Chapter 14 - The Shuttered Parlor
The brownstone on the Upper East Side was tomb-silent when the front door swung open.
Eleanor Hawthorne stood in the foyer, her pearl necklace looking ridiculously out of place against her frayed silk robe.
Her hair was unpinned, her face hollowed by weeks of mounting dread.
When she saw me, her lips parted to utter an icy dismissal, but the sight of Vincent standing behind me paralyzed her.
Vincent was still in his grease-stained work clothes, smelling of industrial rubber and exhaust.
"Vincent!" Eleanor gasped, reaching her frail, trembling arms toward him.
"My God, look what he's done to you!
Look at your clothes!
Richard, come quickly!
Clark has brought him back!"
My father emerged from the library at the end of the hall.
He was holding a half-empty glass of scotch, his collar unbuttoned, the facade of the distinguished patriarch utterly collapsed.
He looked ten years older than when he had stood in my Manhattan penthouse demanding tribute.
"Clark," Richard growled, trying to summon an authority he no longer possessed.
"Get out of this house.
You have degraded this family enough."
"I haven't even begun to degrade you, Richard," I said, stepping past Eleanor into the grand hallway.
The oil portraits of our ancestors seemed to sneer down at us from the damask walls.
"Arthur Sterling gave me the High Falls covenant," I said, watching my father's hand freeze on his glass.
The scotch sloshed over the rim, dripping onto the antique Persian rug.
Eleanor’s hand flew to her mouth.
"You went to Arthur?" Richard whispered, his voice trembling with genuine terror.
"Julian Cross filed the lien today," I continued, my voice steady, merciless, and calm.
"He wants twenty percent of Vanguard Freight's equity, or he triggers the fraud warrant on your forged signature."
"Clark, listen to me," Richard pleaded, his arrogance evaporating into pathetic sniveling.
"It was the only way!
The collectors were going to break Vincent’s legs!
They knew where he lived!
They were going to ruin our family name in the papers!"
"So you stole mine instead," I said.
"You took the name of the son you threw to the wolves, forged it on a four-million-dollar instrument, and handed the executioner the axe."
"We gave you life!" Eleanor shrieked suddenly, her composure shattering into hysterical venom.
"We brought you into this world, Clark!
Everything you have, you owe to the bloodline of this family!
What does a few million dollars matter to you now?
You're worth billions!
Why must you torture your brother over money you won't even miss?"
I turned slowly to face my mother.
For years, her voice had made me feel like an interloper in my own skin.
Now, it sounded like nothing more than the screeching of a wounded vulture.
"I don't owe you a single breath, Eleanor," I said quietly.
"You took my childhood.
You made me sleep in the attic room while Vincent had the master suite.
You let him spend my tuition on ski trips to Aspen.
And when I starved in a five-hundred-square-foot studio in Queens, you never once called to ask if I had bread."
"I was preparing you!" Eleanor lied desperately, tears streaking her heavy makeup.
"We knew you were strong!
We knew Vincent was delicate!"
A bitter laugh tore from Vincent's throat behind me.
He stepped forward into the center of the drawing room, his heavy work boots leaving black mud on Eleanor’s pristine ivory carpet.
"Delicate?" Vincent yelled, his voice cracking with years of suppressed self-hatred.
"Is that what you called it, Mother?
May you like
Delicate?
You made me a cripple!"
