“You’re making a fool of yourself. En garde!” Stuart lunged at Bibi, the tip of his foil nicking her shoulder as she parried, her fencing shoes squeaking on the old hardwood floor of the gym. “What else is new?” Thrusting forward, she tried to gain the advantage, but he dodged her blow and she sliced at empty air. Again. Damn, but he was good. Always a natural athlete, Stuart had continually bested her at sports, academics, popularity, conversation, you name it. Several years older, with the edge of testosterone to ke ep him at an advantage, Stuart couldn’t help making her feel that she, his younger sister, was vastly inferior. Yet she k ept trying to beat him, no matter what the contest, so today she’d agreed to this stupid fencing match Of course, she was losing. “I’ve seen you with O’Rourke,” he said, clicking his tongue. “Bad form.” “Seen me?” she r epeated, stunned just as his foil drew a nasty line down the front of her metallic plastron. She’d thought she’d been sneaky, that no one besides her and Daegan had a clue. “Ah, ah, ah.” With a final lunge, he won the match “Never let an opponent destroy your concentration. Sorry, Bibi. You lose.” He tossed off his mask and gloves. His foil clattered to the floor. Snagging a towel from an ancient hook near the window, he swiped at the sweat that had drizzled from his scalp and flattened his usually neat hair. “As for O’Rourke, you’d better leave him be. He’s trouble.” “I don’t think so.” Bibi fingered the button on her foil, bowing the thin blade. It had taken all of her nerve to seek Daegan out again and his rec eption to her had been about as warm as Nantucket Sound in December, but slowly he’d come around, met her for coffee a couple of times, only insisting that she let him buy. He’d become less hostile, not so damned brooding and cynical, and she’d seen past his facade, through his tough act to a glimmer of the boy behind the guarded and wary mask, a side to him that she’d found refreshing. “Besides, he doesn’t even know I’m alive,” she lied, walking over to the window and staring outside through the thick glass. The private gym was spread over the top floor of their house. From this, the fourth floor, she stared down to Louisburg Square, where the first pale rays of sunshine were slanting through branches of trees just starting to leaf. Stuart rotated the kinks from his neck as Bibi pulled off her mask. “Oh, I bet he knows you’re alive and has probably estimated how much you’re worth. He’s under-educated but far from stupid. We’re the ones who should act as if he doesn’t exist.” “Change of heart?” “I just don’t like you getting in volved with him.” She tossed her hair off her shoulders. “I’m not in volved with him or anyone else.” “Don’t lie, Bibi.” Leaning a shoulder against the old window ledge, he rubbed his chin and sighed. “You’re so poor at it. Anyway, I’ve seen you with him and so has Collin.” “Collin?” Her head snapped up and she caught a naughty glint of amusement in her brother’s eye. “That’s right. He wasn’t too pleased, called O’Rourkea... let me get this straight...‘a dumb-ass lowlife who just wants to see what it’s like to get into a rich girl’s pants and drive a car he’ll never be able to afford.’” “What?” Bibi whispered, horrified. It was one thing for Stuart to know what she was doing, but not Collin. At least not yet. So far, nothing had happened between Daegan and her. Not that it would. What she did with him was no one’s business. “Well, something along those lines.” He scratched a shoulder. “Collin hates the bastard. Somehow thinks he might usurp his right as Frank’s firstborn or something.” His smile was cold. “Silly, isn’t it? Just like his old man.”
