Prodigal Son

by Danielle Steel

  The New York apartment closed within thirty days. The buyers tried to knock another two hundred thousand off the price, for things they claimed needed to be repaired, and Peter split the difference with them. He was grateful for the money, although much of it went to pay taxes, the mortgage, and some debts. There wasn’t much left afterward, but it was at least a small cushion, along with the rental of the house in the Hamptons.

  It was a depressing day for Peter when he left the apartment for the last time. He stopped in the doorway of the boys’ wing of the apartment, and saw a book and a game forgotten in their playroom and tucked them under his arm. He drifted past the suite he’d shared with Alana, the projection room, and the gym with all the equipment still in it, purchased by the new owners since it was nearly brand new and state of the art. They had also bought the heavy silk curtains Alana had spent a fortune on, and much of the furniture in the reception rooms, and beautiful antique Persian rugs, and an Aubusson in their bedroom that Alana had purchased at a Christie’s auction in Paris. They were all symbols of a lost life, and Peter couldn’t help but wonder if they would ever live like that again, if he would be able to even come close to it, and if the world as they knew it would ever be the same. These had been golden years. They had taken a lot for granted, and Peter knew he never would again. But he had also never lost sight of what was most important to him, Alana and the boys. They were the only family he cared about. Alana and the boys were all of Peter’s world, and more than ever now.

  Peter moved to a small residential hotel in the East Seventies after he vacated the apartment. He had promised the boys he’d come back to California as soon as possible, and he’d been in New York for a month, selling the apartment and packing up their things, sending out résumés and contacting people about jobs. He could do that from L.A., but he wanted to be in New York in case someone wanted to meet with him. So far no one had; they were too busy with their own problems to think about hiring anyone. But just as Peter was planning to book a flight to L.A., he got a call from an investment bank in Boston. They were impressed by his résumé, and Peter had met the head of the bank several times over the years. It was a solid, reputable firm, and they had taken none of the risks Whitman Broadbank had, so they were still on solid ground. They wanted him to come up and see them, and Peter readily agreed. He was willing to go anywhere for a job. Chicago was on his list of possibilities too, as well as San Francisco and L.A. But he would have preferred an eastern firm. He had gone to business school in Boston, so it was a familiar city for him.

  It was snowing when he got there, in the second week of February. He had a long meeting with the board of directors, and they invited him to lunch in the firm’s dining room afterward. It looked like a men’s club, with somber portraits of their founders on the walls, and wood paneling, and his meeting with them went well, although he was severely disappointed to be told at the end of lunch that they were unable to hire anyone at the moment, in light of the current crisis, but he would be at the top of their list when they began hiring again. It was why they had wanted to meet him, but they had no idea when their hiring policies would loosen up, just as no one knew how long the economic crisis would last. So for all intents and purposes, and to meet Peter’s immediate needs, the meeting had been in vain. It was a crushing blow to him.

  Peter had driven to Boston, to avoid canceled flights in bad weather, and he was about to head south toward the freeway, when he saw the familiar signs he used to take to go home from school when he was younger. It brought a wave of nostalgia as he thought about his parents. He was tired after the wild-goose chase that had brought him to Boston, to satisfy the bank’s curiosity, but not to offer him a job. He was bone tired, and then as though of its own volition, his car turned toward the highway that would take him home. The only thing he had there now was a lake house he had inherited fifteen years before, and hadn’t been to since, although he had done yearly maintenance on it to keep it sound, and a brother he never wanted to see again. There was no reason on earth for him to go back to his hometown, but he was heading in that direction, whether he wanted to or not. It was almost like a Twilight Zone experience as he started to see familiar signs drift by.

  He called the boys from the car, as he drove north toward his hometown of Ware, but neither of them answered, and when he called the house in L.A., he was told that they weren’t home from school yet and Alana was out, no surprise. Peter was lost in his own thoughts and memories as he drove north. He realized, when he finally saw the turnoff, that he wasn’t going to Ware, as he continued on the narrowed highway toward the house at Lake Wickaboag. At the moment, it was the only house that he still could call his own. It suddenly occurred to him that he might want to stay there for a few days, if it was habitable, before he went back to New York. He had nothing to rush back for, no appointments and no one waiting for him. At least he could take a look at it, and maybe sell that too. It had been foolish and nostalgic of him to hang on to it for this long, when he never used it, but it was the only place where he had pleasant memories of his youth.

  The scene that came to mind immediately was a summer day when he had gone fishing with his father and Michael, on one of the rare days his father had taken off to just fool around with them. His mother had packed them a picnic basket, and they had sat in the boat all day, catching one fish after another. Peter figured he must have been about eight at the time. It had been a real victory when he had caught more fish than Michael, who was usually the better fisherman, but when they got home Michael had claimed the larger number for himself. Peter had tried to correct him, and his father winked at him, giving him the message that the truth was their little secret and to let Michael have his day of glory, yet again. It had been a crushing disappointment to Peter. It was always Michael who was protected and never Peter. Their father had always had a soft spot for Michael and talked about what a “good boy” he was, with the implication that Peter was the “bad boy,” and often enough he was. And Michael knew just how to play their father, saying he wanted to be a doctor just like him, which fed their father’s ego.

