Page 124 of Start With A Slap

It was 3am. Would he answer his phone if she called him at 3am?

What would she say to him if he did?I’m sorry I said that about your mom, didn’t know she beat and molested you. I should have guessed from all those hints Roxie dropped but I was kind of overwhelmed at the time...

“I saw you,”Roxie had said.

But if she witnessed it, that meant it didn’t stop after he left home — after the cathartic slap that sent him packing. And if Sever still felt obligated to take care of his mother, to see her when he went to Paris... that was one seriously complex relationship.

Mind racing with new questions, she muted the television and typed into her phone’s search box: “Sever Mark mother”.

The only entry with a photo was in French, on a site about the nation’s notable families and their living legacies.

Monique Gentile(mother of business titanSever Mark) of the once thriving Gentile family, said to lose the bulk of its fortune to Englishman Colin Mark, a con artist who impregnated Monique at the age of sixteen.

While with child, she escaped a convent in Northern France and gave birth to Sever (given name Stéphane) in England, presumably to live in secret with his father. However Colin Mark vanished within the year, and his whereabouts remain unknown. Monique was left disowned and penniless in London, where she found work cleaning hotels and became active in several church groups. She currently resides in Paris.

Production of three films based on her life story have been halted by her son over the years, and the scandal itself has been alternately disputed and confirmed by its survivors. The British true crime novel,Devil In Disguise, no longer in print, was a sensationalized account of Colin Mark’s exploits, detailing his myriad aliases, grifts, and the impressive scope of his sexual prowess. The author speculated that Colin had fallen in love with Monique and intended to stay with her, but was hunted down and slain by members of the Gentile family. Offering no evidence to support this theory, the author was discredited and the publisher sued for slander by Mark International Holdings.

Sever Mark has been quoted as saying, “My mother is my greatest motivator.”

(Photographed with son Sever at opening of first Mark Hotel in Paris.)

Ivy wasn’t sure what was more striking: the sad story of his conception, the eye-opening truth about his father, or the chilling fact that Monique Gentile was a dead ringer for Citrine.

Jason came homethe next day, while she was getting Huey ready for his afternoon walk. He didn’t speak or make eye contact as he shed his jacket, took out his keys.

“I was worried about you,” she said.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Where did you sleep?”

With a level gaze, he said, “Not with Kara.”

She looked away. Huey fussed. “I uh, I better walk him.”

“I’ll walk him?—”

“No,” she insisted. “I got it.”

Out on the street, Ivy noticed an idling limousine. It drove away before she got close.

Suspicious — or was it hopeful? — she took out her phone and called Sever.

It didn’t ring. A computerized voice told her the number she dialed was out of service.

Ivy’s heart sank. He changed hisnumberon her?

Maybe he was away. Maybe he wasn’t getting reception.

Maybe he wasthat hurtby what she said.

Jason went out with the boys that night, and the day after. Came home plastered and went straight to bed. She knew whathe was doing, why he was doing it, but there was no talking to him.

She just had to weather the storm.

“I’m sorry,he’s in a meeting right now. Can I take a message?”

According to a person who was not Mayumi, Sever had been in a meeting for two straight days now. Ivy sighed. “No. No message.”

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