“What are you trying to tell me? That I should go out and get laid, for crissake?”
Josh took a long drink of coffee then set the cup down. He leaned closer across the table. "Adam, I tell you this because I’m your friend. Elizabeth is gone. She’s been gone almost a year now. And she was sick for a long time before that. But you’re still here.”
“Get to your point, Josh.”
“My point is that Elizabeth wouldn’t have wanted you to be like this. She loved life, and she taught you to do the same.”
Adam stared at Josh. “Are you done?” he asked finally.
Josh sat back in his chair. “Adam —-”
“It’s getting late, Josh.”
Josh recognized the tone of dismissal. He had pushed far enough for one night. He rose slowly. “It was an excellent dinner, Adam. I’ll see you at the office Monday. I’ll show myself out.”
“Josh?”
Josh looked back.
Adam paused. “Thanks for coming.”
Adam waited until he heard the front door close then went to his study. He sat down at his desk, reached into a drawer and pulled out a silver picture frame. It was a photograph of Elizabeth taken when she was thirty-five, in the fullest bloom of her beauty. He stared at it for a long time then set it down on the desk. It was the first time since the funeral he had looked at her picture.
He expected some flood of emotion to engulf him. But nothing came. The emptiness surprised and saddened him. Maybe Josh was right, maybe he couldn’t feel anything anymore. But he knew that wasn’t true. He felt an overwhelming loneliness. It had been building for months, and now, suddenly, he ached for the nearness of another human being. He put Elizabeth’s picture back in the drawer.
He left the house and drove aimlessly around the city. After an hour, he pulled up to a stone mansion on Pine Street. He rang the bell, and a doorman appeared.
“Mr. Bryant to see Miss Stanford, please,” Adam said.
Adam was ushered into an alcove then he followed a maid up a winding staircase into a large room with a glass ceiling and a fountain, its waters illuminated by colored lights.
“Adam, what a surprise.”
He turned at the sound of the voice. Sally Stanford glided toward him, smiling.
“You look good, Sally,” he said. “So does your new place.”
“Oh, I’ve been here for years. You, however, have been away a long time. I was sorry to hear about your wife.”
Adam smiled politely. He was standing in one of the world’s most celebrated houses of prostitution, a house that had hosted some of the most famous men in the world. He knew that Sally could be counted on for complete discretion. But he suddenly felt vulnerable.
“Would you like a drink?” Sally asked.
“Perhaps later.”
“I’ve changed things since we last saw each other, Adam. I have many lovely rooms, each decorated in a different mood.”
“I trust your judgment.”
She smiled. “And I never disappointed you. Claire will show you to your room. It’s good to see you again, Adam.”
The maid led Adam to a softly lit bedroom furnished with Victorian antiques. A fire crackled in the marble fireplace, and a selection of liquor and crystal sat on a sideboard. Adam poured a brandy, took off his coat and tie, and sat down on the bed.
After a few minutes, the door opened and a young woman stood there. She was medium height, with long blond hair. She was wearing a pink silk robe.
“I’m Marie,” she said. “And you are...?”
For a moment he thought of giving the woman a false name. “Adam,” he said.
She came into the room and sat down beside him on the bed. She was pretty, about twenty-five, with pale blue eyes and a heart-shaped face. “And what do you do, Adam?”
He stared at her. She didn’t know who he was. The anonymity made him relax slightly. “I work for a newspaper,” he said.
She glanced at his custom-made suit, his shoes and watch, the quality not escaping her eye. She also saw the gold wedding band he still wore. Adam noticed her looking at it.
“I’m married,” he lied.
She smiled. “Most are,” she said.
She reached up to unbutton Adam’s shirt, and instinctively he pulled back. “You’re tense,” she said softly. She began to gently massage his shoulders. “I can feel how tight you are.”
Adam closed his eyes. Her fingers probing his muscles felt good. He could smell her perfume, a heavy oriental musk that didn’t suit her porcelain looks.
“Whatever it is,” she whispered, “I can make it go away.”
When she leaned into him he could feel her breasts press against his back and her long hair brush his neck. Her hands moved lower down his sides and slowly over his thighs. He could feel himself growing hard. A jolt of guilt went through him as he thought of Elizabeth but he thrust it aside.
He turned quickly and pushed Marie down on the bed. He stripped off his clothes and untied her robe. In his urgency, he barely noticed her body. He lowered himself and entered her quickly and brusquely, losing himself in the sensation of his flesh against hers, soft and warm and yielding. He thrust against her, thinking nothing, feeling everything. And when he came, he cried out and grasped her to him in a violent embrace.
He lay there for a moment, his face buried in her hair. He had come to this place a dead man, but his own body told him he wasn’t. Elizabeth was gone but he was alive, and he had to go on. The realization made him ache both with relief and unbearable sorrow.
He began to cry. Silent streams of tears fell down his cheeks. They grew into sobs and he let them come. His tears fell on Marie’s bare neck.
Without a word, she wrapped her arms across his back and rocked him gently.
