Page 69 of Nineteen Eighty

“Thick as thieves,” Augustus answered.

“But what about the girls?” Colin asked. “They don’t even have their mother around now.”

Charles could have smacked him for talking so lightly about this topic in public, but what did it even matter anymore? Of course the whole fucking city knew those kids hadn’t come from Cordelia. Nothing a Deschanel had ever done was theirs for safekeeping anymore.

“Cordelia has changed,” Charles said, though he didn’t think his wife had changed so much as adapted. She wasn’t caring for his daughters out of any warmth or nostalgia but need. They needed a mother, and so she stepped into the role. But what would that mean? What would they learn from a woman with ice running through her veins?

But was Irish Colleen any better, replacing tenderness for pragmatism?

“She’s good with them,” he went on, more for himself. “In our family, it was the boys who struggled. Don’t fight me on this, Augustus. Both of us suffered without a father.”

Augustus said nothing.

“We had to figure out for ourselves how to be a man. We didn’t have uncles to guide us, either. We had nothing,” Charles said. “I’m shifting my focus to the business side of things. For too long, Deschanels have enjoyed the spoils without understanding how to build them further. I want an empire for my son. For my daughters.”

“You keep saying that word,” Colin said. “Empire. But you have one, Charles. Your predecessors saw to that, and you have entire teams at your disposal who exist solely to protect and grow it. Do you even know how much your net worth grows by the day? By the second? On interest alone?”

“And how do I get to feel good about that, huh? When I had no hand in it? How do I look my son in the eye and hand him the keys to a kingdom I had no help in building?”

“If it’s that important to you…”

“It is,” Charles asserted.

“All right, then,” Colin said, turning toward Augustus with a somewhat bewildered look. “Should the two of us grab lunch sometime this week, then? We can talk about a rotation, if that works?”

Augustus nodded. Charles couldn’t read him. “I’ll check my calendar before we all leave tonight.”

“Good. Good,” Colin said, nodding, as if they’d just completed a successful, albeit unusual, business transaction. “So, Augustus, tell me about Barbara. She seems lovely.”

Charles smiled to himself and let the men make their small talk. He had no time for it. No time for small anything anymore.

His son was secure.

His daughters were secure, for now.

He could take care of the rest. Building something with his own hands, his own smarts. The family joke about how many years Charles spent in college would die away, replaced by whispers of his incredible prowess as an entrepreneur. His shrewd mind for business. He didn’t need to understand any of it to turn it into something.

None of the rest mattered. Not anymore.

Charles had a future to tend to, and there was no one better suited for the task than a man who existed happily only when he existed in the extremes.

Maureen was startled at how old her mother had become while Maureen was dealing with her own troubles. She wasn’t yet fifty, but sat hunched like an old woman. Years later, she would look back on this moment and remember that there were signs, even then.

“I know what Charles did. What he’s done,” Irish Colleen said, after Maureen told her, stumbling over her words, that after Christmas she’d be taking some space from the family. All except her mother, that was. “I’ve always known.”

Maureen recoiled. She’d said nothing about Charles in her heartfelt outpouring. “What do you mean, Mama?”

“Oh, darling.” Irish Colleen closed her eyes, pulling the afghan over her shoulders. “All of you, always, have thought me a fool. Because I’m not like you. Because I don’t understand what it’s like to be like you.”

“I don’t think that, Mama,” Maureen said, feeling shame in her lie. She had once thought Irish Colleen to be a great fool, but now, a mother of her own, she understood better. She understood all too well.

“Maybe not now, but you did. You all did. But I saw a lot more than you think. I know who my oldest son is, Maureen Amelia. And though I wished he could change, wished he could grow to be more like his father, he never did. I watched him try, and I watched him fail.” Her head fell back with a wistful look. “He does try. Charles. He does. But his trying is so much less than a good man’s.”

Maureen was stunned. She’d never heard her mother say anything like this about Charles before. Although Irish Colleen had chided him for his behaviors, she’d never really punished him in any meaningful way. In Maureen’s eyes, Charles was the only one of them who’d ever been above the law at home, and later, the law of the world.

She remembered Edouard’s words last night. They’d come on the heels of him shocking her by taking both her hands in his.

I want to do right by you, Maureen. I’m old now… older than I ever expected to be. I enjoy being a father, to both of my children, and I can appreciate that our start was auspicious. He’d shaken his head. No, I won’t do this now, when I’m trying to give you more. It was worse. I hurt you. I can’t take this back, but I can give you what you wanted from me all along. I will give it to you. I’ll make up for the loss created by your brother’s cruelty. And I’ll make your happiness a priority, from now on. You have my word.

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