Читать книгу The Swallow's Nest - Emilie Richards - Страница 13
ОглавлениеEllen Randolph had been wealthy all her life, so she knew for certain that having money did not automatically make anybody happy or widen their world. Protecting one’s assets was a cheerless, thankless task, and the narrower one’s world, the easier it was to stay at the top of it.
Having lived with Douglas Randolph for thirty-six years, she knew the view from the top was limited, too. Every single day as chairman of the Randolph Group, Douglas acted on his conviction that a wider view was an unnecessary distraction, and every single day he got wealthier and more rigid.
This morning Douglas stood in their designer kitchen, with its custom rosewood cabinetry and enameled lava countertops and pinched his features together in disapproval.
“I don’t quite know what you expect me to do about this, Ellen.”
She had caught her husband right before he headed for his corporate offices in Oakland, and from long experience she knew that this was exactly the wrong time to bring up anything personal. But truthfully there were no good times. Douglas was 99 percent business and only 1 percent father-husband-lover, and mentioning their son’s name at any time of day wasn’t just a distraction, it was an act of treason.
For Douglas, removing Graham from his life had been a business decision, and his business decisions were evenly divided between pragmatic and spiteful. He was not a man to cross, and Graham had crossed him one time too many. The spiteful Douglas would never forgive his son, and Ellen knew better than to ask him to.
But he still had to know the latest news.
Her tone was solicitous, more personal assistant than wife, which was the way he liked it. “I don’t expect you to do anything. I just thought you had to know that apparently we have a grandson.” She played her ace. “In case someone mentions it. I know how you hate to be taken by surprise.”
He made the same noise low in his throat that he made whenever he was skeptical or didn’t want to admit anybody else had a point. “And the person who told you the story is reliable?”
“Jenny Lurfield’s daughter is a friend of Graham’s, and she was at the party to celebrate his better health. She told Jenny about the baby.”
“Well, you have a little spy network everywhere, don’t you? You should have gone into the CIA instead of marrying me.”
“I needed the bigger challenge.” She moved on before he processed that. “I’m going to see Graham this morning. I just thought you should know.”
“Don’t expect anything from me. I don’t want to hear about this again, you understand? This has nothing to do with me. Nothing Graham does has anything to do with me. I thought that was clear.”
“You are the master of clarity. And now that I’ve let you know, I’ll keep the rest to myself.”
“What rest? I would like you to ignore this scandal and hold up your head if it’s mentioned. Can’t you do that?”
“Do you mean am I capable of doing that? Of course I am.”
“Don’t play games!”
She didn’t back away, not even when he stepped forward. At sixty Douglas remained a force to be reckoned with, in full possession of all his hair and a trim waistline, still erect and broad-shouldered, but Ellen had learned long ago that he would never raise a hand to her no matter how loud his voice. He intimidated by attitude and gesture.
She was nearly his height, and now she met his eyes, which were blazing with anger. “I’m just going to visit Graham today and see what I should do next. My head’s always up, but I’m not nearly as adept at ignoring our only child as you are.”
“You coddled him. If you had ignored that boy a little more when he was growing up, then maybe I wouldn’t be so ashamed of him now.”
The problem was just the opposite. She’d spent Graham’s childhood ignoring him. Between her own lack of experience, her inability to dredge up what she thought were appropriate maternal feelings, and her desire to please and placate her husband, hadn’t she ignored her son’s all-too-fragile development until he had finally developed without her and gone in his own direction?
She chose her words carefully. “Your son almost died this year. He’s still not out of the woods, and now he has a child and, as I understand it, his wife has fled. If I could ignore that, then I would be less than human.”
“Watch what you say to me.”
She wondered why. Years of watching every word and placating Douglas had gotten her right to the place where she was standing.
She turned away. “I won’t bother you with whatever I find. I just told you what you need to know.”
“More than I need to know.”
“Douglas, if I were you, I would prepare a response in case anybody else brings it up.” Then despite a lifetime of training she added: “Something between passing out cigars and what you’ve said here.”
The sound of angry footsteps disappeared slowly down the hallway until the door to the garage slammed. Today he was driving himself to work. At the last minute his driver had taken a personal day, and Douglas was fuming about that, as well. She was afraid that between the son in trouble and the absent driver, the driver bothered him more.
When she looked back on her fifty-eight years, after she peeled away the superficial layers that first jumped to mind, deleted all the social events she had helped with for charity, deducted all the money that Douglas had donated to causes that propped up his financial interests? When she did all that, hoping for some sign that deep inside she was a good woman? She found next to nothing.
But today, no matter what Douglas said, she was going to see Graham and the baby.
