Page 71 of The Enemy

I might have laid the blame at Richard’s feet, but I was just as guilty as he was. He was the only one not blowing up my phone. That’s why when he sent me an email, I actually looked at it.

I wished I hadn’t done it, though.

My phone rang, and it was my mother again. I sent her to voicemail. I knew it was driving her mad. Maybe it was heartless of me to turn my back on her when her world was also crashing down. She knew damn well that Richard would never take her side, not against his daughter, and Lou basically declared war when she walked out of that meeting room.

At some point, we had to stop making excuses for shitty parents, and I was at that point.

I looked at the time, and I was fifteen minutes earlier for my lunch meeting. I almost laughed at that. How cold and fucked up was it that I had to have an appointment to finally talk to my older sister?

All my life, my siblings have wanted nothing to do with me.

I left them alone.

I might have resented them growing up, but now I didn’t really care. On a whim, I called to meet with Celest, and for some reason, she agreed to meet up with me. Maybe it was the fact that she recently lost her son that she felt more amenable to, or that she wanted to gloat about the shit show I was involved in. Whatever her reasoning was, I was grateful.

I only had to wait a few minutes for her to show up. When she came to the table, I got up and helped her to her chair, and I guess it was progress when she didn’t curse me out for it. I’m pretty sure the last time I was this close to her was the day our father passed away.

“We have the same nose,” I blurted out.

She looked at me incuriously.

“Is that what you want to talk about, Nathaniel?”

My jaw clenched at the use ofthatname.

“It’s Neo,” I corrected her. “That name should have never been mine.”

She didn’t have a response to that. Celest picked up her water and took a sip. I had many relatives that would never be my family. Tatum liked to joke that the reason I kept up with them was so I didn’t end up fucking one of my great-nieces.

“I’m not sure if Nathaniel told you we briefly chatted at the Whitmore ball,” I told her.

“He didn’t mention it to me,” she replied as the waiter came toward us, but she waved him off.

“He mentioned our father didn’t want…the pregnancy.”

He didn’t want me.

She took a few seconds to talk, and I sat there watching her, wondering if this would be the last time I talked to her. Would the next time I saw her be at her funeral? How fucking sad was that?

“I can see it in your eyes that you know the answer to that already…” she sighed. “Old age has made me tired. I can’t remember why I was mad at you in the first place…” I snorted, and how she looked at me made me feel like a scolded child. “Our father loved you. He might not have wanted you, but he gave you the love he could give you at that time. He was old, Neo, and he was tired. Your mother knew that. She was a dalliance. A hot trophy wife. She was a pretty possession to him, and it bit him in the ass. Our father was no saint; if he didn’t want the mess, he should have stayed a widow.”

“My mother forced his hand?”

I couldn’t even look at her as I asked that.

“She did, and it cost her. After she ended up pregnant, our father knew he couldn’t trust her. He made Nathaniel Jr. his power of attorney…” She paused, and this time she looked away. When our eyes met again, she looked remorseful. “A few years later, she tried getting pregnant again. By that point, our father was done with her. He gave you enough money to survive, and it saddened him that he couldn’t give you more without her getting her claws in your inheritance. At that point, you became a pawn for a bitter old man and an ambitious wife.”

I didn’t even know what to say. I was sure Celest could have worded this differently. She could have made it hurt. There was a word she could have called my mother, one that was ugly, and it would have been deserved.

“Thank you for meeting me,” I said as I got up. “You don’t have to worry about me bothering you again.”

Celest’s eyes got glassy for a second.

I pulled a couple of bills and left them on the table—more than enough to cover the sparking water we both drank. I took a step away from the table but stopped when Celest spoke.

“There’s a little café I like visiting on Thursdays. It’s not far from here… Just around the corner. They have the best lemon tarts in town.”

I could have walked away. A part of me wanted to be petty and do it, but I found myself saying, “And what time is the best time to get them?”

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