Epilogue
CALEB
February
“ Y ou have always been just like your father. I never understood his fascination with the help .” My mother waved her hand in a graceful circle toward Brooke and Ellen.
“JW’s philanthropic notions with his charities and good works to help those less fortunate were deeply in him.
You’ve followed right in his footsteps, Caleb.
” I knew what she was doing. Her skills at delivering an insult while making it appear as if she was simply being charming were almost legendary. I decided to call her out on it.
“Okay, since I am just like my father, is that why you sold off his treasured Blackwater without ever mentioning to me you were selling, because you knew I would object?”
“No, Caleb. I sold Blackwater for the reason that it was mine to sell. Your father gave it to me to do whatever I saw fit.” I could hardly believe it, but I’d seen the documents to prove that she was indeed, telling the truth. Why would Dad give her Blackwater in the first place, though?
“Why keep the news of selling from me?”
“I didn’t really. I just put it up for sale and didn’t discuss it with you. It’s not like you showed much of an interest, Caleb. It’d been years since you even went there, until you met Brooke that is.”
She waved her hand in our direction again, as if she was bestowing her grace upon poor peasants begging for a favor.
It annoyed me greatly. “Do not go there with Brooke.” I was barely able to keep a lid on my temper.
You would think with how incredibly, seriously wrong my mother had been about Janice that she wouldn’t even consider showing anything but kindness toward my beautiful girl.
But that would mean conceding, and in her twisted view, it put her on the losing side.
Very fucked-up ideology to liken us to combatants in a battle, but sadly those were the rules she played by—and they were ironclad.
Losers were given no quarter and even less sympathy. No second chances.
Janice, for instance, had been shunned by the tribe and would never be welcomed into Boston’s inner circle of society again.
Despite the actual fucking restraining order preventing her from coming within two hundred feet of us, I’d made sure her wings were clipped.
It was either agree to leave the country or face a messy trial inside a Boston courtroom.
A courtroom with plenty of drooling media hacks lying in wait to deliver the most unflattering picture of the day to the eager public, whose sole entertainment was watching celebrities go off the rails—she figured her psycho shit out real quick.
Janice might be crazy, but she wasn’t stupid. She chose Hong Kong.
My mother did not heed my warning tone and turned away to take a sip from her wineglass. “I don’t understand what the fuss is with selling Blackwater. The old place brought in a fortune. All’s well that ends well.”
“What the fuck, Mom ?” I exploded. “I want an explanation, and I want it now.” I stabbed my finger down on the table. “Why did Dad ever give Blackwater to you in the first place?”
She scowled at my f-bomb. “Language, Caleb, remember how you were brought up, please.”
“How I was brought up...hmm...that’s interesting, my dear mother , because I don’t really remember you being very involved with me.
Dad was, of course, but I only remember nannies and babysitters reading to me, or giving me baths, or any of the normal things mothers do for their children.
” I wished I didn’t have to ask her the rest, but I needed to know.
“Why have I felt, for my whole goddamn life, that you resented me—that you could barely tolerate being around your own son?”
“Caleb, this is not the time, nor is it the place for this discussion.” She looked around the room at all the faces.
My brothers, my sisters, Herman and Ellen, Brooke, James, my cousins—all of them waiting to hear from her.
Everyone was uncomfortable and yet frozen in place.
I felt the same. All of the ugly was about to come spewing out in front of everyone, and I did not care.
The fuckin’ bell had been rung. Fuckin’ loudly, too. There was no unringing it.
“Madelaine, you need to tell him the truth,” Herman said. “JW is gone, and the boy deserves to know.”
Every eye in the room turned toward my uncle, including both of mine, as all of the hairs on the back of my neck tilted straight up.
Along with the axis of the earth.
“What is the fucking truth that’s been kept from me for my whole life?” I yelled back at her.
She flinched in her seat.