“You started it by taking Daegan to the summer house.” “And it was fun, admit it. The collective look on our cousins’ faces was priceless! I thought Alicia was going to shit her silk drawers, and Collin, damn but he was nearly apoplectic.” “What about Daegan? How do you think he feels?” “Who cares? Oh! I get it. You care. Perpetual friend of the underdog, righter of wrongs, doer of all that is good in the world.” “Not really.” “But that’s what you’d like us all to think now, isn’t it?” Stuart said as he scooped up his foil as well as hers and hung them neatly in the glass case at the far end of the cavernous room. Weapons of all shapes and sizes were displayed in the cupboard. He fingered a particularly wicked knife with a curved blade. “You’d like us all to believe that you have lofty goals when even you know that you’re a fake.” “I’m not—” “Oh, shove it, Bibi. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know how your mind works and love you anyway.” He locked the cabinet and turned to face her, his features set in that superior, don’t-question-me-as- I’m-damned-close-to-being-a-deity expression that she’d come to loathe. She bristled. “Don’t you have better things to do than spy on me?” “It’s in all our best interests, and mine specifically, to ke ep an eye on you.” “Afraid I might soil your r eputation?” “Don’t you know me by now?” Stuart’s lips stretched into an easy leer. “If anyone dirties my name, believe me, it’ll be me and I’ll do the deciding of how, who, when, and where.” His voice was suddenly oily, as if he found the thought of crossing whatever moral line he’d drawn in his head seductive. “I thought you wanted to get to know him.” Scowling, he draped the towel around his neck and settled onto a bench of the exercise unit, doing leg curls as he stared at the ceiling. As children, they’d shared their de epest secrets in this room where they’d played, worked out, and sought sanctuary whenever the pressures of being solid, upright Sullivans had become too great. Bibi had practiced ballet at the barre until she’d become too tall and gangly, and Stuart had polished his tennis and squash strokes against the far wall in this room that smelled of generations of Sullivan sweat mingling with lemon-scented oil that was used to wash the floors and walls. The weights clicked softly with each push of Stuart’s muscular thighs. “I guess you have a point,” he admitted in un-Stuart-like fashion. “I would like to know him—to find out what makes him tick. Hey, would you add a little weight—ten pounds, I think,” he said as Bibi, trained from her youth to do whatever he asked, adjusted the pins in the heavy bars. “I guess he’s interesting in a perverted kind of way.” Stuart was sweating again, his face reddening as he k ept pushing on the weights. “Why do you think Frank ke eps a mistress for twenty years but completely ignores her kid—his bastard? Why, when it’s common knowledge that he’s got this... well, this other family for lack of a better word... are we forbidden to talk about it? Why doesn’t Aunt Maureen divorce him or force him to give the slut up?” “Pride.” “Stupidity, if you ask me.”
“Maybe she takes lovers herself,” Bibi mused and Stuart laughed out loud. “Can you imagine Maureen doing it with anyone? I think it’s a miracle that she’s got three kids. That means she had to have sex with Frank at least three times.” His face twisted in revulsion and he said in the high falsetto he used to mimic his aunt, “How messy!” “Stop it.” But she couldn’t help smiling. Aunt Maureen put the tight in uptight. “You’re the one who’s perverted.” “Yeah, but I have to work at it. With Frank it comes naturally—kind of like a gift. Maybe from God.” “You’re wicked,” she teased and his gaze settled into hers in that heart- stopping way she found so unnerving. Sometimes it was as if he could read her mind, see past the barriers she’d so carefully erected, and find his way to the darkest part of her soul. “So are you, Bibi. And it doesn’t stop there. You’re as perverted as the rest of us.” His smile had disappeared and he was suddenly dead serious. “Don’t turn this around on me—” “You can’t have him.” Her heart stopped. “It’s not decent. Practically incestuous.” He said the word as if it tasted delicious. “I think you’re fascinated with him because he’s the forbidden fruit, you know, kind of like Eve in the Garden of Eden with the snake and the apple.” “And where do you fit in this scenario?” “I’m the snake, of course.” “And Daegan’s the apple?” “Right... and Collin, he’s Adam, isn’t he?” “Don’t be silly,” she said, flushing. “If you say so. Just be wary of the bastard O’Rourke.” “I feel sorry for him, okay?” Bibi lied as she shook her hair away from her face. “Sorry for him? For the love of Christ, why?” “He’s poor.” “But free.” “Free?” “Hell, yes. He doesn’t have the responsibility of being a Sullivan. He doesn’t have to come at anyone’s beck and call, does he? Just hangs out in pool halls and bars until he gets kicked out, ke eps the hours he wants, and doesn’t have to worry that someone isn’t the right social station.” Stuart let the weights drop with a clang. “That’s freedom. Something you or I won’t ever feel.” “But he doesn’t have any money.” “Maybe he doesn’t need it. Maybe money’s just a trap to ke ep a person in line.” “Wait a minute. For years you’ve been telling me that wealth is freedom.”
