“Your father would like to see you in the study at 6:00p.m. Sharp,” Howard says the moment I set foot in the house. Dressed in his impeccably tailored dark wool suit, he looks virtually the same, except maybe more gray around the temples, perhaps less hair there as well. His thin lips are set in a straight, unreadable line, his gray eyes impassive as ever. He says nothing else, not even, “Good to see you after all these years, James.” He turns away, walks through one of four, double-arched thresholds with that ivy-league stick up his ass.
“Nice seeing you, Harvard,” I call after him as he disappears down a hallway. My father’s personal secretary since their Harvard days, for the five years I lived on the estate, Howard was, if not attentive, at least more available than my father ever was. Perhaps I owed him for that alone. It’s just, well, why did he have to be such a cold prig?
Turn around. Walk away.
Edward can’t stop me from leaving, though it’s past five. Dark. Cold. Wet. And two hundred and thirty acres to the next estate. At this point, only way out’s a taxi.
Check my cell for the tenth time since leaving the church. No connection. Lost it after Ashford and haven’t gotten it back since. No phone in the gallery...or the adjoining parlor...or in the library. Still searching, I go up to my old room, but the phone that used to be on the huge antique Partners desk isn’t there anymore. It’s cold in the cavernous room, even though there’s a fire blazing in the carved marble-mantled fireplace. My travel bag is on the double bed. Several plush, violet bath towels lay next to it. I’m expected to stay.
Damn.
No phone. No taxi. I can take one of the horses to Hythe, find a ride from there. Fat droplets of rain hit the long French windows. Don’t have a clue how to navigate a horse, through mud, at night. I can try bribing Stefan to get me out of here. Probably cost a lot, if he’ll do it at all, which he’s already indicated he won’t. Smart dude. No way out until morning. I shiver at the notion.
I glance around the opulent room, the coffered ceiling now sporting halogen lights in every other square, highlighting the polished antique Renaissance furniture in surreal blue/white. I’m trapped in the seventeenth century, except for the custom Hiwatt 100 watt amp, the Fender electric and an Ibanez bass I never liked the sound of, and left here the day I moved out.
Inhale deeply, exhale slowly to chill. An hour with my old man in ten years probably won’t be near the deal I’m making it out to be. Crashing from all the Adderall and Didrex I’ve been doing lately is making me edgy. Julia’s right. Been using too much for too long now. Gonna have to knock it off, even if it means working less.
The digital clock on the Louis XV writing table displays 5:55 in deep red LED. I grab a towel and take a hot shower, then shave. Stow my black suit in my bag then put on worn jeans and a hoodie. Screw formality. I pull my tablet and sit on the bed with it, turn it on and input the chord progression I’d created earlier. It’s close to 6:30 by the time I finally make my way down to Edward’s study.
My father sits at his mahogany desk, focused on his laptop. He’s wearing glasses but takes them off and stands as I come in, though he does not extend his hand. He’s still in the black suit he wore to the funeral. He looks exactly the same as a decade ago, hasn’t lost one hair from the mass of thick peppered gray that sweeps across his forehead, still cropped short on the sides. Remarkably, he’s retained his tall, imposing stature, and even more remarkably, he is still trim and looks fit. Though he’s almost eighty, he can easily be mistaken for early sixties. He hasn’t changed one iota in ten years. Perhaps he sold his soul to the devil.
Edward walks over to the bar, pulls a dark brown bottle from the fifty or more terraced along the smoked mirrored wall. “Would you care for a whiskey, James?” The puppeteer is still orchestrating the scene.
“No.” Back off. Keep it light. “Thank you.” I stand a few feet from his desk, caught in one of the many circles of recessed lights. About the last thing I need to add to my messed up chemistry is alcohol. I tuck my hands under my arms, shifting from one hip to the other, edgy to the extreme.
