CHAPTER EIGHT
CORA
Vince didn’t give up any information the entire ride. He was famous for being a brick when my father ordered him to be, which chafed worse and worse until we arrived at my parents’ building. Vince accompanied me into the back elevator, stoic and thick-necked like always. Sometimes, on our good days, he was like a surrogate father to me. But most of the time, he was my actual father’s irritating hired grunt.
“You said we were going to the hospital,” I reminded Vince as he swiped the keycard before punching the button for the penthouse.
“Did I?” A smirk materialized on his face.
“I’m going to be so pissed if there’s no medical emergency.” I glared at the wall of the elevator as we soared upward toward the thirty-third floor. My body already knew the truth. There was no medical emergency. And now I had to prepare myself for…something. The not knowing was stressful, but I was used to it. My entire life had been wrought with the tension of waiting for the next round of bad news.
I’d thought after Chris’s death that there could be no more bad news. After all, it couldn’t get worse than losing my brother to suicide, right? But I’d been na?ve then. All it meant was that the bad news got worse.
The elevator doors slid open, revealing the pristine back foyer of my parents’ penthouse. The lights were dimmed, and there was no noise save the hum of the elevator. Vince gestured for me to step off.
I’d been expecting a welcoming party, so this lack of immediate news unnerved me even more. Light spilled from the hallway leading to the kitchen, and I headed that way. From deeper inside the house, there was a muffled sob. My stomach twisted into a knot.
“Bernadette, we’re going to.” My father’s stern voice wafted down the hallway as I went deeper into the house. “It’s time. I’m not going to say it again.”
“Hello?” I slowed, gripping the strap of my purse. The weight of my new engagement ring reminded me of the big news I had. Now wasn’t the best time. I slipped it off my finger and tucked it into my Hermes bag.
“Cora. Come in.” My mother’s voice sounded watery and thin. I rounded the corner into the kitchen and found them huddled together at the dinette, a stack of loose, curling, legal-pad yellow pages between them. The tight nut of my stomach dropped to the floor. Whatever news awaited me, it wasn’t good.
“Sit down,” my father instructed.
”Is everything okay?” I drifted toward an open chair at the table. My mother’s ostentatiously large mosaic vase spilled with white roses. She always made sure the house was filled with fresh blooms. And somehow, gut-wrenching anxiety and the lingering smell of roses both conjured equally strong memories of home.
My father drew a deep breath, his gaze on my mother. “Bernadette.”
My mother pressed two fingertips to her forehead and rolled her lips inward.
“You guys are freaking me out. Just tell me already. What is going on?”
“There’s something you need to see,” my mother finally said. “Before you go back to LA.”
My gaze dropped to the papers between us. She rustled through some, and it was only then that I noticed the handwriting. The faint chicken scratch, the hurried swipe of the uppercase As, the flourish of Y that I’d always loved in secret. The handwriting that my father had called “too gay.”
My bottomed-out stomach rooted and sprouted tiny anxiety flowers. My throat tightened. This was Chris’s handwriting. At the top of one: “Dear family.”
This was a letter from Chris.
“We found this,” my mother began, but stopped short, her throat bobbing.
“You need to read it,” my father said brusquely. He held my gaze, something grave and imploring there. The last time I’d seen him like this was shortly after Chris’s funeral, when he issued the family mandate to never talk about my brother’s suicide openly. With anyone. Under any circumstances. The formal NDA came later, which I was forcefully encouraged to sign. At age eighteen and in the throes of distress, I signed it without a second thought.
Which was why the world thought Christopher Margulis had died in a freak kitchen accident. What really happened was he put a gun to his head in his bedroom, right before I got home from tennis practice my senior year of high school.
“I thought he didn’t leave a suicide note,” I forced past dry lips.
“He didn’t. The letter was found in his desk.” My father seemed like he wanted to add more, but he clamped his mouth shut.
“You two were so incredibly close,” my mother said, but this time she couldn’t control the emotion. She was the only one in the family who had ever openly cried about my brother—once. As for me, I had cried myself to sleep for two whole years. Had it ever been that way for my mom? Or maybe worse?
I reached out for her hand to give it a small squeeze. She didn’t let me into the sadness of her heart. Or even the joys. Nobody did in the Margulis family.
“I just think you’ll be interested to see what’s in here,” she finished in a whisper. “Take it with you and read it. But please take care of it. I would like it returned.”
“Of course.” My fingers trembled as I reached out to take the pages she handed me. My father’s nostrils flared, and he cleared his throat.
