Tears welled up in my eyes recalling all the terrible things my father and I had said to each other.
“It was awful, Ash. He just wouldn’t listen to reason. He’s always had some kind of idea in his head about who I should be. He wants to me to be a replica of my mother or rather who he envisioned my mother to be. I was so young when she died, but I know she wasn’t a saint.”
Ash kept holding my hand. I leaned against his shoulder.
“Ronnie, I told you years ago all I wanted was for you to be yourself. You never have to be ashamed with me.”
“I know, Ash. I just want my father to be all right.”
He kissed me on the top of my head.
“I know how much it hurts to lose your father. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss my dad. I don’t know what happened between our fathers years ago, but it must’ve been terrible for them to despise each other like they did.”
“Ash, I really don’t care what happened with them. It doesn’t give my father the right to hate you. You’ve never done anything to him. Whatever grudge he has against your father doesn’t apply to you. Anyway, our fight wasn’t solely about you. He and I have had our issues for many years. When he sent me to that school…”
I bit my tongue. I couldn’t divulge all the disgusting things the nuns had done to me there. Not now.
“I know, baby. You told me how terrible it was.”
No, I hadn’t. He had no idea how bad it really was.
“Ash, there was so much more, but I can’t…I can’t tell you right now. My father…”
“Veronica James, please come to the front desk. Veronica James.”
Ash and I raced to the front desk. I held my breath clutching Ash’s hand.
“Miss James? The doctor will see you now.”
“My father? Is he okay?”
The receptionist smiled her eyes sparkling with sympathy.
“Please follow the nurse she’ll take you back.”
I felt faint as Ash guided me to the room where I assumed my father was waiting.
As we walked into the room, I was shocked to see the bed empty. A doctor in a white physician’s coat stood next to the bed.
“Miss James? I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but your father has passed away. We did everything we could to revive him, but his heart simply gave out.”
I swallowed hard. Ash held me up as I collapsed against him.
“Gave out? What do you mean? Did he have a heart attack?” I heard my voice as if it were someone else’s.
The doctor walked over to me and patted my hand.
“According to his medical chart, your father had advanced heart disease. He had had several smaller heart attacks within the past few years. His doctor had recommended a bypass surgery a few months ago, but he refused. Today he suffered a massive heart attack. Before we could even get an EKG on him, it was too late. I’m so sorry, Miss James.”
My mind was reeling. How could this be? He was just here a few hours ago arguing with me in his office. How could I have screamed at him like that?
I killed my father. My own heart felt as if it would burst. Great, gasping sobs exploded within me. I clutched Ash’s coat and screamed into it.
“Doctor, you mentioned he’d had heart trouble for years. Wasn’t this inevitable given he’d refused the bypass surgery?” Ash, as always, assumed control.
“Yes, it was. Apparently, Dr. Kiger, his cardiologist had advised him of that. Why he refused the treatment I don’t know, but the blockage at that time was nearly ninety percent. Without bypass surgery, his life expectancy was less than a year.”
“With that much blockage, would the bypass have saved him?”
The doctor sighed with a shrug.
“Who knows? With a blockage that severe, it’s likely that the bypass wouldn’t have given him much longer. I’m so sorry for your loss.” The doctor squeezed my hand.
I felt nothing. The air around me had collapsed. There was nothing…nothing.
“Ronnie, would you like to see him?” Ash’s eyes filled with tears as he turned to me.
“Of course, Miss James, I can take you to him if you like.”
I stood frozen.
“Ronnie, this is the last time you will see your father before his internment. I think you should.” Ash wrapped his arm about my shoulder.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Is there any other family we should call?” The doctor smiled kindly at me.
I shook my head.
Ash gripped my shoulder tightly guiding me to the room where they’d taken my father’s body.
Walking in, I saw him lying on a stretcher his hands at his sides. He didn’t look like I expected he would. He merely looked as if he were sleeping.
“Ronnie, go ahead.” Ash placed the palm of his hand on my back.
“Take all the time you need.” The doctor shut the door.
With Ash behind me, I shuffled over to my father’s side. The lines in his face were relaxed now his lips pale and slightly drawn.
Slowly, I picked up his cold, slack hand.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I whispered tears falling from face dripping onto the sheet below.
Looking down, I recalled all the good times I’d had with my father. I remembered how he used to tuck me in at night, read my favorite story to me before bed, how he took me to the zoo to see the animals every year, spending Christmas in Ireland with my grandparents and cousins, the summers at our house in the Hamptons. I remembered how proud he’d been at my first communion buying me the most beautiful white dress and giving me my mother’s communion veil. I recalled how happy he was at my college graduation and his joy when I announced I’d wear my mother’s wedding gown whenever Bryce and I would be married. I recalled him holding my hands with tears in his eyes when he explained my mother had went to heaven and wouldn’t be coming back. He let me sleep in his room in my Barbie sleeping bag every night for a month. My mother’s death had brought us closer together so it seemed until I got pregnant.