My father opens the beveled glass cabinet, selects a crystal tumbler, and pours himself a drink. Neither of us speak, and the silence between us becomes the rhino in the room. I cram my hands into my hoodie pocket, wander over to the walnut bookshelves that line the walls and randomly scan titles. Pillars of the Earth. The Principles of Mechanics. The Prince.
Okay. Breathe. Relax. Loosen your shoulders. Say something. Say anything. “I’m really sorry about Ian,” is the best I come up with.
“It is your loss too, James. It would serve you to recognize that.”
Here we go. “Yes sir. It is my loss, too. I’m sorry Ian’s dead. It’s really a tragic waste.”
“Yes. It is.” Edward speaks as if to himself. He leans against the bar and takes a sip of his whiskey. “A tragic death—a tragic waste of a life. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“As you know, Ian and I weren’t that close. I’m not in any position to judge how he lived his life.”
Edward takes another drink. “It’s unfortunate that you and your brother were never able to cultivate a relationship. Perhaps by your example, Ian could have developed some focus, some self-discipline.”
“I doubt I could have provided the influence that would have saved Ian, sir.”
“Of course not.” A sardonic laugh. “Ian’s issue was not a lack of discipline, but a lack of self. Most assuredly, neither of which are your issues.”
Like you have a clue what my issues might be. “What is it you want to talk with me about, father?”
Edward swirls the whiskey in his glass and takes another sip of his drink. “It is time to discuss your upcoming role in our family’s future.”
Prickling rush sweeps through me, like the kind that follows just barely missing the Mack truck. “Let’s not go down that road again, Edward. I told you I wasn’t interested ten years ago. I’m still not.”
“We’re meeting to discuss obligation, responsibility, not choice, James.”
“Not a choice for Ian, maybe, but it is for me. I’m just lucky, I guess, that I wasn’t your first born, or legitimate.” Watch out. I’m letting him get to me.
Edward’s eyes narrow. “Your arrogance is only surpassed by your ignorance.” He shakes his head slowly, then takes a gulp of his drink, moves from the bar and begins circling me. It’s unnerving. “Your brother was a lazy, spoiled, contentious, undisciplined brat. I had no expectations of him managing the family estate since he could not manage his own behavior.” Edward stops a few feet in front of me, close enough to smell his sour breath.
Every part of me tenses. It takes considerable effort to relax my balled fists. Flex my fingers discreetly. We’re the same height. I’m almost fifty years younger, and in good shape. But I’m still afraid of him. “Why am I here, Edward? What do you want?”
“An easy transition.” Edward takes another sip of whiskey, “Though that seems unlikely.” He drains his glass in one final gulp. “James, did you honestly expect to walk away and sever all ties to your family? If you did, I’m afraid you were sadly mistaken.”
“What ties?” He has to be kidding. “We have no ties. We haven’t spoken in a decade. You know nothing about me. When you had the opportunity the five years I lived here, you chose your constituents, your agenda, other commitments.”
“I had two sons.” Edward almost shouts. “Now I have one.” He goes back to the bar and pours himself another drink, then takes a long, slow draw and looks at me. “Am I to expect the same petty contempt from you as from your brother?”
My heart’s coming through my chest again. All I want to do is get out of here, away from him. “What do you want me to say? What are you looking to hear from me, father?” It suddenly strikes me what Edward wants. I have to laugh. “I can’t give you what you want, Edward. I won’t. I’m about the last person to grant you absolution.”
Edward laughs heartily. “Absolution?” He shakes his head w
ith a twisted grin. “You are young, and naive, so you are forgiven.” Then raises his glass to me, brings it to his lips and drains it, goes back to the bar and pours himself another.
“I don't need your forgiveness, Edward.” I need to get out of here.
Edward stands at the bar studying me, then finishes his drink and places the glass down gently. Never seen my father drink so much. Worries me. I’ve never got on with drunks. Anxiety suddenly consumes me. This could turn into a very bad scene.
“Please, sit down, James.” Edward indicates the steel and leather chairs in front of his desk as he goes behind it and stands waiting.
