by Rae B. Lake
I flinched and looked up at the two women observing me, both of them with that ‘aww’ face. I patted the girl on the shoulder and told her it was my pleasure. She smiled and skipped off with her mother, who also whispered her thanks to me.
“Delete that video.” I walked slowly over to Frances, who was still smiling at me.
“Not for all the money in the world.” She swiped her phone off and stuffed it in her pocket.
I shook my head and just kissed her on the forehead. I believed her.
I walked back to the house. The cars were already lined up in the large driveway. I knew Claire was already gone, yet part of me wished she’d stayed. I didn’t want to face my father alone.
I walked in expecting to see him sitting in one of the side chairs, a drink in his hand, and a briefcase open on the table. Always ready for business, but instead, all I saw were countless workers buzzing around, cataloging everything in the house. None of them even glanced in my direction when I walked in.
“Hey. Where’s my father?” I asked a slight man who was walking around with a clipboard. He seemed to be the one running the show here.
“Not here as of yet, we were sent ahead to get started on this. He should be here later on in the day.” He nodded once and stepped around me to continue doing what he had to do.
I walked around to see what they’d already changed, and I let my head fall to my chest as I saw them piling stack after stack of books into crates. They were clearing out the library. My one place of peace, gone.
I went up to my bedroom to find that everything in there had been cleared out as well, my personal belongings dumped in the corner like trash. The bed was taken apart, and the mattress left on the ground, sheets stripped. I expected this. My father was probably furious I’d gone against his wishes. I was sure he wasn’t going to leave again until I was feeling every bit of the wrath he meant for me.
I walked over to the mattress on the floor and laid down. If I had to wait to have what little I had left in my life ripped away, I would do it comfortably.
“Get up!”
My legged jolted back as someone kicked me. I knew who it was before I opened my eyes. The great Dominic Ingram, my father, was here.
I opened my eyes slowly and sat up to look at my father, who was looming over me. “You thought I wouldn’t find you? That you’d be able to occupy my house illegally, and I wouldn’t know about it? I know everything!” He yelled at me.
I let out a sigh, willing myself not to get worked up. I was sure by the end of the day, we would both be screaming at each other, but I was trying to hold my cool as long as I could. “I’m sure you did, Dad.” I stood in front of him and put my hands in my pockets, trying to look as unthreatening as possible.
He moved back a step and released a calm breath, “I’m a fair man. I know you haven’t touched a dime of your inheritance money and that you haven’t been able to find any legitimate work. You can come back and work for the family business. Everything can go back to normal.”
“Is that so? What if I want to stay here?”
He looked around the rundown room his face already in a disgusted scowl, “Absolutely not, why do you think this property has remained vacant for so long. It is beneath our family. The only reason I haven’t sold it is that my great grandmother demanded it to be kept in her last will and testament. Not one of the Ingram family has lived here for generations.” He flung a hand in the air as if to erase the idea, “No, you will come back to the city. Back to one of the penthouses or the estate in Atlanta. Those are your choices.”
I huffed out a breath and looked away, “It looks like nothing has changed in the last two years.” I turned back to look at him, “Dad, I am my own man! I should be free to do whatever it is I please.”
“Not with my money, you can’t.” He replied quickly.
“It’s the families' money. You didn’t bring us up from the ground. You didn’t work your hands to the bone to provide for us. It was dropped in your lap just as it was dropped in mine. What gives you the right to dictate to me what I can do?” I screamed at him.
“Don’t you dare question me, boy. I’m the one who has been setting up the proper connections so our wealth can grow. The one who is investing in proper relationships. Yet you want to throw it all away, for what, to stay in a rundown sleepy town with people who shouldn’t even be allowed to serve our dinner.”
I nearly threw up in my mouth, the arrogance of this man, “I hope I was never as bad as you are now. Let me tell you something about this sleepy town. The people here care for each other, all of them working together to build a better town. If any of them were to die, I guarantee all of them would mourn. Who is going to mourn when you die, Father? The children you push away because they’re not good enough? The wife you barely spend two seconds looking at? Surely you don’t think the fake, money-grubbing elitist social circle you hang out with will remember you. Face it, as it stands today, you are worth nothing more than the zero’s in your bank account. Completely irrelevant. If you want to punish me because I refuse to be just another arrogant, pompous billfold, so be it.”
I walked by him, picking up a garbage bag and stuffing the clothes I wanted into it. I slung it over my shoulder and walked out. I made my way down the stairs, and could see my mother standing there, wringing her hands with worry. A bright smile lit up her face when she saw me, but she quickly tried to cover it up, and a smaller, more socially acceptable one took its place.
“Carson, how lovely it is to see you, son.” She put a hand out for me to take before pulling me close to her to kiss my cheek.
“How are you, Mom?”
She stared at me for a second, her eyes glossing over with tears I knew she wouldn’t shed. My mother was a great actress, she always played the part my father wanted her to, but every so often, we could see the real her buried deep inside.
