I finished the letter and then read it again. I sat at my father’s desk holding the sheet of paper, without moving—without breathing—for a long time. How long? Minutes? Hours, it seemed.
What was I holding in my hand?
The words were clear enough, as was their meaning, but I couldn’t make sense of it. My father and another man… for thirty-five years? Since before I was born? Since before my father was married to my mother? How had he kept that kind of secret? Hidden so much of himself from us?
This apartment, I suddenly realized, must have helped. The separate entrance must have allowed him and his lover great freedom. And now all the nights he spent in New York City while his family was ensconced in Riverdale made yet more sense. But the machinations he must have gone through… the deceptions… the lies. How they must have taxed him.
I read the letter again. And then a fourth time. I laid it down on the desk and looked at the black letters on the fine, cream-colored stock. For the first time, I noticed the letter’s date—December 4, 1909—the day of Father’s first heart attack. Had the shock of receiving it, of learning his friend had killed himself, caused my father’s heart failure? And about that, too—this friend had known my father had a weak heart. That was something else my father had hidden from all of us.
Had I known my father at all? Suddenly, I was furious. How dare he keep this secret? Have a separate life? How could he have put himself in jeopardy? What was this love? I’d never felt any emotion close to the one suggested in the letter. Why risk jail? Risk ruin? For another man?
I pushed the books onto the floor with one sweep of my arm. My father must have concealed them when I moved in. Hidden them from me. Shielded me from his other life.
I hated him then. For the deception. For the lies. I kicked at one of the books, and it flew up in the air and then landed, spine splayed, pages crushed. I kicked another, and it hit the leg of my father’s armchair. I wanted to pick them all up and toss them off the edge of the terrace and into the street, to be trod on by horses and carriages and automobile wheels. I didn’t care if I damaged the books. What were they but symbols of what I hadn’t known? What I hadn’t noticed? What my father’s life had been and probably why it had been cut short, because surely if his friend hadn’t killed himself, my father’s heart wouldn’t have broken?
I collapsed in a heap on the rug, near the pile of books, put my face in my hands, and wept. It was as if he were dying all over again. My father had been gone for ten months, and now I was losing him again. Who he was, who I knew, what I believed about him—that was all ash now. The one person I was closest to in my family, in the world, was a stranger with a secret. A whole life that he’d kept hidden. I didn’t even know the name of the man he’d been involved with. Since before I was born.
Still crying, I picked up one of the books, smoothing out the pages and putting it right. Then another. I got up and fetched the ones I’d thrown. I put all the books on my father’s desk in two neat piles. As if they were nothing special. As if they were just books instead of the key to my father’s life.
Once more, and for a final time, I read the letter, this time thinking of what it must have been like for my father to read it. Had it been delivered after the man had died? Did my father already know he was gone when he received it? Or was the letter how he learned of the tragedy?
He must have been so bereft. And how horrible that he’d had this great loss and hadn’t been able to share it with anyone. And what a terrible time—to have it come the same week, wasn’t it the same week, as Uncle Percy’s passing? I had to think. Those few days had been such a blur because of my father’s heart attack. But yes, it was the same week.
I remembered the conversation I’d had with my father the night before he died, when he had talked about trying to be someone he wasn’t for my mother. Was this what he meant? Certainly, from the implications in the letter, I assumed so. But who was the man?
I had been a reporter since college, working on the Radcliffe newspaper. I knew how to look for clues and discover the truth. I just had to step back and get out of my own way.
I sat down at my father’s desk and, drawer by drawer, started going through his papers.
After a half hour, I realized it was hopeless. My father had gone to so much trouble to hide the books and the letter from me, there wouldn’t be anything left around carelessly.
But I needed to know more. I needed to know the rest of it. I thought about telephoning my brother-in-law, but what if my sister was there? If Jack knew the truth or any part of it, would he be able to speak in private from home? And if he didn’t know? I didn’t want to alert him that there was a secret. He wasn’t good at keeping things from my sister. And what of my mother? Did she know?
I stood up and stretched my back. My eye fell on the corner table, where more than two dozen framed silver photos sat clustered together. I looked past the photo of Jack and my sister on their wedding day, to a portrait of my parents taken on their thirtieth wedding anniversary. I searched their faces, looking for a clue. What was their relationship really like? What did children ever truly know about their parents’ marriage? My eye traveled over more portraits of family events.
