The figure's eyes slowly opened, and he turned to look at me. His eyes widened at the sight of me, and his face flushed with color, making him look younger and more alive. His hand waved frantically, and a woman in scrubs rushed over and began maneuvering the bed to help Blake Welles into a sitting position. He pointed to his mouth, and she produced a cup with a flexible plastic straw, and he took three long labored sips before he turned to look at me again.
"My God, you look exactly like your father," he rasped, cleared his throat, and spoke again. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-five," I mumbled. I was still trying to reconcile the fearsome Blake Welles I'd read about with the man staring at me from his hospital bed.
“Ah.” He closed his eyes and nodded. “So she was pregnant when she left. Things would have been different if I’d known.”
“What do you mean?”
"Your mother. If I had known she was carrying my grandson when she left, I would have made sure you were raised properly. She was good at keeping secrets, wasn't she?" He rasped a laugh.
“Do you know why she left?”
"Because she was smart. I had a talk with her. She sat right in this room when it was still my office. I told her that Deacon would never marry her, and when he finally got tired of her, she'd be a pariah. I told her I'd found my son a wife more suited for him. She left Missouri, and I thought the matter was settled."
He signaled for more water, and his strength grew with every minute.
"If I'd known about you…" He dissolved into a coughing fit. One of the nurses stepped forward, and he waved her away. "Especially after Vanessa was such a disappointment. Beautiful, intelligent, charming, and well-bred but couldn't do the one goddamn thing she was supposed to. I told Deacon to divorce her years ago. To find someone else before it was too late, but he wouldn't do it."
“Wait.” I sat up. “You’re the reason Crystal left Missouri.”
The realization dawned on me that he was also the reason Crystal insisted on living under an alias, didn't want Deacon to leave his wife, omitted his name from CJ's birth certificate, and opted for a home birth. She was terrified of Blake Welles. I suspected his chat that scared her so much that she fled to New York with me was more ominous than he let on. He must have threatened her somehow.
"Watch your tone, boy," he said in a low growl with a furious glint in his eye. "Your mother wasn't one of us. She didn't have what it took to raise a Welles man. And trust me, if I'd known about you, it would have happened."
“You would have taken me away from her.”
"Taken," he scoffed. "People like your mother wouldn't take much convincing. I would have offered her money, and she would've gladly given you up. And if she didn't, well, I wasn't going to let my grandson be raised by those sorts of people. Not with my blood in your veins."
For a split second, I wondered what he would think about the family I was raised in but instantly realized that I didn't want to know and didn't care. "You're wrong." My mother was a lot of things, but she loved me. It all made sense. She did everything she did to keep me safe and to keep me away from this monster, whose frailty didn't make him any less dangerous.
"I don't know. Maybe I should have let Deacon marry your mother." He mused. "It doesn't matter now, does it? She's dead. So is my only son. Vanessa is intent on drinking herself to death. I'm dying, and all I have left to carry on my name and bloodline is you."
“And your other grandson.”
“What?”
“You have another grandson. Crystal and Deacon had another baby. They hid him from you, with good reason.”
“You’re lying.” He began to cough again. I took my phone out of my pocket and showed him a photo of CJ. I no longer feared this man or what he could do to me or my family, but I wanted him to know everything he’d lost. CJ and I may have his blood, but we’d never have his name or his legacy.
“I want to see him. I don’t have long. The doctors say days or weeks. I want to see him before I die.”
“That’s not gonna happen.” I took the phone and put it back in my pocket.
“You can’t turn your back on me. I’m your family, and like it or not, when I die, all this becomes yours.” He waved a skeletal hand around the dimly lit room we were in.
"I already have a family, and I don't need anything from you."
A week later,when I was back in New York, I got the call that Blake Welles had died. He made good on his word to leave everything to me. Maybe he was hoping that once I understood the full scope of my inheritance, I would become seduced by power and change my mind.
I left Welles Industries and all its subsidiaries to the board of directors until I had time to sort through my feelings about everything.
I asked that Vanessa's allowance be increased on the condition that she sought treatment and gave raises to all of her support staff, especially Dagmar. I dismissed all of Blake Welles' support staff with a year's salary as severance and donated his villain's lair of a mansion to an organization that fosters and supports pregnant teens at risk. I insisted it be called The Crystal G. West Center, so her name would appear in big letters on the house where Blake Welles told her she would never belong.
I felt lighter after my trip to Missouri. I had a new understanding of my mother, what she sacrificed for me and what she was protecting me from. I thought of the pain she must have felt being separated from the person she loved most in the world. I'd been separated from Lisa for almost a month, and I felt like I was suffocating without her. When Crystal had a chance to be with Deacon again, she took it, and why not? I was an adult. I had the family she gave me. Why didn't she tell me any of this shit while she was alive?
Maybe she did, a small voice in my head whispered.Maybe she tried.
