Page 47 of Nineteen Eighty

CHAPTER 14

Another One Bites the Dust

Charles dragged himself across the threshold of Ophélie, still drunk on the ministrations of his bayou mistress.

Augustus had said something to him the other day, when he dropped Nicolas off for the weekend. Something about how an addict will always find something to cling to. Charles, whose ego was still inflated by his miraculous ability to stay off the cocaine since Nicolas was born, didn’t appreciate the comment at all, but he wondered if there was some truth to it.

Charles was at his worst when the world was still. He abhorred the quiet. He always said this was a byproduct of growing up with six siblings, but his upbringing was fortuitous, not the cause. He was at his best when swimming through the extremes of his life. With volatile women like Cat and violent ones like Angelique. With the other end of the spectrum, in the innocence of Lisette.

And was killing not also a drug? A dramatic swing of the pendulum, a high greater than any synthetic?

He’d asked Lisette to fill his house with laughter, and she’d obliged, but now he fled that same house, day after day, allowing his unpredictable wife to guide them through their formative period. It was easier not to question why Cordelia might be so amenable to the last thing on earth she’d ever wanted to do. Convenient for him to focus on his newest adventure into the extreme, the only one of his many whims holding his attention at present.

Did that mean Charles didn’t love his daughters? He refused to believe that, but what other explanation validated his choice to be away from them so much? What other explanation justified his relief in Nicolas being with his uncle during the week now?

Cordelia asked him a question in this ballpark when she greeted him at the door.

“It’s past dinner. You’re coming home later and later.”

Charles laughed. He threw his sport coat on the nearby armoire, and it fell against the bureau in a heap. “I didn’t realize we were the type of family that enjoyed a nice dinner together.”

“I don’t care where you eat, Charles. Your girls do, though.”

“They’re too little to care.”

“Oh? They ask about you all the time now. Especially Nat and Giselle. They draw pictures for you and ask me if you’d like them. They play house and one of them pretends to be you, and you know how they see you?”

“I suppose you’re about to tell me.”

“They see you as this distant figure that will only love them if they do tricks for him. And that’s what they do, Charles. They put on some weird little talent show, one of them pretending to be you, and the winner gets a hug and a kiss. I’m no shrink, but I could probably figure out what that means. Don’t you think?”

Charles’ insides clenched in unison, fighting between anger and resentment. How dare she tell him this? She looked so smug, diagnosing their intensions, but maybe they played that way because they admired him? Loved him? Maybe his little girls knew how hard he worked to build their empire. Did Cordelia ever think of that? Of course she fucking didn’t. All she thought about was herself.

He swallowed down the rock in his chest.

“Look. I’m not judging,” she said, crossing her arms. “They’re your kids, not mine. But I think we can both agree that I know you better than most people, if we can agree on nothing else. I know things about you I’ve never shared, and never will. I suppose in some ways we are actually well-matched.” This made her laugh. “But you wanted these little girls so badly. Badly enough to write up that ridiculous legal agreement. Bad enough that you pretended to love Lisette so your own game of house wouldn’t fall apart at the seams. So why the change?”

Charles didn’t answer.

“What’s going on in that demented head of yours, Charles?” The words cut, but her tone was even, unassuming. “What’s happening with you?”

“As if you really want to know.”

“I don’t, necessarily,” she agreed. “But you don’t seem to have anyone else to talk to.”

“I have Colin.”

Cordelia snorted. “Colin doesn’t know half the things I know about you. You can’t take credit for that, either. He’s either willfully ignorant or he truly is blind. I don’t know which is worse.”

She wasn’t wrong. His entire friendship with Colin was predicated on this illusion. “He doesn’t want to know. He never has.”

“What are you doing, down there in the bayou? I know it’s not work.”

“I do plenty of work.”

“Not at the rice mill you don’t.”

Charles laughed. She joined in. Cordelia was right, she was the only person who understood all the dark corners of his heart, and yet the last person he ever wanted to confide in. The mirror she held up showed more than cracks. It showed Charles for the person he was inside; the person hiding behind all the addictions meant to shore up the façade he’d spent his whole life constructing and fortifying.

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