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Chapter 16 Alexander's flashback

I call my father's personal phone a couple of times, but he doesn't pick up. I then call his office and his secretary tells me he is not available at the moment. It's rather strange really, because today we didn't have much to attend to and he should have left the office by now.
Back when he was young and I was still a little boy, he would many times work until late and he would even spend the night at the office, or at least that's what my mom would tell me, when I wouldn't go to bed without saying goodnight to him. He has a small room interlinked to his office, with a bed, a full wardrobe and a shower. I never saw it before that day... The day that marked my life for ever.
Mom and I went to pay him a visit, since we hadn't seen him for days. I remember feeling so proud of who my dad was. She was too. She would always tell me how hard he was working and how much he has accomplished, but mostly that all of these, were difficulty earned only for us, his family, and that maintaining the successful course of the company took a lot of time and effort, so we had to sacrifice some things as a family, in order for us to keep enjoying the wealthy lifestyle we were accustomed to having.
Everyone would treat us like royals and I knew I was very special because all the people in the building were being so kind to me, continuously asking if I needed anything and would give me treats and the attention that an eight year old wouldn't normally get from all those people.
When we reached his office, I remember my mother arguing with his secretary to let us in. She said he was in the middle of an important meeting and couldn't see us for the next half an hour and she suggested we used the top floor's restaurant until then. I don't know if she already knew something or it was a feeling she had, but she pushed the woman violently away and walked in the empty office. I stayed behind as my father's secretary was holding me tight, preventing me to see whatever my mom saw that made her looking like a ghost, when she came out of that little room in my father's office. She passed by me as if I wasn't even there and she just left, leaving me behind. My father came running out only seconds later, still tucking his shirt back in his trousers and looked at me with a look I had never seen before. He was usually so emotionless, that I knew something huge was going on.
Not a minute later, a young man came out of that room looking as guilty as I used to look, whenever I would break something that I wasn't allowed to play with. It wasn't until my teenage years that I realized what the two men were actually doing in that room and I remember throwing up the moment the realization hit me.
My poor mother! She went through hell and back for the next years to pass. She had sunk deep in depression and couldn't get her head above the ocean of misery and self pity that was drowning her making her suffocate emotionally and finally committing suicide two years later.
I was only ten when she gave up trying. I remember that day as if it was yesterday. She made me lunch, which she hadn't done for a long time and she read me a story. I told her off, annoyed by her treating me like a child, but I gave into her bizarre request, when I saw the look in her eyes. That same look I had seen in Claire's eyes three times already since I met her, which is why I worry about her so much.
I can now still feel her arms forming a tight hug on my body and telling me she loved me more than anything, minutes before I heard the housekeeper screaming and my nanny grabbing me violently, preventing me from going upstairs, suffocating me in her arms, sobbing, hidden in my tiny neck. Minutes later, my father had come and I remember seeing him crying for the first and last time, during my entire life. He didn't even cry at the funeral.
I also remember crying and complaining that I didn't want to go to the ceremony, but he made me. He said I had to grow stronger, as life wasn't going to be easy for me from now on and I had an obligation to be there for my mother. He claimed she could see me from above and she would always look after me. I didn't take that in the way I was supposed to, because I had to spend months of therapy to free myself from the thought that I was being followed from my mother's ghost that had haunted my nights for a very long time.
I can still remember the smell of the moist dirt and the chill passing through my bones. It was like a Greek tragedy. My grandma would collapse every other minute and my grandpa looked as if he came back from the future, looking twenty years older. Everyone was crying apart from my dad. His expression was blank and it reminded me of my mom's look on that horrid day and now Claire's. I suddenly remember where I am and I look behind to where she sleeps. Thankfully she seemed peaceful.
My father's mother never came to the funeral as she was closer with her daughter in law, rather than her own son and couldn't bear to face him, as she grew to hate him after everything that happened. When I was little, I remember being confused about it and thinking that she was my mom's mother instead of my dad's. Obviously I understood the relationship later on, but my childish mindless assumption, only came from the much endeared relationship those two women shared.
My grandmother has still not forgiven my dad for what he did. She has never spoken to him since and although she would visit me often, she would make sure my father wasn't there. She lost her husband at a very young age, so young that I never got to know him.
My beloved nanny was the only person who would actually comfort me, besides my grandmother. My mom's parents lived across the country and it was not easy for us to meet so often. They argued very intensely with my father and demanded that I would go live with them, claiming I would have a better life, but he was a very powerful man and he never allowed it, even when they tried to gain custody through court. I don't know how my life would have turned out to be if they had won the trial.
My mother had two more sisters, Anne and Samantha. Both of them older than her, married with kids, living a simple quiet life, close to my grandparent's house. I only saw my cousins every other holiday and didn't really have much of a family bond with them.
My life was a mess after my mom left and my father wasn't around much. Instead of being there for me, nightmare after nightmare, trouble after trouble, he was even more absent from my life than before. I began to cause problems at school and I was a sad and lonely child, with very few friends left, who weren't the best ones out of the bunch. They were my only influence at the time and instead of getting better, I got even worse.
I grew up to be a rich spoiled bad boy, surrounded by people who would be in my life only to benefit from my money and status. My only true friend was Ronan and I really can't understand how he would still put up with all my shit. He has proved his friendship too many times and has pulled me out of my miserable life as a fucked up young adult enraged with the world, back when we were still freshmen in college. I would take advantage of every single girl that would come to my way and I would even occasionally use drugs to ease my pain and forget the reality of my life.
After him sticking around for me and proving he was there because he truly cared, I gradually grew up and left the bad boy in me behind, isolating completely from everyone else. I had only him in my life, along with lots of occasional girlfriends of course, but none meant nothing to me really.
I became a good friend to him too and I know I have repaid all my debt toward him. I was by his side at every challenge life would throw in his way and supported him through thick and thin, like when his license got temporarily revoked and he started drinking. I remember moving in with him at the time, cleaning up after his vomiting and making sure he would get this mess sorted out. A patient's family had accused him of criminal negligence while on medical duty, which with the help of my lawyers was proven as a false accusation without even ever going to trial, so his medical record is spotless.
All I did after leaving behind that bad boy phase, was to study hard until I managed to graduate college with honors. Then, I left New York and moved to France to have my masters degree in business administration. I was so happy to leave that house and never to come back. My father sold it right after I moved to France and he put all the money in my trust fund. He is now living in a ridiculously luxurious apartment with this woman named Teresa, whom I refuse to meet. I remember confronting him one night, while extremely intoxicated, yelling and telling him I knew he was gay and that he should at least be honest to himself and me, after everything we had to edure because of that. I wasn't going to meet some woman he was just using as a cover to his real sexual preferences, to maintain his reputation and social status.
He was trying to convince me he wasn't really gay and that it was a one time thing only, that he had tried purely out of curiosity and boredom after sleeping with too many women already and that's when I punched him, breaking his nose. I was screaming like a mad person telling him off, for implying that my mother bored him. "So, you killed my mom because you were bored?" Those words were worse than my punch. I couldn't control myself, as the next thing I expected to hear, was him accusing her indirectly for being responsible for his little "experimental" experience and the impact it all eventually had on our family. I demanded he would man up and take responsibility for his actions and then I laughed in his face when I realized the irony of asking a gay person to man up.
The phone interrupts my painful memories. I pick it up, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt, that were wet from previously crying, without me even realizing it.