Page 8 of Played
“It’s disgusting and unnatural.” Father spat the words, derision seeping from every cell of his body.
My mother’s face twisted in an expression of disgust to mirror his. And even that slight I could have overlooked. I could have endured their disdain for two men I didn’t know.
But it was the sideways glance my father gave me, filled with so much revulsion and vitriol. I’d tried to be the good son, hadrenounced my “mistake” and lived my whole life pretending to be someone I wasn’t, had hidden every illicit interaction and came away each time feeling so much shame and guilt that it made me physically sick. Although I did all of that to please them and protect their “wholesome family values” image and their standing in their bigoted conservative circle of friends, it wasn’t enough. They hated me anyway. And that look, fleeting as it was, is what I couldn’t move past.
Grampa simply shook his head and went back to eating his turkey, and I left. I did smooth over my father’s fuck-up because I knew I could, and I didn’t want their deaths on my conscience, but I made sure they never found out I had a hand in it.
And now I’m back. Staring at the Gothic mansion and creepy-as-fuck gargoyles and wondering what the hell I’m doing here. I came back to New York for Grampa, not these two. But my mother asked to see me, and… I don’t know. Maybe the impending loss of her father has made her more reflective. More… human?
The gravel crunches beneath my feet, and every step I take makes the knot of emotion in the pit of my stomach grow heavier. It’s grief and dread and shame all tangled up together, and the farther I get from my bike and the closer I get to the door, the more tangible it becomes. I reach the steps. Now I can taste it. It clambers up my throat, desperate to be let out.
I swallow it down.
The door opens, and a new housekeeper I don’t recognize from my last visit offers me a wan smile. “Mr. Worthington.” She greets me with a polite, practiced nod.
I follow her into the lounge at the front of the house. My mother’s domain. It’s overfilled with expensive art: Fabergé eggs and rare nineteenth-century Spanish plates sit beside a Jeff Koons sculpture. A Degas hangs on the wall beside a Hockney.
It’s like she collects them because she can. There’s no pattern. No attachment to any of the things, merely a desire to have what so many others cannot. She misses the point of art entirely, because not a single piece in this room makes her feel anything.
I do like the Hockney though. It reminds me of a summer I spent with Grampa on Long Island.
My mother sits curled up in a Louis Vuitton cocoon chair with a blanket over her lap and a glossy magazine in her hands. She raises her head a little, eyes glazed. As I suspected due to the time of day, she’s already polished off her nightly bottle of wine. At least it used to be one bottle. It could have increased to two or three by now. My mother is a functioning alcoholic. Socialite and investment banker’s wife by day, lush by night. She would deny that flat out of course and say her evening wine is merely her way to “unwind.” Perhaps anyone having to endure being married to my father needs something. I’m sure I’d be downing more than a bottle of wine every night if I had to live with him. Althoughlive withis a stretch. They coexist under the same roof.
“Kyngston.” She says my name like an insult—or that’s simply how I hear it.
“Hello, Mother.” I address her with her preferred title. I was never allowed to call her Mom. It was always mother and father. So fucking stiff and unnatural. The opposite of Grampa. How did a man like him raise the ice maiden in front of me?
He looked so frail earlier. So small and vulnerable. He’s not a man big in stature, but he’s always been a man who could fill a room with his presence. “I just saw Grampa.”
“Oh” is all she says. No emotion. No asking how he’s doing or if he’s in any pain. You know, normal human responses. Not my mother.
Anger bubbles up in my chest. “He says you want him to move in here.”
She sniffs like she smelled something foul. “It’s for the best.”
“The best for who?” I raise my voice, but she doesn’t react to that either. At least with my father there’s an occasional display of emotion—albeit mostly hatred and anger—but with her there’s nothing. Just… cold. It’s like she’s a fucking robot.
She doesn’t answer me.
“He’s not coming here,” I insist.
She regards me coolly. “Then where do you suggest he go, Kyngston? He is too ill to travel to Chicago.”
“I’ll get us a place. He can stay with me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He will be coming here.”
I don’t bother arguing further. It’s a pointless endeavor with her. She’s ungoadable. Unmovable.
“Why did you invite me here?” I ask, sighing.
Her lips twitch like she’s trying to force a smile but can’t quite manage it. “Your father and I would like you to come home too, darling.”Come home?Darling?As a rule, that’s a term she uses only in public. When she has witnesses.
“I’m leaving, Emmeline.” The vaguely familiar voice comes from behind me. And now the darling makes sense.
She manages to muster a faint smile for him. “Goodbye, Graham, darling.”
I turn around and come face-to-face with the family lawyer, Graham Reese. He smiles in recognition upon seeing me. “Kyngston?” There’s that damn name again. “It’s good to see you.” He strides into the room and slaps me on the back before grabbing my hand to shake. “How are things?”
