My thighs were smarting from the lashes, but I had known worse pain from Mama. I was grateful that Maurice had gone easy on me.
Eli had flown to New York for the day to see about his investments. When he got home that night I made sure I was wearing a short dress, and I made sure to twirl in front of him so he would notice the red marks on the backs of my legs. When I told him about my punishment I saw anger flash in his eyes. He excused himself. A moment later I heard his muffled shouts in another room as my stepfather lay into Mama for mistreating me.
"She's a child, Patricia," Eli shouted. "Children make messes. What about that don't you understand?"
"You love her more than me," Mama sniffed.
"She's my daughter," he answered. "Of course I love her. But I pray she never grows up to be as twisted and spiteful as you. Don't forget, Patricia. That girl is the only reason I haven't tossed you out like yesterday's slops."
I smiled to myself as I listened to my stepfather. He had called me his daughter, a distinction that filled me with pride and joy. I had never known my own father. He was a topic of conversation that was strictly off limits.
The way Eli scolded Mama, I knew it would be a long time before she dared to have me whipped again. Unfortunately she found more subtle ways to torture me. As I grew into a young lady, Mama and I waged a cold war for control of my stepfather's affection. The more I won, the more Mama retreated into resentment, spa treatments, the accumulation of uncomfortable shoes, and tall pours of her favorite wines.
///
By the time I was in high school, Mama's youth had slipped away, and she was no longer the world-class beauty that I remembered from my childhood. She turned to plastic surgery in a last-ditch effort to tighten her sagging skin. The collagen injections were supposed to fill out her thin lips. But the operations turned her into a tight-faced nightmare. Eli never said a word, but he didn't have to. I saw the way he turned from her in disgust.
"I'm not paying for your disfigurement, woman."
"What do you care?" Mama hissed. "You don't need the money. You have barely looked at me in years. Let me have this one thing for myself."
"One thing? Patricia, I have given you everything."
"You stole my best years. I hate you. I hate both of you."
Mama swiveled and stared me down.
"You ungrateful little bitch. I'm your mother. Your own mother! Someday you and your father will pay for ruining my life. I was courted by dozens of suitors. Now … now I'm all alone in this enormous house, surrounded by people who despise me."
"Shut your mouth, Patricia," Eli said. "Shut your mouth, or leave this instant."
Mother fled. Later, when she sent for her things, we learned she had not moved far. She was situated in one of the guest cottages on the far bank of the river that flowed through our estate.
She did not come back to the mansion. We saw her occasionally when Eli and I were playing golf on our side of the river, but Mama never acknowledged us in any way. I begged Eli to cancel her credit cards and divorce her ass, but he refused, not wanting to put me through a bitter custody battle.
"When you're eighteen," he promised, "and your mother can no longer hold any of this over your head. That's when we'll consider a change."
I was never interested in the immature boys at school. With just me and Eli living in the Rutherford mansion, I liked to pretend that he was my husband, and I was his wife. Our ordeal with Mama had only brought him and me closer together.
Although I thought of Eli as my dad, I had eyes that worked just as well as the next person's. I couldn't ignore the fact that Eli was the most handsome man I had ever seen. It was silly to think about, but I had this fantasy that he would divorce Mama as soon as I was a legal adult, and then it would just be him and me from then on.
Sometimes, when I was alone in my bed, my thoughts would drift to other things, things that made me blush when I saw my stepfather the next morning.
"What?" he'd ask, looking puzzled, before returning his attention to the Wall Street Journal and the breakfast that Maurice had prepared.
Then, one night, Mama's cottage caught fire. I had been out with friends. Firefighters were unable to save the structure, and the cottage was a total loss.
My mama's body never found, although a pair of investigators from the fire marshal's office did identify the traces of gasoline used to accelerate the blaze around the perimeter of the home. When the smoke cleared out of the kitchen, they found something the fire could not erase-Mama's own blood.
Her vital fluid had spilled across the kitchen floor just minutes before the fire began. Most of the blood had boiled away from the intense heat, but some had seeped into the grouting of the kitchen tile, where it survived the flames.
Inconvenient clues were uncovered. Eli was the only person at home on the night of the fire. No one else even had access to the gated property. When the investigators learned that Eli had recently liquidated half of his family fortune, they had enough evidence to charge him with first-degree murder in the death of his wife.
Our neighbors were titillated by the tawdry details breathlessly reported on the front page of the local newspaper every morning. Because of such extreme publicity, the prosecution rushed to take the case to trial. They would have no problem finding a jury willing to convict Eli and sentence him to life in prison, no possibility of parole.
I felt like the only person in the world who believed Eli was innocent. With two billion dollars missing and the rest of the fortune used to cover his bail, Eli was unable to afford his own lawyer. Not even the court-appointed attorney pretended to think my stepdad had a chance of beating the charges.
When I went home after my graduation ceremony, I found Eli sitting at the kitchen table. His suit jacket was thrown over the back of a chair, and his expensive-looking tie was loosened at his neck. He looked so handsome in that moment, it took me a second to notice the tray of delicious-looking cupcakes on the table.
///
"You baked?" I asked, incredulous. "You never cooked a thing in your life."
Eli smiled and shrugged. "First time for everything," he said. "Now that Maurice isn't around to cook for us, I had to learn a few new tricks to keep you happy. These are your favorite, right? Cream cheese frosting? And they're not half bad if I say so myself."
I grabbed one closest to me and tasted the glorious frosting, then peeled the paper and nibbled. He was right; the cupcake was yummy.
"Well, I am shocked," I said, licking a daub of frosting from my finger. "You're a natural baker, Daddy."
"I try," he said.
"I'm serious, though," I said between bites. "You could seriously open a bakery if you weren't-"
My eyes widened faster than my mouth clamped shut. There was no way I could finish that sentence. My dad could have been a baker if he wasn't going to prison, but that's not the kind of thing you say to a man enjoying his last days of freedom. We knew the authorities had put a warrant out for his arrest, and he was probably going to be apprehended any day now. But we really had no idea when. It could be next week or maybe a few months from now. The wheels of justice turn slowly, after all. I sat down at the table next to him, not sure what to say or do to break the awkward silence.
Eli took a deep breath and furrowed his brow. Even now, with sadness written across his face, he looked like the man of my dreams. I put my hand on top of his much larger one, enjoying the warmth of his skin. He put another rough hand on top of mine, dwarfing it, and we sat there not talking for a while. I could tell he was trying to gather his thoughts, to tell me something important.
I wished there was something I could do to help relieve his pain. Some way I could please him, to be closer to Eli and give him something to remember me by.
A certain thought crossed my mind. I had always loved Eli as a daughter, but I was no longer a little girl. I was a woman. I felt a tightening in my tummy and a stirring between my legs. I tried to pinch my thighs together, but that only heightened the sensation.
I was eighteen years old, and I had never given myself to a man. If anyone was going to usher me into womanhood, why shouldn't it be the man I loved most?