Page 80 of Beau and the Beast

Eventually, he’d moved out of the house with his father and into the penthouse at 330 West. He’d enjoyed the exclusivity, the uninterrupted views of New Whitby and the river beyond that snaked through the landscape like a silver ribbon. He had no deep friendships and few lovers, but his life hadn’t been entirely without pleasure.

And so even though working with his father was miserable, Wolfram had carved out a small space in life that he could call his own. He enjoyed what he did, found the numbers soothing, and never stopped to think about what life must be like for the rest of the world who didn’t have billionaire fathers.

“I tricked myself into thinking that I understood suffering,” Wolfram said, “because I lost my mother and because my father hated me. But it’s shameful to think about now—to think I had any inkling of what it meant to suffer.”

“That’s not true,” Beau cut in. “Suffering isn’t a contest, Wolf. And it sounds like, with the way your father treated you, when your mother died youdidlearn what it was like to be an orphan.”

Wolfram nodded. He’d felt that way many times, but had never given voice to it out of respect for those who had no living parents.

“What happened to your father after the curse?” Beau asked.

Wolfram let out a sardonic laugh.

“Even a tragedy like this has its moments of happiness,” he said. “When I finally acknowledged that the curse was real, that the impossible had happened to me, I resigned from the firm. I sent my father an email. No explanation, no details about what I’d be doing next. I simply told him that I was quitting.”

Isidore had never written him back—as if he’d been waiting their whole lives for Wolfram to quit, to admit defeat. He had finally won.

“And that was it? He didn’t call you or try to contact you? He didn’tcome here?”

Wolfram smiled and shook his head.

“I’ll never know what he assumed. But no, we haven’t spoken since. I can’t even remember what his last words were to me.”

Beau frowned and dropped his eyes—as if he wanted to say something but was holding it back.

“What is it?” Wolfram demanded.

“Just… the way you phrased that. His last words to you. It makes me wonder, but I don’t know if it’s right to ask,” Beau said.

“Of course. Go ahead.”

“What were yourmother’slast words to you?”

The question was like a saber through his chest and before Wolfram could protect himself against the rush of emotion, tears had already welled in his eyes. He swallowed against them and spoke the last words she’d said—to him, to anyone, the words that capped off the end of her life:

“Remember you are loved, Isi.”

* * *

Beau was relievedthat Wolfram had brought up the topic, had chosen voluntarily to talk about his father that day. He hoped that Wolfram felt lighter, cleansed in some way by finally being able to unburden himself to someone.

But Beau left the conversation feeling like there was a vice squeezing around his brain, like his skull was threatening to buckle and break. It was hard to hear it all, to understand finally all of the different ways that Wolfram’s father had broken him.

Beau almost wished that he didn’t have such a good imagination—but he’d spent too many years in his own dream worlds, riding dragons and exploring castles and learning how to cast magic spells. Through constant exercise, he’d given himself the ability to understand worlds he couldn’t relate to, and in turn to empathize deeply, to feel the nuanced joys and suffering of others.

Though he’d never walked with a cane and had people stare at his scars, it was effortless for Beau to understand what his brother lived with every day. And though his parents had both loved him with all their hearts and wanted nothing but happiness for him, Beau could easily imagine the depth of pain that would come from a loveless father.

When they came to the end of their conversation, Beau was exhausted. The emotions had settled into his muscles and bones just as deeply as they had in his mind and he felt the somber weight that pressed down on him after funerals and profoundly depressing movies.

“I want to take a break, but I feel like it’s wrong to just… leave you alone,” Beau said. “After you shared all that with me.”

Wolfram just shook his head. “I’ve been alone with it all my life. I enjoy your company, Beau, but if you’d like to be alone, it’s no imposition.”

They broke for lunch. They continued in the afternoon, moving on to different topics. They shared a pleasant meal when the time for dinner came.

And that night, when Beau’s nightmare returned, it was more intense than it had been in years.

Maybe it had been the stress of worrying about Noah. Maybe it had been the fact that he’d spent so much of the day thinking about his own parents after hearing Wolfram’s stories about his father, or the fact that he’d felt the loss of Wolfram’s mother in real time as Wolfram shared that experience with Beau.

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