I was wrong.

  I went to my mother’s house. She keeps her spare key in the same place as she always has, and I have always known her alarm code. It’s the same one we had for our house in Houston.

  The first place I look is her little desk. I spend an hour searching through her bank statements. Just when I was ready to give up and look somewhere else, I dropped my phone into the bottom of the drawer. When it hit the drawer, the bottom of it moved.

  I removed the panel and found it was a false bottom. Inside was a big manila envelope and as I picked it up, I knew. Whatever was inside was going to change my life forever. My hands shook as I picked it up, pried open the prongs holding it shut, and poured the contents out onto the desk.

  It only held three things. A checkbook, some sort of bank record, and a bundle of pictures.

  I looked at the pictures first.

  My entire body broke into gooseflesh as I looked at them. The pictures were of Milly’s father. He was sitting on a park bench talking to another man. The man was wearing a thobe, the white dress typical of Saudi Arabian men. The picture was dated September 9, 2001.

  There was another one of her father on the same park bench a week later, meeting with the same man. In fact, all of the picture were of the two men, sitting on the same bench. They weren’t interacting, just both sitting there.

  What in the world was my mother doing with these pictures?

  And then I picked up the checkbook. The checkbook was for an account at a Swiss bank. The sole transaction on this statement was dated for December 2, 2001.

  I pulled out my phone and look at a picture I took weeks ago. The picture of the blackmailer’s note Milly’s dad left as a clue for their mother. It was as I feared. The bank name, account number, and routing on the note were the same as the bank name, account number, and routing number on this checkbook.

  I just made it to the bathroom when the nausea roiling in my stomach overwhelmed me.

  I sat there for an hour, stunned at what I’d found. I couldn’t make any sense of it. My parents, one or both of them, blackmailed Milly’s father. They are the reason he left town. They are the reason he cleaned out his bank accounts. They are the reason Milly’s family was destroyed. They are the reason the woman I love has lived without her father for all of these years.

  I sat there until the sun set. I didn’t know what to do, all I knew was that I had to show Milly. Then, I walked out to my rental car, put the envelope into my carry-on, and drove back to the airport to catch a flight back to Washington.

  I called Cristal. I asked her to go to my office, pick up my passport, and meet me at the international terminal at Dulles. Then I booked a flight for Marseille. I was going to confront my mother. Now. And then, I’ll come back here and wait for Milly to get back from her trip with her family. And when she does, I’ll tell her everything.

  36

  * * *

  Simon’s proposal was a fairy tale brought to life. Addie was uncharacteristically emotional, but we all were. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Then, we had an amazing dinner at a legendary restaurant in Versailles.

  We had all just gone to sleep when my mother’s phone rang. She never silences her phone and keeps the volume on her ringer turned up as loud as it will go.

  Therefore, when it starts to ring right after midnight, I hear it in the room I'm sharing with Anthony. But that’s not what gets me out of my bed and racing into the suite’s living room, crossing it in three strides and opening my mother’s door without knocking. It’s the yelling that does it.

  She is yelling to whoever is on the other end of the phone. Lilly is standing there just watching her, eyes huge and hand clasped over her mouth.

  “I’m on my way back. He has a lawyer. I’m calling his lawyer. You can’t talk to him without his lawyer present.”

  She's throwing clothes into her suitcase, frantically packing her things. When she's done screaming demands into the phone, she throws it down and runs into her bathroom.

  “Mom, what in the world is going on?” I follow her and see her scooping toiletries haphazardly into her little travel sized bag.

  She turns around and without stopping, runs back into her room, yelling back at me over her shoulder. “Your father turned himself in. They have him. They are on their way back to DC right now. I’m going to meet him.”

  My heart hammers against my chest, my scalp prickles with the nerve impulses speeding through my body as I try to process what she's saying. I shake my head to free myself from my stupor and look at her.

  She is moving like a dervish throwing her clothes on. I have to grab her shoulders to make her stop.

  “Mom, stop. Please. Tell me what’s going on,” I say forcefully.

  She shakes herself free. “Are you deaf, Milly? I just told you. Your father’s in FBI custody. I need to get to him.”

  While she turns back to her bed, I look up at Lilly for help, but she has left the room.

  How can any of this be happening. Why is my mother so . . . excited? Because that’s what she is. She doesn’t seem nervous, or scared, or shocked. She seems joyfully excited.

  I run to stand in between my mother and her suitcase.

  “Mom, you said he has a lawyer. How do you know that?” I demand.

  She looks at me like I don’t have the sense I was born with and purses her lips while she rolls her eyes.

  “Because, I helped him hire one. How else would I know?" And then my mother, all five feet two inches of her, puts her hand on my arm and shoves me out of the way to continue packing. “You’re wasting time asking questions. If you want answers come with me. I'm leaving now.”

  My head is spinning. I run back to my room to call Addie. I let her know what has happened, worrying how she will react to the news. But she only offers to help us pack. So, I start packing our things and prepare to travel with my mother.

  Less than two hours later, we are at the airport, buying our plane tickets for DC. Addie decided to come with us in the end. And for my mother and my sisters, it is so reminiscent of the last time our father threw our family into chaos. But this time, my mother seems focused and not the least bit unnerved.