He climbed to his feet, snatched his towel, and started for the door. She was right on his heels. “I hate to admit it, but maybe I was wrong,” Stuart said. “Just for a week, I’d love to feel what it’s like to be my own master— dirt poor but able to make my own choices in life. Just for once”—he said, opening the door to the winding st eps leading downstairs—“I’d like to tell Dad to ‘fuck off.’” She could barely believe her ears. Stuart liked to use foul language behind his father’s back, but he’d never seemed so vehement before, so angry. Even now, after a strenuous workout, his muscles were bunched, his jaw tight. “So why’re you giving me so much grief about seeing Daegan?” she asked, her finger trailing on the rail as they hurried down the stairs. “Because you’re getting too in volved. Losing your objectivity. All winter long you k ept going and visiting him. Instead of looking at him clinically, like a lab specimen, you’re beginning to think of him as family... or possibly more. He’ll start to get ideas.” “I think he’s interesting, that’s all.” “Oh, sure!” Stuart made a sound of amused disgust and stopped at the final landing, where he turned and faced Bibi on the stair above him. “O’Rourke’s dangerous as hell. You’d be smart to stay away from him.” “And you’d be smart to stop spying on me.” “Would I?” His gaze smoldered for a second, raking down the front of her, as if her fencing jacket and breeches were made of clear plastic wrap. “Careful, sis, you’re playing with fire.” “That’s right, Stu, and you can’t make me stop.” He hooked an eyebrow skyward and clucked his tongue. “A challenge, Bibi? You’re throwing a challenge in my face? Haven’t you learned anything yet?” His eyes sparkled with a fierce anticipation. “I never lose.” “Frank’s coming over tonight and I think it would be nice if you stuck around.” Mary Ellen was seated on the faded stool in front of her vanity and tilting her head this way and that as she twisted her hair and pinned it to her head. The radio was playing softly. Neil Diamond’s voice warbled through the small rooms. “Why should I stay?” Not that he was really interested, “We have a lot to discuss. You’re nearly finished with high school; it’s time to think about college and Frank promised to—” “I don’t want his money.” “Don’t start with me,” she warned. “He’s paying lots for Collin to go off to Harvard—” “That’s different.” “You’re his son—” “I’m not!” he said harshly. “Don’t you get it? God, Ma, what would it take for you to understand? He doesn’t claim me and I don’t want him.” The song ended and a DJ started talking about local news. “Hog wash.” Mary Ellen snapped off the radio. “I’m serious, Ma. The minute I turn eighteen, I’m outta here. We’ve already talked about it.” “But I didn’t think you meant it.” She pasted her most wounded look on her face as she slid big gold hoops through her earlobes, but Daegan didn’t let it get to him. Not this time. It was better if he left—better for her, better for Bibi, better for him. Life was more confusing than ever. He grabbed his house key and reached for his jacket. “Don’t go,” she begged forlornly.