Holding his hand, I then remembered how disappointed and full of rage he was at my unexpected pregnancy. The angry way he shoved me into the hateful Catholic girls’ ‘school’ for unwed mothers. The way he screamed at me when I told him about Ash and how his voice sounded when he called me a whore.
It was all too much for me. I felt his hand slip from mine as my legs buckled and Ash caught me.
Everything went black.
Eighteen
Veronica
“Bryce? I have something to tell you.” My fingers drummed on the desk. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. I didn’t want to have this conversation right after my father’s death.
“About your father?”
“My father passed away earlier today.”
He sucked in his breath.
“Oh my God, Veronica! Why didn’t you call me? I can be on the next plane to New York. I’m so sorry.”
“No, Bryce, I don’t need…I don’t need you to come.”
“Why not? Of course, I’ll be there.”
“No, Bryce. I want to end this.”
“End what?”
“Our engagement. It’s off.” I clutched Ash’s handkerchief in my hand.
“Why, Veronica? You don’t mean that you’re just upset over your father. I love you. I’ll be there on the next flight out. Just let me call the company jet.”
“NO! It’s over, Bryce, I’m sorry. Ash and I are back together. This is what I want. I’m so sorry.”
“Veronica! This is nonsense. Let me come be with you. I don’t care what you’ve done with Ash Blackthorne. Let me be there.”
“No. Bryce, it’s over. I’ll call you in a few days.” With that, I hung up on him. Falling back on my bed, I felt my world collapsing. My phone kept vibrating, but I just ignored it. I knew Bryce deserved a better explanation than that.
Suddenly, there was a sharp knock at my door.
“Ronnie? It’s me.” Ash opened the door.
He was dressed casually in black pants and a grey pullover.
“Come in, Ash.” I swung the door open.
“Ronnie, how are you?” He pulled me into a tight embrace. I stood in stony silence not feeling anything.
“I can’t believe he’s gone, Ash. There’s just so much happening right now. I just can’t think straight.” I pulled away to grab a tissue from the box.
Ash rubbed my back gently.
“It’s okay, Ronnie. I know how much it hurts to lose your father.” He sighed running his hands over his thick hair.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t with you when you lost your father. He was a kind man.”
Ash smiled weakly. The pain in his eyes was reflected in my own with the shared experience of losing our fathers.
“When my father told me he had cancer, I refused to believe it. He was such a strong man, powerful in business and in life. He had a younger girlfriend and they were traveling the world in his new yacht. He had just finished making a huge acquisition overseas. I had noticed he’d been a bit rundown, so I asked him to go to the doctor. Of course, as always, he blew me off.”
I smiled recalling how stubborn Ash’s father had been.
“One day in his office during a very important meeting he collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital where they diagnosed him with stage four pancreatic cancer. He was given less than six weeks to live. It was his girlfriend, Fiona, who told me about it. I was doing business in LA at the time, but I flew home immediately.”
I gasped, biting my lip. What a shock that must’ve been for Ash. I wished I would’ve been there for him.
“When I got back to New York, he was already discharged from the hospital. They recommended hospice care, but he refused any further treatment. He had been born at his family’s estate in upstate New York and he’d die there is what he told me.”
Ash stood up walking over to the fire. He stoked the fire as he spoke.
“Ronnie, the doctors told me he’d be gone in six weeks. My father was so stubborn and strong he lasted nearly three months.”
“Wow.” I walked over to stroke Ash’s back.
He turned to me with tears in his eyes.
“I used to tell him he was so stubborn that heaven wouldn’t take him and hell wouldn’t have him.” Ash laughed at the memory.
“Just like you,” I whispered.
Ash ignored my comment.
“I stayed by his side the entire three months. I moved back into our family home with him. We spent the days playing tennis, fishing, or hiking whenever he felt up to it. Those last days were magical. I’d been so angry with my father when I was younger. At times, I blamed him for my mother leaving then for my stepmother leaving with my baby sister. Like your father, he seemed to want to make me into something I wasn’t. After college, I wanted to go into the Navy. I wanted to serve my country. I didn’t want to be just another stuck-up Ivy League graduate from the Upper East Side. My father wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted I go into business with him. We had a huge blow-out on the night of my college graduation. I told him I’d already enlisted in the Navy.”
I nodded. I knew he had done a tour of duty as a naval officer prior to entering graduate school.
“I take it he was upset by that?”
Ash nodded, his eyes crinkled with laughter.
“He never understood my need to do that, but in time he grew to respect me for it. When I was finished with my tour, I came back and interned for his business for the summer before going to Harvard Business School.”
“I remember how proud he was when you graduated.” I recalled the day we both graduated and our fathers both stood in the audience beaming with pride.
“Yes, he was,” he sighed deeply. “I want you to know, Ronnie, how much I understand what you’re going through. The pain never goes away, but time makes it easier to deal with.”
Then Ash pulled something from his pants pocket. It was a small gold lapel pin with several small diamonds in it. I’d seen him wear it countless times.
