A Family Affair (2 page)

“
Mr. Blacksworth, it’s a
man, for Christine.”

He laughed, momentarily distracted by Greta’s
accent. He liked the way she said his name, all throaty and
ruffled, like she’d just crawled out of bed, naked, of course.

“
Mr. Blacksworth. It’s a
man-“

“
I know, I heard. So?
Christine’s twenty-seven years old, she can talk to
men.”

Greta shook her head, the thick bun swaying
from side to side making him think of hips and sex. “He says it’s
about Mr. Blacksworth.”

That jolted him. “I’ll take it.” He snatched
the phone from her hand. “This is Harry Blacksworth. You’re calling
about my brother?”

There was a second’s hesitation, then a deep
voice filled the line. “There’s been an accident . . . your
brother-“

“
What kind of accident? Is
he all right? Where is he?”

The other man went on, “. . . was driving on
the back roads, and it was snowing . . . hard . . . Jesus, I’m
sorry.”

“
What?” Harry gripped the
phone. “What the hell happened?”

“
Uncle Harry?” Christine
stood inside the kitchen door. “What’s the matter? Is it
Dad?”

Harry covered the receiver with his hand.
“It’s for me. You go back and keep your mother occupied, Chrissie.
I’ll be there in a minute.” She hesitated, then turned and
left.

“
Hold on,” Harry said into
the receiver. He went out the back door, down the steps and onto
the patio, mindless of the cold. “Now tell me where the hell my
brother is.”

“
There was an
accident.”

“
Jesus, I already heard
that.”

“
His car hit a guardrail,
flipped over an embankment.”

Jesus God. Harry’s head started pounding,
splitting down the middle.

“
It took three hours to get
him out . . . “

“
Where . . . “ Harry tried
to push the rest of the words out, stalled, tried again, “where is
he?”

“
He’s dead.”

The words burst into his head, sucked out the
oxygen, making him dizzy and nauseous. “Who the hell are you?”
Harry sank into a patio chair, gulped in clumps of cold air. “And
where’s my brother?”

There was a long pause on the other end of
the line, so long, that for a second he thought the man might have
hung up. “He’s dead. He was driving on Sentinel Road in Magdalena
when he lost control of his car, hit a guardrail and flipped over
an embankment.”

“
It can’t be.” A speck of
hope crept into his soul. “Magdalena’s almost a hundred miles from
Charlie’s cabin. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“
It’s him. I know . . .
knew Charles Blacksworth.” The man paused. “I’ll make the
arrangements to have him sent back as soon as possible.”

The salad pushed its way up Harry’s throat.
How could it be Charlie? Charlie was too careful, too exact; he
didn’t make mistakes, especially not the kind that got him killed.
This asshole was wrong. Charlie would be here any minute, just a
little late, flight delay.

“
I’m sorry.”

“
It’s not
Charlie.”

“
Your brother’s
dead.”

How could he sound so certain? “Where is he?
Where’s this person who’s supposed to be Charlie? What hospital?”
He had to see for himself.

“
Don’t come. I’ll take care
of everything. It’ll be easier on everybody if I just handle
it.”

“
Who the hell are
you?”

“
Nate Desantro. My mother
was with your brother when he died.”

The puke came then, green bits of salad and
Chardonnay spewing his trousers, his Italian loafers, the snow at
his feet and two yards beyond. The heaving and gasping covered him
in sweat as new snow fell and his stomach clenched in exhaustive
spasms, purging until there was nothing left but emptiness.

Chapter 2

Six days had passed since Uncle Harry changed
their lives. Dear God, he’s dead. The rest of the night unfolded in
an underwater blur; eyes open, mouths moving but not speaking,
hearing nothing. Her mother fell forward, clasping her hands
against her forehead, a flower wilting inch by incredible inch.
Uncle Harry talked and drank, talked and drank but it was hard to
concentrate on what he said, the underwater currents blocked
everything; sound, sight, feeling, certainly understanding.