If I could call and ask Jack about my father, surely there was someone who might know, who…
I was looking at a group photo taken at my father’s sixtieth birthday celebration. My mother and sister and I were seated in the front row. My father was in the middle of a row of men standing behind us. On his right was Jack. On his left was Uncle Percy, on his right my uncle Malcolm. And to the left of Uncle Malcolm was my father’s young cousin by marriage, Stephen Stillwell.
Like a son to my father, Stephen was my age and a member of the law firm that handled our family affairs. Yes, Stephen, of course! That’s who I could talk to. He knew all the family secrets. If there was anyone who could help me and whom I could trust, it was Stephen.
I picked up the telephone and called the Plaza Hotel, where he lived. The switchboard operator told me that Mr. Stillwell wasn’t answering, but they believed he was in.
Somehow, not being able to reach him made my need that much more urgent. I wrote out a note saying I wanted to see him, pocketed it, left the library, and walked toward my room, down the hallway, passing the parlor. The drapes were all open, yet night had fallen. The sky above was moonless and mysterious.
Stephen had lived at the Plaza Hotel, just a few blocks north, ever since I’d known him. A bachelor, he said it suited him to have all his needs so easily fulfilled. It was only just eight o’clock, so I decided I would walk over and deliver my note and wait. I hoped he might answer the door, read it, and come down.
I gathered my hat, coat, and gloves and left the apartment without stopping to check in the mirror to see if my hair was askew or my scarf was tied neatly.
At the Plaza, I sat in the lobby under the palm trees and nervously ran my fingers over the mohair velvet of the armchair. The porter came down and said Mr. Stillwell hadn’t answered his knock but that he’d slipped the note underneath the door.
“Perhaps Mr. Stillwell slipped out for the evening without us noticing, Miss Garland.”
I tipped him and stood up. I felt lost. The one person who knew me and my father well enough to talk to was unavailable. I walked outside. Even at that hour, Fifth Avenue was still busy with carriages. A well-dressed couple on their way somewhere special—dinner or the theater or the ballet—passed by me. They looked delighted with their evening. As they walked, he said something that made her laugh, and her diamond earrings caught the streetlights and glittered.
You never feel more alone than when you are surrounded by people who aren’t the people you want to see. I was thinking about my father… about the letter… about the books, and I walked, not paying much attention to where I was going. Even as I wandered into the park, I wasn’t focused on where I was headed, but my feet seemed to have a destination in mind.
All I could think was how much I wished my father was by my side so I could ask him to explain. I wondered if he’d purposefully left me clues or if happenstance had led me to the key, the shelf, and the letter. Had he wanted me to discover his secret, or had he simply been too ill at the end to destroy the evidence?
I shivered and pulled my coat tighter around me. Fall was upon us now. Before too long, winter would be here, the city cold and gray.
You have been the largest presence in my life, saturating every one of my days with color, the author of the letter had said. It was true. My father had been such a large presence in all our lives, and every day seemed diminished and less colorful without him.
So many images assaulted me as I walked. Pictures in my mind of my parents together at various family functions and events. Was his affection for this other man the reason that no matter how my mother might argue with him, he so rarely fought back? Was it the reason for the look of sadness in his eyes that I sometimes saw when he glanced at her? I’d come to believe my father despaired that the bright young girl he’d married had turned into a matron who cared far too much about what society said about her. Now I considered how very wrong I might have been. Was my father’s friend the reason my mother clung so desperately to her societal rules and tried to impose them on all of us? Where we had to eat. What we had to wear. Whom we had to know. Where we had to summer. How many parties were to be had. Who had to be invited. What had to be served. Who had to make our hats and dresses, jewelry and luggage.
Was it all to create as much normality as she could in a world that made no sense to her?
Had my mother turned my father against her and then, in his loneliness, he had met this man? Or had he always been so inclined and had married to protect his reputation? Or to have a family? Had he been weak? Or stronger than even I could imagine?
I reached the Central Park Zoo and continued walking. I should have turned around and gone home. The park could be dangerous at night. But really, what could happen to me? I had walked every inch of it, exploring with my father since I was a child. I couldn’t get lost, even at night. And who would want to attack me, anyway? I was a middle-aged woman of no particular beauty. I carried no more than a dollar. If anyone approached me and wanted it that badly, they could have it. It hardly mattered to me.
