Page 72 of The Heiress
Chapter 21
Laura
Isat at my desk makingnotes for Adele Pennington’s Christmas ball. One of the owners of Whittaker’s Ice Cream company, working with Covington’s wealthiest family was certainly a coupe, and I wasn’t complaining, but the level of detail the Penningtons required shocked even me at times. The napkins had to be a particular size, a particular fabric, and if need be, I’d have to go to the ends of the earth to ensure they got what they wanted.
Though, maybe that was me a year ago, extremely fussy on my clothing, my shoes, my house, keeping up with the Joneses, and in a community like Covington Heights appearances were everything. My last car, the Range Rover that I crashed, had been customized, paying extra for a raven blue interior trim and a matching steering wheel, heated at that! When my replacement came, I cared nothing about model or color, requiring only that it started when I turned it on.
Closing my laptop, my temples were on the verge of throbbing. I gently massaged the spot and made the executive decision to go home. It was an hour earlier than normal, but it was Friday afternoon, and having been up since the crack of dawn listening to my son hit tennis balls against the wall, I figured I was could allow myself some grace.
I smiled at the package sitting at the front door, anticipating the tennis shoes I’d bought for Phoenix. With his mobility much improved, I’d thought a new pair of shoes might spur him on. I collected the parcel and ran it upstairs to my bedroom, ready to surprise him later.
The chiming doorbell made me drop it on my bed and dash back down.
“Delivery for Laura Caversham?” The man and his van were not the usual package delivery service, in fact, the black suit indicated he was not a driver at all.
After confirming my name, he handed me the large black box tied with a silver bow, lowered his head and wished me a good day. As I carried it inside, I frowned to see the designer label, knowing I certainly hadn’t bought anything from them online.
“What’s this?” I asked aloud, Brandon Frank flashing through my mind for an outrageous moment. Taylor’s father was a lovely man, but I’d only just met him!
Setting the package on the kitchen counter, I pulled on the bow and delicately lifted the box, the sense of luxury immediate as I peeled back layers of tissue.
A shiny calfskin handbag in coral pink with gold straps sat amongst the paper, next to a matching coin purse and a gift set of perfume, soap and body lotion.
“What on earth?” I asked, again aloud to nobody as I picked up each item, shocked out of my brain. It had to be a wrong delivery, surely a mix-up by the driver. Yet there on the card, embossed with gold lettering, was clearly my name: Laura Caversham.
Confounded by the exquisite quality, I opened the envelope, completely mystified.
We would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for having Elisha for the weekend. Please accept this as a token of our appreciation for taking care of our daughter. She said she had a marvelous time!
Kind Regards,
Stephan and Mariana Millar
“This is too much,” I said. Don’t they say the first sign of madness is talking to oneself? Well, over the past six months, I’d often thought I’d been on a slow downward slide to insanity. Gently fingering the beautiful bag, similar to the one Elisha had carried on our shopping expedition, I wondered if it was possible Elisha’s mother worked for the company? I knew my brands and the price tag would be over five grand for the bag alone.
I picked up the card again. Stephan and Mariana Millar. Barb Pritchard had introduced Elisha as Sakkari-Millar, and I’d not given it a second thought, but Stephan Millar exuded a sense of familiarity.
But it was a common name and I was probably clutching at straws. And for the past six months I’d been living in a vacuum, a bubble of my own shame and remorse.
Well, how else do you deal with the guilt, the absolute disgrace of harming your own child? You retreat, you hide, you insulate yourself. You put all your energy into righting your wrong, but you can’t. No matter what, you can’t undo it.
Every day, every night, every waking moment the memory takes space in your brain. It haunts you and taunts you and doesn’t let you forget. You devote all your energy to your son, leaving none for yourself. But that’s okay, that’s a good thing—you should be punished for what you did. And then it becomes a vicious cycle where you can’t eat, you can’t digest food and then you don’t want to and you feel terrible, but that’s okay—you don’t deserve to feel well anyway. Your son has screws and plates holding his pelvis together, your son has to learn to walk again. The ache in your head and your stomach is nothing. And you want to take his pain, but you can’t. You can only watch as he tries to rebuild his life, his dreams—the ones you ripped away from him.
It had been an odd series of events that found Elisha staying with us for Thanksgiving. I’d been coordinating a luncheon at La Maison, and by coincidence Barb Pritchard had run into me, in a flap because she needed to urgently find a student a place to stay. For a reason not revealed, Elisha was spending the weekend at La Maison. I hadn’t hesitated, impulsively offering my home. After all, it was Thanksgiving and with Phoenix away overnight, I welcomed the company and the distraction.
You see, I’d been pleased when Phoenix agreed to go to his father’s house for Thanksgiving Day, sparing the two of us sitting around the dining table looking for things to be grateful for. After three months in rehab, Phoenix’s homecoming had been both joyous and frightening. My son and I shared a tremendous bond, forged by the tennis tournaments I loved to watch him compete in, strengthened when Luke left us. Phoenix had stepped up completely, grown into a caring young man, loyal and protective of me while my ex-husband started a new life with another woman.
Phoenix had fallen in love with tennis at a young age, given the opportunity to try it through his best friend Max. Funny really, because although I had played the sport as a youngster, I’d been totally average. Whereas Phoenix excelled at it, his potential recognized early. And it became his complete passion—dare I say, obsession.