Christine remembered little of that night
other than the smear of life and loss pulling her under, sinking
her soul, and the sight of her mother crumpled in a chair with
Uncle Harry and his glass of Johnny Walker Red. A man called, he’d
said, . . . from the hospital. Charlie was in an accident, his car
flipped . . . nothing anyone could do. They’re sending him
home.

Sixty seconds and a handful of sentences was
all it took to change their lives in horrible, drastic ways they
could never have imagined. He’d taken this trip for years, even in
snowstorms gusting ice and hail, and always, always come back.
She’d never expected to kiss him good-bye one afternoon seven
months shy of his fifty-ninth birthday, and never see him
again.

A tiny speck of hope still clung to the
possibility that the man in the accident wasn’t her father, that by
some grand, bizarre confusion, it was another man, maybe a thief
who’d stolen her father’s wallet, knocked him unconscious and left
him along a deserted road, then took his car, too.

But when the funeral director contacted them
to say the body had arrived, she went with Uncle Harry, praying for
a mistake, a miracle, anything. But even at the entrance of the
room, some thirty feet away, she recognized the straight nose, the
silver-gray hair, the high cheekbones.

Her father was dead.

Her mother refused to see him that first day,
spent most of her time sequestered in the master bedroom, coming
out only once when Dr. Leone brought over a bottle of pills for
her. Valium. Your mother will need these, he’d said. This is going
to be very difficult for her. He was right, of course. She’d
depended on her husband, to keep life even, and her daily dose of
Vicodin to keep her arthritic back under control.

Now what? Christine rubbed her temples,
trying to ease the dull ache in her head. She could step in, take
care of money matters and the daily inconveniences that always
seemed to overwhelm and upset her mother. But what about the
rest?

No one could replace Charles Blacksworth.

He was the one person she could count on for
honesty and direction. Hadn’t she carried the sealed letter from
Wharton’s around in her briefcase four days, waiting for his return
so he could share the joy or torment of its contents? Wasn’t he the
one who helped her shop for a condo and then, fought the real
estate company when they tried to renegotiate the terms?

And how could she ever forget the day he
promoted her to Vice President? They’d been eating chicken burritos
at El Charro’s when he reached in his pocket and pulled out a
single key, the one to the large corner office, next to his. The
reception six days later was a lavish, formal affair, with two
roomfuls of colleagues and friends in attendance, but it could not
compare to the afternoon in the corner booth of that dark, Mexican
restaurant.

I’m so proud of you, Christine.

Thanks, Dad. That means a lot to me.

You remind me of myself at your age.

I’m only doing what you taught me.

And you do it very well.

I’m going after Granddad’s pocket watch
next.

It’s only a watch, Christine.

We both know that’s not true, Dad. It’s so
much more than a watch.

And it’s caused more harm than good in this
family. I’d just as soon toss it out.

In that case, I’ll take it now.

Your grandfather meant well but he rewarded
the wrong things. I earned it because I practically lived at the
office. Is that what you want?

I want to be the best, Dad, like you.

You are the best, Christine, right now, just
the way you are and no father could ever be prouder than I am of
you.

And now he was gone and she was sitting
across from Thurman Jacobs’s gigantic cherry desk with Uncle Harry
squeezed into a Queen Ann wing chair next to her. Thurman Jacobs
had gone to M.I.T. with her father, then on to Georgetown before
joining his father at Jacobs & Jacobs, one of the most
prestigious law firms in Chicago. The firm handled all of the legal
issues for Blacksworth & Company and Thurman himself took care
of her father’s personal matters, including his will.

It was the matter of the will that brought
them to see Thurman this afternoon. She’d hoped to hold off at
least another week before dealing with the business side of her
father’s death. Who cared how many stocks and bonds he had, how
many unit trusts, the value of his investment property? Who cared?
None of it would bring him back; most of it would just be a brutal
reminder of his death. Death. A horrible word. But Uncle Harry had
insisted. It’s best to get it over quickly, deal with it, straight
up. It was an odd piece of advice from someone like Uncle
Harry.