Upstairs in the master bedroom she stared out the window and considered what to wear. The Randolphs’ house on Belvedere Island had priceless views of Sausalito and the Golden Gate Bridge, but she was too preoccupied to notice. Casual was probably in order, but casual in her closet meant expensive resort wear, nothing particularly baby proof. She remembered how, as a newborn, Graham had spit up on everything until she had asked the nanny to feed and burp him before she picked him up herself.
Had she really been that concerned about appearance and so little concerned about bonding with her son?
She chose gray pants and a matching knit top that she planned to donate to the Tiburon Thrift Shop. These days she needed brighter colors anyway. Her hair was carefully blond, like Graham’s, her face as young as the best plastic surgeon in San Francisco could make it. She still saw inevitable signs of aging.
She wondered if Douglas ever looked at her long enough to see them, too.
The drive to San Jose would probably take at least two hours, unless she waited until well after rush hour. She decided not to wait, and not to call Graham. If he wasn’t home she would settle somewhere and wait. She didn’t want to risk having her son tell her that he didn’t want to see her. She wasn’t sure what she would say to him, but her Tesla practically drove itself, and even in heavy traffic she would have time to plan. She told herself she would be ready.
Two and a half hours later, the drive hadn’t worked any magic. By the time she drove into the Willow Glen neighborhood in the south part of San Jose, she still didn’t have a speech prepared, and worse, she was lost. So much time had passed since she had visited her son and daughter-in-law that she had to pull over and set her GPS to find their house. Two turns and a few minutes later she parked on the right street, but she didn’t get out of the car. She gazed up and down the block.
Willow Glen was charming in a way that the fabulously beautiful Belvedere was not. The houses were small, cozy and individual. She had never studied architecture, but she didn’t need a college course to see that a number of styles and eras were represented here.
Yards were small, most carpeted in flowers or shrubs instead of grass. Graham and Lilia’s house was one of them, asymmetrical beds of roses and perennials, a bench and a birdbath. While she didn’t really like her daughter-in-law, she had to give Lilia credit for making the most of the tiny Tudor cottage she had inherited from an aunt. A brick walkway wound its way up to a brick porch. A vine, probably wisteria, ran from one side to the other along the front. These days the house was painted a subtle pine green. The door was ivory and the trim a bright seashore blue. Everything was too quaint, too picturesque, to suit Ellen. But she could see the appeal.
She blamed herself for Lilia. In a way she had been the one to introduce the girl to her son. Lilia’s mother, Nalani, had been the house manager for the Randolphs’ estate on Kauai’s North Shore. Douglas had bought the seven-acre property as an investment, but he had been in no hurry to sell, hoping for a zoning change that would let him subdivide and make a significant profit. So the family had visited there several times a year, and Nalani had both cared for the property while they were away and acted as housekeeper and occasional cook when they were in residence. She managed other properties, too, and when the house had to be opened in a hurry, her five children often pitched in, a family business of sorts.
On one of those occasions, ten-year-old Lilia was introduced to eleven-year-old Graham. And from that point on, until the year that Douglas forcibly broke up the friendship that had formed between Lilia, Graham and later Carrick—who had often visited the estate with the Randolphs—Lilia and Graham had taken far too enthusiastic an interest in each other.
To this day Ellen wondered if the grown-up Lilia had stalked Graham to renew their “friendship.” Both claimed their meeting years later, at a party in Berkeley where he’d been a student in the architecture department, was accidental. But the heir to the Randolph Group was an extraordinary catch. For all the laid-back, not-the-way-we-do-things-in-Hawaii attitudes that Lilia laid claim to, Ellen still wondered if the girl had known Graham would be at that party and traveled all the way from San Jose to reacquaint herself with the man who could make her life so much easier.
Of course it certainly hadn’t turned out that way.
Ellen had delayed long enough. She tucked her handbag under her arm, got out and locked the car before she started up the street, then the walkway. She’d considered bringing gifts, but that had seemed hopelessly positive. She wasn’t sure if she was here to celebrate or commiserate. Graham had survived cancer and now had an illegitimate son to deal with. Celebration would have to wait for more details.
At the front door she rang the doorbell and heard music. Not chimes, but snatches of a song. She shook her head and waited, trying again when nobody answered the door. She was just beginning to plan where she would wait when it opened.
Graham was so pale, so clearly exhausted, that for a moment she wasn’t sure this was her son.
“Graham?” She stretched out a hand and touched his arm. “Are you all right?”
He raked fingers through hair too short to need grooming. “What are you doing here?”
“Word gets out. I heard about...” She shrugged. “I heard you have a son. I heard Lilia left you.”
“And you swooped right in. Here to gloat?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why?”
“To see if I can help, I guess.”
He faked a laugh. “Cancer didn’t spur you on, but the baby did. I’ll have to think that one over.”