The only thing holding me from going into a total meltdown was Brooke’s hand rubbing on my back in gentle but steady circles, grounding me from absolutely losing my motherfucking shit in front of everyone I cared about most in the world.
My mother straightened her back and lost the hauteur that she usually carried around on her face. I knew whatever the truth I was about to hear would change everything.
She turned to me and said it calmly.
“The truth is, Caleb, you are not my son.”
R elief. I felt relief for the first time in thirty-one years where my “mother” was concerned.
I didn’t have to wonder what I’d done to spurn her love.
Now I understood. It finally made some goddamn fucking sense to me.
I blocked out everyone else in the room.
I knew they were there, but I didn’t care anymore.
The truth is all I cared about, because I had nothing to hide from any of them.
“My father?” I was almost fearful of asking.
“Your father was your father, Caleb. You are his son, but you are not mine.” More relief poured over me at knowing my whole existence was not a lie. I was a Blackstone after all.
“H-h-how did it happen?”
“Shortly after we’d married I found out he had a lover.
One of the cleaning staff, a girl named Melody Rainford—a student on a work visa from England.
Yes, she was British,” she said in a tone I did not care for.
But I held my tongue because I wanted her to tell me the rest. “He made her pregnant and you were born. JW was completely infatuated with her, and I am quite certain he would have left me and married her, if she hadn’t died just three weeks after you were born. ”
I lifted my eyes and stared daggers at my mother—no, wait—I stabbed Madelaine with the question I dared not ask.
“No, Caleb. I am not a murderer, despite what you might be imagining right now. It was a postpartum aneurysm that killed your mother. They are a tragic complication which does happen sometimes, and the result is usually fatal. Your father was devastated to lose her, but he wouldn’t part with you.
He loved you because you were his son, and he wanted you to be raised as his son in the eyes of society, with all of the benefits that would come with his name. ”
I couldn’t imagine the terrible emotion my father must have experienced when my birth mother suddenly died leaving him with a newborn infant to raise. I looked over at Brooke and felt the stab of fear punch right through my gut. If I ever lost her there would be nothing left of me.
“He came to me humbled and begged me to take him back. We struck a deal, your father and I. I would claim you as my child, and he would never stray again during the course of our marriage. He would also give to me certain assets that would belong only to me—so I would never be under his thumb for money again and always in control of my own personal wealth, even if he lost everything he owned. The deed to Blackwater was one such provision. Fortunes are lost every day in the oil business. I had to make sure what I was getting would stand the test of time and hold its value.”
I couldn’t fault her explanation. A fortune promised in exchange for claiming me as her own. Secrets kept...for a price.
“He moved us to Houston for two years so our friends wouldn’t question your birth after it was announced I was expecting.
Everything was arranged, even your birth certificate was altered.
People were paid to forget what they’d seen, if they were even aware.
Good servants understand the value of turning a blind eye and your father made sure they were well compensated.
By the time we returned to Boston, you were a little boy in the care of your nanny, because I was pregnant with twins and too ill to mother you.
Nobody noticed. You looked just like JW, and so your parentage was accepted without doubt.
People see what we want them to see, Caleb.
And what they saw was a growing, happy family with a mother and a father.
“Your father did all of that for you, Caleb.
He kept his promise to me, and in spite of what you might believe, I did love him very much and our marriage grew stronger after our tumultuous beginning because of our agreement.
I did my best for you—the best that I was capable of giving you.
I did not interfere with your relationship with your father or with your brothers and your sisters.
You loved them all unconditionally, and they you—I could see that clearly.
“He didn’t want you to know. Even on his deathbed, your father made me promise never to tell you, because he was afraid you would lose respect for him.
He was afraid for all of his children to lose their respect for him.
JW was not the perfect man you’ve always believed him to be.
He was flawed...as we all are. Until right now, I have kept my promise to my husband, and I never once betrayed him or h-his w-wishes,” she stammered slightly, “and regardless of what you think , Caleb, I have always thought of myself as your mother .”