Family Bonds

Chapter 16, Episode 4

"Does Eddie know? Do you take him with you on your little excursions—maybe show him the ropes, so he can enjoy those out-of-town business meetings you send him on?"

"Of course not! What do you take me for?"

"You're a lying, whoring ..." He couldn't even say the word. "Why'd you do it? You were always ragging me about sleeping around. Is that how it is? You can dish it out, but you can't take it when you're the one fucking and not me?" He didn't care that his face felt flushed and his fists clenched. He itched to beat the man to a pulp.

"You're my son. I deserve your respect!"

"I'm not your son. I don't even want to be your stepson! As for respect, you lost my respect a long time ago, long before I heard what Mom said. Whatever else I thought you were ... that went, too, when I ... when I ..."

He couldn't stop seeing what he had read in the diary Jane had found. "You were always beating me up for having one girl after the other. But look at you—what you've been doing for years." Chet rose from his seat. "Admit it! You can't keep it in your pants. Never could. If you do it with whores and then come home to Mom, you don't know the difference between fucking and making love."

"Shut your mouth, Chet!" His stepfather panted, his fists clenched. "Besides... The man's steely eyes bored into him. "We—your mother and I—we've been together a long time." Then, his voice softer, almost pleading, he said, "You are, too, my son. You and Eddie. In my will, both of you. You each inherit everything, the business, my investments, half and half, right down the middle."

"As if I give a shit." Chet spat out the words and turned his back on his stepfather, dismissing him and his explanations, not wanting to acknowledge that he was an heir to the Barton monies, just like Eddie.

Chet was suddenly knocked off balance by his stepfather's kick to the back of his knee. He fell against the side of the chair before landing on the floor. As he turned his head in his father's direction, Chet's head snapped back as a fist crashed into his cheekbone and burned the skin on his cheek.

"You know better than to talk to me like that—or about your mother. We deserve better from you."

Chet ducked out of range of his father's next badly-aimed jab. "I wasn't talking about what Mom did. I was talking about what you did!" He balled his fist and lashed out at the older man, connecting with his nose. The crunch of his knuckles on bone and flesh accompanied by the sound of harsh breathing and an agonized, "Oaah," stopped Chet from landing another blow.

Oliver's words rang in his ears. "Fight with your words, Chet, with arguments that can't be disputed. Words are more powerful than fists."

Blood gushed from between his stepfather's fingers as he cupped his hands around his nose. Chet backed away, breathing fast. He walked into the kitchen, grabbed some paper towels and handed them to his stepfather. When they did little to stop the man's bleeding, Chet helped him up and walked him into the nearby bathroom.

"Use your shirt, not the robe ... to catch the blood." He grabbed a towel off the edge of the bathtub and wadded it up before pressing it against the man's nose.

Finally he said, "Sorry. I shouldn't have hit you. Lean your head back. It'll help stop the bleeding. You took me by surprise. I guess I wasn't thinking—"

"Just like all those other times you ended up fighting ... like at Whitman? With Ken? In high school, too? I would've thought by now you'd outgrown it." His stepfather pulled away the towel and let the blood from his nose drip into his shirt. "You're strong. God, that hurts."

"You shouldn't have talked about Mom that way. And you hit me first." But still Chet felt guilty. It was the first time since he'd left Whitman that he'd used his fists. He grabbed a hand towel, wet it with cold water, and handed it to his stepfather. "Maybe you should use something cold. Want me to take you to the ER?"

The older man shook his head. He put down the first towel and pressed the cold one to his face. "Maybe later. I think you broke it, but the bleeding's not so bad now." He looked at Chet, his eyes bloodshot and tired-looking. "Back to what you asked—what you said. Can we sit in the kitchen?"

"Sure." Chet helped him back to a seat. "Go ahead. I'm listening."

"I admit it. I cheated on your mother. But not so much after she ran off to the beach that last time. Charles—your grandfather—never gave me the time of day after that. Not that he ever did before. I guess I needed to prove to myself that I could have any woman I wanted. It was never about your mother. I love her. Can't explain it. There were days when ... maybe it was because of my drinking."

"No excuses, Dad." Chet voice rose and he glared at his stepfather. "You said I couldn't use drinking as an excuse for stupid behavior. After what happened at the frat house. Neither should you."

Silence followed, broken by occasional sniffs from his father. "Spoken like a lawyer and you're not even in law school yet."

Was that grudging admiration in his father's voice?

"Okay. It was an excuse. When I usually looked for ... when I'd been drinking, when I was away from home, on business."

"And whenever else you wanted it. You did it then, too." Chet's accusation sounded harsh to his own ears, but he didn't care.

"I was careful. Your mother new knew—or never asked. I never got caught until this last time—and I—mostly I did it out of town."

"But what about those other times, like at that Christmas party, when you were negotiating to take over that other construction company?"

His stepfather's eyes widened. "Huh?"

Chet studied his stepfather's face. Was that fear in the man's eyes before he looked away?

"You know what I'm talking about, who I'm talking about. And remember that little girl at the fair? You and Larry Redstone raped her. Was that the first time? She was barely thirteen."

His father's face turned ashen. "Who told you that?"

"Read it in her diary. I've heard Larry call you Dickhead—every time the two of you go fishing, or on the golf course. And you call him Freckles. She heard it, too. Two big high school boys showing off for your friends." Chet's breath came faster. "And when she was working for that other company. She had no idea you were the same boy who wanted to pop a cherry at the fair. You drove her to the park after the Christmas party and raped her. Again. Oh, you got her drunk first, and maybe you drank right along with her, but I'll bet that was just so she couldn't fight you off. It was all there, in writing. You ruined her life, made her into someone she never would have been if you hadn't used her like that. Admit it!"

The words from the diary were burned into Chet's brain, words written by a terrified child and later in the more precise handwriting of a woman who never expected to have to fight off a man her supervisor had introduced. Jane's sobs told Chet her own heart was breaking for what she must have imagined her mother had to endure. Memories Jane's mother had tried to drown with drink and never could.

His stepfather's hands shook so badly he spilled his coffee. "I—I—where'd you see that diary?"

"Teresa's daughter showed it to me." Chet waited until his father was looking squarely at him, his hands opening and closing spasmodically around the towel now resting on the table. Chet glared at his stepfather, his face pale, blood slowly dripping onto the table from his broken nose.

"You know her. Jane Collins. The child you fathered, you son of a bitch!"

Author's Note: After Jane moves into a new apartment, she finds her mother's diary. What it reveals is heartbreaking for what it says about Jane's mother and what it means for her relationship with Chet. Do you agree with Jane that she must break off what she thought was the love of her life? Why or why not?

If you can't wait for the next episode, go to Amazon.com to buy Family Bonds.

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