Illusions Complete Series (42 page)

“I know that. It’s just…” I took a deep breath. “How do I keep from resenting him?”

“Only you know the answer to that. At any rate, there are going to be trials ahead. You guys have to face them together, because they’re going to affect both of you,” she said, as she got up from the table to put her coffee cup in the kitchen sink. “And seeing our father isn’t going to be fun or pretty. You need to have enough strength for all of us, because there is liable to be some kind of break down coming from that. Fair warning.”

I nodded.

“Now, get back up there with my brother. Don’t try to sleep in a different room, or something cute like that. He needs you. I’m not trying to guilt you, I’m just stating a cold, hard fact. So, think long and hard before you have an urge to run. Just sayin.’” She washed her hands in the warm water, and Cori came in. She fed the enormous dog a bone, and he slinked away to enjoy it. “Besides,” she continued. “The damage is done. Leaving him would accomplish nothing, and you wouldn’t have an ally in all this. So, in other words, it would cause more problems for you if you leave than if you stay.”

She made a good point.

I was trapped.

Chapter Eleven

The next day, we drove along in silence in Sarah’s Mercedes SUV, with me in the back, and Sarah and Ryan in the front. I didn’t talk much to Ryan when we woke up this morning, not really knowing what to say. I was trying to get out of my head, and out of my own way, so that I could be there for Ryan for this most difficult task of confronting his father.

We arrived at Ryan’s plane, which would take us the short distance to Newport, Rhode Island, which is where his father had bought his mansion for his retirement. The plane ride was short, but filled with awkward silence. None of us said a word. Ryan and Sarah just stared at the walls of the plane, and I flipped through a book that I brought along with me – a memoir called
The Glass Castle
by Jeannette Walls, about a singularly dysfunctional family riven by alcoholism and homelessness.

We got to the Newport State Airport, which was a small general aviation airport, then rented a car. Driving around the city, I was in awe of the enormous homes that were on the seashore. Most of the mansions were built during the gilded age for everybody from Cornelius Vanderbilt to tobacco heiress Doris Duke to serve as their summer homes. There was “The Breakers,” the 70-room Italian Renaissance style palazzo which echoed the 16
Century palaces of Genoa and Turin, commissioned to be built for Cornelius Vanderbilt II in 1893. There was “The Elms,” which served as the summer residence of a coal industry magnate, modeled after the mid-18
Century French chateau d’Asnieres outside Paris. The “Marble House” designed for William Vanderbilt, brother of Cornelius II, with a façade that resembled The White House, with classical Greek pillars and arched windows, boasted 500,000 cubic feet of marble. “Rosecliff” was built in 1899 for a silver heiress, and was patterned after garden retreats in Versailles. “Rough Point,” an enormous Tudor-style mansion on an oceanfront cliff, was the home of tobacco heiress Doris Duke.

And then there was Benjamin’s home, which rivaled any of the other homes found in the area. I had no idea how many square feet it was, but was probably at least 50,000. The home was Mediterranean style, with a Spanish-tile roof, and enormous arches that formed the portico. Various windows had terraces and balconies, and the grass was perfectly manicured. An enormous fountain was in front of the house, with the sculpture of a maiden lady pouring water in the middle, and the house itself was on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Like Sarah’s house, there was an enormous terrace that jutted out on the side, paved in marble, with a stone balustrade that enclosed it. This home served as Benjamin's retirement summer house and weekend retreat house, explained Sarah, as she rang the doorbell that echoed the chimes of Big Ben in London.

A servant opened the door, and I walked in to see two enormous staircases that led to the second floor. The ceiling was about one hundred feet from the vestibule where we stood. The foyer was paved in marble, with black and white tiles.

“How many rooms is this place?” I asked, looking around, half expecting to see an original Picasso or two on the walls. There weren’t Picassos, at least not in this area, but there were original Titians and Rembrandts in the dining room, which was just off the main foyer area.

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably 50 or so.”

Turning to the servant, Ryan spoke in perfect Spanish, and the lady nodded her head. Remembering his fluency with the Italians on our honeymoon, I made a mental note that there were at least three languages that Ryan apparently spoke perfectly.