  I’m not as scared as I was before, because I’m going home to Dean. It’s only as we are buckling ourselves into airplane seats I realize in the craziness of this day I didn’t speak to him once.

  I check on Anthony who is already asleep again, and then close my own eyes, knowing when I open them again, I’ll be on my way to see the two men I love most in this world.

  37

  Provence, France

  It’s total pandemonium when I land in Provence, the airport that services my mother’s vacation home of Marseille. I’m tired, pissed off, and hungry.

  But then I turn on my phone and see Milly’s text asking about my mother. I start to text her back when a CNN news alert pops up on my screen. “Omar Hassan of Enron infamy in FBI custody. Being escorted back to the United States.”

  My phone clatters to the floor. I even look down, but don’t pick it up until someone taps me on the shoulder to tell me I’ve dropped my phone.

  I scoop it up and walk back to the ticket counter. My first thought is that I have to get to Milly. I know she is supposed to be traveling to London today, but I doubt she will be anywhere but the United States.

  It’s almost noon here, and I hope that if I leave now I can be back by late afternoon their time.

  My hopes are dashed when I’m told the last flight to DC has already left for the day. My mind dashes to London, maybe Milly is still there and I can go there instead. She will need me, and I need to show her what I found.

  I dial her number and she picks up almost immediately

  “Dean, oh my God. Where are you? I’ve been calling you since we landed. Have you seen the news?” She is speaking in a rapid and hushed tone.

  My heart races. How the hell am I going to explain being in France without telling her everything over the phone.

  Shit.

  “Milly, I’m sorry. I was on a plane. My phone was off. I just landed and saw your text.”

  “Dean, can you—” She starts to cut me off but I keep talking.

  “Milly, please listen. I’m in France. I can’t get a flight home until tomorrow morning.”

  “What?” Her hushed tone disappears and I hear rustling. It sounds like she's moving.

  “It’s a long story. And I’ll tell you when I get home. But I’m here to see my mother, and then I’ll be back.”

  “I thought you were in Sedona to see your mother.” She sounds exasperated and tired. And I feel guilty for adding to whatever stress she must be under right now.

  “She wasn’t there, and I really needed to talk to her. Have you seen your dad yet?” I ask quickly.

  “No, we haven’t. We are at Langley now, waiting to see him.”

  “Langley? That’s the CIA building, isn’t it?” I ask truly surprised.

  “Well, that’s where they took him. We are all here waiting to see what’s going on. But the only thing we do know, because we’ve spoken to his lawyer, is that he's not under arrest.” The exasperation is gone from her voice and all that is left is the exhaustion.

  I'm just as tired, but I know that what she's saying makes no sense. How can he not be under arrest? The FBI has been looking for him for more than a decade. But clearly Milly doesn’t know more than what she has just told me, so my next question is more rhetorical than interrogatory.

  “So clearly there is something more going on than what we’ve always thought.”

  “Yes, so much more. My mother, she knows things . . .” She trails off and I hear the struggle she's having to keep her voice steady.

  “Who is there with you?” I ask, deciding that asking any more question at this point would be counterproductive.

  “My mother and my sisters,” she responds.

  “Where is Ant Man?” I ask her right away, worried about how my little guy is faring in all this craziness.

  “He’s with Rabea. We dropped him off when we got here. He was so exhausted. We didn’t talk about much in front of him because he hears everything. I didn’t want to scare him.”

  She yawns at the end of her sentence and I decide that’s my cue to let her go and figure out what the fuck I'm going to do with myself.

  “Okay, baby. Listen, I'm sorry I wasn’t there when you got back. But I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll talk then, okay?”

  “Okay, Dean,” she mumbles and I know she's crying. I’ve never felt more useless in my life.

  “I love you. I will be there tomorrow. And we’ll do this together.” I try to sound sure of myself, even though I’m not sure Milly will want anything to do with me once I tell her everything.

  “I love you, too. Please hurry, I need you,” she whispers, sounding so defeated and scared. No one has ever needed me, not just for me. And I won’t let her down even if it means I’ll be putting our relationship at risk.

  “And I need you. So, take care of yourself until I can get there.”

  And then I disconnect and walk out into the bright, blue sunshine of the Cote d’Azur, otherwise known as the French Rivera.

  All of the beauty of my surroundings are completely lost to me as I hop into a waiting cab and give them my mother’s address. Marseille is about fifteen miles from the airport, so I have thirty minutes to sit back and think while we zoom past the coastline.

  My mother has been spending her summers here since my father died. And now I know she's doing it with money she blackmailed Milly’s father for.

  I don’t know how today will end, but I know that when I walk out of her house, I’m also going to be walking out of her life. Even if Milly can’t see herself being with me after everything, it’s time for me to realize that I was born to a woman who did her duty to me by raising me, but she doesn’t owe me more than this and clearly doesn’t want to give me more, either.

  MARSEILLE

  We pull up outside my mother’s white stucco, red tile roofed beach house. I can smell the salt of the Mediterranean Sea in the breeze. The dichotomy between the beauty around me and the pain and ugliness whirling around inside of me is so startling, I have to catch my breath before I get out of the cab.

