by JJ Giles
“Brian, let me go with you,” she pleaded, but he only shook his head. “What the hell were you talking about ransom?”
“He’s been very successful over the years, Morgan. I’ll be back as quick as I can.” Hurriedly, he leaned over the bed to kiss her. “I’m sorry. I know this is your birthday, Baby.”
“It’s alright,” she said quivering, emotionally rent to see him like this.
He blew another kiss and headed for the door.
Morgan quivered as she held to Kitty. Kidnapped? she screamed inside. Just the thought of it frightened her beyond rationale.
“I’ll go get you a cup of coffee,” Kitty offered.
“I’m getting up.” Morgan threw back the covers and heard another shriek. She turned to see Kitty staring at her hand in awe.
“You’re getting married!” Kitty squealed with delight.
The very word caused Morgan to shatter. Slowly, her chin dropped to see a ring with the biggest diamond ever cut, she was sure of it, sitting in a sea of sapphires and emeralds. Her breath stopped to see the morning light captured and dispersed to the wall in a flash of brilliant color.
Kitty leapt toward her hand to study the Trilliant cut diamond in the center. “Oh, that’s exquisite,” she gasped. Carefully, she turned Morgan’s hand to see the smaller Quadrillion cut diamonds all the way around the band. “Oh, shit, that’s gorgeous. He had that made just for you. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Suddenly, she thrust forward and hugged at Morgan with jubilation and then she bounced off the bed to run to Mouse and offer her congratulations.
A sudden panic swelled in Morgan and buckled her knees. She fell; her vision caught only on the fire brewing on her hand. “Why is he doing this to me?” In utter hopelessness, she began to cry.
* * * *
At the sight of the shiny yellow car coming his way, Alex Abernathy dashed into traffic, the sooner to get to Brian and find out what had happened to Jerry. “Dear God, what’s happening, Brian?”
“I don’t know.” He released the clutch and sped through a light changing to red, which he always referred to as pink. “All I know is that Mom is totally fucked up.”
“What’d she say?” Alex demanded.
“That she saw him last night before she went to play bridge and when she went to get him this morning for breakfast, he was gone. His bed wasn’t slept in.”
Incredulously, Alex stared. “Your mother was playing bridge?” he said snottily.
“Yeah...that’s what she said.”
Alex paused. Cheryl was the best there was at games, but it certainly wasn’t bridge. He’d played with her before. Bridge, that is. And to think that his twin brother would bother to take her to the club on a very fresh Saturday morning in April was ludicrous. Of course, it had been years since Jerry had even spoken to him, but Alex knew Jerry better than that.
“Was there a ransom note?” Alex asked suspiciously.
“Apparently not.”
“Then maybe he found someone else to spend the night with?”
Aggravated by that, Brian slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Why does he need to fuck around on her, Alex? The woman loves him.”
With that Alex recoiled and nestled back in the seat. “Honey, I’m sorry to tell you this, but your father and mother have never loved each other.”
Stunned, Brian turned to stare a moment. “What the hell are you saying?”
“Just what I’m saying,” Alex said. “Your father has never been in love with your mother.”
“Then why the fuck did they get married?”
Alex shivered with the implication of revealing the truth.
Suddenly Brian realized. His mother was only seventeen years his senior. “She was knocked up, right?”
“Yes, Precious. Your grandfather forced that marriage on your father. Of course, that’s not the whole truth. But your father wanted you desperately, Brian. I think he would have married her without our father’s pressure.”
“So this is my fault,” he cried.
“Of course not. Don’t be silly, Brian. But your father wanted you. Badly,” Alex said sadly.
Brian downshifted and raced up the hill toward the Mansion. “If he’s been kidnapped...” He choked on the very thought.
“I don’t think so, Precious. But we’ll see,” Alex whispered. Easily, he understood that Cheryl was up to something. What exactly he wasn’t certain.