Early in his life Graham had learned to be cool and polite, to combat his father’s sarcasm and criticism with aloof good manners. She had never heard him be so dismissive.
“Nobody knows better than you do why I had to stay away,” she said.
“Actually I don’t know. I figure you’re an adult, and unless I missed something, my father doesn’t chain you to a chair when he’s not around.”
“I didn’t come here to fight or defend myself.”
“So tell me again why you did come?”
“I’d like to see my grandson. If it’s true that I have one.”
“Oh, it’s true. But he’s actually sleeping. For once.”
“You look like you’re going to fall over. Let’s go inside.”
“Please, keep your voice down. He’s upstairs, but God knows what wakes him up and sets him off.”
“You were a monster for your first few months.”
“How nice he inherited that particular trait.” He stepped aside and swept his hand behind him to usher her in.
The house was anything but tidy. Signs of a party were still in evidence. Crumbs on the floor, dishes on the dining room table, a congratulations sign hanging askew. Clearly Lilia wasn’t here. Ellen’s daughter-in-law loved order. Whether Ellen liked Lilia’s design ideas or not, the house was always picture perfect. Never fussy, but comfortable and welcoming. Anything that looked out of place was meant to be.
She followed Graham through the house, through a kitchen piled with dirty dishes, and into the sunroom. She thought the room must have been an addition because she didn’t remember it from her last visit. It was small but flooded with light, and the tropical-style furniture, old-fashioned rattan with a glass table on a coral stand, probably made Lilia feel right at home. She picked up a floral cushion from the floor and placed it on the love seat before she sat.
Graham dropped down to a chair in the corner and closed his eyes. He looked so beaten. She searched for something to say.
“You cried for the first three months of your life. Even a professional baby nurse wasn’t sure what to do with you. And me? I felt so completely inept. It seemed like I should know the magic key, that you should have emerged with instructions. Everybody told me not to worry, that crying was normal, but I was sure it was my own fault. Something I’d eaten in pregnancy, a glass of wine I had before I realized you were on the way. Bad genes.”
At that he opened his eyes. “Really? Bad genes? I thought the Randolphs and the Grahams were perfect in every way, that you and my father thought I was some sort of genetic mutation.”
“Not even close to being perfect.”
“There’s nothing you can do here to help. I have to deal with it. I brought this on myself.”
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Why?”
“Maybe there’s something I can do.”
“Unless you can zoom back in time and keep me from acting on the worst impulse I’ve ever had, then no.”
“You had an affair?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Nothing that interesting. A one-night stand. Right between what sounded like a death sentence and chemo.”
“Oh, Graham...” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Toby is the result. As you can imagine, Lilia is not happy about it.”
“She’s gone?”
“In Kapa’a with her family. I don’t know if she’ll be back for more than packing and shipping.”
She wanted to be angry at Graham’s wife. He was still recovering, and Lilia had abandoned him to handle everything on his own. But how could Ellen fault her? For the past year her daughter-in-law had shouldered every possible burden, with no help from anyone except the long-distance support of her own family.
“Did you really think you could keep the baby a secret from Lilia? Or were you waiting until you felt you could cope with the fallout?”
“I don’t know, Mother. I was trying to stay alive. Half the time I was so sick I couldn’t remember where the bathroom was.”
“And you were ashamed. You’re a good man. You would be.”
“You have no idea what this kind of shame feels like.”
She did, but it wasn’t helpful to admit that now. She was saved from trying, because a wail began somewhere in the distance. She put out her hand when Graham started to rise. “He’s upstairs?”
“A friend gave me some kind of contraption for him to sleep in. He’s in our room.”
“I’ll get him.”
“Do you know what to do?”
“Has it changed that much in thirty years?”
“Did you know what to do then?”
The question should have hurt, but both of them knew that Graham’s childhood had been managed by competent professionals, and she had looked on from the sidelines. “I do know how to change a diaper.”
“I think he looks like me.”
“Then he’s a beautiful baby.”
“He should have dark hair and brown eyes like the mother I didn’t give him.”
“I’ll bring him down. Will he need a bottle?”
“I’ll get one ready.”
The upstairs must have been expanded in her years away because the wail was coming from a room she didn’t remember. She followed the sound, opened the door and saw a small mesh-sided crib beside a queen-size bed. She picked up a beautiful hand-stitched quilt from the floor and folded it carefully, setting it on a chair before she dared go to the baby.
And then it was like looking at the infant Graham again.
She reached down and scooped him up, holding him against her breasts. Time stood still, although the baby didn’t. He arched his tiny back and screamed, just the way his father had.
“Well,” she said when she could speak, “Hello, Toby. I’m your grandmother.”
