A Family Affair: Winter: Truth in Lies, Book 1 (3 page)

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. 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 and 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 and 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 that 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 have been killed with your father.” Why couldn’t she just let it go? The most she could hope to gain was a piece of the truth 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?” It all rushed 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.”

“So why exactly, are you going away?”

Christine folded another sweater,
a tan cashmere, zip in the back, and 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 hadn’t insisted on coming, or better, hadn’t just showed up on her doorstep, 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 with 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 a trip to Italy. 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 he would 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 straightforward. 
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.

“Christine? Are you listening? Do you think you’ll be back on the twenty-third? 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 and 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, Chairman of the Board 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 pairs 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 and stroked her thumb. “You love New York. I just thought”—he 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, organs, tissues, cells. 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 socioeconomic condition could help determine what should be said or 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 and 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 and 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 turnoff. 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 and 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 navy-blue chair, a rocker, matching blue and cream plaid cushions, 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 that was 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 faucet. 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 and 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 
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 was only four days a month?

The answer sat 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 lay 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 to the predawn 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 have taken a bit more time preparing for this meeting. Perhaps she should have 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.