Chapter Eight #3
When the lawyer is gone, he turns to face the sisters and their families. “My darling wife was overly generous with you. I would advise you to invest your windfalls wisely. Because if your last name is Dickson, that is the very last dime you will ever get from someone with the last name Palmer.”
Charlotte steps forward, eyes blazing.
My father rolls his eyes as if he’s bored. “She left with me because she knew if she stayed she’d end up just like you. Poor, insignificant, and dependent. I wasn’t a perfect husband, but I gave her the world.”
She scoffs. “And made her a prisoner. We will be suing the estate and letting the press know what kind of man you are. It’s time people knew.
They think the worst thing you did was support a politician who turned out to be a wanna-be dictator.
Wait till I tell them everything I know about you, Aloysius Palmer. ” She taunts him with his full name.
His jaw twitches with irritation. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you flaunted your affairs in my sister's face and drove her to an early grave.” Charlotte steps up to my father and points her finger in his face.
My stomach drops and for the first time I’m glad my mother isn’t here.
His eyes narrow to slits and he swats her finger like it’s a tennis ball.
“Heh!” she yelps and cradles her finger like he hurt her. “Is that what you did to my sister, too? You disgraceful man.” She hurls the vitriol and her children take a step back from her.
His face turns to stone. “I loved your sister. I won’t even countenance your made-up fantasies about me. But if any of you even think of talking to the press about me or your sister, I will take that money she gave you and whatever else you have and set it on fire while you watch.”
He turns his full attention to Charlotte and she shrinks back. “And then I’ll find someone to cut out that lizard tongue of yours.”
“I would like to see you try,” she hisses back, and I have to admire her bravery. No one stands up to my dad this way.
“No, you wouldn’t. Would she, Roger?” He poses the question to her husband with a smile as lethal as a machete
“No, we won’t. Shut up, Lotte.” Her husband stares at the ground.
“She’s not speaking for us,” my Aunt Charity pipes up.
Charlotte clutches her throat and stares hard at the balding crown of her husband’s head. He doesn’t look up from the ground. My aunt’s shoulder’s sag. “Fine.”
“Now, everyone get out. I need to speak to my son alone.” My father speaks in a voice that’s as cheerful as a flight attendant welcoming passengers aboard. They hurry out of the room without another word.
“Useless people,” he mutters and sits in the chair next to me, grimacing. “I don’t know how your mother turned out so differently.”
“She met you,” I say. “At least that’s how she tells it.”
“I had nothing to do with that woman’s greatness. She was born to a struggling engineering student and his functionally illiterate wife and by the time I met her, she was supporting all of them.” He smiles to himself. “Look what she did in just one lifetime. She should still be here.”
I nod and exhale against the sharp stab of grief. She should be. She was just starting to live when she found out she was dying.
“So, what are you going to do now that you’ve got money?” My father’s question snaps me back to the present.
“What do you mean?”
He leans back in his chair and crosses an ankle over his knee.
“I mean, you don’t have to work for anybody. You can afford to buy your way onto any board, even a federal office.”
I let disdain show on my face. “Why would I want to do that?”
He mirrors my expression. “Why wouldn’t you? Did you like needing to ask for time off so you can visit your dying mother? You enjoy working hard to implement someone else’s agenda?”
I bristle at the dig. “I’m a prosecutor for the state of California, so yes. I know you’ve never understood it, but I like the fact that I’ve earned everything I have myself.”
He curls his lip. “I understand being a young man with something to prove. I’ll never understand why you felt like you had to do it all on your own.”
I open my mouth to remind him that he didn’t give me a choice.
He holds a hand up. “That’s all in the past now, Son. You’ve just inherited a lot of money that you didn’t earn. Whether you like it or not,” he adds with a grim smile. “Don’t let your self-righteous bleeding-heart ideals stop you from making the most of it.”
“You think buying my way onto the board is how I do that?” I look at him askance.
He sighs. “Enough of this. You didn’t want to be the trust fund kid or be accused of nepotism. Fine. You’ve proven that you can make it on your own. But I didn’t work hard so that my son could be a public servant in America.”
The flash of memory from my conversation with Sin where I’d mimicked him saying these words makes me laugh.
He slaps the table. “It’s not funny.”
“I know.” I sober. “Listen, I need time to let this all settle. I’ve got a job and life to get back to in LA.” I grab my phone to check the time.
“Read your mother’s letter before you decide anything.”
“Decide what?” I look up at him and my stomach drops. I know the expression on his face well. It’s his “I’m going to enjoy watching this” face.
I have a sick feeling that I’m not going to make my flight after all.