Chapter 52

As I was walking down the second-floor hallway, Maw was coming up the stairs.

She motioned for me to follow her into her bedroom suite. She walked over to two chairs set around a small table in front of the open window. The sound of Harry cutting the south lawn carried in with the breeze. Maw sat down in one chair and nodded for me to sit in the other.

I handed her back the files.

“Well?” she asked as she placed them on the table between us.

“Based on the information you provided, I know Johnny and I were targeted. I suppose I should be outraged, but I’m not. There were lessons to be learned, and I learned them. I’m moving on.”

“So, you’ll do nothing,” she said coldly.

“No action is also an action. The information is incomplete. The how is answered, but the who and why are not.”

She stared at me for a long moment. “Suppose I supply them — what then?”

“Then I’ll have to verify it and assess what to do. If the person responsible is more powerful than I am, which is very likely the case, I’ll have to take the time to plan accordingly.”

“Humph” was all she said. She looked away and stared out the window. Her grim expression said she was not pleased with me. My answer probably reconfirmed for her once again that ruling was a lonely business, made more so by the obtuseness and general recalcitrance of those around her.

Her cruel and unforgiving expression made me ask on impulse, “Why did you do it?”

She looked back at me and said flatly, “You’re guessing.”

I had expected a denial, but there was none. “Am I?”

“Until you know the answer, we have nothing to discuss.”

“It was a test.”

“Go on,” she said, her pale eyes fixed on me like those of a snake.

Before I answered, I reflected on what Johnny had said about bypassing her immediate heirs. He was probably correct, as he often was. Only we had failed the test long ago, when we dissolved our partnership. It had been Maw who had engineered the debacle from the start. It was obvious when I took into account her capabilities as a businesswoman, the resources she commanded, and her belief in her absolute right to interfere with and control the lives of those around her. I said, hoping to restore some of her goodwill, “We may have failed, but more is learned through failure than success. Until one encounters defeat and knows how to advance in spite of it, one doesn’t understand the difference.”

She snorted at my answer. “Poppycock…You have your nerve implying I had something to do with it, but why should I care what you think? You’re nothing but an insolent little prick.”

Her caustic words sent waves of panic once again crashing through me. Had I just made another grievous error? I floundered and was about to apologize profusely, when my intuitive part interrupted. It counseled that I say nothing and ride it out. Even if my conjecture was completely off the mark, a fact she had yet to deny, my conclusion was a compliment, not an insult. By recognizing and acknowledging her capability to carry out such a plan, I had empowered her. Besides, it added in its sarcastic way, if I was wrong, it was likely the baron who was responsible. I had learned something through the process of elimination.

I stared back at her. Maw rose up from her chair and said coldly, looking down at me, “I don’t know why I wasted my time giving you that information. You’re not worth my notice, my interest, or even my breath. You’re not even of my blood.”

It might have been this last remark, her overall contempt, or perhaps my lack of sleep, but I’d had enough. I stood as well and faced her, eye to eye.

“I could say the same about you. You never wanted my analysis. It was just a smoke screen. What was the point of letting us know that we had been set up? Johnny and I had already failed your little test years ago. The only thing you could hope to achieve by your disclosure was that I would somehow blow a fuse, blame the baron, and attack him vigorously. No wonder you’re here. He’s got a hold over you, hasn’t he?” I threw that out there. I had no idea if it was true. I said it solely based on anger.

Maw paled noticeably. “How dare you raise your voice to me?” she croaked.

“I dare, and I’ve only just begun. You have the gall to come to me about your legacy? You want a legacy? I’ll show you a legacy. Look around! What do you see? Familial conflict brought about by greed, fear, and sustained hatreds — all born, bred, and cultivated by you. That’s your legacy. You want to talk about blood? You can have it. Welcome to your life’s work. It’s a train wreck, and it’s been years in the making. You want me to stop? I’ll stop right now because we’re done.”

With that, I whirled and stormed toward the door.

I had my hand on the knob and was about to rip the door from its hinges, when she called out pleadingly, “Wait…please? There is something I must tell you.”

I froze and turned, my hand still on the door. She looked older and worn out. The change from moments ago stopped me. My curiosity struggled with the reactions she had provoked. The woman had a gift for discovering and bringing to the surface my deepest conflicts.

I had experienced such elation when Maw had asked for my advice earlier that morning. I had finally felt a measure of acceptance, but I had misinterpreted her actions. She’d had no such intention. I was not a member of the family and never would be. The finality of this understanding, and the contempt she had for me hurt me more than I could possibly express.

I had always known intellectually I was not a Dodge. I had known it for years, but my heart had not. It had always harbored a faint glimmer of hope that somehow I might be accepted as a full-fledged member of the family. It would sing over and over, “Blood is not everything,” whenever the debate over the nature of my relationship to them began in my head. As of today, it would sing no more, and I felt its pain. I had no family here, and that was the end of it.

I desperately wanted to get away and recover if I could, but my intellect also knew that the Dodge clan was as close to the concept of a family as I would ever know, and Maw was a part of it. I had craved their acceptance from an early age, and I had reason to. I lived in fear. A misstep might find me out on the street, where bad things could happen and death claim me before my time. To my immature mind, I had little real protection. My parents moved to unknown rhythms in another universe separate from the one I inhabited. They never knew my torment. Of course, my adopted household would have never thrown me out, but the possibility haunted me no matter what I did.

Maw had come to my rescue and seemed an ally when I was in desperate need of one. By treating Johnny and me as equals, she had cemented my most important friendship. My gratitude for this single act and Johnny’s acceptance of me was a source of comfort from the terror of abandonment that would occasionally consume me in fits of tears and trembling that would last for days at a time.

Maw was not the only one. Alice was the other deity in my life I gave thanks to. Both women appeared connected with the divine in ways I was unable to articulate. Within the boundaries of their different gifts, I formed for myself a kind of sanctuary. Maw was the sun and represented the protection of animals and the very young. Alice was the moon and guarded my nights. She was able to intercede with the ghosts that wandered through my dreams and imagination. The relief both had provided without their knowing, or even their intentions to do so, kept me rational and drew me back from the dark places I sometimes visited. Their presence in my life, and Johnny’s too, all of them, had provided the nurture and structure I required so desperately until I was able to stand on my own. I could never repay that debt. I let go of the door and walked back over to the chair.

“Say what you wish to say,” I said without any emotion, my defenses once again in place. I knew as I sat back down that I would need them. Maw gave nothing away for free, and the cost to those close to her was always the same: the exposure and disparagement of their most hidden and painful fears and imperfections.