Page 58 of Shattered Hope
“I was always told you had no idea who he was,” I pointed out in a cold tone.
She laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Of course, you were. Your grandfather always pretended he didn’t know. He preferred to call me a liar rather than believing in me, his own daughter.”
“What did he know?”
“That your father was his best friend… a man old enough to be my father, that wasted no time, taking advantage of a young girl, too drunk to stop him,” she explained, and I’m not sure what I was expecting to hear, but it certainly hadn't been that. “I was no innocent girl. Wild parties and so many boyfriends I lost count were my favorite ways to rebel against my parents. But this man was different.”
“What happened?” I asked, astounded with my mother’s story.
“I had always known him. As my father’s best friend, he was constantly invited to our house, mostly with his wife, but I had always avoided his company. There was something about him I didn’t like… he gave me the creeps…”
“Who is he?”
She shrugged. “The name is not important. He’s dead now,” she spurted with all the scorn she felt for the man. “When I turned seventeen, he started to follow me around whenever we met in parties or events. Nothing I did or said dissuaded him, so I told my father about it, but he dismissed my complaint, certain that I was exaggerating.”
She jumped to her feet and started to pace the room, too restless to stay still.
“But I wasn’t. His wife died that year, and it only made things harder for me. He followed me everywhere… my friends mocked me about him, but he ignored them all, determined to get what he wanted,” she continued. “One night… after a Christmas party at the golf club, I was so bored I started drinking a lot more than usually did. Seeing the anger on my father’s face only made me drink even more. Watching Gerard Wells squirm on his chair was my personal pleasure.”
“Why?” I asked, intrigued.
I knew she hated her parents, but I had never learned why.
“Because I was the daughter, he didn’t want… the one that survived. He wished I was the one dead and not my perfect brother…” she spitted out, all her pain and outrage clear as crystal.
24
“Brother? You had a brother?”
That was news to me. I had never heard about a brother.
“Yes… I had a brother… he was two years older than me, and he was the perfect son. I was just a freak accident.”
“What happened to him?”
“When he was seven, he decided to go fishing in the lake at night. My father had been teaching him how to fish, and he wanted to surprise him with a big catch,” she started explaining. “We were at the lakes’ house, and he woke me up when he was sneaking out of the room, so I followed him. He wasn’t pleased to see me, but he agreed to take me with him on the boat.”
“No one saw you leaving the house?” I asked, starting to see where the story was going.
“No… it was the seventies… kids were pretty much left on their own. The boat was already in the water, so it was simple for us to untie it. Though Rob was only seven, he was a sturdy boy. It was easy for him to row far enough from the shore for him to fish,” she continued. “He forgot to anchor the boat, and before we knew it, we were in the middle of the lake. Rob was so focused on his fishing rod; he didn’t see it until it was too late. I was too small to care. I had been playing with my doll, oblivious of what was going on around us.”
“No one noticed your absence?”
“No… my parents were sleeping. There was no one up at that hour,” she replied, walking to the small bar and pouring herself a whiskey she gulped in a single sip. “At some point, it started raining a lot, and it only took a few minutes for it to fill the boat. Rob panicked and started rowing as fast as he could, but he wasn’t strong enough to row back to the shore. The sudden waves and the strong wind didn’t help either.”
“What about you?” I asked, with a deep frown, astounded I had never heard this story before.
“I was so scared all I did was cry. Rob was so pissed at me he kept yelling at me to shut up, but I couldn’t. It was stronger than me,” she confessed, pouring a second drink. “Perhaps if I had shut up, he wouldn’t have done what he did next, and he would still be alive…”
“It’s useless to think like that,” I pointed out.
“Is it?” she shook her head as if pushing away her ghosts. “Anyway, when he realized he couldn’t row the boat back to the shore, he decided to swim back and ask for help. I begged him not to. I didn’t want to be alone on a boat, in the middle of a lake, while it rained. I was scared to death,” she explained.
“But he didn’t listen.”
“Of course, he didn’t. What did I know? I was just a stupid little girl that knew nothing. He promised I would be alright while he went looking for help, and he jumped into the water.”
Madeleine went silent for a few moments, her eyes lost staring into the drink she was still holding. She finished it before she continued.
