Blood lines

Blood lines part 4

That's Carlos, she thought. Always making a show. Like last night, at dinner, whisking her emptied wine glass onto his tray, wearing those ridiculous white gloves the old man insisted on when Carlos served dinner. How he must despise the old man...how he must despise us.

Yet she couldn't help but notice his good looks. Roberta smiled. Maybe...

But such thoughts would have to wait. For now.

She went into the library, closing the huge double doors behind her. Hundreds of leather-bound books loomed over her like dark angels from high, shadowed shelves. Roberta went to her usual table by the bay window. She sat in the overstuffed chair, sunlight splintered into dusty streams by the thick blinds.

Finally, she pulled an old book down from a shelf, and began idly flipping the pages.

So easy...

Of course, she'd hated the old man for as long as she could remember. Despite the family's wealth, the mansion in upstate New York, the trips to Europe when she was young, the gifts.

But how he'd mistreated her mother. Beat her, and humiliated her in front of his cronies, the other family bosses; those large and dangerous men who always seemed to be in their house. And he'd cheated on her, openly, with "actresses" and "models."

Roberta had felt his hand, and the sting of his belt, all her young life. Even at the party for her First Holy Communion, when he'd caught her eavesdropping on a whispered conversation with that Congressman. She hadn't understood a word, not one word, but he'd slapped her anyway, repeatedly, her tears staining her brand new white Communion dress.

He was a tyrant at home, as well as a monster in life. Even in private school in Switzerland, she'd read in the papers about the attempts by the U.S. Attorney to bring him to trial. One time they thought they had a case, the court date was set—but the witness soon "disappeared."

How she'd hated growing up in that house; hated seeing her mother wither before her time. And she'd been such a beauty when she'd married the old man; Roberta had seen the pictures.

The only fatherly presence in her life, and the only solace for her mother, had been the parish priest. He knew how they suffered, and hovered about as much as possible—drinking tea in the afternoons with her mother, taking them both to the parish Carnival, and the Christmas pageant. He was always so attentive, so kind...

A sound behind her made her start. The maid, Maria, had just come in to clean. Roberta, willing herself not to turn, could just see her out of the corner of her eye.

Maria, head bent, muttered a quick apology and exited. Roberta guessed the maid's thoughts. Poor sad girl. Sits all day with the dead books, turning pages...

Even though Roberta had pitied her own mother, who'd grown old and ill in the don's house, more and more, she stayed away, finally choosing to live and go to college in Paris.

Until that day the overseas call came, and she flew back to sit at her mother's bedside, as she lay dying. The old man had fled the country years before, hours ahead of a Grand Jury indictment. It was just the two of them now.
"Should I send for Father Tom?" Roberta had asked, clasping her mother's hand.

But her dying mother had shaken her head. No, there wasn't time. Besides, there was something she needed to tell Roberta. Something she must know...

How hard it had been, watching her mother die. But harder still hearing her last words. Because, in those final moments, Roberta's world turned upside-down.

Thomas...Father Hobart...he was her real father. Her mother and Hobart had had an affair, many years before. He was a new priest, torn by desires he couldn't control; she a dangerous man's lonely young wife.

When her mother had become pregnant, they knew they had to end their relationship. Never suspecting, the old don thought the baby was his. A miracle from God, a child in his advancing years...

Even now, six months after laying her mother to rest, Roberta could feel the pain that had engulfed her. All those years, the priest as a kind of uncle, a refuge... nothing but a lie.

How could he have denied her like that? Let her grow up believing she was the daughter of that man, that monster?

After the funeral, she'd confronted Hobart, lashed out at him. No matter how he begged, how much he castigated himself for his weakness, she wouldn't forgive him. He was weeping piteously as she slammed the door on her way out.

It wasn't until she'd returned to school in France the following week that she learned of his failed suicide attempt. The gun in his trembling hand; the bullet he'd tried to put in his brain.

Of course, the Diocese had no choice but to remove him from the parish. On the advice of his superiors, he was sent on retreat to a monastery overseas.

Leaving Roberta with two fathers, she thought bitterly, and yet with none.