Listening to Empty Spaces: A Lost and Found Novel

Chapter One: The Decision

I don't believe in true love.  I don't believe in happy endings. Happy endings are for fairy tales, and fairy tales are just that, made up, pretend crap. I do, however believe in lust, and magnetic attraction.  I've been called jaded and cynical.  But I prefer practical.  I am nothing if not practical.  Come on, I learned from the best.  My mother, Cecilia Loraine Stratton-Winters was on husband number five, and I doubted that he would last more than 12 months, which for my mother was a lengthy relationship.  My mother taught me from an early age that men AND women weren't cut out for committed monogamous relationships.  Marriage was a contract, an agreement, nothing more.  When two people were attracted to one another and met the proposed criteria, they set the terms: short term hook-up, or casual fling.  If the party to whom you were attracted to could bring additional assets to the hook up you considered entering into the agreement of marriage.  It's easy, effective, and beneficial to everyone...and it never lasts.  No, it never lasts.

"Havenlee Grace, I need to speak with you." I hear my mother's cool, composed voice drift up to the second story balcony where I'm currently standing.  My mother's voice never changes.  She's always perfectly collected which in turn resonates in the tone of her voice.  I meet my mom at the bottom of the stairs and keep my eyes level, trained on hers. 

"Mother?"

"Richard will be doing extensive travelling in the months to come."

Richard, my new stepfather was a diplomat.  I rarely saw him.  I liked it that way.  "Yes, mother."

"I've decided to accompany him."

Hmmmm...he was probably planning to campaign soon and wanted my mother on his arm.  My mother was excellent arm candy. 

"We've decided it would be best for you to go live with your father while Richard and I are abroad."

I feel the blood drain from my body, and I go stock still.  For the first time in my life I am frozen.  "I'm sorry, mother, I...I must have heard you wrong."

My mother waves her hand impatiently.  "I hate when people say that.  I always say exactly what I mean.  And I am always clear the first time I speak.  There are never any misunderstandings."

"Mother, I...I don't know my father."

"Then this will be a wonderful opportunity for you to get to know him." I suddenly feel light-headed.  Damn it.  Havenlee Grace Stratten Winters does not get light-headed, EVER!  But this situation feels surreal.  Mother never speaks of my biological father.  Apparently he was her first husband.  They were a couple while my mother attended boarding school in England and married when they both went to the same university.  The few times mother has spoken of my father she has said he was a great disappointment and that it was better that I didn't know him.  When I was younger I found myself wondering about him, but as I grew older and watched my mother marry and remarry I realized that It really didn't matter who my father was.  Men could get women pregnant, but they inevitably left.  So what was the point, really?  But now my mother was telling me I was going to go live with my father? The father I have never met?  What the hell was going on?

"Get that look off of your face, Havenlee Grace.  You'll get premature wrinkles.  You leave tomorrow.  So I need you packed and ready by nine o'clock tonight.  I've put together a schedule for this evening that will maximize your time."

"Can you give me a minute, mother? I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you're sending me to live with a man I have never met.  You told me growing up that this man would make a terrible father, and now you're just shipping me off to live with him?"