Harriet said, “Well, we only seem to get together at weddings and funerals.” Then she added, provocatively, “And I hope the next occasion will be John and Susan’s wedding.”
I hoped the next occasion was William’s funeral, but I said, “We’re getting married at Seawanhaka before the summer is over.”
Harriet seemed genuinely happy, and she smiled at William and Charlotte, who looked like they’d smelled a fart, and asked them, “Isn’t that wonderful?”
Well, you could hear their denture glue cracking. Good old Harriet – she came through with a zinger at the end. And it wasn’t directed at me for a change.
Anyway, I gave Carolyn a final hug and kiss and said, “I won’t be calling you from London anymore.”
“I love you, Dad.”
William twitched again. Well, if the man had a heart, he’d understand this kind of family love, and he’d take me aside and say, “I bless this marriage, John,” then drop dead.
Harriet drove off without killing anyone, then Edward and Carolyn followed in the Lexus.
I looked at William and decided that the time had come. I said to him, “If you’re not in a hurry, we can have a drink in my office.”
He glanced at his wife, then said to me, “All right.”
We went back inside, and Susan said she and her mother were going to help Sophie with the cleanup “while the men relax,” which was very old-fashioned and very sweet. It was also bullshit; Charlotte didn’t know a dishwasher from a DustBuster. Hopefully, Susan would take this opportunity to work on Mom. As for William and me relaxing over a drink, I thought maybe I should go get the shotgun first.
But I didn’t, so I showed him into my office, and I closed the door.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
I offered William a martini, and he was tempted, but unfortunately declined.
William sat on the couch, and I sat in the armchair.
I had absolutely no intention of opening the discussion, or even engaging in small talk, so I sat there, looking at William as though he’d asked to speak to me.
Finally, he got a little uneasy and asked, “Did you want to discuss something?”
I replied, “I thought you wanted to discuss something.”
“Well… I suppose we need to discuss what we… discussed.”
“Okay.”
He cleared his throat and said, “First, let me say, John, that we – Charlotte and I – don’t harbor any personal animosity toward you.”
“You told me you and Charlotte didn’t care for me.”
“Well… that’s not the issue. The issue is Susan.”
“She likes me.”
“She thinks she does.” He reminded me, “We’ve discussed this, and it really doesn’t matter if I like you or you like me. So, let me say that Charlotte and I are convinced that a marriage between you and Susan would lead to unhappiness for both of you, and ultimately another divorce.”
I didn’t reply.
He continued, “And therefore, to save all of us from future pain and unhappiness, John, I’d like you to reconsider your proposal of marriage.”
“I understand that.” I reminded him, “You also indicated that you thought my intentions were not completely honorable, and that my love for Susan might be confused with my love for her money.”
He cleared his throat again and replied, “I believe I said that might be a subconscious consideration.”
“Well, I thought about that, and I’ve concluded that I love her only for her. And I love my children, and I love us being a family. Did you notice that tonight?”
“I… suppose I did. But Edward and Carolyn are adults, and not living here. So, I’m sure you can maintain your relationship with them without remarrying their mother.”
“We’ve been doing that, William, but it’s not the same.”
He didn’t seem to know where to go next, so he cut to the chase and said, “I am prepared to offer you one million dollars, paid in ten equal annual installments, if you will break off this engagement and return to London – or take up legal residence anywhere out of the country.”
We looked at each other for a few seconds, then I said, “If your only objection to this marriage is any claim I may have on Susan’s money – her allowance and her current assets, and future inheritance – then that could be addressed in a prenuptial agreement.”
He didn’t reply, so I continued by asking him, “How much did I get when Susan and I divorced? I seem to recall getting nothing. So we can copy that agreement and sign it again.” I pointed out, “That would demonstrate to you, I hope, that my intentions are actually honorable.”
William realized he’d been sucked into a trap, and he was thinking hard about a way to get out of it. He really is stupid, but when it comes to money, he fires up his remaining brain cells. Finally, he said to me, “The issue is not only money, John. As I said, the issue is Susan’s happiness. We do not want to see our daughter as distraught as she was… well, the last time.”
That was interesting. I’d never really known what Susan was feeling after I’d left. I’d imagined two things – one, she was sad, but had bounced back and was getting on with her life; or two, she was devastated, miserable, guilt-ridden, and considered her life as over. I’m sure it had been all of that, and since we’d reunited, I had a sense of what those years had been like. And now William, her loving father, did not want to see her hurt like that again. Well, if William wasn’t such a duplicitous, manipulative, conniving dickhead, I could believe him, and I could feel some empathy for him as a father. But I wasn’t going to endow him with any feelings of paternal love, just because he claimed those feelings. Possibly, though, he was also speaking on Charlotte’s behalf, and ditsy as she was, I thought she’d probably been very saddened by her daughter’s unhappiness.
Finally, I responded, “This may come as a shock to you, William, but Susan and I had a wonderful, loving marriage, and it would have continued that way if” – I really didn’t want to get into this, but the time had come – “if she hadn’t had an affair with Frank Bellarosa, and then killed him.”
William drew a deep breath, then looked at me and said, “Charlotte and I have discussed… what happened, and we can only conclude that your marriage was not as wonderful as you thought it was.” He pointed out, “If it had been, then what happened would not have happened.”
I’d thought the same thing myself, obviously, but looking back on our marriage, even in the most critical light, it had been a very good marriage. Susan herself agreed with that. But even in Paradise, shit happens. Maybe ninety percent of the married people I’d known who’d had affairs were basically happy at home and stayed at home. Now and then, unfortunately, a husband or wife became obsessed with a lover and mistook that for love. And that was a recipe for emotional and marital disaster. Not to mention that sometimes people got shot.
But rather than explain all this to William, even if it was a little bit of his business, I said to him, “Susan has told me, and I’m sure told you and Charlotte at some point in the last ten years, that there was nothing fundamentally wrong between us. What happened was an aberration and not indicative of a deeper problem.” I added, “She became… sexually obsessed with this man.” I pointed out, “Assuming she’s learned something from that, it won’t happen again.”
William seemed uncomfortable at the thought of his daughter being sexually obsessed with a man. He might have thought she was still a virgin. He banished the image of Susan and Frank together and said to me, “I think, perhaps, you are both deluding yourselves, and trying to rewrite some history.” He informed me, “You, John, if I may be blunt, have always had a wandering eye.”
Well, fuck you, William. True, I flirt – or did – and yes, I like to look at the ladies, but I’d never once had an affair (only that fling with Jenny Alvarez) during my twenty-year marriage. But that was none of his business, so I said, to concede the point and move on, “We’ve both grown up a lot, and learned not to play with fire.”