I glance at the door then look back at my father.
“Please.” Edward is casual, somehow making the command sound like a request, and again he motions to the Van Der Rohe chairs with a sweep of his hand.
I don’t sit until he does.
He presses a few keys on his laptop and closes it, arranges some papers on his desk then folds his huge hands casually in his lap and looks at me.
“With Ian’s passing, you will become the sole heir to the family estate upon my death. The estate is currently valued at over two billion in assets. Most of it is tied up in real estate holdings, though a good percentage is incorporated into a variety of business ventures, some of which—”
“I can’t believe you are insisting on this conversation.” I stand abruptly and my chair slides back silently over the polished oak floors. I back away from the desk, move behind the chair and grip its steel bar with both hands. “I told you I’m not interested. I don’t want any of your money. If this is all you wanted to talk to me about, then we’re done, Edward.”
“This isn’t about money, James.”
“Well, excuse me for being vulgar, father, but whatever it’s about I’m not interested in any part of your estate. This is absurd. You can’t honestly expect me to walk away from everything I’ve established, worked for my entire life.”
“I’ve not suggested you abandon anything. I am expecting you to absorb your additional obligations, and invest the time necessary to become effective at overseeing our collective assets—not overnight, of course, over time. You have lived a lifestyle known only to the privileged few. Do not minimize the role your heritage has played in your accomplishments.”
You pompous, self-aggrandizing prick. “I have devoted my entire life to music. I work my ass off, round the clock, since well before you came along. I’ve made millions on my own, without your money or connections. And somehow, according to you, I owe all my success to this family. Well, that’s bullshit, Edward.”
“It’s not my intention to minimize your achievements. Your dedication is beyond reproach. But your commitment to this family will be equally fulfilling when you invest some of the energy you’ve given so exclusively to your music, and redirect it into managing the Trust.”
“I have no commitment to you or this family. And you sure as hell have no right to sit there and tell me that I am behaving like an arrogant child, following the path you not only paved, but shoved down my throat.” I’m almost shouting. My heart’s racing. It’s hard to catch my breath. “I don’t want to be part of your world, Edward, and I won’t let you pull me away from the one thing I love.”
“It is narcissism, at best, that the only thing you know of love is your own talent.”
“That’s not what I meant. You’re taking what I said out of context.”
“Am I?” Edward rises and spreads his hands on his desk. “You have served yourself and no one else all of your adult life. You’ve cultivated relationships merely to satisfy your muse. Two years from thirty, you’ve not even the prospect for a wife, or children to inherit your name.” He shakes his head and takes a few measured steps from his desk and looks at me. “Serving the family Trust will compel you to step outside of yourself, and the infinitesimally small world in which you operate. Like it or not, you are a part of this family, inexorably linked to its past, and destined to help carve its future, and the thousands of lives we affect. The only question is how you will play the hand you have been dealt.” He moves to the front of his desk as he speaks and stops in front of me, not two feet away. His eyes are fixed on mine, boring a hole right through my head.
He’s too close. Run. Escape while I still can.
“There is no such thing as destiny. I choose, father. And I will not let you manipulate me into taking a position for which I have no passion, or interest. It’s my life. Everything is transitory, Edward, even this family. I am not the answer to your need for immortality. I can’t save you. This conversation is over. I’m leaving.”
“Sit down, James.”
“Fuck off, Edward,” comes out of my mouth and I feel strangely vindicated, until he backhands me. My right eye explodes and I bury my face in my hands, push hard against my eye to counter the throbbing. The entire right side of my face is on fire. Stumble back, out of his range, wipe the tears from my eyes on my shirtsleeve then rub my cheek where Edward connected.
I’m frozen, like a deer in the headlights, shocked. Until now, Edward’s never raised a hand to me, or Ian, as far as I know. Can’t recall my father ever being violent. He’d always been so contained, controlled. I stare at him, trying to gauge his state of mind. He doesn’t look at me. He goes to the bar and pours himself another whiskey, and in one swift gulp drains the glass.
