A Powerful Secret

by Dr. Kevin Leman

  “Well, come on over, and I’ll make breakfast for you.” Ava announced it like it was a done deal.

  Sean shook his head. Must be a mother thing—assuming your kids want you to take care of them even when they’re grown up.

  But his mother was in her glory when she could cook for her family. It didn’t matter that the Worthington siblings had been reared surrounded by top-notch household staff, including a world-renowned culinary artist.

  “How about some Irish oatmeal? With fresh peaches?” she suggested.

  Inwardly he groaned. Not oatmeal. He’d had too much of it over the years. Didn’t matter what fruit she put in it, it was still too mushy. He liked food with texture and enough cholesterol-laden fat to give it some taste. “Okay, Mom, that’s fine. But don’t make me much. Jet lag, you know, so I’m a little off.” He would choke down a couple of spoonfuls to please her.

  “So, within the hour?” she asked.

  “Give me a little over that, and I’ll be there.” He decided to try one last time. “Mom, I’m really tired. Just got back. Is this important, or could it wait?”

  He heard an intake of breath. “Yes, it’s important. And no, it can’t wait. Please, Sean.”

  He never could hold his own against his mom’s or sister’s begging. He’d learned that a long time ago, so he didn’t fight it now. “Okay, I’ll get in the shower. See you soon.”

  “Thank you. And son? I love you.” His mom sounded choked up when she ended the conversation.

  Weird. Sean stared into the still-open fridge. When he blinked, he spotted the packet of already cooked bacon. A few minutes in a skillet would crisp it right up. He’d fry an egg to go with it. If he ate breakfast before he took a quick shower, even his mom’s sensitive nose wouldn’t be able to sniff out the scent of bacon on his clothes.

  A short while later Sean was dining on one of his favorite breakfasts, leaving just enough room for a bite or two of his mother’s oatmeal. He held up a strip of bacon and grinned. He loved the real deal. None of that turkey bacon his mom tried to feed them.

  Will didn’t seem to mind it. Then again, his brother didn’t have much of a choice. Laura and Ava had both converted, so he got hit from both directions.

  But Sarah shared his perspective and was outspoken about it. “Mom, if you’re going to cook bacon, then cook bacon. I don’t know what the heck this stuff is, but it’s sure not bacon.” As the baby of the family, Sarah could get away with anything. After that, his mom cooked regular bacon for Sarah, but the rest of them had to suffer through the turkey bacon.

  Suddenly he missed his vivacious sister. After he got back from his mom’s, he’d give her a call to catch up. Maybe they could even finagle a dinner.

  He slid into his most comfortable zipped sweatshirt and his favorite Nike Dunk Low Pro SB “Paris” athletic shoes. They were a couple of years old now and broken in, just the way he liked them. Sarah had laughed when she’d seen them, saying they went with his wild streak.

  “So you’re going for attorney general? That’s great news,” Will told his sister.

  “Yeah. Timing is everything.”

  He lifted a brow. This was a big next step for Sarah, but her tone was sarcastic, maybe even a bit anxious. Will had spent a lifetime reading his siblings’ moods, and this one wasn’t celebratory. “Well, you deserve—”

  Chatter exploded in the background at the other end of the phone. “Gotta go,” she blurted out and ended the call.

  Will frowned. He was glad for his sister. She worked hard. But why the nervousness? Something was not right.

  Sitting back in his leather executive chair, he stared out the large glass wall that overlooked Madison Avenue and tapped his pen on his right thigh. Is this really what she wants? Or is something else bothering her?

  His chatty, enthusiastic-about-life sister had just delivered big news in a straightforward manner, without her typical dramatic embellishment.

  And what was that snarky comment—“timing is everything”—about?

  They had to talk again as soon as possible. Maybe Sarah didn’t want the AG position but felt forced to consider it. He thought back to her undergraduate days, when his free-as-a-butterfly sister had hated to be trapped under any net of responsibility. She’d certainly come a long way since then. But what if she wasn’t meant to do the AG job?

