Sins of the Father (6 page)

D
id I doze off?” Abraham asked Deborah, who was perched on a chair next to his bed.

She stood and leaned on the bed railing. “For a few moments.” She bit her lip to keep
from crying. Her father, who had been full of strength and vigor at their last lunch
together, now lay weak and ashen in a hospital bed. He seemed to have aged more than
ten years in that short time.

He groaned. “Sorry, I’m tired.”

“That’s okay. I can leave so you can sleep.”

His eyes fluttered closed and then opened. “No, stay. Talk to me.”

“What do you want to talk about?” He grimaced, and she winced, feeling his pain. “Do
you want me to ask the nurse for more medicine?”

“You mean Nurse Ratchet? No way.” He tried to laugh but it came out as a cough.

She hurt for him, for her and for the time she had missed with him. She was also angry.
Why did he wait so late to come into her life?

“Your brother?” he asked.

She pushed her anger aside. “He couldn’t make it,” she said, not wanting to blurt
out the truth.

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” he said. “He didn’t want to come, did he?”

Anger rose anew in her. This time it was directed at Michael. Sometimes her brother
took his selfishness too far. Tonight was one of those times. “I’m sorry,” she said
to Abraham.

“Don’t be sorry. I don’t too much blame him.” He coughed again. “I’d probably feel
the same way if I were in his shoes.” He tried to smile but it turned into another
grimace. “Thank God your heart is softer than both of ours. You’re my girl, aren’t
you, Deborah?”

She smiled back him. “I sure am.”

He teared up. “So sorry for the past…” he began.

“Don’t worry about the past. Be glad we have today. I am.” She wiped his tears with
her fingers, the first time she’d touched his face this way. The hairs on his face
tickled her hand. This was her father! “I don’t want to lose you, Dad. I need more
time to get to know you.”

He smiled, this time a real one, and it made her smile back.

“Something good came out of this,” he said. “First time you called me Dad. I hope
I’m not dead and in heaven.”

She chuckled. “You’re not dead,” she said, her eyes filling with happy tears. “First
time I’ve said the words to you, but I’ve practiced them a lot.”

“Your mother did a good job with you. She could have made you hate me.”

She shook her head. “She never wanted that.”

“Good woman.”

Deborah had so many questions she wanted to ask him. Did he
ever love her mother? Why did he cheat on his wife? Did he love his wife? How could
he ignore her and her brother all those years? All questions she had to put on hold
now. Questions she might never get to ask.

“Need your help,” he said.

“Whatever you need.”

“Take care of the family. Isaac’s angry with me, Michael hates me, and Saralyn hates
everybody but Isaac.” He winced. “You’re going to have to hold them together. Make
a family.”

“I’m not sure—”

“You can do it,” he said. “It’ll be hard, but you can do it.”

“But—”

“Just say you’ll try.”

Deborah thought about it, but knew she really had no choice. The pleading in his eyes
ensnared her heart. She couldn’t deny him—not now. “I’ll try.”

“Good girl,” he said. Then he yawned. “Sleepy.”

She rubbed her hand over his head, now taking every opportunity to touch him. “Go
to sleep,” she said. “I’ll sit here quietly until you do.”

Then she sat silently next to her father’s bed, praying he would get better. Strange
that she had gone all these years without a father and now it would be hard to go
on without him.

I
t’s better than I thought,” Josette overheard Michael say on the phone as she walked
into the kitchen of their recently renovated Cape Code in Atlanta’s Buckhead suburb.
She had been dying to move out here, even though the price tag pushed them to the
limits of their budget. Good for business, she’d told him when he balked. Those three
words had sold him.

“Sounds to me like the old man is going to be out of commission for a while,” he said
into the phone. He smiled at her as she opened the stainless steel refrigerator and
pulled out a carton of milk. “Let’s talk more about this tomorrow,” he said, hanging
up.

“What was that about?” she asked.

When she reached up to get a glass from the cabinet, he came up behind her, put his
arms around her waist and pulled her close. Kissing her neck, he whispered, “Ready
for bed?”

“Almost,” she said, sinking into his embrace even though she realized he was trying
to turn her attention from his telephone
call. This wasn’t the first time he’d abruptly ended a call when she entered the room.
It made her suspicious.

“Let me get the glass.” He reached over her head, not releasing her, and brought down
the glass for her. “You have a man to do these things for you,” he whispered, “so
take advantage.” He cuddled closer behind her. “I plan to take advantage of you later
on.” Still holding her body tight against his, he poured the milk and handed it to
her.

She loved him when he was like this with her, so affectionate, so protective. The
doorbell rang as the first swallow of milk went down. “Who could that be?” she asked.

