Now I hugged my parents, my father first.
Mad Max was cool as a cucumber, the proverbial Rock of Gibraltar. But that was to be expected; after all, nothing calmed him down more than a good catastrophe. Inwardly, I knew he was crying for me, but I think we both knew that that wasn't what I needed from him now. With the saddest of smiles, he extended his arms toward me and held me by the shoulders. Then he looked me in the eyes and said, “We'll get through this, son. Your mother and I will always be there for you.”
I nodded in understanding, knowing that they always would. They were good people; perhaps the only good thing to ever come out of Stratton was the financial security it left them with, a result of my father's salary when he had worked there. They would grow old with grace, with dignity, and with gentility. They would not be burdened with financial worries. I was proud of that.
My mother had tears in her eyes as I hugged her, and I could feel her crying in my arms now. And that was exactly what I needed from her. I needed to know that there was one person in the world who hurt more than everyone else combined. My mother was a brilliant, complicated woman. Leah Belfort was a woman of the highest moral fiber, who had watched her son live the sort of life that stood for everything she detested—hedonism, ostentation, and a lack of regard for others. Yet she still loved me anyway, perhaps now more than ever, simply because I needed her to.
With great care, I held her by the shoulders, the same way my father had held me. Then I forced a smile and said, “It's all right, Mom. Four years isn't really four years; after deductions it's less than two. The time will fly by. It'll be okay.”
She shook her head, perplexed. “I just don't understand how you got the same time as Danny. That's the only thing that doesn't make sense to me.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I guess it seems a bit unfair. But that's how life is sometimes, you know?”
She nodded. In fact, at the age of seventy-one she knew this better than I.
“Anyway,” I continued, “Gleeson was right, Mom. Youknow it.” I shrugged. “I think everyone knowsit. I was the mastermind behind the whole thing, not Danny, and after everything that went down, how could I not go to jail for a while? Besides, Gleeson's a smart guy: He knows all about the drug program and about good time. So he really only sentenced me to two years, which is just enough to send me a message but not enough to ruin my life.” I winked. “It'll give me a chance to catch up on some reading, so it's not allbad, right?” I forced another smile.
“When are you and Nadine gonna tell the kids?” asked my father.
“We're not,” I said tonelessly, “at least not yet. Why worry them now? We'll wait until before I go; then we'll tell them together. Anyway, I gotta get going. I got some packing to do.”
“Oh, you're going to California?” asked my mother.
I smiled proudly. “No, Mom, I'm not goingto California; I'm movingthere.”
They looked at me, incredulous. “Now?” asked my father. “Do you think that makes sense with this sentence hanging over your head?”
“No,” I answered nonchalantly, “I'm sure it doesn't, but I'm still doing it. See, I made a promise to my little girl once, and I'm not about to let her down.” I shrugged, as if to say, “Sometimes love outweighs logic, you know?” Then I said, “You understand, right?”
No words were necessary; they were parents too.
So it was that I became a resident of the state of California, whether the state liked it or not. Within a week, I found myself a beautiful home on the water, less than a dozen blocks from the kids, and I went about doing just what I had sworn to Alonso that night: I made up for lost time, quite content to spend my last three months of freedom lost inside ordinary life—cooking for the kids, watching TV with them, driving them to school, soccer practice, volleyball practice, and play dates.
And then, after a three-month extension, time ran out.
It was New Year's Day of 2004, a sunny Thursday, and I was due to report to jail the next morning. The way I figured it, I had two options: Either I could show up on my own or make the marshals come look for me. And while neither option thrilled me, I had resigned myself to the former. The kids, of course, hadn't the slightest idea of this, but they were about to find out.
At this very moment, they were walking down the stairs, all smiles, while a nervous-looking Duchess trailed behind them. John and I were sitting in their living room, which, in one last dose of irony, bore an odd resemblance to Meadow Lane's: the rear plate-glass wall with its awesome view of the ocean, the shabby-chic furniture (a bit more formal here, though), the dozens of throw pillows and doilies and overpriced knickknacks scattered this way and that, and the sandstone fireplace rising up to the ceiling. All revealed what I had suspected about the Duchess all along: She liked her beach houses decorated a certain way.
“Don't worry,” said John, who was sitting across from me on the couch. “I'll treat your kids as if they were my own.”
I nodded sadly. “I know you will, John. I trust you more than you can imagine.” And, indeed, I did. I had come to know John well over the last six months, come to know him for the man he was— kind, generous, responsible, charismatic, self-made, and, above all, a man who, true to his words, treated my kids as if they were his own. They would be safe with him, I knew, and they would want for nothing.
“Hey, Dad,” Chandler said happily, as she took a seat next to me on the couch. “What's up with the family discussion?”
Carter, however, didn't sitdown; when he was twelve feet from the couch he executed a sliding maneuver, whizzing along the terra-cotta floor on a pair of white sweat socks. He grabbed the top of the couch and vaulted over the back, like a high jumper, and landed right next to me without incident. “Hi!” he chirped happily, and then he leaned back and put his feet up on an Australian zebrawood coffee table.
John, ever the disciplinarian, shot him a look, to which Carter rolled his blue eyes and put his feet back down. Meanwhile, the Duchess had taken a seat on the Hepplewhite armchair next to John's. She still looked beautiful—a bit older, perhaps, but considering what the two of us had gone through, she looked pretty damn good. She was dressed casually, in jeans and a T-shirt, as were John and I. The kids had on shorts, and their skin glowed with youth and health.
I took a deep breath and said to them: “Come here, guys. I have something I need to talk to you about, and I want you to be sitting on my lap when I do.” I extended an arm toward each of them.
Carter, all fifty-five pounds of him, immediately jumped onto my lap and maneuvered himself onto my right thigh, his legs dangling between mine. Then he put his arms around me. Only eight and a half years old, he sensed nothing.
Chandler moved more slowly, more cautiously. “Is somebody sick?” she asked nervously, easing herself onto my other thigh.
“No,” I said softly, “nobody is sick.”
“But it's bad news, right?”
I nodded sadly. “Yeah, honey, it is. I have to go away for a little while, and while it's not really that long a time for an adult, it's still gonna seem like a very long time for you guys.”
“How long?” she asked quickly.
I squeezed her and Carter close. “About two years, honey.”
I saw the first tears welling up in her eyes. “No!” she said urgently. “You can't go away again. You just moved here! Don't leave us!”
Fighting back tears, I said, “Listen to me, honey—I want both of you to listen to me closely: A long time ago, back when I was in the stock market, I did some things that were very wrong, things that I'm not very proud of now, and there were a lot of people who lost money because of it. And now, all these years later, I have to make up for what I did, which means I have to go to jail for a while and—”