  Then again, what do I want for myself? Other than his drive to see justice stick for Eric Sandstrom and Jason Carson, he still hadn’t answered the question, “What’s next for me?” Was it to remain CEO of Worthington Shares only? To focus like a laser on growing the company? Or would some other plan reveal itself? The answers to those questions eluded him.

  Will liked his ducks quacking in a row. When one was out of line or wandering out of sight, he felt fidgety, restless, incomplete. Like the time he was nine and his favorite stuffed animal had disappeared for three days from its central place on the headboard of his bed. He’d searched everywhere for Fred and at last found him buried under his sister’s covers.

  Maybe if he searched hard enough, long enough, he’d find the answer to this dilemma too.

  25

  Sean knew the instant his mother poured tea for him that she was distracted. She intimately knew the tastes of each of the cubs from her den. Like Sarah, Sean hated tea in general and loved coffee, especially the Kopi Luwak he brought home every time he traveled to Indonesia. He only drank tea when he had to, to be polite. I guess this is one of those times, he thought.

  “Okay, Mom, what gives? Why the song and dance? Do you want me to represent the family at another fund-raiser? If so, all you have to do is ask.”

  Ava got up swiftly from the kitchen table and moved to the stove to stir the oatmeal. He could hear it bubbling. “No,” she said, back turned to him. “That’s not it. But it is important.”

  “So . . . ,” he prompted.

  She poured a large helping of Irish oatmeal into one of her heirloom bowls. The brown crystal sugar and small pitcher of buttermilk were already on the table. Her hands trembled as she carried the bowl to the table and placed it in front of him.

  Now alarmed, he asked, “Mom, are you all right? You’re not sick? Dad’s not sick?”

  She lowered herself into the chair next to him and touched his hand. “No, I’m not sick. Your father is fine. He’s golfing and catching up with Wendell Neal at the Eller College of Management at the U of Arizona. He won’t be back until sometime tomorrow or the next day. You know your father. Semiretired of his own volition, but still moving at a faster clip than most 20-year-olds.”

  “Then why the rush meeting?”

  His mother straightened to a regal height in the kitchen chair. “I needed to talk to you . . . alone.”

  So this is it, he thought. She’s going to hammer me about stepping into politics. Tell me it could go south and it could hurt the Worthington family name. Same concern she had about Will, now transferred to me.

  He tried to stop the onslaught. “If it’s about me running for governor—”

  “No, it’s not,” she countered, lifting her chin. “For once in your life, Sean, stop trying to smooth over situations that might come up. I need you to listen—and eat your breakfast.”

  It was her “listen to me, I’m your mother” tone. He knew better than to argue. “Okay, Mom, I’m eating.” Reluctantly he poured a dab of buttermilk on his oatmeal and took a small bite. No reprieve here.

  She interlaced her fingers and rested them on the tabletop, almost as if she were praying. “I need to tell you a story—a story that started almost 50 years ago, when your father and I were at Harvard.” Her sea-green eyes seemed to look back over the decades. “It was only a few weeks into my freshman year that I met Bill. He was so handsome, so sure of himself. He knew his path in life, while I was only beginning to figure mine out.”

  Where on earth is she going with this? Sean wondered. Is this the “I’m concerned because you haven’t found your life partner yet” talk?


  Ava smiled at him. “Most of all, Bill Worthington, a sophomore, paid attention to me. It didn’t take long to figure out that he too came from a long line of wealth and privilege. And if the rumors that abounded at Harvard were even halfway true about what his trust fund would be at age 21, it far exceeded what my parents and their parents and grandparents had achieved. When I mentioned I’d met a Worthington, my mother seemed quite excited.” She waved a hand. “I didn’t marry your father for his money, though. I admired him—his drive, his competitive nature, what he was already accomplishing at Harvard to make his mark on the world. When he invited me to dinner the spring of my freshman year, I was all aflutter—”

  “Okay, I get it,” Sean interjected. “Enough said.”