A week later, Adam sent for Kellen. He was standing outside the house waiting for her when she arrived. The car pulled up, and the chauffeur opened the door.
Kellen stepped out. She stood, looking up at Adam with wary eyes, her lips compressed in a thin line.
Adam stared at her, seeing Elizabeth, feeling his hurt all over again.
He bent down and held out his arms. Kellen rushed into them.
“Forgive me, Lil’bit,” he whispered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Adam was in his office when the call came in from Sally Stanford. “I wouldn’t call you at the office,” she said, “but this is important. You’ll have to come over right away.”
“Impossible.”
“It’s Marie. Please get here as soon as you can.”
The line went dead. Adam hung up the phone. He couldn’t believe it —- Marie was back. She had been gone for almost a year and now suddenly she was back. Adam sank back in his chair, stunned.
When Marie had left last June without a warning, Adam had been surprised, even annoyed. He had been seeing the young woman often since that first night and had thought they had enough of a relationship to at least merit a good-bye. He had given her many gifts and money, and he had paid Sally good money to secure Marie’s exclusivity. It was not that he particularly cared for her. But he knew that on some level he needed her. Ever since that first night, she had been there for his sexual and emotional needs. It had been a healing experience, and after she left he had felt no need for another woman. But now, she was back.
At the house, Sally greeted him, looking troubled.
“Where is she?” Adam asked.
“She was here this morning while I was out,” Sally paused. "She picked up some things and now it looks like she’s disappeared again.”
“Then why did you call me to come over?”
“I think you’d better come up to her room.”
Something in the tone of Sally’s voice made Adam follow her up to the bedroom where he had spent so many hours. Marie’s musky perfume still hung in the air.
“She left you something,” Sally said, pointing to a small cardboard box on the bed.
Adam went to the bed and peered inside the box. Nestled ami
d some towels was a sleeping baby.
Adam turned back toward Sally. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Sally said. “The cleaning girl found it with this letter addressed to you." She held out an envelope.
Adam hesitated then opened it. The letter inside was written in an inflated flowery hand.
Adam,
I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you about this but I didn’t know how. I didn’t plan for this to happen but it did. I can’t raise him by myself because then I will never realize my ambition to be a great actress. I know you’ll give him the best.
Marie.
p.s. I know what you’re thinking but it really is your son.
Adam slowly folded the letter and put it inside his suit coat. He turned back to Sally. “This is preposterous,” he said softly. He turned to leave.
“Adam, wait,” Sally said. “You can’t leave me with this mess to clean up.”
“Call the cops.”
“Yeah, right. And tell them to just come on over and pick up a little bundle at Sally’s place. Adam, you owe me better than this.”
“How do I know it’s even mine?”
“You paid me a lot of money to make sure Marie saw no one else. I keep my promises to my clients.”
Adam paused at the door. “Have it delivered to my house,” he said.
Adam was never quite sure what it was that changed his mind about the baby. But once it was delivered to his home, he couldn’t bring himself to make the call to the authorities. Perhaps it was because he knew the child would be placed in an orphanage. He reminded himself that he was nearly fifty-three years old, a widower with no intention of ever remarrying, a man whose obsession with his business had already bruised Ian and Kellen. But he knew also that the baby was his son and his responsibility. He knew, too, that Elizabeth would not have wanted him to turn his back on a child.
Adam turned to Hildie, who asked no questions, other than what the child’s name was.
Adam stared at the woman blankly, realizing the child had no name. “It’s Tyler,” he said, suddenly remembering Marie’s last name.
Explaining the baby to Kellen had been difficult. Adam finally told her only that they were going to take care of the baby for a while. Kellen’s curiosity quickly developed into a playful almost maternal infatuation as she helped Hildie care for Tyler.
After a week, Josh convinced Adam he had to either give the baby up or legally adopt him. Adam told Josh he didn’t care what people thought, but Josh reminded him he had Kellen to think about. Adam told him to go ahead with the adoption.
Adam had no contact with the child, entrusting Tyler’s care to Hildie. On rare occasions, Adam would venture into the nursery, stare down at the pale blond sleeping baby and struggle to feel some sort of connection. But he felt only a sense of obligation.
Soon after Tyler’s arrival, Ian graduated from Princeton and came home. Adam had waited to tell him about Tyler, guessing that Ian would be aghast. Ian didn’t disappoint him.
“Good lord, Father,” Ian said. “Are you crazy?”
They were sitting in the study, and Adam stared at his grown son, a handsome young man sprawled elegantly on a sofa, his long legs propped on a coffee table.
“A man must take responsibility for his actions, Ian,” Adam said. “That is all I am doing.”
“But how do you know it’s really yours? All you have is this whore’s word.”
“He’s mine,” Adam said. “I know he is.”
Ian shook his head derisively. “What a homecoming,” he muttered. “I return ready to take my place in the business and now I have another scandal to deal with.”
Ian’s callous reference to Elizabeth’s death left Adam speechless.
Ian rose. “Well, I’m going out for a while,” he said. “I have some old friends to look up.”
