Page 52 of Nineteen Seventy-Six

“Lisette, dear, you realize you’re not actually talking to a child, don’t you?” Cordelia’s words came from the dark corner. He could hardly see her, but he felt her presence; this whole time he’d been aware of it.

Lisette said nothing. Perhaps because Cordelia was still her employer. Perhaps because it wasn’t worth it.

But Charles had neither such thing holding him back.

“You could learn a thing or two from Lisette.”

Cordelia’s laugh emerged from the darkness. “There’s an especial irony in these words coming from the man who banished his only son to New Orleans right before a deadly hurricane.”

“I’ve made mistakes,” Charles said. “Marrying you, of course, being the most egregious.”

“You could’ve divorced me many times, Charles. It isn’t as if I haven’t given you reasons. I’ve given you plenty.”

“Is there an insult in there, somewhere?”

“Is there?”

Charles scoffed.

“You know the reason,” Cordelia pressed. “You should say it. Make it real. Why not? We have time.”

Lisette rocked and continued her whispers, this time in French.

“Anyone hungry?” Condoleezza asked. The soft scratch of wicker followed, as she opened the picnic basket. “Might be a while before we can go downstairs again.”

“There might not even be a downstairs, woman,” Cordelia barked.

“Don’t talk to her that way,” Charles warned. “Ever. I forbid it.”

“You like to put limitations on me, and then never enforce them. After all, I’m here, at Ophélie, aren’t I?”

Though it was in the seventies outside before they banished themselves to the attic, Charles shivered. A chill had fallen over the attic, over the past hour. “Some arguments aren’t worth the time or energy. What do I care if you’re here? Have at it! The house is big. Everyone hates you. Sounds more like a punishment to me.”

He could feel Cordelia’s icy smile, as she asked, “Lisette, do you hate me?”

“Leave her out of this.”

“Lisette, answer the question.”

“I no hate anyone,” Lisette replied. “I’m afraid. For my baby. For us. That’s all I know.”

“Maybe not a complete idiot,” Cordelia remarked.

“I’ll throw you out in the middle of this fucking storm, you evil bitch. Don’t think I won’t.”

“It isn’t worth it, Master Charles,” Richard ventured. “Let it go. Let go of the past. It won’t serve you here, or ever.”

“Says the man with the most reason to hold onto the past,” Cordelia said. “Richard, who is probably your father’s brother. Richard and his sister both. And yet, here they are, Charles. Serving you. Serving the spoiled remnants of a family who saw their mother fit for use, but not fit for a name. Seems apt, somehow, that you were named for your grandfather, Charles, when you are so much like him.”

Neither Richard nor Condoleezza said a word. They never had. They never would.

Charles’ shame deepened. The whole family knew this shameful secret. The whole family did nothing.

The family of which he was the heir, and the one with the power to acknowledge this and make it right.

So why didn’t he?

“Lisette’s bastard,” Cordelia went on. “Will you give that child the same treatment? No, you’ll do better, but that better will be somehow worse. You’ll give this child more, but take everything from the mother to do it. See, Charles, you and I both know why you keep me around.”

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