“Better now.” She squeezed my hand and then took a step back as my father quickly made his way down the stairs.
“I will make sure you never have access to your money. It will stay there collecting dust before I let you have it and use it for some ridiculousness.” His face was red, sweat beading on his forehead.
“Do what you want, Dad. Like I said before, I’d rather have nothing than be associated with the people you want me to associate with.”
He looked around, searching for something. All my life, he’s used my inheritance as a way to force me to do what he wanted me to do. Now that I was freely giving it up, he had no play.
Everyone in the room jumped as the front door swung open and Frances walked in, “Carson, I tried to wait, but it’s been all day and you-” She stopped talking, and I could see the embarrassed blush crawling up her face when she realized I wasn’t in the house alone.
Chapter Fifteen
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” She walked over to my mother and put her hand out for her to shake. My mother shook it limply.
Frances walked over to my father and offered her hand again. My father looked at her like she was trash. The cool I’d been trying so hard to keep was hanging by an unraveling thread. I stormed over and yanked Frances behind me.
“Who is this person?” My father asked.
Part of me wanted to tell him he didn’t need to worry about who she was, but I knew Frances was too important for him to disregard. “This is my lady, Dad. Her name is Frances.”
“Frances, charmed.” My mother said as she tried to look around me and assess the woman I was hiding.
Frances poked her head out from behind my back toward my mother, “Me as well.”
“Your lady?” My father asked, “When did that happen? What do you do?”
“I’m a doctor.” She answered before I could say anything. I knew what my father was doing.
“Hmm, of what sort? Let me guess, obstetrics.” He chuckled.
I felt my hands ball into fists, she might not know he was making fun of her, but I do.
“No, sir, I am a
family medicine doctor. My parents and I own the small urgent care clinic in town.” She smiled proudly.
“You work with the public here? Not even a private doctor.” Dad shook his head and waved a hand in her direction. “No, Carson, surely you’ve had your fill of her. I mean honestly, a clinic physician. No.”
I felt Frances deflate. She wasn’t used to being put down because of what she did. Most people sought out doctors for their children to marry; it was one of the most honorable occupations. But my dad felt if you weren’t making over five hundred grand a year, you were less than worthy. Frances definitely fell into that category.
“You can leave, your presence is no longer required.” My father spoke to her like he would a dog or servant, and not like she was the woman I was falling hard for. No respect. The string snapped, and I took a menacing step in his direction.
“Don’t you dare talk to her like that.”
“Or what, Carson? I’m the one who controls what our family does. Me! When will you get that through your head? This woman is nothing more than a temporary distraction. She will never be worthy of you or our family. Why not just let her go now? Unless, of course, you want to keep her on the side. She seems like she’d be up for that.” He smiled, and I heard Frances gasp loudly behind me.
“You bastard!” I roared in anger and grabbed him roughly by his suit jacket. “Fuck you! I can’t stand you! You will not force me to be like you! Never! Do you hear me?” I screamed in his face.
“Oh, but I will. You see, you’ve already shown your hand.” He looked over my shoulder at Frances. “This silly affair you think you’re having is all I need. Come back to the business where you belong. Go to the dinners we have set up for you. Make the connections you’re supposed to make, when I say to make them, or I will make sure both she and her parents lose everything. Their licenses, their little urgent care, their security, everything.”
My mouth dropped open, and I let him go and took a step back. “You can’t. You wouldn’t.” I looked over to Frances and could see the anger on her face.
“Are you kidding me? Of course, I would. I’ll buy this whole damn town and demolish it if I have too. You want to act like it doesn’t matter if I destroy your life? Fine. But how will your lady feel if I destroy hers too?”
I was stuck. I had nothing to bargain with. There was no way I would let him do that to her, and I knew he would. I glanced back at Frances. She was staring at me, waiting for me to fight for her.
There was nothing for me to do. I watched as the look of anger turned into disbelief and finally stopped at disappointment when she realized I wasn’t going to keep on fighting. She squared her shoulders, looked me straight in the eye, and without a word, she turned around. I watched as the one person who had stood by my side through all my shit walked out the door.
“It’s better this way. Besides, once you are back on top like you should be, she’ll come sniffing around again for scraps. They always do.”
The sound of his face bouncing off my fist should have been enough to appease me, but it wasn’t. “You piece of shit!” I grabbed him and slammed him hard against the wall behind us.
“Carson!” My mother screamed. She ran over to us and grabbed my arm to keep me from swinging again. My mother is a slight woman, so it was more my own restraint than her keeping me from delivering another blow.
“You worthless, evil man. I’m ashamed to be part of this family, ashamed your poisonous blood runs through my veins. You’re not even worth the air you breathe, and no amount of money will prove otherwise.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly a confused, panicked look crossed his pale face.
His eyes glazed over, and he grabbed onto me, not in anger but desperation.