  I pay the man, hop out, and walk up the steep stone steps that lead to my mother’s front door. I can hear an upbeat pop song playing in the house, and I steel myself. That my mother is enjoying herself seems unfathomable to me. But I'm going to get to the bottom of everything today.

  I knock loudly. I can hear my mother’s voice shout something in French. I can’t make it out, and I don’t try. I just knock again. In the middle of my second knock, the door flies open and a young woman, no older than seventeen, opens the door.

  “Bonjour, monsieur. Puis-je vous aider?” Hello, sir. Can I help you?

  “Oui, je cherche Madame Orleans.” I tell her I'm looking for my mother and her eyes grow suspicious.

  She opens her mouth to ask me another question when my mother appears like an apparition behind her.

  “Dean!” She looks like she has seen a ghost as she stares at me. “What in the world are you doing here?” she asks me, but somehow, I know it’s not genuine surprise.

  The girl ducks out of the doorway and scampers up the stairs right behind her.

  My mother stands there staring at me. I take her in. Her blond hair is caught in a chignon at the base of her neck. She’s dressed in a white billowy sundress, her skin is perfectly golden, and she’s barefoot. She looks totally at peace.

  I step past her and into her house. I’ve only been here once before, a long time ago. I see they have renovated the space. The whole downstairs is one huge room that incorporates a dining room, living room, and a library. At the opposite end of the entrance of the house is a wall of glass doors that open to a veranda.

  I look at my mother who is watching me. The way a mouse might watch a lion. She looks petrified. She should be.

  “Can we go out there and talk?” I ask as I nod toward the veranda.

  “Well, Jean-Luc will be back any moment, so . . . ,” she hedges, looking around like she’s planning an escape route.

  “Well, then it will be better, if we are outside when he does so that he doesn’t overhear what we are about to discuss. Unless of course he already knows about your treachery.”

  She blanches, but doesn’t say a word. She simply starts walking. She gives me a wide berth when she passes me. Yet, she looks back over her shoulder at me when she steps outside. Her eyes lock with mine, and for the first time I see honest, naked, regret in my mother’s eyes.

  “So, you know,” she says as I sit down on one of the wooden lounge chairs they have on the terrace.

  “What do I know, Mother?” I ask her slowly and calmly. My tone is at odds with the way I feel. I'm afraid. I have no idea what she's going to say next.

  “Ed called me, asking me all sorts of questions. He said he ran into you, and you mentioned your father’s life insurance policy.”

  She looks out over the balcony, staring at the ocean view this beautiful home comes with. She takes a deep inhale and releases it on an unsteady breath.

  “I figured I’d be hearing from you. And here you are.” She looks at me—her lips pursed, the fear gone from her eyes—total calm in its place.

  “Yes, here I am.” Our eyes linger for a long moment, but I don’t see anything in hers I recognize. I break our gaze and open my carry-on, pulling out the envelope I found in the false bottom of her drawer.

  She jumps up and reaches for it. I only narrowly manage to keep it out of her grasp.

  “Where did you get this? Did you break into my house?” she screams and reaches for it again.

  I stand up to put some distance between us and raise my voice to match hers. “Mother, sit down. Now.”

  She glares at me, defiantly and with something akin to hatred in her eyes.

  “You are such a shit. Just like your father. He ruined my life when he forced me to have you. I never ever wanted children. He knew this, so he tricked me,” she screams at me, but sits down.

  I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach with a steel-toe boot. This was always my suspicion, but to have it hurled at me so violently nearly cuts me off at the knees.

  “Now you know. It was all your father’s idea. He’s the one who found out what that dirty terrorist, who was pretending to be a fucking lawyer, was really doing. We needed the money, Dean. Needed it. Enron was about to collapse; our debts were out of control. So your dad followed him, took some pictures, while I went to Switzerland to open the bank account. And we blackmailed him.” She sneers. Her face, one I have always found uncommonly beautiful, twists into an ugly mask of fury.

  “And he paid. How was I supposed to know he was going to disappear and leave his family? That’s not my fault. And then your father, because he was so weak and couldn’t live with himself, decided he was going to concoct this little story about a life insurance policy and take his life.” She shrugs one of her dainty shoulders, like what she just said is of little consequence.

  I sit back down, unable to hold myself up anymore.

  She rolls her eyes in exasperation.

  “I wasn’t going to stop him, Dean. He was miserable. He said he was better off dead, and honestly, I agreed. You were leaving for college and didn’t need him anymore. I certainly didn’t need him anymore. So, I agreed to the ruse and played the part of devastated widower when he finally got the nerve to do it.”

  She leans back on her chair, staring out at the sea. A view paid for with people’s freedom, their family’s well-being, my father’s life. And she looks content.

  I cannot respond.

  My blood is rushing in my ears, and it drowns out the sounds of the city that has been our companion during this conversation.

  Bits of her diatribe come back to me. She wanted my father to kill himself. She never wanted children. She called Milly’s father a terrorist.

 

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