Protect & Serve(60)

3





Chapter 3





The more I stewed over the fact that my mother—a woman of almost fifty years—was pregnant by my stepfather, the more I considered bleaching away the thought with a few bottles of much-too-expensive wine. I honestly couldn’t believe that they’d even managed to pull it off, what with my mother having sworn from hell to horizon that she’d never again go through the burden of childbirth after I’d been born.

That was the beginning of our very strained relationship. I loved my mother, I supposed, as all children did. But I also recognized that she was a class-A narcissist, and I’d spent my childhood imagining her as both a misunderstood saint, and the monster hiding under my bed.

For all the “trouble” she’d went through to bring me into this world—something she never, ever let me forget—she expected me to be her crutch in return. I was never doted upon, except in public, where my mother might advance her station in life. I vaguely remembered the few years we’d lived in a New York apartment with a bunny-eared TV set and cans of creamed corn to eat every night. I was very young then, no more than two or three, but trauma has a way of giving even your oldest memories teeth.

Mother had been so unhappy then. And she’d blamed it, mostly, on me. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, she’d still be that senator’s mistress. I was to blame. I’d created this mess. So in her mind, it was only “fair” that I got her out of it.

I suppose it was all those soap operas she watched that first gave her the idea as to how she could better herself once again. I was to be part of this charade, perhaps even the most important part—I’d be playing the role of the sophisticated, well-educated daughter who deserved more than the American education system could provide. My mother, by comparison, was the widow of an English attaché who’d perished in the September 11th attacks. Mother was nothing, if not opportunistic. I think her family crest might say something like, “Never let a good tragedy go to waste.”

This ruse meant I’d had to learn a posh British accent, study endlessly to meet the academic benchmarks of a “gifted European child,” as my mother put it, and endure countless etiquette classes meant to train the upper crust in exhibiting their classist natures with style. This started when I was barely old enough to read, but my mother spared me no leniency, nor did she spare me the back of her hand. Among other things.

I shook my head, trying not to think about it. She’d changed after she met her new husband, let go of that chain she’d wound around my neck, if only a little. I was still expected to never embarrass the family or sully her name, even indirectly. How a woman so frigid could conceive a child at all was beyond me.

But apparently one thing had led to another, and now not only was I going to be a big sister, but I was also expected to act the part. I was a busy woman, a woman who had better things to do than help my mother especially on any kind of emotional level—if my mother could even comprehend any emotional help I could offer.

I looked deep into the crystal wineglass in my hand, pondering the ripples that this one little event would have on the rest of my life—hopefully not much, seeing as I was not even set to inherit my stepfather’s assets or title. But there was still a sensation in my gut that filled me with an unexplainable sense of impending dread, as though this small little thing would change more than just the number of heirs my parents had at their disposal.

I took a long, slow drink from the deep red liquid, letting the taste of the wine flow over my tongue before setting the glass down on the table. I sat there in the dark of my office wondering just how much of the bottle I’d already managed to tear through.

This shouldn’t be bothering me as much as it is, I thought, leaning back in my comfortable office chair. I let myself become wrapped in the stillness and silence of my empty office. I’d sent Tina home early after the debacle with Lord Adderby, she’d had more than enough to deal with and we were thankfully free of any other appointments that day. I had more than enough time to sit by myself and collect my thoughts after being blindsided so thoroughly by that horrific news.

Why was I getting so upset about this? It was my mother’s issue, and whether I made it a point of being in my soon-to-be half-sibling’s life was mine. Maybe I felt sorry for the half-formed fetus gestating inside of my emotionally distant mother, wondering if—given his place as a male aristocrat—she hoped that her new son would give her some sense of pride that I could never have done. It was that thought that prompted me to pour myself another glass of wine.