“Dad?” I asked as his body slowly pitched forward, and his breath became choppy. “Dad!” I screamed as he went completely limp in my arms. I quickly laid him down on the floor and tried to find a pulse. I couldn’t see his chest rising, and I didn’t feel anything when I put my fingers to his neck.
“Oh, God, no! Dominic!” My mother dropped down to her knees, tears leaking freely from her eyes. “Dominic! Please!” She wailed as she shook my father’s lifeless body.
Suddenly all the anger I’d just felt drained from my body, and I could feel my heart beating double time. The man is the worst father in the world, but he is my father. I might have hated him, but I didn’t want him to die.
“Hold on, Mom! Hold on!” I jumped up and ran out of the house. I needed help, and I knew if I waited for 911, it would be too long. I ran as fast as I could. My vision was blurry from the tears I was crying.
“Frances!” I yelled as loud as I could, hoping she hadn’t changed pace. She couldn’t be that far. “Frances!”
Her small head popped out from behind the trees. Her face was wet, and her eyes were rimmed red. She must have stopped to cry.
“Please help.” I starting talking before I even made it to her, my voice cracking with the emotion, “Something is wrong with my dad. He isn’t breathing.”
I waited for her to tell me to fuck off or to ask why she should help him. Instead, she took off past me, running right for the house. I was right behind her as she burst through the door. My mother was still lying on my father’s chest, wailing in grief.
“What happened?” Frances skidded to a stop and dropped down to her knees. She shoved my mother out of the way and began looking for signs of life.
“We were fighting, and I hit him, then he got this strange look and just passed out. He didn’t say anything.” I tried to explain what I could remember.
Frances pressed her head down to his chest for a brief second. When she popped back up, she quickly situated herself over his chest and began chest compressions.
“Carson, we have to get him to the clinic. We have the equipment there to deal with this.”
Instantly I started thinking through the ways we could get him there fast. I didn’t have a car, and the workers he sent here had already left for the day. “Mom. Did you guys drive? Did you bring a car?”
“Yes, yes. It’s on the side of the house. He didn’t want anyone to see him here.” She dug into his pockets while Frances continued to do CPR.
“Go, bring the car around, Mom.”
She looked at me then back to her husband.
“Ma’am, the faster we do this, the better chances he has,” Frances spoke with a gruffness to her voice as she continued to pump away. My mother unsteadily jumped up and ran out of the door.
“Baby, is he going to die?” I asked, my voice sounding so distant and small.
“I don’t know, Carson. I don’t know. I’m trying.” She bent down and put her mouth over his quickly, giving him two breaths before she reset and began pumping at his chest again. In the background, I could hear the squeal of tires coming from the side of the house and stopping right in front of the stairs.
“Come on, let’s move,” Frances ordered.
I quickly scooped my father in my arms. For someone so powerful, he was smaller than I expected. Frail almost. It was then as I began running to the car, did I see how deep the circles under his eyes were. The new worry lines etched into his face that wasn’t there two years ago. He wasn’t the tyrant he tried to make himself out to be; he was only a man.
I slid him in the backseat, and Frances climbed into the small space on top of him to continue CPR, mother jumped over to the passenger seat, and I got in the drivers' side. It’d been a while since I’d driven, let alone this fast. A drive I’m sure should have taken us ten minutes, took me less than four.
“Carson, hurry!” Frances jumped out of the backseat before I could even get it into park. She ran into the urgent care screaming for her parents.
I grabbed my father from the backseat and carried him quickly into the building. Jake and Marj were waiting with a stretcher as I came in through the door, my mother close behind me.
I hear Marj asking my mother the usual questions, but I couldn
’t focus on them. All I could see was my lifeless father lying in the middle of all these people trying to bring him back from the dead. I could only hear the horrid things I called him right before he passed out. He was a horrible person, but I wasn’t the best son.
I turned and gathered my mother in my arms while she cried and begged for everyone to save my father. If I ever wondered before if she loved my father, I had my answer. I watched them push him to one of the back rooms and continued to work on him.
I pulled my mom to one of the small chairs in the small urgent care waiting room, and we waited for whatever was to come for my father.
Chapter Sixteen
Minutes after we arrived at the urgent care, the ambulance for the bigger hospital in the next town, came for him. Frances stayed in the back with him, helping set up the defibrillator and assisting the EMTs in getting an airway. Mom and I followed behind in the car.
By the time we made it to the hospital, Frances had gotten his heart beating again, but he needed emergency heart surgery if we wanted to keep him alive. So we had more waiting to do. My mother seemed to go numb somewhere between the second and third hours.
“Here you go, Carson. Coffee?” I looked up at the person handing me a cup. It was the waitress from the diner in town. In fact, when I looked around the waiting room, I could see several people from Falls Village just waiting around. I took the coffee from her, and she went back to a seat on the other side of the room and opened a magazine.
Frances came out and sat down next to me. She hadn’t moved more than a few feet to the bathroom since they relieved her when we arrived at the hospital. “What are they doing here?” I asked on a whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“All these people? Did something else happen?”