“You have a lot to think about. You’ll leave for the airport at ten tomorrow morning.”
“Good night, Cora.” My mother pressed a small kiss to the top of my head, and my parents stood, leaving me in the soft white light of the dinette. Swimming in anxiety. Flush with the scent of roses. The true markers of home.
I walked to my bedroom on shaky legs. Chris had taken his own life six years ago, when he was in the thick of business school, headed for the greatness my father had always intended for him.
There was just one small problem. Chris didn’t conform to all of my father’s expectations. I’m as gay as the day is long, he’d always say with a sad smile and a horrible southern accent that he used just because he knew it would make me giggle. It didn’t matter that Chris kept his inclinations private. It didn’t matter that we had a gay uncle (who the family also rejected). It didn’t matter that we lived in “this day and age.”
My father had expectations. Those expectations bred rules. Those rules became tight as a vice.
And after so many years in a vice, he could no longer breathe.
Texts from Axel lit up my phone as I settled into my bedroom. Through the big bay windows, the Hudson River sparkled in front of the glowing horizon. I toed off my heels, simultaneously shooting back a reply.
CORA: I’m home. Everything’s okay, I guess. My parents just had some heavy news.
AXEL: What news?
CORA: I’m still finding out. I’ll let you know.
I nibbled on my upper lip, looking at the faded yellow legal pad sheets, trying to imagine Chris writing this. Had he been crying? Did he write them and save them in advance of his suicide, or had he scribbled them out in a manic fit right before pulling the trigger? What bothered me most was not knowing the details of his final moments. Not being able to ascertain his lucidity.
My mom hadn’t been lying. Chris and I had been practically twins, three years removed. We palled around in everything—even from our earliest times, when Chris was too eager for my parents’ liking to join me in tea parties with my dolls. What started as tea party besties blossomed into the Dynamic Duo. I was the only one who could talk him down on his darkest days. I was the only one who knew where he really went on Thursday nights when my parents thought he was at investment club (hint: gay spa). I was the only one who knew how sensitive the caverns of his heart truly were.
I was the only one who could have stopped him from pulling the trigger.
The tears had pooled in the lap of my black dress before I realized I was crying. I just needed to read this and be done with it. The sadness was exhausting. I’d been exhausted for so long.
I drew a shaky breath and plunged in.
Chris had written three whole pages. There was no date, but it read like a living will. Except he wasn’t dispersing personal objects. He was dispersing his plans for the rest of us.
For my mother: Plant me in a garden. Keep my memories in your blooms and just think of me with a smile. That’s all I want.
For my father: Find happiness in the next head of Margulis Realty. I’m sorry that it couldn’t be me, but we both know I would have just disappointed you.
For me: Give our father what I can’t. You’re made for this, Corky. How amazing of a CEO will you be? You won’t just step up, you’ll step in, and make history along the way.
His words landed like bittersweet medicine on my tongue. I’d wanted more from him since the day we laid him to rest, but to see how he envisioned the future felt like a shove in the wrong direction.
I reread everything a second time, then a third. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why my parents had shown me this now. But what really pestered me was wondering how long they’d been sitting on this letter. Sometimes their words were more of what they wanted the story to be. The most convenient truth for their agenda.
I’d have been suspicious of this letter if it weren’t absolutely dripping with Chris’s beautiful chicken scratch.
I set the pages aside with a heavy heart, dark dots of tears on my mauve comforter.
Chris wants you to do the job he couldn’t.
It was one detail—the request of a person no longer here.
But Chris pulsated with life inside my heart every single day. His spirit zoomed through my mind, punctuated the particular successes and horrors of Fashion Week every year, asked me if I really wanted pickle on my deli meat sandwich like I’d ordered (the answer was always yes, Spirit Chris).
If I didn’t do what he wanted, I’d fucking hear about it.
I couldn’t think about it anymore though. This was too much; it was too heavy. My father wanted a decision, and this letter practically made it for me. Even on our bad days, I would have done anything Chris asked of me. And now this?
Salty tears found the crease of my lips. I drew a shuddery breath and lay the pages on the makeup-cluttered surface of my vanity. As I did, I caught a glimpse of the frightening state of my face. Dark rivulets of mascara down my cheeks. Smeared lipstick. Puffy, red eyes that still had tears after six years of weeping for my brother.
Because one thing was true—I was alive, and he wasn’t.
I was the only person left who could accomplish the things he’d longed for.
I hadn’t been there to stop him. I hadn’t intervened. I’d been too preoccupied with my own life to stop the downward spiral.
Now I was the only one left to spiral at all.