“Ronnie, this was my father’s. This was the logo of the first company he started when he was only twenty four years old. My grandfather had it made for him. He wore it until the day he died. It wasn’t the most expensive lapel pin he had, but it meant everything to him. On the morning he passed he called me in to speak with him. His voice was shaky, barely above a whisper. He motioned for me to remove the pin from his shirt. I took it off and handed it to him. His old, gnarled hand pressed it into mine.” Ash trailed off holding the pin. He ran his fingers over it lovingly his eyes shining with tears.
“He said, ‘Ash, always remember where you came from because your first success is always your sweetest.’ So, I carry this pin with me everywhere to remind me of him.”
Ash fastened the pin to his shirt.
“And he was right.”
Tears coursed down my cheeks. My heart bled for his loss as well as my own. Ash had an advantage over me in that his father truly loved him. I doubted mine ever really had. I knew before we could any further I needed to tell Ash about my own sad, traumatic past. It was bound to come up in the days that followed when my father’s sister, Shannon arrived for the funeral.
“Ash, before we go any further there’s something I need to tell you. I know I should’ve told you this years ago.”
Ash looked up at me puzzled. He was lying back on the bed with his hands behind his head.
“What, Ronnie?”
I stood up and walked over to the bar. I poured two glasses of scotch.
“Take this, you’ll need it.”
He rolled out of bed and walked over to the chair next to me. The fire was crackling merrily in the fireplace as night had fallen outside.
“Ronnie, you can tell me anything.” He placed his hand on mine.
I nodded finishing my liquor in one swallow.
“You know that I was raised by my father. My mother died of breast cancer when I was six years old. I was left all alone with my father in that huge Manhattan penthouse. He raised me to be a devout Catholic like his parents before him. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but my father’s family is from Ireland. They immigrated here when he was only four.”
He pursed his lips as he considered what I’d just said.
“Ronald doesn’t seem to be an Irish name to me. I know you once said your father’s family was from Ireland I just didn’t know he wasn’t born in the US.”
“His real name was Malachy James. My grandparents changed his name to Ronald when they arrived in America fearing that he would be less successful in the business world with such an Irish name. During that time, in New York there was a great deal of prejudice against Irish immigrants or so was my grandparents’ perception. My grandfather met a kind man who helped him start his own business named Ronald so they took to calling my father by that name.”
Ash finished his drink.
“Ronnie, is that it? I have a feeling there’s more.”
I sighed deeply massaging my temples.
“Yes, there is, Ash. After my mother died, my father put me into a Catholic girls’ school in Manhattan. He demanded that I be ladylike at all times. I wasn’t even allowed to wear pants until I was ten years old. He groomed me for New York society and always spoke of the fabulous debutante ball I would be invited to when I was eighteen. He never asked me what I wanted. He handpicked my dates, sons of wealthy, prominent New York businessmen. I hated it. The boys he selected for me were just as sleazy and sex-crazed as the guys I wanted to date from Brooklyn, but my father wouldn’t hear of that. So, when I was seventeen I had been secretly dating a boy from the Bronx. He was your typical blue collar guy who liked to work on cars. Unfortunately, my father refused to put me on the pill so I found myself…” I trailed off ashamed to go any further.
“Pregnant?” He finished.
I nodded.
“Yes. So naturally when my father found out he was furious. Initially, I wanted to end the pregnancy, but I just couldn’t do that. He f
orced me to go to a home for wayward girls in England where my Aunt Shannon had volunteered.”
“So what happened? I never knew you’d been pregnant.” Ash looked alarmed. He poured himself another scotch and stood against the chair.
I sighed feeling all the pain of the past erupting inside me. I knew it was time to tell Ash everything. I knew I risked losing him, but he had to know.
Fall 1997
The huge gothic Victorian school loomed before me. The sky was dark and ominous as the limo drove up the circular drive. I sat with my hands clutching my skirt as I gazed out at what was to be my new home for the next nine months.
My father sat beside me his face stern and frowning. Overnight it seemed he’d aged his once dark hair now peppered with silver. I’d been forced to inform my friends that I was going overseas for a special “educational opportunity” for my junior year of high school. I’d been dreading this day since the day my father had found out about my pregnancy. Fortunately, I hadn’t experienced any unpleasant pregnancy symptoms like morning sickness although I’d noticed a slight bulging across my middle. I was still quite thin, but I’d already gone up a cup size. It wasn’t noticeable to others, as I’d been big breasted since I was thirteen.
“Quite impressive, don’t you think, Veronica? The architecture of this building is exquisite.”
I shrugged looking at the huge building. It was formidable and ugly to me. My stomach twisted into knots.
“Your Aunt Shannon told me it was built in 1857. This building has a long, interesting history. Perhaps you can read about it yourself to keep your mind occupied, but I suspect the sisters here will see to that.” He nodded.
I groaned inwardly. The heavy breakfast I’d consumed after our flight had arrived now seemed to be disagreeing with me.
The car pulled to a stop. I looked out the window and noticed several young men who appeared to be about my age doing repair work on a sidewalk.
“Who are they?” I muttered to my father. “I thought this was a girls’ school.”
He snorted with disdain.
“The help, I imagine, Veronica. Come now, we have a meeting with Sister Bridget.”
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