The baby was not impressed. She laughed. “I know. I know!” She looked around and saw a box of diapers on the floor. She set him carefully in the center of the queen bed, grabbed a baby blanket from the floor and tucked it under him before she stripped off his little footie pajamas, then took out a diaper. He screamed as she changed him, but she hummed loudly, and she thought that the screaming paused from time to time as he listened.
His clothes were dry, so she pulled them back on and folded the blanket snugly around him until he looked like a burrito. She smiled and kissed his forehead. “Let’s get you something to eat.”
Downstairs she found her son with a bottle ready. “When was the last one?” she asked.
“When he was hungry.”
“They always seem hungry when they’re screaming, but overfeeding can cause problems, too.”
“So I’m told.”
“Good. You have help?”
“I have a few friends who are still speaking to me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“The baby’s mother?”
“Is not among them.”
“You haven’t spoken to her?”
“She won’t take calls or texts from me. She probably feels like she’s on vacation.”
He stretched out his arms, but she shook her head. “Let me.” She held out a hand for the bottle. He shrugged and gave it to her.
She settled Toby into her arms, propping him carefully because she remembered being told that keeping the head high might help. Toby sucked at the bottle’s nipple like he hadn’t been fed in weeks.
“He’s beautiful, and yes, he looks remarkably like his father. I never quite knew what to do with you, but I did appreciate what a gorgeous little boy you were.”
“Why did you have me?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
It took her a while to answer. Toby had taken enough formula that she decided to burp him, despite his protests. Frequent burping was something else she remembered. “I wanted to feel connected to somebody. I saw women with their husbands and children and knew they had something I didn’t. Your father was always busy—”
“Not to mention rigid and controlling.”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
“Why start now?” He closed his eyes again.
“I believed having you would make us a real family.”
“Sorry it didn’t work.”
“Graham, I was never sorry you were my son. And that’s the truth. But I’m also not sorry I didn’t give you a brother or sister.” She didn’t go on. She knew she didn’t have to.
After a loud burp Toby settled back to his bottle and opened his eyes to stare at her. She smiled at him. He smiled back, and the nipple fell out of his mouth. He wrinkled his little face to cry, but she slid it back in.
“He smiled at me!”
“Aren’t you the lucky one.” Graham didn’t sound quite as cynical as he had.
“I feel lucky. A baby’s smile is magic.” She looked at her son, although pulling her gaze from her grandson was hard. “This is going to get better. His nervous system is going to mature. Pretty soon he’s going to seem like a real person to you.”
He surprised her. “How can I blame you for having me after what I’ve done?”
She didn’t know how to answer, but Graham’s question almost sounded like absolution, like he might actually forgive her for being such a distant figure in his life. In the end she shook her head. “I wish I could do more.”
“I don’t want help. I’ll manage.”
“And Lilia? Is there any way you can make this up to her?”
“Can you think of a way?”
He didn’t expect an answer; she knew that. But she gave him one anyway. “You know I never really approved of your marriage.”
“Yes, for some reason you didn’t think Lilia was good enough for me. When the opposite was clearly true.”
She knew better than to address that since whatever she said would make her sound racist and undemocratic, although she was sure she was neither. Instead she moved the discussion sideways. “I can’t help you with that. I’ve never felt close to her, and I probably never will. I felt I lost you for good once you found her.”
“What exactly did you lose?”
“And I’ve always felt she prodded you into confronting your father the way you did. He gave you a job, a future at Randolph Group, and instead of listening to him and following his lead, you went out on your own and brought a stain on all of us.”
“I took the truth to the places where something could be done about it.”
“Your father doesn’t forgive easily.”
“I knew that when I did what I had to.”
She wondered, with Lilia out of the picture, if a miracle might happen. “This could be a time, Graham, when Douglas might soften a little. If you tell him you made a mistake and you’re sorry, he might be willing to let bygones be bygones. Toby is his grandson, perhaps the only grandchild he’ll ever have, and even your father has a sentimental streak.”
“I’m not sorry, and I didn’t make a mistake. Not that time, at least.”
“Is it beyond you to say so, even if it’s not precisely true? Is it beyond you to say it to assure this baby’s future?”
Graham was silent so long she thought he might be mulling over the idea. But when he spoke she realized how wrong she had been.
“I hope my son has a long, happy future with me guiding his steps. And if she can ever forgive me, I hope he’ll have a future with Lilia as his mother.” His voice hardened. “But I would apply for food stamps, Mother, I would stand in bread lines before I would allow my father to sink his talons into anybody in my family, especially Toby. I will never humble myself in front of a man without an ounce of humility or goodwill in his soul.”
As if his own words had spurred him to action, he got up and held out his arms for the baby. “Feel free to tell him I said so.”