  Peter had been assigned the role of younger brother, although Michael was only twelve minutes older, but he treated it more like twelve years. Michael was so well behaved that he got all the dignity and praise, and privileges that went with the older brother’s role, and took it seriously when he called Peter his kid brother. And after all, Peter was the screw-up, the “baby” who had tantrums and couldn’t read. Their parents bought into it, and treated Michael like the responsible mature one, and Peter’s inability to read for a long time gave credence to the myth that he was younger. Their treating him that way just made him act out more, and angrier at Michael. But until they got home and Michael lied about how many fish he had caught, and their father let him, it had been a golden day for Peter. He had loved fishing with their father and basked in the warmth of his attention. It was rare for him to take a day off from work.

  Peter could still remember the crickets and the sounds of summer, whenever they were at the lake house. It had been one of his favorite places to be, swimming, fishing, playing in the woods. And being there in the summer meant that he didn’t have to go to school.

  Peter saw the signs leading toward the lake, an hour after he left Boston, and he took a turnoff he didn’t recognize onto a familiar road. The trees lining it looked bigger than he remembered, and when he reached the narrow driveway, with a rusted mailbox at its entrance, he turned onto the dirt and gravel road. He could feel his heart beat in his chest as though he expected to see someone there, and as he squinted past the light from his headlights, he saw it, the house where he had spent his summers as a boy. It was dark and deserted, and if he closed his eyes, he could hear his mother calling his name as he hid in the trees playing games with Michael. For him, this was a trip back in time to a place filled with dangerous memories and people who had disappointed him, but his earliest memories here were those of any ordinary boy. Peter could feel his hea
rt beating faster in his chest as he got out of the car and walked slowly toward the house.

  Chapter 4

  Michael McDowell hurried up the steps of the small tidy house on the other side of town from his home and office. He had been there before. There was a neat picket fence surrounding the property, rose bushes in front of it, and a deep rose garden on the way to the house. The fence was freshly painted, and the house was not imposing, but in good repair. He had come to see an elderly man with bronchitis. Seth and his wife, Hannah, had been patients of his father’s, and their only daughter had come up from Boston. She owned her own business and had done well, and she was as attentive as she could be to her parents, while leading a busy life, running a business by herself, with three nearly grown children of her own, and living three hours away. Hannah had recently died of pneumonia after a long battle with cancer, and now Barbara was concerned that her father was so ill. She had driven up from Boston, and called Michael on the way. They were old friends, although they didn’t see each other often. But she counted on him to check on her parents whenever they were ill. And he had been wonderful to her mother before she died—they often told their daughter that he was like the son they’d never had.

  It was a relief to Barbara, living farther away, to know that someone like Michael was nearby. She trusted him implicitly, had always liked him, and there was no question in anyone’s mind, he was the resident saint. He had taken over where his father had left off, taking care of all the sick people in town. He had given up a potentially great career in Boston in anesthesiology, to come back and take on his father’s general practice in a less exciting small town. But he seemed to love it, and always said he had no regrets about the career he had given up. Everyone could tell by the way he spoke to his patients that this was where his heart was. Both Barbara and the doctor were concerned that her father had lost his will to live since his wife died six months before.

  Seth was sitting huddled on the couch with a blanket over his shoulders, and a wracking cough. He had refused to have anyone care for him in the months he’d been alone, and insisted he could do it himself. The house was in good order, but the old man on the couch looked very, very sick. He was eighty-five years old. His wife had been eighty-seven when she died. They had been married for sixty-seven years, and had been childhood sweethearts. Michael knew only too well that a loss like that was tough for a man his age to survive, and he didn’t like what he saw now.

  “How are you feeling, Seth?” Michael asked gently as he sat down next to him on the couch and opened his bag. He could see from the old man’s eyes, without touching him, that he was feverish, and he shivered as though he were cold.

  “I’m feeling all right,” the old man said politely, as Michael took his stethoscope out of his bag. “All I have is a cold.” He glanced at his daughter in annoyance, and she smiled. “There’s no need to make a fuss over it. A couple of days, and I’ll be fine. Barbara made some soup for me, that’s all I need. She shouldn’t have called you.” He scolded his daughter, and the doctor smiled.