  “Anyway, your father graduated the year before I did. He jumped right into Worthington Shares work, so I didn’t see him much my senior year.” Her voice quivered. “I was very lonely. If it wasn’t for Thomas . . .”

  “Yours and Dad’s friend—Thomas Rich?”

  “Yes. We were like the Three Musketeers, doing things together for three of our Harvard years. It’s amazing, though, how close we were as friends, especially since Bill and Thomas were so different.”

  Okay, he’d play along for a while, since this conversation was important to his mother. Better, it distracted her from noticing he wasn’t eating her oatmeal. “How so?”

  Her eyes flickered, and she exited from the past. “Bill was a blazing star, gathering people along his trajectory who believed in him—who he was—and what he might accomplish. Thomas was more on the unruly side.” She laughed. “Unpredictable. Stubborn enough to want to go the opposite way his family wanted him to go. Determined to make his own way in life, not coast along on his parents’ wealth and status.”

  Like Jon, Sean thought.

  She looked at him. “He was restless—not sure what he wanted to do but knowing somehow that when he found his path, he would blaze a trail unlike anyone else’s. We had many discussions about it.”

  Why were they talking now about Thomas, his parents’ old friend, the former president of the United States? A man Sean had never met in person and their family hadn’t connected with for years?

  “I still miss our conversations,” she added wistfully. “Thomas had a way of drawing you in, making you feel like you were the only one in the room. With Bill, I sometimes felt like one of the stars orbiting his constellation.”

  Sean suddenly felt cold. Are Mom and Dad on the rocks? After all these years?

  Sarah was running flat-out. “Late to bed and early to rise” had been her mantra even more since her boss had told her she was in line for attorney general. She was determined to nail the American Frontier criminal negligence case before moving on, and her time frame for doing so was closing.

  With stakes so high that the president of the United States was making a deal with Jason Carson, she knew that whoever stepped into her job would be paid off, if they could be bribed in some fashion. If not, one of two things would happen. That person or their family would be threatened, or false information that looked like truth would be manufactured and could ruin that person’s reputation, even if the information was later corrected.

  She narrowed her eyes. They’d decided to remove her or distract her by trying bribery. She could just hear the unknown person saying, “Offer her a promotion and see if she’ll take it. No, change that. Insist she take it and don’t give her any other path to walk down.”

  Sarah really didn’t have a choice, she realized. John Barnhill, her boss, had just announced the president’s intent and then waved her out of his office. Barnhill wasn’t the kind of man you argued with, if you wanted a job anywhere in New York City or Washington. You simply said, “Yes, sir” and “How high do you want me to jump, sir?”

  But what if she could find the missing pieces of the puzzle before her move to AG? Sarah hated to leave any stone unturned in her investigation. Somewhere the answer was hiding under one of those stones.

  She frowned. All she knew was that she would not be swayed from her purpose of finding the truth, no matter who or what had to be hooked and squirm on the fishing line in the process.

  It was like the worms her brothers had hooked for her when they were fishing at Chautauqua. For a long time she didn’t have the heart to watch the worms wriggle on the hook, so her brothers did the dirty deed for their squeamish sister. However, after she’d finally hooked a few, it wasn’t so bad. She kept imagining the plump fish they’d catch and fry for dinner.

  Now her career had become hooking the worms, watching them wriggle on the hook, and seeing what catch the bait brought in.

  26

  Sean couldn’t take another bite of the oatmeal. By now it was cold anyway. Every nerve ending was on edge as he waited for his mother to continue her story.

  “After I left Harvard and got married, I lost touch with Thomas,” Ava said. “Bill and I had so many social functions to attend that I had little time to myself. Adjusting to the whirlwind of Worthington affairs was rough.”

  He chuckled. “I can imagine. Getting thrown into our family. I’ve often wondered how Laura has managed it so easily.”

  Ava’s gaze dropped for a minute. “It hasn’t been easy for her either. But she’s a solid rock for Will.” Her eyes met his. “And I hope . . .”

  Sean reached over the table and patted her hands. “I know, Mom. You want the same happiness for me.”

