Until today. When I’m making my first trip back to Bellano in over a decade. I never came back. Because my father raised the perfect replica of a perfect bastard.
Me.
Swallowing the heavy feeling that something is lodged in my throat, I get out and make my way to the front door. I button my jacket as I walk through the foyer, noting that it smells exactly as it had the last time I was here—like pipe smoke. My uncle loved his pipe. And somehow, it suited him. Even the tobacco he favored suited him. It was a rich, warm scent. Homey. Welcoming. Much like him.
He was nothing like my father. Thank God.
Two ushers, dressed in black suits and crisp white shirts, are manning the door leading into the library, my uncle’s favorite room. It’s fitting that he’d want the service held here where mourners could visit him for the last time in the place he loved most.
As soon as I enter the room, my eyes fall on my father where he stands near the door, his arms crossed disapprovingly over his chest.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
I keep my eyes riveted to his, a habit I formed long ago. No matter what else is going on, always maintain eye contact. With a man like Henslow Spencer, looking away is a sign of weakness. And you never want to let him think you’re weak. Or that you’re backing down.
“Have you forgotten how much time I used to spend here with Uncle Malcolm?”
The disgusted curl of my father’s upper lip is reflected in the cold glint of his steely blue eyes. “No, I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgotten how you used to run here like a little coward and how he used to indulge your silly fantasies. No, I haven’t forgotten how much time you spent with my brother. But I had thought that maybe you’d learned better judgment since you were that foolish boy.”
“Better judgment?” I ask, biting my tongue and keeping to myself all the other things I’d like to say. I would never disrespect my uncle by making a scene at his viewing.
“Yes, than to come back here,” he sneers, his disdain for Bellano clear. He stopped thinking of it as his home place the day Malcolm moved back in.
“Not all of us hated it here,” I tell him, forcing my lips into a tight smile so that no one else can see the strain between us.
“Not all of us were ignorant children.”
With great effort, I hold my smile in place, nodding formally to him before I give him my polite response. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go pay my respects.”
I don’t give him a chance to answer. I simply continue on my way as though he never stopped me.
I make my way to the front of the room, to the coffin. I feel a pang of regret that there’s no one standing in a receiving line in front of it. My uncle was a widower with no children. It was just him and Tanny. And me. Until I left him all those years ago.
As always when I think of it, bitterness burns in my gut. Bitterness toward my controlling father who took advantage of the impressionable boy he could push around. I only wish I’d grown my iron backbone a few years sooner. Maybe my uncle wouldn’t have died alone.
A vase full of roses sits on a small, round table at the end of the coffin stand. I take one and walk to my uncle’s side, laying the rose upon his chest alongside the few others. He loved roses. For years after his wife, my aunt Mary, died, he kept up her rose garden, made sure that it flourished when nothing else did. I’m sure the roses here came from that garden. He’d have wanted nothing less.
As I withdraw my hand, my fingers brush his. They’re cold and stiff. Lifeless. Like my uncle is now. I glance up at his still face, the angles and planes of it so familiar to me, so much like my father’s. Only softer. Less rigid. Much like Malcolm. He was the “human” Spencer brother. My father…wasn’t.
Still isn’t.
I feel a gentle hand in the center of my back. I see a slight woman with short, light brown hair appear at my left. It’s Mrs. Tannenbaum, my uncle’s housekeeper and his only real companion since Mary died. She raises watery, soft blue eyes to mine and does her best to smile. As it is, it’s not much more than a shaky spread of the alabaster skin around her mouth.
I bend to hug her delicate frame. The feel of her arms coming around me is immediately comforting. Just like it always was, all those years ago. “Tanny.”
“Harrison,” she replies warmly, squeezing me. When she leans back, she reaches up to cup my cheek and pat it gently. “I’m so glad you came.” Tears fill her eyes and I feel another pang of guilt.
“Of course I came.” Her smile says she wasn’t so sure I would, which makes me feel even worse. I clear my throat. “How are you?”
“I’m hanging in there. How are you?”
“I’m well,” I say, examining her face. While she’s an attractive older woman with her perfectly coiffed hair and cornflower blue eyes, she seems to have aged a hundred years since last I saw her. I knew Malcolm’s death would be hard for her.
“It’s been so long. And it’s so good to see you,” she declares, her expression flooded with sincerity. “Malcolm and I missed you so much around here. How have you been? Have you put on weight?” she asks, backing up to assess me.
I can’t help but grin. “Since I was nineteen? I’m sure I’ve gained a pound or two.”
“You needed to. You were so thin back then.”
“I wasn’t that thin, Tanny. I was just active.”
“Well, you look healthy and hale now. I’m glad to see you’re eating well. And still so handsome. Have you married yet?”
“No, still not married.”
She rubs my arm and winks as if to reassure me. “Don’t you worry about that, my sweet. The right girl is out there somewhere. Don’t rush it. Just wait for her.”
“Oh, I’m not rushing anything,” I tell her honestly.
“Good. Some mistakes can haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Something in her eyes tells me she has some personal experience with ghosts, but I have no idea what they might be. It occurs to me that, as well as I know Tanny, I don’t really know her at all. I make a silent resolution right here and now to visit her more often. Provided that she still has a job when all is said and done.
The thought of my father firing her when he takes over the house makes my insides roil with rage. But, for Tanny, I hide my anger behind a pleasant smile.