There were quite a few people out strolling on the promenade, several with dogs. I suddenly, passionately, wanted one, too. A small dog that I could tuck under my arm. A companion for my long walks. Why hadn’t I ever thought about it before? We’d always wanted a dog growing up, but Mother said they were dirty and made her sneeze, and that was the end of that.
When had I lost my desire for a pet? And not just that desire. Others as well. Had I been mourning my Charlotte, my career, and then my father for so long that I had lost the power to want anything?
I’d wandered into the Rambles, one of my favorite areas of the park. I’d never ventured there alone at night, and as brave as I thought I’d been five minutes before, I suddenly felt apprehensive. Too many shadows moved and whispered in the darkness, almost as if the trees and bushes had come alive. I could hear the rushing waterfall just a few feet away and saw the rustic bridge that passed over it. I knew where I was, but this sacred grove that Frederick Law Olmsted had created to resemble a picturesque forest glen had taken on sinister and foreign sights. By moonlight, the familiar had become something other and unknown. Off to the side, I saw two men walking out from behind a giant stone that my father and I had always wondered about—had Olmsted brought it from the Adirondacks or found it here?
The men averted their faces as they passed by me. I continued on, confused about why they’d hidden.
Another man, alone, was walking across the bridge toward me. A stranger, I thought at first. And then, surprised, as he came closer, I recognized him.
“Vera, thank goodness,” Stephen said, relief in his voice. “I got your note. Why didn’t you just stay? What on earth are you doing here at night?”
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“I returned just after you left. I asked the doorman if he’d seen which way you went, and he had. Then I asked another doorman further up Fifth and then another. I tracked you to the park. And then it was a guess based on your World article about your favorite Central Park haunts. Besides, I know how much your father loved this place and that the two of you came here often. But during the day, Vera! Don’t you know it’s no place for you at night?”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here, and I’ll explain.” Stephen took my arm. I was sure of the way, but so was he, walking us south without hesitation.
My father’s family had always used the firm of Bowes and Stillwell, and in 1894, my father’s aunt had married Mr. Stillwell, a widower with a seventeen-year-old son, Stephen. When the elder Mr. Stillwell passed in 1902, Stephen took over. He was not only a cousin by marriage and my father’s lawyer but also a loyal and longtime friend. He often came to dinner parties and holiday celebrations in Riverdale and for weekends at the Meadows in Newport. For a brief time, and to my mother’s delight, he even masqueraded as my suitor.
Despite Stephen’s claims of confirmed bachelorhood, my mother had made many attempts to push the two of us together. Three summers after I had graduated from Radcliffe, she was more determined than ever to marry me off and cut my fantasies of a career short.
Seeing how unhappy I was with her meddling and complaining, Stephen had come up with a plan for us to engage in a pretend romance to take the pressure off. He confided that his family was pushing him as well, and so it would be a favor to him as much as it was to me. I’d come to value my own independence and freedom so much that I hadn’t ever questioned his decision to remain single, but he’d told me his situation was more complicated. Stephen had a preference for men.
We played at being a couple for a full year, becoming even better friends in the process. We were ideally suited to each other. We were both avid readers, enjoyed the theater, opera, and ballet and talking politics and the law. Since Stephen was an excellent golfer and I loved the game, we’d often go off to the links and spend the day on the greens. All in all, it was a healing time for me, after having already been twice stung by affairs gone awry.
Even after we amicably called off our engagement, much to our families’ dismay, we continued playing golf, having dinner together, or going to a performance of some kind, several times a month. That changed after Father’s death. I had rarely seen Stephen since he’d presided over the reading of the will. Concerned, he sent notes and invitations every other week or so. Most often, I said no. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him. I wasn’t trying to be antisocial. I just didn’t quite know how to find my footing.
“You look quite peaked, Vera. I’m going to take you to a late supper, and you can explain what you were doing walking about town after dark like a madwoman.”
We retraced our steps back over the bridge and through the winding pathways. Stephen didn’t pressure me to talk about what had happened but instead told me anecdotes about Frederick Law Olmsted and odd bits and pieces about Central Park’s creation.
Reaching the park exit on Fifty-ninth, we crossed the street, and Stephen ushered me into the Plaza Hotel and across the lobby into the restaurant. We were seated in a corner. Even before the waiter arrived with the menu, I told Stephen I wasn’t very hungry.
“Do you want to order or have me do it for you? Because I insist you eat something, Vera.”