  “If she didn’t call me, how do you expect me to feed my family?” Michael said, teasing him. He had an easygoing, friendly style that went over well with his patients, especially the elderly and the children. He was one of the few doctors in town and by far the most popular, and everybody trusted him. He handled all their ailments, and if they needed specialists for serious problems, he sent them to Boston. But most of the time, they preferred to just see him. “I have to make a living somehow, you know. It’s a good thing Barbara called me.” The old man guffawed and looked a little less ill as he relaxed. No matter how sick a patient was, there was never anything ominous about Michael’s home visits. He made even bad situations seem less frightening, with his reassurance. And Seth would never forget how wonderful he had been to his late wife. Michael had kept her comfortable until the end. Michael had recommended a nurse at the house for her, during her final days, but he came out twice a day himself. Seth’s late wife had been so grateful to him that she had left Michael a small bequest, nothing important, they didn’t have a lot of money. But she had told her husband before she died that she wanted to do that for him. It was only ten thousand dollars, but it was a lot to them, and a gesture of a lifetime of respect. Michael had been embarrassed and grateful when he received it, and told Seth that he was putting it toward his daughter’s college fund, since she wanted to enter a pre-med program when she graduated from high school in two years, and every penny helped.

  Michael had a solid, lucrative practice, but he also had an invalid wife and two children. His wife had been sick for all the years they’d been married. He had married her when he was in medical school. Like everyone else, he had responsibilities and financial burdens, and he had been surprised and grateful for the gift.

  Michael listened to the old man’s chest, and nodded with a smile. Nothing he did or said was alarming. He was all kindness and knew just how to calm his patients’ fears.

  “I’m happy to confirm your heart is beating nicely,” he said in a joking manner and the old man laughed.

  “I’m not sure if that’s good news or bad news now that Hannah’s gone,” Seth said with a wistful look. Michael knew how much he missed her, and he and Barbara both worried that Seth would die of a broken heart, or just stop eating and let himself starve. He had lost a lot of weight since his wife died.

  “The good news is that you don’t have pneumonia. Yet,” Michael said seriously. “But you will if you don’t take care of yourself. I don’t want you going outside until you get rid of that cough. I’m going to give you some antibiotics, and you have to take them until they’re gone, not just until you feel better. I’m giving you some cough syrup too. You can take aspirin for your fever, and that’s good for your heart.” Seth had had a mild heart condition for several years, which had been aggravated by his wife’s death. “I’d say this is a good time for you to sit on the couch and watch TV, stay warm, and get lots of rest, and drink Barbara’s soup. Have you got enough food in the house?” Michael asked him with a look of concern, and Seth just shrugged.

  “I’m going to pick up some groceries now,” Barbara said in a low voice. Neighbors had been bringing him casseroles and roasts for months, but he ate very little, and was getting thinner. She had tried to talk her father into moving to Boston, so she could be near him, but he said he wasn’t leaving his house.

  “I’ll come by with your medicines later today,” Michael informed him reassuringly. “I want you to promise me you’ll take them,” he said as his patient growled. Barbara was equally impressed that Michael would bring the medicines to the house. He always went out of his way to make the extra gestures for his patients, and go the extra mile. It was why everyone loved him so much.

  Michael sat and chatted with them for a few more minutes before he left. He never gave his patients or their families the impression that he was in a rush. He always appeared to have all the time in the world to listen to their problems, especially if they were lonely or old. He had a particular gift with his geriatric patients, and sometimes he admitted that he loved them best of all. They were the forgotten ones most of the time.

  Barbara inquired about his wife as she walked him to the front door. “How’s Maggie doing?” she asked with a look of compassionate concern. Barbara had been two classes ahead of her in college when Maggie had the fall on the skating pond that changed her life. She hadn’t seen her now in a long time, Maggie rarely ventured out, and her husband and daughter cared for her at home.

  “Some days are better than others, but she’s a good sport about it. We’re lucky we have Lisa to take care of her. It’s going to be tough when she goes to college.” Both her parents were hoping she’d stay nearby. It would be a sacrifice for Lisa, but she was devoted to both her parents, and said she wouldn’t mind.

  Michael waved as he hurried down the front steps. He had four more home visits to make before he brought Seth his medicines and then went home. He had a
newborn to see, and three of his older patients. The able-bodied usually came to his office, but he was always willing to make house calls, even on weekends or late at night. This was his life. The only other thing he cared about was his family. He had never wanted a flashy career, financial success, or an important life. He was a country doctor, faithfully serving his patients. That had always been enough for him—unlike his twin brother, who had gone after fame and fortune in New York and only came back for his parents’ funerals and never since.

  The two brothers couldn’t have been more different, even though they were twins. Their mother had said that about them since they were born. Even as a toddler, Peter had been hot-headed, and given to rages as he grew up. Michael was quiet and patient. Peter constantly had to be punished. Michael rarely needed discipline. He had been gentle and even tempered, caring and thoughtful of his parents. As a teenager, he was always doing errands for his mother, and favors for people in the neighborhood. He was loved by all, while Peter was at war with the world.

  Peter had been regarded as a bully at school, particularly when the other children teased him about not being able to read until he was nearly twelve years old, and awkwardly even after that. Anyone who dared mention it to him was sure to get a black eye or bloody nose. His parents were constantly apologizing for him. They were always embarrassed by Peter, and praised for Michael’s behavior.