“Ian,” Adam said sharply. “If you’re going to live in this house again, you’ll abide by my rules. The first one is that I want you to be discreet about the baby. I don’t want anyone to know the truth about this yet.”
“You can’t keep something like this a secret,” Ian said.
“I have to,” Adam said, “until I can find a way to explain it to Kellen.”
Two weeks later, Kellen came into Adam’s study while he was working. She stood directly in front of his desk. He saw that she had been crying.
“Is it true that Tyler is my brother?” she asked.
Adam confronted the piercing stare of her green eyes. “Who told you that?” he asked softly.
“A boy at school. He called Tyler a bad word...a bastard.”
Adam sighed. “Come here,” he said.
Kellen came around and stood by his chair. He took her hand. “It’s true, Tyler is your brother,” he said. “I’m his father.”
Kellen frowned slightly. Adam could see her mind working.
“Mother always wanted to have a baby boy...but she didn’t,” she said finally.
“No, she didn’t.”
Kellen stared at Adam for a long time.
“You’re too young to understand,” he said finally, unable to stand the accusatory look in her eyes. “Someday I’ll explain it to you. But for now, I need you to do something. I need you to be good to your brother. Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll try,” she murmured.
He tried to gather her in a hug but she pulled away. He released her and watched her walk slowly out of the study.
After that day, Kellen was never as affectionate to Tyler as she had been before. She tried to hide it, but Adam saw her indifference. He knew that Kellen was a loving child, but he sensed that the attention she gave Tyler came out of the promise between father and daughter, not from the heart.
Ian treated the baby the same as he always had Kellen, as if neither existed. Kellen had long ago transferred any affection she might have for an older brother over to Stephen. It seemed strange to Adam that the house, which had felt so deserted after Elizabeth’s death, seemed at times just as empty now despite all its inhabitants.
Adam finally broke down and shared his thoughts with Josh one night in the study over brandies.
“It’s like we’re a family of strangers, Josh,” Adam said. “We’re connected to each other but we’re strangers nonetheless.”
“Give it time, Adam,” Josh said.
Adam was quiet for a long time.
“Family,” he said softly. “I never had one, you know.”
Now it was Josh’s turn to be quiet.
“Ian, Kellen, and Tyler,” Adam said. “They have different mothers but they have my blood.” He took a long drink of the brandy and set the glass down.
“They will learn to be a family,” he said. “We all will.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The sun was hot, and Kellen shut her eyes in pleasure, feeling its warmth on her face. The grass was soft and fragrant, and it tickled her neck. She felt lazy and inexplicably happy.
“You’re going to get freckles if you stay in the sun,” Stephen said.
She glanced over at him, sitting against a tree with a book in his lap. They had come down to the grounds of the Palace of Fine Arts to study but the magnificent spring day made it difficult to concentrate.
“I don’t care,” she said. “It feels so good to be away from the house. Tyler was driving me crazy.”
“He’s only four. All kids are like that at four.”
Kellen stretched languidly, and Stephen’s eyes were drawn to the outline of her breasts, pressing against the black leotard she wore under her skirt. Kellen was now almost eighteen and though she was apparently oblivious to her own body, Stephen was not. It seemed to him at times that she had grown up so fast. One day she had been climbing trees with him. And now, suddenly, she was...almost a woman. It was disconcerting. He had fantasies about her now that left him excited and frustrated. It was more than disconcerting. It was agonizing.
“You’ll flunk if y
ou don’t study,” he said.
“No, I won’t. I have a B going into the final.” She smiled. “And old man Isaacs has a crush on me.”
“Everything comes so easy to you.”
Kellen rolled over onto her stomach. “That’s not true. I worked hard all year. Now, I just want to finish school and get away.”
“You can’t. You’re going to college. If you study.”
“Big deal, across the bay to Berkeley. I want to go to Paris and really study.”
“Study what?”
“Life and people.” She smiled. “‘The only people for me are the mad ones, who burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.’”
“Is that more of your poetry?”
“It’s from On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Didn’t you read the copy I gave you?”
“No.”
“God, Stephen, sometimes you are so —-”
“What? Dull, boring?” He smiled. “One of us has to be.”
“You’re not dull,” she said. “But you are too serious sometimes. You need to loosen up and not think so much.”
“Like you?”
She sat up suddenly and grabbed a book. “I’m going to read you something,” she said. “It’s a poem called ‘Marriage.’ Maybe you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”
She opened the book and began to read. “‘Should I get married? Should I be good? Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and Faustus hood? Don’t take her to movies but to cemeteries, tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries and she going just so far and I understanding why not getting angry saying You must feel! It’s beautiful to feel.’”
She set the book down. “Isn’t that great?”
“Is that another one of those beatnik things?” he asked. “You’ve been hanging around that dump down on Columbus again, haven’t you?”
“City Lights isn’t a dump, it’s a bookstore,” she said. “And this is a great poem by a great artist.”
Stephen grabbed the book and stared at the picture on the back of a tousled-haired young man. “You like it because you think he’s cute,” he said. “Well, maybe I do think too much. But sometimes you don’t think at all.”
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