I hated the convention of men choosing food for women—how on earth could they know what we wanted? So when the menu arrived, I perused it and ordered the lightest thing I could find, a fillet of fish. And when Stephen asked, I said yes, I would like wine.
He ordered the fish as well, along with a very good bottle of white wine from France.
“I have so many questions to ask, but let’s wait until the wine comes,” he said, as he took a carrot from the silver dish of vegetables presented on a bed of crushed ice that the waiter had brought. “I don’t want to be interrupted. In the meantime, tell me the family news.”
I filled him in with anecdotes about Jack and Letty and their children, until the steward returned with the wine, opened it, and waited while Stephen tasted it. After he nodded his approval, the steward poured and then retreated.
Stephen raised his glass to me but didn’t make a verbal toast.
I took a sip. It was cold and crisp and delicious.
“This is so light,” I said. “How did you learn so much about wines? I don’t think you ever told me.”
“No trying to distract me. I want to know what is going on. Your note said you needed to talk to me about something important, so why didn’t you wait? And why were you wandering around Central Park at this time of night?”
“Yes, you said you were going to explain something to me about the Rambles,” I said, ignoring his questions.
“You really don’t have any idea?”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t think about where I was walking. I suppose I just wanted to be someplace familiar… someplace I used to go often with Father.”
He cleared his throat as if he was buying time. “Well, I can understand your gravitating to a familiar area. And during the day, it would be fine. The Rambles is wonderful—unbridled nature right in the middle of our city. Birds, squirrels, rabbits, even foxes inhabit those nooks and crannies. And the waterfall is a wonderful spot to stop and ponder life’s vicissitudes.”
“Stephen,” I urged, “I know all that. Just say whatever it is that you don’t want to say.”
“Yes, just say it, you’re right. You’re a sophisticated woman. Vera, you, of everyone, are aware that every aspect of this city has its dark, ugly side.”
I nodded.
“Well, the Rambles is a meeting place at night for men who don’t have many other places to go to be with other men.”
I took another sip of wine. “I passed by two men—out for a stroll—and they averted their faces. I wondered why.”
“Probably, they were there for an assignation. And because it has that reputation, there can be quite a bit of rough trade in there at night, which is why it’s so dangerous. That plus thieves, posing as interested men as a pretense to suss out potential victims, whom they beat up and rob.”
“How awful.”
He nodded. “Present-day legalities require the utmost discretion. Many men find themselves at a loss for how to meet others like them.”
There was a sadness in his eyes that bored into mine. I could sympathize but not really understand. Yes, I was different from so many of the women I’d grown up with. But my dedication to my work and my negative views on marriage and the way it objectified women weren’t against the law. I met men and spent time with them and had lovers, but I couldn’t go to jail for that—only be gossiped about in my mother’s circle.
But men like Stephen, who couldn’t show any emotion toward any man for fear. Men like… my father, who—my father? The enormity of the secret struck me anew.
I finished the wine in my glass.
“Vera, why did you want to see me so urgently tonight? What upset you so much to go wandering alone?”
“Going to the Rambles must have been unconscious, now that I think about it,” I said. “Maybe I once heard about its nighttime purpose but forgot…” I shook my head. “Nothing is a coincidence, Father always said. Certainly, nothing that happened tonight has been. Have you read much of what this Austrian professor and doctor Sigmund Freud has written about the choices and decisions we make?” I asked.
“Actually, quite a bit,” Stephen said.
“Well, on some unconscious level, I must have gone there to be among those men.”
“Because?”
“Last week, Jack was helping me empty out my father’s things in the apartment, and we found a key. We didn’t know what it opened. And then today, Jack phoned. He’d figured out that it was a key to my father’s bookcases. I immediately went to check. Only one case was locked, and inside I discovered a cache of hidden books and a letter.” I shivered.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I am. Well, I think I am.”
“Have some more wine.”
He motioned to the waiter, who filled our glasses and took his leave. I took a sip.
“A letter?” Stephen asked.
I hesitated. To voice the words would make them real.
He took my hand, in a gesture of friendship and comfort. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“No, I want to. My father always trusted you. Now more than ever, I know why. It’s just not easy to say it.”
“Take it slow. We’re not in a hurry.”
So I told him about the books and how I didn’t understand their significance until I found the letter and put it all together. And then, in halting phrases, I paraphrased what the letter said.