“I have to,” he said, turning and seeing, in the mirror’s reflection, the pain in her eyes. She was scared. Frightened of losing her only son and certain that the man she’d let mistreat her for nearly twenty years would throw her out once his bastard was on his own. She would no longer have the golden chain looped around Frank Sullivan’s neck forcing them to be together, but Daegan figured it was for the best. He reached the door when it banged open and the bane of their existence strode in. Red faced, his nostrils quivering with rage, he cast one quick look at his mistress before zeroing in on Daegan. “Who the hell do you think you are?” “Frank?” His mother’s voice wobbled, but Daegan was on the balls of his feet, smelling the fight that had been simmering between him and his old man for as long as he could remember. All he wanted was one good shot. Mary Ellen st epped out of the bedroom. “Frank, honey, please—” “Let him say his piece,” Daegan cut in. “Do you know what the boy’s been up to?” Frank demanded, his eyes focused on Mary Ellen. “Do you? I’ll tell you what. He’s been hanging out with Robert’s daughter. Even showed up at the lake house last winter, confronted Collin and the girls.” He hooked a meaty thumb at his chest. “At my kids. Do you know what Maureen did when she found out?” He shook a fist at Daegan. “She’s talking to her damned lawyer, some hot-shot divorce attorney in Manhattan! You know what that means?” Mary Ellen’s face changed. Hope gleamed in her eyes. “That you’ll finally be free.” “Yeah and broke. She’s gonna wipe me out.” “But then we could be together. Oh, Frank.” He stared at her as if she’d said she’d just been visited by aliens from Mars. “Are you nuts? You think that’s what I want? To what? Marry you? For the love of God, woman, sometimes I swear you don’t have a brain in that pretty head of yours. I’ve told you over and over again that it’s out of the question.” Daegan hated him. Mary Ellen’s voice was weak and she stood in her best green dress, her hair washed and brushed, her eyes glistening. “I—I don’t understand,” she said but everyone in the room knew it was a lie. “Ma, forget it.” “Sure you do, babe. You understand, you just don’t want to admit it. All these years you’ve been sitting here waiting for something to happen between me and Maureen, but even if it did, nothing would change.” A muscle in Frank’s jaw was jumping wildly, like a caged beast hurling itself at the gate. “I’ll make it clear for you, so that even you can get the picture. Maureen will put up with you and him”—he pointed a blunt finger at Daegan—“as long as you know your place, ke ep quiet, stay away from the house and from my kids. She doesn’t care if I screw my brains out with you or anyone else—” Mary Ellen gave a little squeak of protest. “But she doesn’t want it thrown in her face. So you and your kid better not—” “Stop,” Daegan growled, turning on the man who had sired him. “Say what, boy?” “I said stop yelling at my mother and get out.” “Daegan, no,” Mary Ellen warned.
“Me get out? Now, that’s funny. Real funny.” Frank shook his head as if he couldn’t understand the boy’s stupidity. “I have news for you, kid. I pay for this place. That’s right. I pay for the rent, your schooling, and buy your ma a new dress or underwear whenever she needs it. I’m good to her.” “Bull.” Frank took a st ep toward him. “Mary Ellen, you’d better shut your boy up.” “Get out,” Daegan said, not budging. He was closer than he’d ever been to his father and he wasn’t backing down. Not this time. “I’m not going anywhere.” “Of course you aren’t, Frank,” Mary Ellen said, reaching for his arm. “You just got here, honey.” Daegan’s stomach churned and his fists clenched at his sides. Frank shook Mary Ellen’s clinging hands away. “You know, boy, I can do what I damn well please because not only can I kick both of your sorry asses out of here, but I can fire your ma as well, make sure she gets no references so that no one else will hire her. I can do that—make your lives a living hell.” “You already have,” Daegan said, unable to control his tongue. “You ungrateful little shit, I should whip you into showing some respect!” “And I should cut off your balls.” “No! Oh, God, no! Don’t, Daegan, don’t do this,” Mary Ellen begged. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” Then she turned to Frank. “He’s just a boy.” “Yeah, and he needs to learn a lesson I should’ve taught him a long time ago.” “No, no, no. Stop. Please, just stop,” she whispered. Mary Ellen was crying now, huddled in a corner, tears and black mascara running down her face, but Daegan couldn’t control the rage that had been burning in him for years. He hurled himself at Frank Sullivan, his body slamming into that of his father. They reeled against the wall. A chair flew out of the way. Frank bellowed. Mary Ellen screamed. “You little prick!” Frank’s body was hard and heavy, honed from hours working out in a gym. His fist crashed into Daegan’s face, then a left cross connected, snapping Daegan’s head backward and sending him spinning to bounce off the wall. Plaster cracked. His mother wailed. The metallic taste of blood filled Daegan’s throat. “Stop!” Mary Ellen cried. “Please, Frank, for the love of God!” Stunned, Daegan rounded and tried to land another blow, but Frank came at him with two left jabs to the stomach. Daegan doubled over and Frank kicked him hard between the legs. Pain, like fire, roared through his crotch. He bit back a scream, fought the tears that burned in his eyes. Spitting blood, his head and groin throbbing, he staggered to his feet and stood on rubbery legs. “Daegan, don’t. Frank, please—” Mary Ellen was sobbing loudly and hysterically as Frank, his eyes burning like hot coals, advanced on his son. “I should have done this a long time ago, k ept you in line. Your ma sure as hell didn’t.”