Seeing me staring at him, Ryan said “What? If you know one Romance language, you can learn all of them pretty well.”

“Do you know French, too?”

“Maybe,” he said, putting his arm around me, the first warm gesture from him of the day. “You will just have to find out when I take you to Paris.”

The tension seemed to be easing just a bit, as evidenced by Ryan’s light-hearted joke. But, when the lady came back down, and spoke Spanish, which both Ryan and Sarah understood, I saw Ryan’s face color drain. He nodded to the woman, then grabbed my hand and Sarah’s hand, and the three of us silently ascended the stairs. I could feel him clutching me tightly, and even Sarah looked as if she wanted to be anywhere else but there at that moment. I thought that if Ryan and Sarah had a choice between this home and a POW camp, they would both have eagerly chosen the POW camp.

We got to the top of the stairs, and Ryan politely excused himself and headed towards one of the bathrooms.

I followed him in to make sure he was ok.

He wasn’t, of course. He was crouched by the bowl and dry heaving, because he hadn’t eaten that day yet. I sat down next to him, gently stroking his back. For the moment, all the other issues had receded to the background of my mind. Ryan’s mental health and well-being were all that I was thinking about.

I ran my fingers through his hair, and put my hand under his shirt, touching the bare skin on his back. Ryan loves to be touched, and my touch usually calms him down. His skin was quivering, and his heart was pounding so hard that I could feel his back pulsating rapidly. I put his head on my chest, stroking his hair, while he wrapped his arms around my waist. Both of us were still on the floor. He was crying softly into my chest, and he wrapped his arms tighter around me.

Sarah was soon in the doorway, and she, too, crouched down. “Peanut, we don’t have to do this. I didn’t think this would affect you this much.”

He simply shook his head, which was still buried in my chest. “No, no,” he said. “I have to do this.”

Sarah tousled his hair a little, then said “Ok, when you’re ready, I’ll be right outside the bathroom door waiting for you.”

He nodded silently into my chest.

Sarah looked at me meaningfully. Her look said “see how much he needs you?”

I just nodded to her, while I continued to stroke Ryan’s hair.

After about a half hour, Ryan finally looked at me. His eyes were puffy red on the outside, and the green irises had turned fluorescent. I grabbed a Kleenex, and he blew his nose.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“As I will ever be,” he answered.

At that, the two of us got up from the bathroom floor, met Sarah, who was, as promised, right outside the door, and made our way to Benjamin’s bedroom.

Chapter Twelve

Benjamin’s bedroom was at the far end of the wing. The room was enormous and looked like a room out of a museum. The ceiling was about twenty feet tall and was decorated in a Venetian mural with gold inlay. An enormous chandelier hung from the middle of the room. Light was streaming in through the arched eighteen foot windows, which reflected upon the cherry hardwood floors. The walls were painted in faux finish gold, and an enormous red and gold oriental rug that covered most of the room matched perfectly. On one of the walls was a marble fireplace with two ionic columns on either side. Above the fireplace was another original from the Renaissance age, a Carvaggio portrait of two noble women. The room was furnished with a red couch on one of the walls. On another of the walls was an enormous four poster bed with a framed top.

And, in that bed, was a frail and pale man.

Ryan was standing in the doorway, his hand clutching mine. Sarah was directly behind us, like she was using us as a shield for her. We all stood there for a little while, staring at the man in the enormous bed, with an IV drip next to it, along with an oxygen tank. He looked at us, and motioned us to the bed.

I could see in his face and eyes a part of where Sarah and Ryan got their beauty. The eyes were crystal clear blue, and his face had the same chisel that Ryan’s did. He was weathered and extremely thin, but he had a full head of salt and pepper hair.

I could imagine that in his day he probably turned heads as much as his son.

Now he was a mere shadow of a man, just over a hundred pounds, struggling to breathe.

But he was conscious, and appeared to have his wits about him.

“My son,” he whispered. “My daughter.” There were tears in his eyes. “Thank you.”

Ryan simply stared at him and said nothing. I looked at Ryan’s face, but his expression was inscrutable.

Sarah’s expression was more readable. She looked extraordinarily sad.

