“Are you not interested to know the manner in which your father makes so much money? Do you not question how he manages to pay for the staff here? For the maintenance of this massive home?”
He looked at me, his eyes stern, then confused, then accusing.
“What are you trying to say, Darling?”
WhatwasI trying to say? That he was essentially benefiting from slave labor?
I shook my head. “I don't know. I guess I just want to know what you know.”
He gazed at his sleeping brother. “What nonsense has he been spewing?”
“Details about your father’s vineyard operations...and they’re horrifying.”
He turned to reach for the doorknob. “Kenneth has a bad fever. That’s why I asked you to come sit with him, tend to him. He trusts you immensely. As for the accusations he’s making... I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps he had a falling out with Lord Barry, and this is his way of retaliating.”
“It doesn’t sound like that at all.”
He looked at the floor, at his hand on the doorknob and then back at me. “Keely’s waiting for me. I have an important scene to shoot with Susie.”
Biting my bottom lip, I nodded my understanding. Without another word, he opened the door and left.
With the room so silent, I looked at Kenneth, replaying his words in my mind. I knew so little about Lord Barry; what drove him, what motivated him...what scruples did he have, or did he have any to speak of?
As Kenneth slept, I took out my phone, eager to get another perspective on his views of the situation.
The headlines I read left me stunned.
Thousands of Migrant Children Missing
Another Teenage Migrant Worker Dead
Mexican Woman Dead at Darien Gap
I didn’t have the courage to read the articles. The headlines were horrifying enough.
“You’re still here,” Kenneth suddenly said, startling me.
“Yes. They don’t need me for a few more hours still.”
He looked down at my phone. “The Darien Gap?” He snorted. “You’ve been following up on what I’ve been telling you.”
“I’ve always considered myself a well-informed person. Of course, I can’t know what is happening worldwide, but...still. I suddenly feel so naïve and unworldly, so ignorant...oblivious. What I’ve been reading is even more horrifying than what you’ve told me so far.”
He nodded as he pointed to the article on my phone. “I have, myself, just learned of the Darien Gap; a jungle on the Panama/Colombia border...so treacherous, many of us can’t even imagine. People die from the heat, from dehydration, hunger. They’re bitten or stung by deadly animals. And when they manage to survive all that, there are the gangs to contend with...the cartels...the coyotes. Once again, call them what you will.”
“But still so many do make it through,” I said with a glimmer of hope.
“I’ll spare you the videos of dead children in the river, women beaten and raped and tossed aside like a bag of trash. I won’t show you the heartbreaking, gut-wrenching images of some of the beautiful children who do make it across alive...of what their little lives become once they reach the land of the American dream.”
“It’s not your burden to bear,” I said, though I didn’t believe a word of it.
“Did I tell you that I confronted my father?”
“In a manner of speaking, but if you have more to say...”
He smiled, a sardonic and cynical smile. “I’ve always loved my father; always admired him. But...I don’t know what to make of all this. He’s like a stranger to me.” He looked at me, that sardonic grin still on his face. “He admitted that he knew about the dead bodies in our fields, of men crossing the border and falling dead. He knew of the children who were simply swept away...handed off to strangers. He knew of the children working his fields. He knew of the dangers. He knew. Can you believe it, Darling? He knew! How do I face a man who can knowingly let such a thing happen? And for what? For riches? For status?”
“You’re a good man, Kenneth,” I said as I set my hand over his. “I have no doubt you’ll find a way to remedy the situation.”