“So come on,” Daegan encouraged, his mouth already swelling. “You’ve wanted to for years.” “You stupid kid.” “Come on!” Daegan swung at his father, but Frank ducked. “Oh, God, no, please—Frank, baby, don’t,” Mary Ellen pleaded. “I tried to talk her out of havin’ you, ya know,” Frank swore. “There was a doctor who would have helped us out of the jam we were in, but the damned church doesn’t believe in abortion and I’m not riskin’ goin’ to hell, not for the likes of you. But you,” he said, breathing hard and staring at Mary Ellen, “you should have given him up, like I told you. Saved us both a lot of embarrassment.” “Screw you!” Daegan yelled. “Oh, you have, kid. And let me tell you this, so you’d better get it straight. You are not and never will be my son. Let me put all this in terms you’ll understand so that we’ll be clear on it, okay? Your mother, she’s my whore.” “Oh, no, Frank, you don’t mean it,” Mary Ellen said, then stared at Daegan. “This is all because you’ve riled him up.” Frank wasn’t finished. “She does what I want when I want and how I want. A good woman. Knows her place. I take care of her and she appreciates it.” He said it as if he meant it, as if he really cared about her in his own weird way. “But you, you’ve been a pain in the butt since the day you were born. Nothin’ I can do about it, but you stay away from my kids. Do what you want with Robert’s, but ke ep away from mine.” “You stay away from my ma.” “Daegan, no!” Mary Ellen wailed. “What?” Frank said. “Don’t you get it, kid? Without me, your ma’s nothin’, just a pretty woman who’s getting older—a woman who no other decent man would look at because of her useless kid. If it wasn’t me ke eping her, it would have to be some other guy—someone who might not be as nice as me. She’d be another man’s whore.” Daegan came around again, this time landing a bone-crushing blow to Frank’s face that jarred him up his entire arm. Blood sprayed from Frank’s nose. With a shriek of pain and outrage, Frank let loose, pummeling Daegan’s belly so hard he heard his ribs crack. Like a bloodied heavyweight contender, Frank landed blow after blow, ignoring Mary Ellen’s screams and the sounds of voices outside. Daegan spat on his father. Frank swore and grabbed him by the front of his jacket. “You dumb little bastard.” “Frank, don’t, oh, dear God, don’t!” His mother was sobbing. Crack! Pain seared through Daegan’s face as his father’s fist slammed into his nose and blood spurted. Daegan spun back against the wall and slithered to the floor. “Don’t get up,” Frank, breathing hard, ordered. Daegan struggled to his hands and knees and his mother screamed. “You never learn, do ya kid?” Breathing hard, Frank hauled Daegan to his feet. His legs were like jelly and Frank laughed. “Yeah, you’re not as tough as you think you are.”
