Heart of Ice

26

It was past midnight when Ross put the key into the front door of the cottage and slipped inside. The parlor was dark except for the glow of a dying fire in the hearth.

Ross hung up his coat and pulled off his scarf. He stood for a moment, eyes closed, holding the scarf to his nose. Her smell was still there in the cashmere, and so was his memory of the scarf draped between her bare breasts. It had been only a few hours since he had made love to her, but his desire stirred again. It was as powerful as it had been that first time five years ago when they began their love affair.

He hung up the scarf and went to the liquor cabinet in the parlor to pour himself a drink.

Love affair? No, that’s not what it was. There wasn’t a shred of love between them. It was all sex. Sex and professional favors. She needed an interview or some gossip at the state capital, and in exchange he needed. .

Sandy Hunt. Sophisticated, intelligent, and gorgeous-one of the most familiar faces in the Michigan media. Her public reputation was as a street-smart woman playing hardball in a man’s world. But privately Ross knew what people thought of her. He had heard what the other reporters said, the jokes they made and the names they called her in Stober’s bar as they watched her on TV. Sandy the slut. . that was the kindest one.

Ross drank the Hennessy, letting it burn its way down his throat.

A few hours ago he had been in her Lansing apartment, listening to Sinatra croon from the other room. It was a drizzly day, the kind of day that lulled a man toward sleep, and her bedroom had been a grotto of silver-blue shadows.

He had lain there, wondering why the fuck he kept coming back to a woman he couldn’t trust, wondering how he was going to get his attack ads on the air when he didn’t have the money to pay for them, wondering about-

The memory of Sinatra’s voice momentarily interrupted his thoughts.

“Today the world is old. . You flew away and time grew cold.”

He shut his eyes. Sandy had sensed something was wrong, because she started to stroke his chest, a tender gesture that she seldom offered. Her voice had the smoothness and burn of brandy.

Too bad your father doesn’t just fly away one night in his sleep, then you would have everything you need to be the man you were meant to be.

I love my father, Sandy.

Uh-huh. Right.

She rolled away from him, smoked a cigarette, and fell asleep. Soon after, not wanting to be near her anymore, he slipped from her apartment and chartered a flight back to the island. On the way, he made a decision. He would tell his father that he wasn’t going to sit out the campaign waiting around the island for news about Julie. And he was going to demand that his father unlock an untouched trust left to Julie by their grandfather and give him the money he needed to win this election.

She was dead, damn it. His father had never been willing to admit it. Five years ago, Ross had finally petitioned the court to declare Julie legally dead. After his father saw her death announcement in the newspaper, the last of his father’s affection for him seemed to disappear.

Ross rose and went upstairs. As he passed Maisey’s room, he paused to make sure she was snoring, then moved on to his father’s room, stopping at the open door.

His father was sleeping, frail-looking in the enormous four-poster bed.

Ross went to the bed and stared down at his father. For several months now he had known Dad wouldn’t make it much past the New Year. While Maisey was already grieving in her own way, he had felt so little he often wondered what was wrong with him.

I love my father, Sandy.

But he had known since he was about twelve that it wasn’t the kind of love a son should have. It was obligatory, forced, sometimes offered desperately in the hopes of getting a splinter of the affection his father saved for Julie.

As Ross grew older he gave up on love, becoming instead the consummate actor playing the role of a loving son, because that’s what people expected of the Chapmans. And even as his father grew sicker and more distant, even as Ross had his own children and made a name for himself in Lansing, he continued to play the same role.

Decades of pretending.

And now, as he stood there and looked at the old man who had once been the indomitable Edward W. Chapman, he was stunned to feel an ache in his chest. It was the ache of needing love from someone who didn’t love you back, and it was real. He knew because he’d felt it once before.

Ross looked down at the oxygen tank, at the gauge that monitored the flow rate. A tiny red needle quivered over the number two. The voice of Dad’s doctor in Bloomfield Hills drifted to Ross, like a cold breeze from a crack in the window.

It’s important the oxygen flow stay consistent. Too much or too little could be fatal in a matter of minutes.

Ross shut his eyes, trying to erase what he was thinking.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your father just flew away?

It would get him the money he needed to finish his campaign. It would buy the bigger house Karen wanted. It would allow him to set Sandy up in an apartment in D.C. And he could get rid of Maisey.

Slowly Ross reached down and turned the dial on the oxygen tank up to four.

His instinct was to watch his father’s face, but he forced himself not to look, afraid that his father’s eyes would open and he would see his son standing over him.

Ross listened for some indication that death had come, but the seconds passed so slowly he began to count them in his head. Still, he heard nothing but the hiss of the oxygen growing louder and louder and louder.

Shame suddenly engulfed him.

Ross tightened every muscle and closed his eyes.

Fifteen, sixteen. .

Then, as soft as if it had come from another room, he heard a cough.

Or had he?

Ross forced himself to look down at his father. Nothing about the old man had changed. There was no sudden gray hue to the skin, no flop of his head toward the side, nothing to confirm the horror of what he had just done.

Ross put a finger to his father’s neck, then to his wrist, holding it there for nearly a minute even though there was no pulse.

Ross turned the oxygen dial back to number two. Then he stepped away from the bed, feeling as he had with Sandy that afternoon-suddenly sickened by the thought of being there a moment longer.

He moved to the window.

It was pitch-black but the pale light behind him haloed his reflection in the glass. The image was almost transparent, defined only by patches of frost and slivers of light.

I have killed my father.

How had he become this man? A man who cheats on his wife, who drinks with criminals for donations, who lies to old women for votes.

“You flew away and time grew cold.”

The tears came. He stayed at the window, letting them fall.

His only thoughts were, as always, for himself.

How did I become this monster?