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“I’ll make sure you never practice medicine again if word of this gets out, do you understand? She’s crazy! Hitting her is the only way I get a response out of her! She makes me do this, Dr. Steffani. Do you understand, she makes me do this to her!”

“Leave her. I’ll see what I can do. Maybe some time away from the city, here in the country with the pure air, maybe she will come around in time.”

“I don’t trust you, Dr. Steffani! When I leave here today, the next time I return, it will be to arrange for Naomi’s body to be shipped, do you understand,
shipped
back to the city? Do you get my drift?”

“I shook with rage! I’d spent my entire life working to build Tara Woods into a fine institution. Now that I had achieved my goal, I would not allow a man’s anger over his wife to ruin my future! Never, no matter what I had to do. Sometimes in medicine, there are casualties. Three months later Nicholas returned to retrieve Naomi’s body. And the rest, you know.”

Lin wiped the tears oozing from her eyes. A man had killed just to keep his…business thriving! Astounded at the story, and at Nick Sr.’s violent behavior, Lin didn’t know if she would ever be able to tell Will. Maybe when he was older and had children of his own.

“Is there anything you would like to ask me?” asked Dr. Steffani.

Lin watched Jason as he pulled the tripod apart, placing it back inside the duffel. He looked angry.

“I just wonder how you lived with yourself. You took an innocent woman away from her son, a son who might’ve turned into a de cent human being had his mother been around to raise him. You’re nothing but a pathetic excuse for a man. You’re not even a man.

You’re a fucking monster! I hope you rot in hell, you son of a bitch!

I hope the devil himself makes you his personal fuck boy! A red-hot rod up your ass is too good for you!” Jason was shouting so loud, a nurse ran into the room.

“We’re leaving. He gets excited when he…hears a good story,”

Lin said to the woman.

“Jason, let’s go.” Lin took his arm and led him out the way they had come in. When they were outside, she flew into him. “What in the world was that for? I can’t believe you lost it like that. And the devil’s personal fuck boy? Where in the world did that come from?”

Jason wiped perspiration off his forehead with the back of his hand. “I doubt that old guy lost one minute of sleep over what he did. He’s no better than
Junior,
if you ask me. Both wanted some thing, and both got what they wanted, and neither cared how they achieved it. Let’s get the hell out of here before I decide to go back inside and squeeze the pus from his face.”

Lin couldn’t help but laugh. “Jason, you amaze me. Beneath that comic-book skin beats a real live heart.”

“Whatever. Let’s get out of here.”

Afraid to go home, because she was sure to be confronted by Nick’s spies, Chelsea had spent the past two nights at the St. Regis.

She’d watched Fox News Channel day and night, just waiting for a photo of her to be flashed across every living room in America.
So far so good.

She thought of calling Rosa to see if she’d heard anything on Nick’s condition, but she’d call Nick the minute she hung up the phone. Where were all of her so-called friends when she needed them? They were in their luxury apartments, thinking of new ways to ask Chelsea for money for their stupid charities, is where they were. She wished she had kept the money for herself, instead of giving it away just to get her picture in the paper.

She had to find out what, if anything, Nick remembered about that night he was taken to the hospital. It was apparent he hadn’t died, or it would have made the headlines. The donor drive was still taking place, because the news reported on it constantly. Each time some stupid kid got swabbed or had blood taken, they reported it, so she was positive that if her dear hubby had died, it would be the story of the hour.

Admitting her mistake would get her nowhere. Simply put, she should have given Nick the entire bottle. One thing she was sure of: there was no way in hell she could spend another night in the hotel.

What would happen if she did go to the penthouse? It wasn’t like Herbert or Nora knew what had happened Monday night. Nick didn’t advertise his personal affairs to the staff. He had class, more than she did, though she would never admit that to anyone. Nick was born into class. It was a way of life for him. He knew nothing else. She, on the other hand, was born and raised in the Bronx. You had to be tough and street-smart just to get by. Add to that the fact that her mother was a drunkard, and she had no clue about her father. Class, no, but she’d had enough ambition to get her out of there.

