Page 91

“How could you be so heartless?” Willow cries out and Piers rushes to her side, I glance at Scarlett to find her eyes full of tears. I give her hand a squeeze. This is so much more than a single lie, we are floating on a sea full of them, and James is steering the ship. I’m fearful what will come next.

“He broke her heart, and Wendy and I married within the year. I could tell she didn’t love me the same way that she loved him and that angered me very much, so I begin to drink. The more we fought more she got emotional. You have to understand I did all this so we could be together, but I imprisoned us both.

It got worse when Piers was born, she loved you so very much. She was your godmother, it outraged your mother, but Peter insisted and her and Peter tried to move past what had happened. She would often watch you at the estate. But she longed for family of her own, when I finally convinced her to try, she found out she wasn’t able to have children. There was a condition that prevented her from doing so and the thought of never having a family, combined with the tension of the feelings that she still carried for Peter, threaten to destroy our marriage. Peter was unhappy, Wendy was heartbroken, Lucille was miserable and I was angry. I thought maybe if we could have a child of our own that would solve all the problems, treatments didn’t work, we considered adoption, but being the old fashion elitist that I was, I wanted an heir with my blood.” James voice lowers as his gaze holds mine. My lungs are paralyzed while I wait to hear what he’s going to say. Breathe.

“It wasn’t intentional and it didn’t really go as planned, such is life. Lucille had a bouncing baby boy who Peter loved and adored and I could see the way that Wendy looked at him, and I wanted to give her that. But being the selfish man I was, am, I wanted a black haired child with blue eyes to call my own. Lucille knew this too. She had become a regular visitor to my flat in the city in the evening. She blamed me, she wasn’t happy that Peter was gone all the time and she was stuck playing house and raising a baby, she threatened me.”

He pauses for a sip of water and you could hear a pin drop. “I’m sorry Piers, I know this has to be difficult for you to hear, but she you couldn’t handle you. She would tell Willow, if I didn’t comply, she wanted money, gifts and I indulged her. One thing led to another, Wendy and I hadn’t been together in months, I was living in a townhouse in the city… Lucy and I began an affair. But soon the money and gifts weren’t enough. She wanted to power and the status. But it was never emotional for me, I never loved her like I loved Wendy.”

“You’re a vile man!” Willow sobs.

James drops his head, “Please just let me finish, I’ve never uttered these words allowed and you can’t imagine how painful it is to say them, to relive them.”

She nods, we all remain silent as we wait for the conclusion to this fucked up fairytale.

“One day she came to my office, happier than I had ever seen her, and I’d seen her pretty happy at times, when she was up, she was up.” He says and I know exactly what she means.

“She came to tell me that she was pregnant, that she was giving me the heir I always wanted, she tried to convince me to sail away with her, runaway and leave Peter, Wendy and Piers behind to start over. I laughed.” His hands scrub down his face. “I thought she had gone mad.”

Not exactly how you might hope your birth story starts, but the more he talks, the more it sounds eerily similar to the mermaid tale my mum told me as a lad.

“I panicked because at first, then I was overjoyed, because I thought here’s a baby Wendy and I could raise, it could be our fresh start. I gave no thought to the fact that she wouldn’t want to give me the baby. I could provide better for it. She already couldn’t handle the baby that she had, so I mentioned it to her one night. She said she would think about it and then started making demands. We continued our affair, I was afraid to do anything to anger her, but she was playing me. I was a pawn in her hands, and Cohen, you were the pawn growing inside her. Little Pearl, she called you, so sure you were a girl. ”

The whoosing sound in my mind sounds like a freight train charging through. I struggle to focus on what he’s saying as the sound gets louder and my breathing feels labored.

“I played right into her hand, then after she had taken me for large amounts of money, she said that she would not let me adopt the baby for Wendy and I to raise, that if I ever wanted to see you again that I needed to either marry her or I would pay dearly. She threatened to exploit everything I had done to Wendy and I couldn’t risk losing her so I gave her more money and she promised to come back when you were born. I told her we could be together, but she knew I was lying.

The money was set up an offshore, and she just left, she never came back… the money was gone. Years and years I spent looking for you, I would get so close and every time, she would just vanished into thin air.”

Hearing that he was looking for me the whole time, is hard to understand. It feels like my mum put the dagger in my back and James is twisting it. The money, she swore to me the money was payment to make us disappear. I remember asking once, why would he pay us to leave if he keeps having the bad men look for us. She couldn’t answer, but I believed her because I loved her blindly. The way a son loves a mother. Can I offer the same blind love to James now, after hearing all this? I don’t know.

“It broke my heart, Wendy didn’t know what I was going through, how could I tell her? I bore the pain in silence. My sins don’t end there, because she ran away, disappeared, because of me and she left you behind Piers. Peter was killed at sea and that’s how you came to be at Everland. Shortly after Wendy began filling the house with the laughter of children that she rescued. It was a constant reminder that I had failed her, failed my own child… it was my own selfish quest to produce an heir, that the only one I ever had was ripped from me.” A sob tears through James’ throat as he concludes his story. The room is silent except for the falling of tears and the beating of hearts. Part of me feels for him, but I’m drowning in confusion over the lies I’ve been fed.

I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have nearly thirty years of sins laid bare on an altar of honesty.