Brian’s hand was on the door lever before the emergency brake was pulled. He leapt out of the car and ran to the front door. Locked. Of course, Mother. You knew I was coming. With a balled fist, he pounded.
Quickly, Alex stood beside him. It had been years since he had been to this horror of a dungeon, the home he was raised in. Not enough years as he studied the stained glass transom window, the disgusting leaded panes of new windows to replace the old.
The door was opened by yet another guard. “Mrs. Abernathy is retired at the moment.”
“You motherfucker,” Brian hollered. “I’m her fucking son.”
“I’m sorry, Sir. She’s not to be disturbed.”
Rather than endure any more of this nonsense, Brian’s already balled fist swung with ferocious strength catching the guard in the stomach. The guard doubled over and reached quickly for a radio phone. But Brian grabbed it away and threw it outside. He had only to push past the injured guard to stand in the entrance hall and scream, “MOM!”
Only a moment later, Cheryl appeared at the second story railing. “Oh Brian...Brian, I’m so scared,” she cried. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she began to run down the stairs. Just then Alex appeared from behind the door. As if she hit an invisible wall, Cheryl stopped mid-step. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”
An imperceptible smile stretched Alex’s lips. “If my brother’s been kidnapped, I want to be here. Nothing you can do about that.”
“Mom, have you called his cell?” Brian asked full of panic.
“Of course, Baby, but he’s not picking up. Maybe he can’t.” Her face knurled with fear.
“Or because he won’t,” Alex interjected.
Not good, Brian thought. He dashed down the hallway to check the garage for his father’s car.
Alex glanced down the hallway to see Brian gone. His head swiveled back to Cheryl. “What are you up to, Honey?”
“Why do you even care?”
Studying the completely reconstructed face, a face he hadn’t seen for years, a face he barely recognized, he asked, “You’re going for the kill this time, aren’t you, Darling?”
With her teeth bared, Cheryl glared at Alex with undiluted wrath.
“Mom, his car’s gone.”
Another flush of tears rose on her cheeks. “I didn’t even think to look in the garage. He never drives anymore. Always uses the chauffeur.”
“Christ, Mom, you’re letting me think he’s been kidnapped.” Brian dashed past her and took the stairs two at a time. He ran down the hall to his father’s bedroom and thrust the doors open wide.
It struck like a sledge to see the bed he and his father slept in when he was a child. The same bed draped with the same comforter of dark green velvet embellished with gold. The same huge fluffy pillows that he, his father and his sister used to play Smear the Queer with. How they would tumble off the bed, giggling so hard their sides ached. And then his father would pick them up and place them in bed. Moments later the servants would appear with ice cream. They ate their ice cream together while they watched cartoons. All three slept in the same bed every night until Cherry turned into a girl.
No, Brian thought. The good times were too long ago to remember with that much fondness. He had changed too much. His father had changed too much. And when you’ve gone too far, how can you ever go back?
From behind him Brian heard, “How long has it been since you’ve been in here?”
Slowly, Brian turned to see Alex merely watching. “Hell, I don’t know,” Brian gasped. He looked around the room
and noted the pictures on the mantle gone. “If he’d been kidnapped, he wouldn’t take the pictures with him, would he?”
Alex shook his head. “No, he wouldn’t. Check the bureau drawers, Darling.”
A little less frantic, Brian pulled the middle one open. “His underwear is gone.” The next. “His socks are gone.” With a heavy sigh, Brian muttered, “He’s moved out.”
With a small smile Alex nodded. But the screech of something wild, a shrill animalian cry from behind thrust him further into the room.
“What do you mean, he’s moved out?”
Brian gathered her up in his arms to feel the shivering in her body. “I’ll find him, Mom.” He let go and went to the phone. “What’s his cell number?”
Quickly, she rattled it off and he dialed. But it rang...it rang some more.
“I told you, he’s not able to answer,” she said defiantly.
Alex wanted nothing more than to slap her at the moment. Rather, he said to Brian, “He’s not going to answer any line coming in from the Mansion. Try your cell.”