Now, because she was Mrs. Nicholas Pemberton, she had some class, and she considered herself to be street-smart. Fuck Nick. He hadn’t reported her, or she would have heard it by now. She was going home to her penthouse. Nick be damned. She should’ve had more patience, let the disease kill him. He wasn’t going to live much longer, of that she was sure. For the moment, she would just have to bide her time.

She’d leave behind the cheap outfits she’d bought at the Gap.
Dior and Chanel, here I come,
she thought as she dialed down to the front desk to request a limo. Damned if she’d ride in one of those stinking New York taxis.

An hour later Chelsea was at home, soaking in her Jacuzzi tub. Nora and Herbert were nowhere to be found. She couldn’t be happier. All she had to do was convince dear old Nick not to press charges against her, if he even remembered his last night with her. Then she’d simply wait. When he died, she would have his money, the penthouse, all their numerous vacation homes, and she would have the most important possession of all, Pemberton Transport.

And she would auction it off to the highest bidder.

Lin looked at herself in the mirror one last time, thinking this could be her last moment of a normal, peaceful relationship with her son. But she’d vowed to tell him about her past, and she would.

They were meeting at Starbucks on campus. Lin took a taxi over, needing the time alone to gather her thoughts, to try and put into words the error of her ways. It was her hope that when she finished with her story, Will wouldn’t look at her with disgust or, even worse, pity. She didn’t know if she could bear that from her son.

When the taxi let her off in front of Starbucks twenty minutes later, her hands were shaking as she paid the fare.

Please, dear God, let me find the right words to say to my son,
she prayed silently. She spied Will before he saw her. He looked so much like his father, it was downright scary. She allowed herself a few moments to feast her eyes on him just the way he was.

“Hey, Mom! Over here,” Will called when he saw her watching him from the door.

She waved. “I’m going to get a latte. Want anything?”

He shook his head.

After giving the barista her order, Lin moved to the side of the line. When her drink was ready, she walked over to Will. He’d gotten a table with a view of the campus. She’d wanted something with more privacy, but it didn’t matter at that point. She was there to speak to her son.

“Mom, you look like you’re about to ride one of the roller coasters at Six Flags. What’s wrong?”

Lin sat down across from her son. She took a sip of her latte. “Nothing is wrong. Just feeling a little queasy. Nothing a good jolt of caffeine won’t cure. I’ve become addicted to these silly things lately. I don’t think we have a Starbucks in Dalton. Do we?”

“Yeah, there’s one in Barnes & Noble in the mall, remember?”

“Oh sure. I’ll have to send Kelly Ann out for them to satisfy my cravings.”

“Mom, I know you didn’t fly to New York to talk to me about your newfound love for Starbucks lattes. Seriously, what did you want to talk to me about?”

Will had opened the door for her. All she had to do was step inside.
Here goes,
she thought as she jumped headlong into the matter that would change so many lives.

“Do you remember when you were twelve and I told you about your father?” Lin’s voice was low, almost a whisper.

“Sure. You said he died in some kind of accident. How did he die?”

“There was no accident, Will.”

He looked curious but not angry. “Oh, then how did he die?”

Here goes.
“He didn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t get it,” Will said, an anxious look settling over his handsome features. For a minute Lin was back at that apartment in Atlanta. She blinked to clear her vision of the past.

“Your father didn’t die, like I said he did.”

Silence.

And more silence.

Lin picked at the cardboard wrapping around her cup. “Will, please say something.”

He nodded. “I’m thinking. I’m wondering…Never mind. Go on. Finish the story.”

“Will, I’m telling you I’m sorry now. I know I shouldn’t have lied to you, but the circumstances weren’t…ideal.”

“I’m not getting this, Mom. You’re saying my dad is alive, has been alive and well for the past eighteen years, and you’re just now telling me about it? Don’t you think it’s a little too late? I’m a legal adult now. Why now? Why not when I needed a father to escort me to all those Little League games, or all the times I watched my friends playing with their fathers? Why does it matter now!”