“Oh, my God,” Stephen said, as all color drained from his face. Anguish altered his features. “Why did Granville keep a blackmail plot to himself? How terribly guilty and confused he must have felt. I knew the wind had been knocked out of his sails when Percy died… we talked about the loss for hours, but—”
“Uncle Percy?” I interrupted. “He died the same week, I know, but how is my uncle’s death connected to my father’s friend’s suicide?”
“Vera…” Stephen took a breath. “Vera, your uncle Percy was your father’s friend.”
“Yes, of course, they were friends,” I said matter-of-factly.
“His friend from the letter.”
For a moment, I didn’t speak. My uncle? And my father?
“I don’t understand… Are you saying…?” I didn’t finish my question.
“Yes, your uncle wrote that letter. Percy was your father’s companion. For years.”
“But Uncle Percy died of food poisoning,” I said, focusing on the least complicated part of the whole mess.
“That’s what was presumed, yes. But now, from that letter, we know his death must have been of his own making.”
“I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time understanding. Uncle Percy is my mother’s brother.” This wasn’t making sense to me. I loved my uncle. He was part of our family. A confirmed bachelor, he was always around, the first one after my father to show pride in whatever my sister and I did. When we were little, he attended every one of Letty’s riding competitions. He read every one of my poems and papers and discussed them with me. He showed as much interest in Letty’s obsession with dressage as in my obsession with social justice.
Stephen nodded. “I’m sure you’ve heard the story of how your parents met? Percy and your father were roommates at Yale, and Percy brought your father home with him one weekend to Newport. It became an easy solution to a more complicated problem. With your father courting your mother, no one questioned all the time he and Percy spent together.”
“Yes… maybe at first… but my parents got married. Married!”
“Your father wanted to have a family.”
“And you are saying his re—” I stumbled on the word. “His relationship with my uncle continued all those years?”
Stephen nodded.
“So my parents’ marriage was a sham?”
“Hardly. Your father was very much capable of loving a woman. It’s not unheard of. In fact, it’s quite common. Look at Oscar Wilde, for example. He had a wife and children. For some of us, it’s not either/or but simply a preference. Your father was like that. He cared about your mother deeply and treated her as well as any husband could. You know that, you’ve seen them together your whole life. And your mother cared about your father. She loved him. You know that as well.”
“As much as she was capable of caring about anyone but herself,” I said.
Stephen smiled knowingly. We’d had long conversations over the years about my impossible, selfish mother.
“Did my mother know about my father and Uncle Percy?”
“Years ago, your father told me that Aunt Henrietta knew about Percy’s proclivities but not about his relationship with your father. Given that he was family, there was nothing suspicious about a bachelor like Percy spending all that time with his sister, his nieces, and his brother-in-law. I don’t know if Aunt Henrietta ever learned more. She might have or not.”
I was still processing all this information when our meal arrived. I looked at it as if I’d never seen food before, unsure for a moment about what it was or why it was being put in front of me.
I had no appetite. But Stephen insisted, and after I’d taken the first bite of the tender, buttery sole, I realized I was, in fact, famished. I’d been so busy with the books that I hadn’t eaten all day.
As we ate, we continued talking about my father and my mother and her brother. Stephen continued to help me make sense of it all. I mused that making love with my mother was probably also easier on my father, since she and her brother looked so much alike. Only eighteen months apart, both had thick, dark brown hair and emerald eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. They were both tall and graceful.
“But they were nothing alike personality-wise,” Stephen said.
“No. Uncle Percy was lighthearted, and my mother is so serious. He was open-minded, while her mind is solidly shut closed to everything. She is a figure in society who measures herself against whoever comes to call and what invitations she receives and what people say about her, whereas Uncle Percy always said he didn’t care a fig about what people thought of him, as long as he could build the buildings he wanted and explore his passion for art.”
Ironically, it was my uncle whom people thought of so highly. Along with Stanford White, among his peers, Percy Winthrop was considered one of the most talented and forward-thinking architects of his time. But his vision for what buildings could and should look like was so avant-garde that he was never awarded the bounty of commissions he deserved. He refused to compromise for a job. And therein lay the financial position he must have found himself in when Oxley blackmailed him.
“What did you do with the letter, Vera?” Stephen asked, after the waiter had cleared our main-course dishes.
I had to think. “It’s on my father’s desk. Why?”
“You might want to give it to me to put in the office safe.”