Brian grabbed it off his belt and dialed quickly. Two rings later it was answered with a tentative, “Hello.”
“Dad?” Brian gasped.
“Brian! What’s the matter, Son?” Brian could hear the genuine concern.
“Mom got me out of bed this morning, letting me believe you’ve been kidnapped.”
“Oh, for shit’s sake!” Jerry swore. “Son, I’m at the penthouse now. I’ll be here at least for a while. I don’t know what your mother’s up to, but I just thought it best to put some distance between us. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Brian let out a heavy breath. He didn’t exactly know what to say.
“Brian, it’s alright, Son. Everything’s okay,” he said affectionately. Tears rushed to Jerry’s eyes; to think his beautiful son had been that concerned about him.
“Mom’s pretty fucked up.”
“I know. I know that for a fact. But given the way she and I relate to each other it’s probably not good for us to be too close. Please tell me you can understand that.”
“Yeah,” Brian said. “I can understand that. Alex, uhh...”
“Alex!” Jerry shouted.
Alex reached out for the phone. “Jerry, it’s me,” he said maintaining the smooth tremulous tenor he was capable of rather than the shrillness he was also afflicted with at times. “Brian was very concerned when Cheryl called this morning and he picked me up on his way to the Mansion. We’re both very happy to know you’re okay.”
“Thank you,” Jerry whispered knowing he didn’t deserve his brother’s forgiveness. “Thank you.” Heavily, he fell to a chair hearing that voice filled with the very thing he was unworthy of.
“Here’s Brian.”
“Dad, as long as you’re okay...”
“I’m fine, Son. I want you to know I’ve been trying to reach that therapist you recommended. She hasn’t e-mailed back yet.”
“Uhhh...good. The truth is she’s a very popular woman and it does take some time to get on her schedule.”
“If you recommended her, I’m sure she’s worth the wait. I appreciate it. And Brian...I’m at the penthouse. Stop in some time.”
“Yeah, Dad, I will.” In reality he committed to nothing and then clicked off.
He barely had time to breathe before his mother screamed, “What the hell are you doing, Brian? You’re getting hookers lined up for him now?”
“She’s not a hooker, Mom,” Brian scowled. “She’s a professional sex therapist.”
Exaggeratedly, Cheryl huffed. “Is that what they’re calling ‘em these days?”
Quickly, Alex turned and glared at the ultimate hypocrisy. “Careful, Darling,” Alex whispered with a sneer.
“Fuck you,” she screamed at Alex. And then she stomped across the hallway and slammed her door.
Brian fell to the bed and rubbed at his face. “What the hell’s going on around here, Alex?”
“Ah, Precious. It’s such a long miserable story. It probably starts with your grandfather and the day he moved back here out of the White House when my grandfather, President Abernathy was assassinated,” he said sadly. “It probably has as much to do with this very room and the nights your grandfather would line us up in here, all eight of us, to be disciplined.”
“He was a prick?”
“No, Baby...your father is a prick. My father, Jerry’s father, was the Son of Satan.”
The authority in Alex’s tone made Brian’s blood run cold. “I remember him,” he whispered.
“You should and I’m sorry for that. You were what...sixteen when he died. Much too old to not remember him.”
“Sixteen,” Brian nodded. Sixteen when he got kicked out of this room and had to go sleep in the room where his clothes were kept. “Everything changed when grandpa died.”
Not enough as far as Alex was concerned. Alex had come to believe that the old man was invulnerable until that day. He had expected wonderful changes after that, but things only grew worse. Jerry only slipped further away from the family and those that he loved to climb the summit of the Tower and rest on its perch.
* * * *
Alex stood in the bleak shade of ancient trees surrounding the house propped against a screaming yellow little sports car. That very car gave him hope. Morgan, this woman Brian constantly talked about and little else was obviously full of fun and took nothing of the misery in life too seriously. Right now, Cheryl was heaping her own kind of fun on Brian as Alex waited smoking a cigarette.