Benjamin looked at me, then looked at Ryan questioningly.

“Benjamin, this is my wife. Iris.”

I held out my hand, and he reached one bony hand and took it, covering it with his other hand. “Welcome,” he croaked between rasps.

“Good to meet you.”

He trained his eyes on Ryan and Sarah. “I would like to speak with you both alone,” he haltingly whispered.

Ryan started to protest, but Sarah silenced him with a look. Then Ryan looked at me and nodded.

I got the hint and left.

For the next two hours, I wandered around the enormous house and the grounds. It was a beautiful October day, sunny, clear, and unseasonably warm, with very little wind. I ended up on the edge of the bluff, looking down into the ocean. I couldn’t take my mind off of Ryan. Thank goodness he had Sarah there with him.

I found myself talking to God, asking Him to help Ryan have the strength to get through this. There was something about this place, overlooking the vast ocean, that made me think about the creator of us all. I have always been somewhat spiritual but not religious, so I have, on occasions such as this, tried to connect to something larger than myself.

I also needed guidance. I loved Ryan, more than I had ever loved anyone. But I couldn’t deny that trouble seemed to follow him like a shadow. And it was taking me down, too. I silently prayed for the strength to see everything through, to be able to have the strength to help Ryan and to know how to give him what he needs.

And the strength to stay.

After a few hours, Ryan came and found me. I stood up, and put my arms around his neck, and he wrapped his arms around me. He held me, silently, for what seemed like eternity, but was, in reality, probably only a few minutes. Then, I took his hand, and we both sat down on the rocks and watched the ocean for a little while.

Neither of us spoke for a long time.

Finally, I asked “how did it go?”

Ryan said nothing, just continued staring at the horizon for a few minutes. Then he said “Do you remember what it felt like for you to meet Rochelle for the first time? When you said that meeting her put a human face to her, which helped you to forgive?”

“Of course.”

“Something like that happened to me in there. I haven’t seen my father in so long, not since I was a young boy. So, for all these years, I built him up into this monster. Now I see him lying like that, helpless, and, I don’t know. I had the epiphany that he’s not a monster. He’s human. A very, very flawed human, but human nonetheless.”

I had made a mental note that he referred to him as “my father,” not Benjamin. So, that alone tipped me off that he was feeling differently about his father. It also seemed that this visit had somehow given him a sense of peace and closure about the past.

He went on. “He couldn’t speak very well, because he couldn’t breathe very well. But he apologized to us both.” He shook his head, then brought out a letter with shaking hands. “And he gave me this. He gave Sarah one as well.”

“May I read it?” I asked.

“Sure, go ahead. I read it twice already.”

I opened up the letter and read.

Dear Son,

As you probably know by now, I have been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and I don’t have much time left in this world. God has a funny sense of humor. At any rate, I guess that I am owed this manner of death. Cold, cruel and painful. You know what they say about karma being a bitch. Of course, the irony is that I never smoked a single cigarette in my life. I am not going to say that there is an injustice in this, because I know that whatever horrible thing happens to me, I deserve it after the way that I lived my life.

As a consequence of my diagnosis, I have been taking stock of my life, and trying to figure myself out. I know that I was a cruel tyrant with you, Sarah and Margaret. I knew it then. But I was so filled with hatred and violence that I literally couldn’t stop myself. That’s no excuse, of course. All my life, I blamed all of you for my being unhappy. Then I realized, after I lost all of you, and I was still unhappy, that the problem was me.

But I still wasn’t ready to face my own demons. So, for many years, I comforted myself with my pieces of silver, and became more and more ruthless in business. I was trying to fill a bottomless pit of need. I thought that if I stripped enough businesses of their assets, so that our company could acquire them for pennies on the dollar, I could be happy. I took satisfaction in liquidating pension funds for workers that were relying on them. I was delighted that thousands of people lost their jobs in the process. The happiness about all this was short-lived, of course, so I had to do some more raiding. That’s what I did. That’s how I found short-lived glee after I lost the ability to torment my family. It helped that my company was benefitting greatly from my cold-hearted ruthlessness, but that really was not why I was doing it.