She’d come, though, to appease him and
immerse herself in the emotionless distribution of assets, anything
to stop thinking about her father’s face, pale and wax-like against
the satin lining of the ebony coffin.

Thurman Jacobs entered through a side door,
his tall, lean frame slightly stooped, like a sapling whose weight
isn’t sturdy enough to hold it erect. His gray suit hung from his
shoulders, the excess material drooping at the sides. He was bald
on top with a trim edge of dusty brown rimming the sides and back
of his skull. The round, wire frames he wore made his nose seem a
bit too long, his face too narrow and that coupled with his gangly,
bent stature, gave him an Ichobod Crane appearance. At fifty-eight,
he looked a full ten years older, yet when he spoke, the rich,
timbre of his voice blurred the outward visage and the listener
forgot about the awkward homeliness encasing the man, forgot the
stooped shoulders, the too long nose, forgot everything but the
pure eloquence spilling from Thurman Jacobs’s thin lips.

“
Christine, Harry,” he held
out his hands to them from across his desk, bony hands, traced with
thin, blue veins. “Thank you for coming so quickly.” He eased his
hands away, took a seat behind the massive cherry desk and opened a
black portfolio. “Christine, your father and I went back a good
many years,” he bestowed a sympathetic smile on her, “since our
days at M.I.T. I wasn’t just his attorney, I was his friend.” He
cleared his throat and when he spoke again, the richness of his
voice filled the room. “Which makes this whole situation that much
more difficult.”

“
Thank you, Thurman. I know
my father held you in very high regard.”

“
Yes,” he nodded, rubbing
his right eye from under his spectacles, “and I him. We had an
understanding, Charles and I, one that went well beyond business.”
He flipped open the black portfolio, pulled out a thick document,
leafed through several pages. He rubbed his eye again, coughed,
shifted in his chair. “Christine, I wish there was some way to say
this, some way to prepare you. . .”

“
Thurman, she’s a big girl.
Just say it.” Harry reached over, grabbed her hand.

Thurman Jacobs cleared his throat again,
tugged at his shirt collar, his skinny neck inching out like a
chicken. “The estate’s been apportioned into an equitable
distribution; one part, including assets, real and otherwise, to
you, one part to your mother,” he paused, “and one part to a third
party.”

“
A third party? Who
Thurman? M.I.T.?”

“
No, it wasn’t M.I.T.” His
voice turned quiet, unfamiliar.

“
What then? Or who? Maybe
it’s you, Uncle Harry.”

“
It isn’t Harry.” Thurman’s
strong voice deflated, the air spilling out in one long, slow
whoosh.

Uncle Harry squeezed her hand tight, but his
gaze remained on Thurman. “Just tell us, so we can be done and get
the hell out of here.”

Thurman’s thin lips moved with effort. “One
part has been left to a Ms. Lily Desantro.”

The words were out, forming a complete
sentence and yet they made no sense. Who was Lily Desantro? She
didn’t even know anyone named Lily. The pressure from Uncle Harry’s
fingers dug into her flesh. She stared at their hands, locked
together; her nails pressed into his tanned skin, leaving small,
red moons on the back of his hand.

“
Jesus,” Uncle Harry swore
under his breath, “What the hell was he thinking?”

Christine dragged her eyes from Uncle Harry’s
marked skin to the man behind the desk. “Thurman? Who’s Lily
Desantro?”

Thurman Jacobs was a man possessed of great
eloquence, the one chosen by colleagues and corporations to
represent, to present, to speak, about matters great and small, at
conventions and rotary club dinners. And yet now, he sat staring at
Christine, speechless, his bony fingers rubbing the sides of his
protruding temples.

“
Thurman?”

“
Lily Desantro.” The name
fell out between half-closed lips as though he struggled between
duty to tell, loyalty not to.

“
I don’t . . .
understand.”

“
Do you have an address?”
This from Uncle Harry.

Thurman Jacobs picked up a pen, scribbled
something on a piece of paper and held it out. Harry snatched it
from him. “Thanks.” Then he stood up, still clutching Christine’s
hand. “Come on, kid, let’s go.”

***