---
EDWARD
His inability to maintain even a modicum of decorum makes it clear to Edward that his son is on something. Edward would have expected this behavior from Ian, but not from James. Boy’s been far too productive to be ravaged by drugs. Yet, his behavior is fundamentally disturbing.
James holds his cheek, stares at him as if he’s Satan. Tears in his eyes, and Edward sees the grief stricken boy, the day he’d arrived at Castlewood, directly after his mother and step-father died. He’d been unable to talk to his son then. It is unfortunate they’ve yet to move off that mark.
“Please, sit down, James.”
James stands his ground. He has Anna’s striking beauty, with his thick, fine chestnut hair hanging over his brow and in his eyes—worn wild, just as his mother did, framing his square jawline, his full lips. Wide, glassy green eyes are fixed on Edward’s.
“I’m leaving, Edward. Tell Stefan to take me to Canterbury, or give me a phone, or I’m taking one of the horses and riding to Hythe or Folkestone to get a cell connection for a taxi.” His arms are crossed over his chest, his elegant hands tucked against his sides. He glares at Edward, waiting.
“You must have become a hell of a rider, son. Doubt I’d be able to make a ten mile journey in the dark, in the rain, without injury to the horse or myself. But, of course, the horses are yours, as is everything here. You don’t need my permission to take one.”
“Damn you!” He glares at Edward. “I. Don’t. Want. It. Do you get it?”
Edward’s ire rises. “Do not address me with that tone again,” and he would have smacked James a second time if the boy hadn’t been out of range. “I have neither the right nor the will to break five hundred years of tradition by passing on the Whren legacy to anyone other than a blood heir. Ownership of the Trust will transfer to you upon my retirement, or death. A simple fact to do with what you will.”
James runs his hand through his hair, clearly agitated. He looks around the room as if he’s trapped. “You can’t keep me here, Edward. I’m not thirteen anymore.” He shakes his head with obvious disdain. “I want a phone. I want it now.”
“You are not a prisoner here, James. You agreed to this meeting tonight, which I assumed you were well aware of its content, as it was our last discussion before you moved from here, you may recall.”
Clearly, he doesn’t. Eyes drift, as if he’s thinking back, then he fixes on Edward again. “I don’t give a shit what the hell our parting words were. Just tell me where I can find a phone.”
“We’ve yet to resolve any business here tonight. I’d like to do that before you go.?
??
“What makes you think I care what you want.” His tone is low, angry, practically growling. “I’m leaving. Tell me where there’s a goddamn phone or I’m going to rip this house apart to find one. Do you understand?” He's infuriated, sweating, his eyes wide and unblinking, confirming Edward’s fear James is either on drugs or withdrawing from them.
Howard gently knocks on one of the sliding walnut doors.
“Come.” Edward says.
Howard enters, his thin lips pursed, he narrows his brow at James then looks at Edward. “May I be of assistance?”
“Thank you, Howard. Please notify Stefan he’s to be available for my son throughout the evening, and to deliver James to Heathrow for his flight tomorrow morning.”
Howard nods. Again he glares at James, scrutinizes him. “You are here to bury your brother, not malign your father. Enough, James.” And he turns around and walks out of the room.
James spreads his hands in surrender, shakes his head and laughs at Howard condescendingly, then looks back at Edward. He studies his father, they stare at each other for a long, tense moment. “I’m sorry for you, father. You’ve lost one son by playing God, and you’re about to lose the other.”
“I’ve no illusions of omnipotence, son, hence our meeting tonight. I have been, and remain humbled by that which is greater than me. What humbles you, James?”
He shoots Edward an insolent grin. “Not you. Not anymore.” His grin fades as his jaw line tightens, hollowing his cheeks, revealing his mother’s high cheekbones. “Watch out, Edward. You're not in control.” Deep forest green eyes stay fixed on Edward another moment, then he turns and walks out of the study.