Chapter 47

I awoke to Johnny pounding on my door. He always pounded on my door first thing in the morning. Such was life.

“Get up. We’re going to be late. Come on!”

I quickly showered, shaved, and dressed. I raced after Johnny and Robert, taking the stairs two at a time. We skidded into the dining room just as everyone was taking their seats. Johnny took Robert to the kitchen.

Our places were the same as yesterday morning. There was a seat next to Bruni, who looked radiant and happy, and Elsa, who was lost in her first cup of coffee. I sat down. Elsa rarely spoke at breakfast. She simply smiled whenever she was asked a question. She gave me one as I sat down. I always appreciate quiet first thing in the morning. We were similar in that way. The baron, too, preferred minimal conversation. He was hidden behind the Financial Times. Occasionally, he closed his paper, holding it in one hand to have a sip of coffee. He would look around to see if he was missing anything, and then the paper would snap open as he closed off the rest of the world. Our host and hostess also read papers, but theirs were neatly folded into quarters and lay on the table beside them. Johnny sat down next to Maw and beamed at everyone. “Good morning, all,” he said. We all murmured our acknowledgments. The mood was definitely lighter than the day before. Maw looked rested and ready for action. She got up before first light to see to the horses and dogs when she was at her home. It was probably late in the day for her. The tall man kept to himself. The only one missing was Bonnie, which was a relief.

Bruni whispered to me, “Sleep well?”

“Yes, what sleep there was.”

“Up late?”

“Research.”

“How studious. I thought this was supposed to be a holiday.”

“It’s my wickedness catching up with me.”

“You must elaborate on that.”

“Later, and only after a great deal more coffee.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

Breakfast came and went. When we were all getting up, Maw looked at me and said, “Let’s walk.”

It wasn’t a request. I excused myself to Bruni and Elsa. Johnny gave me an encouraging look as Maw set off. I followed. My hope of a quiet settling into the day dimmed as Maw struck a brisk pace. When we had put some distance between us and the house, she slowed and got right to it.

“I’m not happy with you. Skulking off to California to lick your wounds in forensic accounting rather than dealing with the real issues is unacceptable. A rider who won’t remount after a fall is broken. Horses can be violent and dangerous. They kill each other just like we do. As a rider, you must learn to dominate them. Domination is not physical — it’s mental.”

She whipped around and put her face inches from mine. There was no forewarning. Her eyes bored into me. Her volume never changed, but her rage and intensity hit me like a punch in the face.

“Where the fuck are your balls? I want to know where they went, and what you’re going to do to grow a pair right the fuck now.”

I was struck dumb as a block of wood. It was either that or start gibbering.

“Don’t gape. You haven’t the time for it. I’m going to walk to the river and back. I want answers when I return. Think carefully. Forensic accounting, my ass. You’re incredibly naïve and incompetent at that. Blindness isn’t a disease. It’s a willful state of being brain-dead.”

She spat on the ground, turned her back on me, and headed west.

I watched her as she walked away. I felt unmanned, gutted like one of her former husbands, out of my body, and close to tears, all at the same time. My hands shook as I lit a cigarette. What had gotten into her? I was tempted to wallow in self-pity, but my intuitive part intervened. It posited that, firstly, if she thought I was a complete zero, she would not have talked to me in the first place. Secondly, she wanted me to look at something that I had failed to observe and was to her completely transparent. She was a successful businessperson. I was not. I needed to look from her point of view.

I didn’t want to. I would have much preferred self-absorption and convincing myself she was a washed-up, demented old hag, but she had seen through to the heart of the matter: I had run away.

To Maw, this was an abomination. Maw would have fought tooth and nail. Convinced of her inherent rightness from an early age, she looked outside herself for the source of any conflict and eventually found it. To her mind, difficulties were not random challenges but deliberate barriers strewn in her path, contrived by enemies, and carried out against her personally. She lived by a simple maxim: make your enemies suffer, kill them when you can, but above all, never surrender…ever.

Given this mind-set, my intuitive part interjected, Johnny and I were likely conspired against. As a forensic accountant, even though I became one after the fact, I never once attempted to find out who was on the other side of the trades that sank us: a personal failing of some magnitude. To Maw, this was more than just incompetence. Submitting to fate without even a whimper indicated a profound lack of spirit. QED, I had no balls.

The question in her mind, I supposed, was whether I was a broken piece or a potential resource. She wanted to know the answer, and as I looked up, she was striding purposefully toward me to find out.

“Well?” was all she said.

My intuitive part counseled a pause and complete honesty if I had a hope of salvaging any form of a relationship with her.

“I ran, it’s true. The thought that Johnny and I were conspired against never crossed my mind. I never even considered it until now, hence your conclusion of a naïveté that borders on incompetence. I am not altogether incompetent. For me, it’s easier to blame myself than blame others. For some, it is the other way around. I need to strike a balance between the two. I thank you for your observations. I am not a horse, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be taught. I’m not broken in spirit. I have courage in my own way, so what job do you have in mind for me?”

“Well, well. You’re not as thick as a post, I’ll grant you. The courage part remains to be seen. I have two files for you to look at. Give me your analysis, the sooner the better, and then we’ll see whether you have balls or not.

“Let’s return to the house.”

We walked. I had to hand it to her. She was a master. She could rip into you one moment to correct a shortcoming and encourage the next. She demanded and received maximum performance from those around her. I wondered at the severity of the lesson that was in store for Bonnie. Maw was Maw after all. Messing with her was like messing with nature — a bad idea.