Customers were looking at them. “Lower your voice, Will. This isn’t something the entire crowd at Starbucks needs to hear.”

“Sorry,” he said in a lower voice, but the anger was still there. Lin didn’t blame him. He had every right in the world to be angry at her.

“Want me to continue?”

He nodded. “Of course I do. You’ve gotten me interested in the ending, you know, how it turns out. Happily ever after and all that crap.”

“Will, I’m still your mother, and you will respect me. I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be angry. You just said you were an adult. I think it’s time you acted like one.” She hated talking down to him, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Okay. Say whatever it is you have to say.”

She’d expected him to be mad, but sarcastic? No, that wasn’t the Will she knew. God forbid, maybe some of the Pemberton traits were finally beginning to show themselves.

“Don’t interrupt me. This is hard for me, Will. I know you could care less about my feelings right now, but trust me, this is the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.” She laughed smartly, with an edge that she didn’t know she possessed. “This is worse than spending night after night on my knees while my father spit on me when I didn’t recite the books of the Bible in the proper order. I think I was seven or eight the first time he actually spit on me. After that, it was the strap. He called it the devil’s tongue, I remember. Said it was hot and angry like the fires of hell. Those scars on my back, the ones you used to ask me about when you were little? They’re from the devil’s tongue. After a while your skin thickens with scars. If I was lucky, he’d hit me there. The skin was tough by then, and it didn’t even bleed as much as before.

“Did I ever tell you what the kids in school called me? Miss Stinky Pants. I was Miss Stinky Pants all through elementary school. It was true. Want to know why I was called that? Of course you do. My father forced me to pray on my knees night after night for hours, until I peed my pants. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he wouldn’t allow me to bathe. Hence the nickname. Then came the surprises. Remember, I don’t like surprises, either? I’m going to tell you why.” Lin knew she was being way too harsh, but if Will didn’t have a clear picture of where she was coming from, he would never understand why she had done what she did.

“Mom, you don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do! I asked you not to interrupt. Surprises. Yes. As I got older, my father refused to allow me to shut my bedroom door. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t hiding anything. Hell, what would I have hidden? Once, when he came home, I had mistakenly closed my door. He took it off the hinges. When I would shower, I had to leave the door open—”

“Mom!”

“I never knew when he was going to come inside the bathroom and yank the shower curtain aside. That’s why I don’t like surprises, Will. That is what my father called them. Surprises. And you know what he thought? He actually believed he would catch me doing something obscene and vulgar! I never wanted you to know any of these horrid details of my life. I wanted to protect you from men like him. I wasn’t going to allow anyone to abuse or threaten my child as I’d been abused and threatened.”

Tears shimmered down Will’s face. Lin was so very sorry she’d had to tell him some of the atrocities she’d endured. And those were the tame ones.

“One weekend I was allowed to go to Atlanta, to a math competition, and stay with a girl who had been on the math team. That was really the first time in my life I was allowed out of the house on my own with no curfew, no restrictions. All my father said to me that day when I left was that I’d best win, or he and the devil’s tongue would be waiting for me when I came home. We won, of course. But I’d lied to my father. I’d told him the competition lasted a week, when in reality it was only three days. We went to a party at someone’s apartment. I can’t even remember who, not that it matters now. I met your father there. He was the most handsome young man I’d ever seen. I spent the next few days with him. I don’t need to tell you the details, but that’s when you were conceived. I came home happier than I’d ever been. He promised he’d call and that we would find a way to be together. But he never called, and it wasn’t until much later that I even knew how to reach him.

“My father heard me throwing up in the bathroom one morning two months later. He assumed I’d been drinking, but of course I hadn’t. I was suffering from morning sickness. He made me memorize the book of Genesis that day. I was so sick, I threw up in the middle of the living room while I was supposed to be praying. He hit me. Then the next thing I knew, I woke up lying in a pool of vomit and urine. A few days later I told my father I was expecting a baby and intended to keep it. He threw me out into the street with nothing but the clothes on my back, and I never went home again.”