  “What I wanted most of all, though, during those years, was to be a mom,” she murmured. “Finally, after five years of trying and uncountable doctor visits and tests, we conceived Will. The doctor said it wasn’t likely we’d have any other kids.”

  He spread his arms wide and grinned. “Well, I guess I’m living proof that wasn’t true, huh?”

  She blinked. “More than you know.”

  Sean frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “The doctor was right,” she said. “I did have difficulty conceiving again. For nearly four years Bill and I tried. It was really stressful for both of us. Bill was traveling a lot, so when he was home—”

  Sean held up both hands to block the words. “Okay, Mom, TMI. You can stop right there.” Somehow the image of his parents . . . He didn’t want to go there.

  “After Will was born, Bill and Thomas had reconnected. Our families did a few things together, though usually Victoria found an excuse not to be there. When Will was four, I begged Bill to take a vacation. He told Thomas that he was looking for a place, and Thomas invited our family to come to Camp David.”

  From the tidbits Sean had gathered over the years, that summer was the last time his family had seen the Rich family. The information had never mattered much to him, though, since he’d never met Thomas, his wife, or his son in person.

  Thomas was simply the smiling face of his parents’ friend in an aging university scrapbook. Sure, he had become president of the United States and a household face and name, but that was where Sean’s interest ended.

  Thomas’s wife, Victoria, was a society belle from one of the best blue-blood families. But her stint as the president’s wife had either brought out the worst in her or revealed what was already there.

  As for Thomas and Victoria’s son, Spencer, he was the current president of the United States and a big reason the country was in the mess it was in. Sean didn’t have much tolerance for President Rich.

  Sean nodded. “Will told me about that trip once. He couldn’t remember much about it except that Spencer was a tantrum-throwing bully.” He laughed. “Guess nothing much has changed.”

  She ignored his jab and didn’t even tell him to be nice, like she usually would.

  Wow, I guess this is serious.

  “I so looked forward to that vacation. I thought it would draw us—Bill and me—closer again.” Her jaw tensed. “We had three hours of vacation. Then Bill got a call and felt he had to leave us to attend to it. Later the same day Victoria announced she’d had enough of ‘camping,’ as she
called it, and left with Spencer in the presidential limo.” She sighed. “I was so glad to see the limo and extra security detail drive away. Victoria is . . . a difficult person.”

  Leave it to his mother to choose her words sensitively about the woman everyone else called a harpy or worse.

  “But I missed Bill. I was drowning in loneliness. Thomas knew that, even without me saying it. We resurrected our college friendship and caught up. I laughed again. I dreamed again. I felt hope again. And late that night . . .” She gazed directly at Sean. “I rediscovered what I thought I’d lost—the warm, passionate side of myself that I’d left behind. The fiery Irish spirit that had been buried under the weight of being a Worthington.”

  What was she saying? Was she saying . . . ? Pressure squeezed Sean’s temples.

  She stretched out both her hands to clasp his. “Nine months later, you were born.”

  For a second, he was numb. Then shock descended like a tsunami, blocking out logic.

  His world slowed as he stared at his mother.

  The truth was clear in her eyes, now a muddied, sorrowful green.

  Suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

  She squeezed his hands. “In the long run, truth will always win out. Things that are hidden will be revealed. I wanted you to know. You deserve to know. From me.”

  His lungs burned. He couldn’t stop holding his breath.

  “Sometimes desperate, lonely people do desperate things. And even good people can get desperate,” she whispered. “I wish . . .”

  Sean gasped for air. Yanking his hands out of hers, he shoved away from the table, toppling his chair.

  He was choking in the seismic wave of a lifetime of lies.

  He had to get away before he drowned.

  27

  It had been a full day, with three key company decisions to make. As Worthington Shares expanded, Will’s work grew exponentially. He juggled, streamlined, and kept an eye out for trustworthy staff he could hire to take point on various aspects of the company and then report to him. The kind of people who could absorb large amounts of information, process it efficiently with crystal clarity, and know what to consult with him about and what to handle themselves.