“Ignore it,” Michael muttered, dotting kisses down her neck.

She wanted to follow his lead, but her head prevailed over her heart. “We can’t. It
could be your mother or Deborah with news about your father.”

She felt him stiffen. “All the more reason to ignore it.”

When the bell rang again, Josette pulled out of Michael’s arms. “We have to answer
the door, Michael.”

He tapped his middle finger against her nose. “Party pooper.”

She chuckled. “You’re a trip.” She held out her hand to him. “Come with me,” she said.

He waited until the bell rang the third time before he took her hand. “Maybe they’ll
be gone when we get to the door and we can head straight upstairs.”

Josette was still laughing at her husband when she opened the front door. Her laughter
stopped abruptly when she saw a disheveled and weary-eyed Isaac standing in the doorway.
“Isaac?”

Behind her, Michael said, “Told you we shouldn’t have opened the door.”

Ignoring her husband’s rudeness, Josette asked, “Is this about Mr. Martin?”

Isaac nodded. “He wants to see your husband.” To Michael, he said, “He’s asking for
you.”

Michael folded his arms across his chest. “And?”

Isaac sighed. “Look, I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me to be here,
but our father wants to see you. The least you can do is honor his request.”

Dropping his folded arms, Michael laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? You didn’t just
ask me to honor our father’s request? Are you talking about the father who failed
to acknowledge me for thirty years? I can’t believe you’re asking me to honor anything
from him. What honor has he shown me, my sister, or my mother?”

With those words, he stalked away from the door. Josette heard his footsteps going
up the stairs. “I’m sorry,” she told Isaac, with a wobbly smile. This was their first
face-to-face meeting, and she was struck by how much he and Michael looked alike.
She’d seen the resemblance in photos, but seeing him up close like this made it more
vivid. “There’s no getting through to him when it comes to Mr. Martin. Leah and Deborah
tried to get him to go to the hospital. If Leah couldn’t convince him, nobody can.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Isaac confessed. “Dad’s talking like he’s dying—”

“Has his condition worsened?”

Isaac wiped his hands down his face. “Not according to the doctors, but Dad’s telling
a different story. This pessimism is so unlike him. He’s a fighter, but it seems he’s
giving up.”

Josette felt Isaac’s pain and wished again that Michael would try harder with him.
They would both benefit. “I’ll try again with Michael,” she said. “But I don’t want
you to get your hopes up. He’s pretty rigid when it comes to Mr. Martin.”

“I know,” Isaac said, “but thanks for offering to try. That’s all you can do. That’s
all any of us can do.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, I’ll be leaving.
Thanks for everything.”

Josette closed the door and mounted the steps to their bedroom with a heavy heart.
Every thought of Michael’s hatred for his father was accompanied with the question
of how much that hate was affecting their marriage.

He was stretched out on their king-sized bed, talking on the phone, when she entered
the bedroom. He hung up, again obviously not wanting her to hear his conversation.
She hated this secrecy and the suspicions it aroused in her.

“Can you believe that guy?” Michael asked. “Coming here and asking me something like
that?”

“What I can’t believe is you,” she said, angered because he was hiding something from
her. “All the man wants is to see you.”

Michael leaned on his side so he faced her. “Well, he had thirty years to see me and
didn’t. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of asking me to forgive him. All
he wants to do is clear his guilty conscience. Once again, Abraham Martin is only
concerned with Abraham Martin.”

“You’re certainly his son,” Josette said. She turned toward the dresser and began
removing her earrings.

“What do you mean by that?”

She turned back to him after removing both earrings and her necklace. “I mean you’re
repeating his mistakes.” She perched on the side of the bed. “Don’t you see, Michael?
You’ve set yourself on a path to ignore your father, the same way he set himself on
a path to ignore you. He was wrong then and you’re wrong now.”

“You can’t seriously be comparing me to him. There is no comparison in how he treated
us and the way I’m treating him. No comparison at all.”

She sighed. “I know you don’t see one, but it’s there. Answer me this, Michael. Do
you love me?”

He looked directly into her eyes. “Of course I love you. That’s a stupid question.
Don’t I show my love all the time? See, now he’s got you questioning my love.”

She shook her head. “Not him. You. Why didn’t you tell me that Abraham Martin was
your father before we got married?”

“There was nothing to tell. That old man was never a father to me.”

“That’s not good enough,” she said, needing a better explanation.

He reached up, pulled her down to lie flat against him and began to massage her pregnant
belly. “Because I didn’t want you to marry me for money you thought I might inherit
one day,” he said with a grin. “Now stop asking these crazy questions. You’re going
to make our baby dizzy.”

Josette allowed him to coax her out of her upset. She settled against him. “Will you
do one thing for me, Michael?”