His mother was out of the corner and clinging on her lover’s arm, wailing, trying to ke ep Frank from hitting Daegan again. “For the love of God, Frank, don’t hurt him. He’s your son, your flesh and blood.” “Humph.” Eyes de ep with rage burned into Daegan. “Then it’s my duty to show you your place. Now, you miserable punk, if you ever so much as look at me or my family again, I’ll kill you.” “Try,” Daegan goaded through teeth that rattled and he spit again, a bloody wad of spittle splashing Frank in the face. Frank’s fist balled and blasted into Daegan’s face. Daegan dropped to the floor. Mary Ellen shrieked. “You’ve killed him, oh, God, Frank, look what you’ve done! Baby, oh, baby.” She was on her knees beside Daegan, touching him, her tears splashing on him. “Leave him alone,” Frank ordered. “But he’s hurt—” “I said, leave him alone.” Blackness threatened to overtake Daegan. He saw his father yank his mother to her feet. “Now I came here for a reason. Let’s get to it.” “I can’t. Not now—Daegan needs a doctor.” She was white and scared and it was all Daegan could do to stay conscious. “We have to help him.” “You have to take care of me,” he reminded her. “The kid’ll be okay. He’s out of control, Mary Ellen, he needed to be taught a lesson.” “No, Frank, I can’t—” He lifted her off her feet and staggered into the bedroom. “I hear ‘no’ at home,” he said, throwing her into the room and slamming the door behind him; but still the ugly words se eped through the door. “From you, I expect ‘yes’ and ‘whatever you want, baby.’” “But Daegan—” Slap! The sound echoed through the room and was chased by a horrifying shriek. “Frank, don’t!” Slap. Another wail. Daegan dragged himself to his feet, spitting and coughing and thinking of the gun that he’d hidden in the mattress of the hide-a-bed. His mother was screaming and Frank was spouting obscenities. “The boy will be all right, but the sooner you take care of me, the quicker we can call a doctor.” “No, no, no!” Slap! “Undress.” “Frank, what’s happened? We have to see about Daegan—” Slap! Thunk. “I said take your clothes off, goddamn it, or you’ll get the beating of your life!” “You wouldn’t,” she said, her voice quavering in fear. Daegan wanted to throw up. He struggled to his knees and wretched up blood. “Don’t, don’t, don’t, please, no—” she screamed and fabric tore. “You’re in for the fuck of your life, baby,” Frank snarled. Daegan, fighting the blinding pain, crawled to his bed. He reached the couch and felt up inside the frame where he’d taped the gun. His mother screamed and sobbed. Head pounding, he didn’t think of anything other than he had to end it. Once and for all. They couldn’t go on this way. Now or never. Slap! Flesh hit flesh and his mother whimpered, but Frank was feeling better. “That’s more like it,” he was saying and Daegan imagined him doing all sorts of vile things to his mother. “See, honey, oh, God, that’s it... oh God.” The
springs began to creak, faster and faster. “No!” he yelled, but his voice was only a whisper and he felt impotent, unable to help the woman who had brought him into the world. Gritting his bloody teeth, Daegan wrapped sticky fingers around the gun and dragged it from its hiding place, then crawled painstakingly across the floor. The bedroom door wasn’t locked, and still on all fours, he willed himself into the room and saw his father half-dressed and grunting, rutting like an enraged animal atop his mother. Her best green dress was in tatters, tears stood in her eyes, and her face was already starting to bruise where he’d hit her. Using the door frame for support, Daegan pulled himself upright, standing on legs that threatened to give way. He caught a glimpse of the pain in her face, of the feeling of hopelessness that was her life just before she glanced in his direction. “Daegan, no!” Frank stiffened. “What the hell?” She let out a scream that echoed through the room. Frank twisted so that he could see the doorway and Daegan, sagging against the frame, the gun shaking in his fingers. Fear jelled his father’s features. “Jesus Christ, kid, what’d’ya think you’re doin’?” He started to scramble off the bed. Someone pounded on the front door. “Hey—what’s going on in there?” a loud male voice demanded. Mary Ellen grabbed the comforter covering her breasts. “Daegan, don’t, put that down—” she shrieked, sliding to the floor in a tangle of bed sheets. “NO!” Daegan squeezed the trigger.