It was obvious Brian didn’t understand his mother the way the rest of them understood everything. Cheryl had a way of expressing herself that left others chilled to their very souls. She had learned all of the old man’s tricks over the years. But Brian didn’t understand that, never saw the contemptuous manipulations in the woman. Alex waited.
* * * *
“What am I going to do without him?” Cheryl screamed. She threw her half-starved body against Brian’s chest.
“Mom, why do you want him around?”
“He’s my husband.” Seemingly defeated, she slipped out of his arms and swirled into a chair.
“He beats you, Mother,” Brian yelled. “Why the hell do you want someone like that around you?”
Her slight body heaved with agony. Barely comprehensible because of her sobs, he made out, “We’ve been married thirty-five years, Brian. Talk to him for me. Make him understand.”
“I rather doubt that’s going to happen, Mother.”
“What am I gonna do? He’s gonna kick me out of here. Where am I gonna live?”
“Ten times in the last three weeks I’ve asked you to come stay with me and my girlfriend, who I hope is going to be my wife soon.”
The tissue she twisted in her hand fell to shreds in her lap. “Why in the world would you ever want to get married, Brian? Marriage sucks.”
He had the overwhelming feeling that he should stay with her a few days. That she shouldn’t be alone right now. But to leave Morgan...on her fortieth birthday no less, a day she had felt coming like the advance of a freight train... No. Not today. He tried to think of other people he could call to stay with his mother, but not a single name popped into his head.
“Listen, I’ll stop in tomorrow and see how you’re doing.”
“Can’t you stay for awhile now?” she pleaded. “What if he comes home mad?”
“He didn’t sound angry, Mother. He sounded very content at the moment. I don’t think he wants to come back here. Not for awhile at least.”
“I guess I’ll just have to depend on the servants and half of ‘em hate me. But you go on, Sweetie. I know you have a life.”
“Mom,” he whispered. The guilt of leaving her was unbearable anyway and now she was heaping it on. “I’ll come back in the morning and check on you.”
“Alright. I appreciate it.” As if it were a chore, she rose and wrapped around her son.
She felt so weak, so small in
his arms. So hopelessly fragile and the thought that any man could inflict the wounds he saw three weeks ago upon this woman filled him with rage again. The fact that that man had been his father...
“I love you,” he whispered affectionately.
“Baby, I love you.” She sounded so pitiful and frail.
With a kiss to her forehead, he reassured her, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She nodded and backed away. “I’ll be here. I hope.”
Brian turned. He needed to get back to Morgan. Surely she had found her birthday present and he was equally concerned about her reaction to it. “Morning, Ma.” And then he disappeared.
* * * *
Cheryl went straight to her bathroom to take a shower. There was a lucrative little party she could attend if she were ready by four. She stepped into the steam.
“Jerry, you son of a bitch,” she whispered. “You think moving out is gonna save your sorry ass? You might run but you can’t hide.”
* * * *
Brian hopped into the car, but sat still for a moment. Slowly, he turned to Alex. “Why would the old man move out?” he asked.
Tenderly, full of sympathy, Alex grasped his hand. “Keep in mind that Jerry and I haven’t had any real conversation for thirty seven years. Haven’t spoke at all for the last three or four. But I know him better than anyone in this world. We’re identical twins. I think maybe he’s ready for a change.”
“Of course, that change includes dumping her at her age, right?” Brian snarled sarcastically.
That’s exactly what it meant. But Brian wasn’t ready to see his mother for who she was. He only believed his father to be the devil incarnate. And this rift between Jerry and Brian was intolerable, even for Alex. Alex could place it squarely in Cheryl’s lap. “Sometimes you just gotta close the lid,” Alex declared.
Brian turned the key and released the brake. “So what’s going on with you these days?”
Alex winced. “Speaking of closing the lid...” he said.
“You and Charles have been together for twenty years,” Brian protested.
