yet.

She rolled off the bed, stared at the
chenille spread, crumpled from sleep. The questions wouldn’t stop,
not until she found the one woman who held the answers, and then,
there might be hundreds more. She stripped off her coat, took a
quick rinse in the porcelain tub, scrubbed her face, her teeth,
pulled a comb through her thick hair and put on the same jeans
she’d worn the day before. She reached into her suitcase and
grabbed the first shirt she found, a black turtleneck. Ten minutes
later she was on the road, stopping only at a 7 Eleven to grab a
large coffee and a sweet roll.

She entered the outskirts of Magdalena
seventy-eight miles later and began to wonder if she should’ve
taken a bit more time preparing for this meeting. Perhaps she
should’ve worn her pearls, a business suit, flipped her hair in a
chignon. In business, the aura of ‘inapproachability’ had served
her well, gained access into boardrooms, earned invitations and
introductions. Her personal life hadn’t reaped the same benefits,
not that it had suffered, but it hadn’t thrived. Aside from Connor,
who was a family friend, many men thought her too standoffish. She
wasn’t, not really, it was more a cloak she donned to protect
herself from overexposure, like sunscreen, a way to avoid the
undesirable effects of undesirable people, men in particular.

Since the moment she heard Lily Desantro’s
name, she’d thought of the second when she’d see the woman and a
name and a face would merge, one breathing life into the other to
form a person, a memory, a past where all supposition would fade
into features and voice and realness.

Christine followed the road to the edge of
town; to the street on the back of the business card Thurman Jacobs
had given her. 1167 Artisdale Street. The houses on this street
were older, larger, more dignified, with scattered roof peaks, high
shuttered windows, and grand porches. They spoke of memories,
family and tradition, some with sturdy pillars along the front
porch, others boasting wide steps and wider walkways. She was drawn
to one half-way down that had pillars and walkways, crisp white
with black shutters, an expanse of window spreading up and out,
covering first and second stories. The number above the door read
1167 Artisdale.

She parked the BMW and shut off the engine.
Holly bushes filled the front beds, scatterings of evergreens
clustered in between. To the right, blocking the tan house next
door, stood a copse of pine trees, draped in white. Two wind
chimes, one a Christmas tree, painted bright red and green, the
other a snowman, plastered in white, hung from the porch, dangling
rhythms of sound and sequence.

She should have sketched brief pointers for
this meeting, a flow chart of sorts, similar to what she did when
she analyzed stocks. Her stomach clenched, bits of sweet roll
rising to the middle of her throat. What was there to analyze? Her
father had kept a mistress named Lily Desantro at 1167 Artisdale,
and this was most likely where he’d come during his monthly trips,
not the cabin in Tristan with its ringed sink and empty
refrigerator.

Maybe Uncle Harry had the right idea after
all; never settle for one, just plow through them like a tractor in
a field of hay, one after the other; multiple, meaningless
relationships.

She took a deep breath and opened the car
door.

Chapter 4

Nate Desantro thought about ignoring the
doorbell and would have if he thought his mother wouldn’t try to
get out of bed and answer it herself. Why couldn’t everybody just
leave them alone, mind their own business, not his family’s?

He couldn’t count the number of people who’d
been here since the accident, well wishers offering fresh baked
rolls, wedding soup, baked ham with pineapple and cloves. What
about peace and quiet? Did any of those do-gooders ever think about
offering that? His mother needed rest not a crowd of people
hovering over her. He’d kicked them all out last night. Lily hadn’t
liked that.

In another week or so he’d be able to get
back to his own place, back to seclusion, where the loudest noise
at night was a flip between a screech owl and a log crackling on
the fire. Just the way he liked it. The majority of the human
species was nothing but an annoying intrusion on his state of mind
and other than the times when he had to interact with them, he
preferred to be alone. Of course, family didn’t fit into that
category, just everyone else. His mother said he was afraid to open
up after what happened three years ago. She was wrong; he didn’t
care about Patrice anymore, didn’t even think about her, not since
the day the sheriff delivered the divorce papers. Nate heard she
was remarried to some bank president in Palm Springs, drove a Lexus
now. Probably silver; she’d always had a fondness for silver.