“My mother never comes to the apartment.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking of Aunt Henrietta. The letter is an indictment of Thelonious Oxley, and as such, it’s a very dangerous and valuable piece of paper. An incitement of a crime.”
I pursed my lips and held back my tears.
“I’m sorry, Vera. I don’t want to make this harder than it already is. We don’t need to discuss this anymore tonight. I’ll have a messenger pick up the letter tomorrow morning.”
“I do want to talk about it tonight. Explain the law to me like I’m a reporter, not my father’s daughter or my uncle’s niece.”
Stephen smiled and squeezed my hand. “OK,” he said. “Blackmail, or extortion, is a criminal offense wherein one person unlawfully obtains, or tries to obtain, money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion.”
“So every time Oxley uses the gossip he collects to threaten someone into taking out advertising in his magazine, he is breaking the law?”
“Exactly.”
“There have been rumors about Oxley’s methods for as long as I’ve been a reporter. I never paid them much attention. Why do you think he hasn’t been charged with breaking the law by now?”
“Because someone would need to challenge him in court. And no one will.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because that person would have to admit to the deed that Oxley was holding over his head. Think about it—if the act is terrible enough to be used as a threat, then no one would want to publicly admit to it. What man is going to be willing to go into court and acknowledge that his mistress gave birth to his illegitimate child or confess that his business partner cuckolded him or that he had a hand in having his competition’s factory burned down?”
“But if Oxley hadn’t threatened Uncle Percy and Uncle Percy hadn’t killed himself, then my father might not have had a heart attack and—” As much as I was trying to be a hard-boiled reporter, I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore.
Stephen gave me his handkerchief.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t you dare apologize. You’ve had a shock, and you need some time to let all this sink in. We both have. I had no idea that your uncle killed himself to protect your father…”
“Oxley is a monster to prey on people’s secrets and get rich off their indiscretions. My uncle wasn’t hurting anyone. I’m sure half the other people Oxley’s threatened are just as innocent.”
“Most are, some aren’t. There’s gossip that Oxley’s taken money to keep quiet about information that would have sent some guilty men to prison.”
“Well, that’s just as bad, isn’t it? Either way, he’s evil.”
“Yes, there’s no doubt about that.”
The waiter arrived to see if we wanted anything else.
Stephen ordered brandy and coffee, and I said I’d have the same.
“And one slice of your devil’s food cake, with two forks,” Stephen said as an afterthought, referring to the rich chocolate cake the restaurant was famous for having created.
The waiter left, and Stephen smiled at me. “Your father always called it—”
“Sin on a plate,” I finished for him, with a little laugh. Indeed, my father had a passion for the Plaza’s famous dessert and often had a slice delivered to his apartment when he was working through dinner.
When the cake arrived, its chocolate frosting glistened.
Stephen held out a fork for me and then took one for himself. “In your father’s honor.”
We both took bites of the delicious confection, the bittersweet ganache complementing the light-as-air cake.
“I’d gladly go to hell for this!” Stephen declared, echoing the very words my father always said after his first bite.
I felt a wave of sadness wash over me. I had known that I would miss my father forever. That there would be moments every day when something I saw or heard or thought of would remind me of him. That I’d think of things I wanted to ask him or share with him and be at a loss that I couldn’t anymore. I had known that there would be a hole in my heart that would never be filled, but I had started relaxing into the grief. Getting used to those terrible moments, as the urgent missing turned into a gentler ache. But this new information had rubbed my grief raw again. If my father had been able to confide in me, would he have been able to weather the grief of losing Uncle Percy?
“You totally believe that my uncle killed himself rather than be exposed as a homosexual and risk his reputation and my father’s?”
“That and to protect your mother and both you and your sister from scandal. He was very brave.”
“Brought down by a sniveling monster,” I said.
My sadness slowly ebbed away as a wave of something else came sweeping in. Something I hadn’t felt for more than a year… not since before Charlotte took sick and I had my accident. I was feeling the desire to fight back. A grievous injustice had been done that needed to be made right. I couldn’t rewind time, couldn’t bring my uncle or my father back… but I could prevent Oxley from doing this to anyone else. I was an investigative reporter. I had the knowledge and the means to get the facts about the story, to find the proof I needed and use it to bring Oxley down. As Martha and Fanny had reminded me, it was time to get back to work. Vee Swann was finally ready to reemerge.