Adam's Daughter

ADAM’S DAUGHTER

Kristy Daniels

Copyright © 2013 by Kristy Daniels

Grateful acknowledgment is made to New Directions Publishing Corporation for permission to reprint an excerpt from “Marriage” from THE HAPPY BIRTHDAY OF DEATH by Gregory Corso. Copyright © 1960 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

To Kelly Elizabeth

“That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.”

                              
-- Goethe, Faust

PROLOGUE

A spear of lightning cut across the black sky, and the jet began to shudder. The young woman opened her eyes in time to see her half-finished glass of wine skate across the tray. She grabbed it but a few drops splashed on the newspaper on her lap.

There was a sharp clap of thunder, and she leaned back in the seat, clutching the wineglass with one hand and the armrest with the other. A touch on her hand made her jump. She looked up into the face of a young
flight attendant.

“Are you all right?”
she asked.

She nodded but said nothing.

“Well, we’re almost home,” the attendant said, taking the glass.

She leaned back in her seat, listening to the strain of the jet’s engines. Gradually, the thunder and lightning lessened, leaving just rain beating against the window. She thought back several hours ago to when she had landed at Kennedy. The flight from Paris had been smooth, but the reservations clerk in New York had warned her about the bad Pacific storm and suggested she might stay in New York a night until the weather cleared. But something —- some feeling or instinct —- had told her she had to get on the plane to the coast. If she waited one more day, it might be too late.

A voice announced the plane was on its final descent to San Francisco, and from somewhere back in coach came the cry of a baby. Almost home...almost home.

She looked down at the newspaper in her lap. It was a
n old copy of the
International Herald-Tribune.
On the front page was a photograph of the first lady in a ball gown descending a staircase with the French prime minister. She started to put the paper away but stopped and opened it to the women’s page. There it was -- the interview with the first lady, with her byline -- Kellen Bryant.

She folded the paper and put it back in her bag. At the last minute in Paris, she had decided to bring it with her to show her father. He would be impressed that she had met the president. The house in which she had grown up had once been a gathering place for the powerful and famous.
Her father would be impressed, too, she hoped, with the fact that she had written the story.

The plane landed hard in the driving rain. By the time she exited the
terminal the rain had slowed, but the late afternoon sky was dark. She saw a black limousine parked nearby, and a man in uniform came toward her.

“Miss Bryant, this way please.” The driver put her bags in the trunk and held the door for her. Something caught her eye, stand
ing out bright yellow in the rain. It was a news rack, with the familiar letters painted on the front: THE TIMES IS ON YOUR SIDE! She put some coins in the box, pulled out a newspaper, and got into the limo.

The car snaked through the traffic and onto the freeway. She opened the newspaper, and as she slowly turned the pages, she smiled slightly, a little sadly, feeling as if she were being greeted by an old friend who had remained untouched by the years.
The San Francisco Times
had not changed. It looked the same as it had the day she left five years ago.

She opened to the editorial page. Her smile faded. No, not exactly the same.

She stared at the masthead, the box in the upper left column of the page that named the newspaper’s executives. Her father’s name, Adam Bryant, was on top, followed by the title Publisher Emeritus. And just below that the name Ian Bryant, her half-brother, now with the title Publisher. It looked strange to see it that way.

She knew she had no right to feel jealous of Ian
. After all, she was the one who had run off to Paris five years ago. But the feeling persisted, even after all this time. She looked out the window. The congested streets of the Mission district were now giving way to the familiar sights of her childhood as the limo made its way north toward Pacific Heights.

Ian dominated her thoughts. He was a hurtful part of her past, a past that she had tried to leave behind but which was now coming alive with every streetlight, every hedge,
and every house she saw.

The limo stopped and Kellen got out. She stood for a moment, looking up at the white mansion on Divisadero Street. She was home.

At the front door, Kellen was met by a maid she did not recognize. The woman took her coat and disappeared, leaving Kellen standing alone in the foyer. The house was quiet, so quiet that Kellen could hear the ticking of the old clock on the mantel in the study off to her left.

Kellen looked toward the living room and beyond to the dining room. She half expected to smell minted roast lamb and hear the sigh of champagne being uncorked. She half expected to hear voices, all talking at once, or music, perhaps the Puccini her father so loved. But now there was nothing but quiet and a scent of must in the cool still air.

She went to the staircase and looked up. Voices, soft and low, coming from upstairs. That was where he had to be. That was where her father was, in his bedroom, dying.

Upstairs, she paused at the open door of her father’s bedroom.
The room was dim and filled with a sickly sweet smell that made her recoil. Flowers and disinfectant. It was a moment before she saw the figure lying in the bed far across the room. In the corner of her vision, she saw shadows of others.

“Kellen...”

Someone took her hand. Warm fingers.

She forced her eyes from the bed
and looked up into a familiar face.

“Josh.”

He embraced her, holding her tight. Finally, she pulled away. She had known Josh Hillman all her life. He was her father’s lawyer and his only trusted friend, like a member of the family. But she had never seen him as he looked now. His face was old, eroded by sadness. 

“How is he?” she asked
, looking to the bed.

“The doctor said
—-” Josh coughed slightly. “He said that with this kind of cancer, at this stage, it’s relentless. He said he should have been dead by now but —-” Josh saw Kellen’s face and stopped. “I’m sorry, Kellen. It’s just that, and now you —-”

“Josh, it’s all right.” She moved past him, toward the bed.
Gradually the faces of the other shadowy figures in the room came into focus. Josh’s son Stephen, standing near the window. Her younger brother Tyler slumped in a chair. Her father’s first wife Lilith sitting erect on a lounge in the corner. And standing behind Lilith, Ian.

Another figure in white hovered near the bed, a doctor, who moved aside as Kellen approached. Kellen stared down at the
figure in the bed. Skin like faded parchment stretched over the bones of the face, sunken eyes, mercifully closed, mouth open, pulling in air in short gasps. And strands of lank gray hair spread on the pillow.

Kellen picked up her father’s hand. Next to her own, so pink with health, it looked pale and childish.

“What happened to his hair?” she whispered. “It was full and beautiful. What happened to his hair?”

Josh came over and put his arms around her shoulders.

Her father’s fingers moved suddenly, curling themselves around hers. “Kellen...”

She quickly dropped to her knees beside the bed, straining to hear. “Daddy? Daddy? I’m here
, Daddy.”

He opened his eyes. “Kellen,” he whispered. “I knew you’d come home.”

Kellen felt his grip loosen. For a moment, she thought he was dead. Then she saw the hollow rise and fall of his chest beneath the sheet. Josh pulled gently on her shoulders.

“It’s the painkillers. He drifts in and out. Come with me, Kellen. Let him sleep.”