He pressed a kiss against her forehead. “Don’t ask me to go see the old man, because
I’m not. Anything else and you’ve got it.”

“Please reconsider your plans for revenge against your father.”

“What plans?”

“Don’t deny them. Not tonight. Not now. I’ve overheard enough of your phone conversations
to know you’re plotting something. All I ask is that you reconsider your plans. Think
about how they’ll affect your mother and Deborah. Think about how they’ll affect our
baby and us. Don’t let your animosity toward your father cause you to hurt the people
you claim to love. I beg you.”

R
ebecca lay in the antique four-poster bed she shared with her husband, staring out
at the Atlanta skyline from the floor-to-ceiling windows of their midtown Atlanta
condo. She loved the view, and everything about the condo, which had been a gift from
Isaac’s parents. On any other night she’d lose herself in the starry sky and her concerns
would fade away.

Not tonight. Her mind was too crowded, her heart too anxious. She loved Isaac more
than she thought she could love a man, and she knew he loved her. She just hoped he
loved her enough to forgive her.

“Well, I did try,” Isaac said, flicking off the light to the master bathroom. He yawned
as he headed toward the bed. “That’s all I can do. Maybe Michael will change his mind.”

Rebecca pulled back the duvet bedcover so he could join her. He’d had a long, stressful
day, and she knew he needed to rest.
“Don’t count on it,” she said. “Michael’s deep-seated resentment toward your father
is not going to change overnight.”

He sank down in the bed and pulled her close to him. “Maybe you’re right, but it means
so much to Dad. Maybe I should try harder with Michael.”

She wrapped her arms around his middle, needing a greater connection with him. “I
think you should stay as far away from Michael as possible. He’s not to be trusted.”

He kissed her forehead. “You’re starting to sound like my mother.”

“Well, I agree with her on some things. For one, I think you should go back to MEEG,
especially now that your father is ill. We still don’t know how long he’s going to
be out of commission.”

“Mom’s there,” Isaac said. “And you’re there. Certainly MEEG can get along with one
missing Martin.”

“But you need to be there, too,” she said. “Your mother’s right. MEEG is your birthright.
You can’t just give it up.”

He rubbed his temples, a sure sign that he was stressed out. “Using that logic, it’s
as much Michael’s and Deborah’s birthright as it is mine.”

Rebecca thought about the anniversary gifts Michael had sent them over the years.
Though she hadn’t known it at the time, those gifts had been nothing but jabs at Isaac.
“Michael wants to hurt you, Isaac. He wants you to pay for being the cherished son
of Abraham Martin.”

He kissed her softly on her lips. “Where do you get that from? From where I sit, all
he’s done is tell Dad to stay out of his life. I can’t much blame him for that. Besides,
things have changed now. Dad’s sick. The family needs to rally around him. Whether
we like it or not, that family includes Michael.”

Michael’s threats when she visited his office played in Rebecca’s mind. She didn’t
want Isaac to let down his guard where Michael was concerned, and only knew of one
way to convince him that
present circumstances demanded he take charge. “Do you love me, Isaac?” she asked,
knowing she was about to put that love to the test.

He brushed a kiss on the top of her head. “You know I do.”

She looked up into his face, needing reassurance of his answer. “I mean really love
me?”

“What’s this about?” he asked, his brow lined with concern.

She turned away from him, unsure she could say the words she needed to say. “When
you found out your father had been lying to you for years, you turned your back on
him. And you’re only turning back to him now that he’s ill. What if I did something
you didn’t like? Would you turn your back on me?”

He tightened his arms around her. “Okay, these hypothetical questions aren’t helping.
You’re not going to do anything that will make me turn away from you.”

“What if I already have?”

He tipped her chin up. “What have you done?”

“It’s not what I’ve done. It’s what I’ve haven’t told you.” She took a deep breath.
“Michael sent us a wedding gift, and he’s been sending us a gift on our anniversary
every year.”

His eyes widened and he pulled back from her. “What? Why would he do that?”

She bit down on her lower lip. “I think he did it as some secret joke on us. Michael
and I were in a relationship a couple of years before I met you, though it wasn’t
anything serious. I think he sent the gifts because he knew something that neither
of us knew at the time: that you and he were half brothers.”

Her heart ached at the confusion in his eyes. “That’s sick.”

She shook her head. “That’s Michael. And that’s why you have to be careful of him.
He wants to hurt you Isaac. That’s why—”

He didn’t let her finish. “Why didn’t you tell me about these gifts?”

He looked at her as if he didn’t know who she was. “There was
nothing to tell,” she said. “Michael was an old boyfriend trying to reach into my
current life. I didn’t want him to, so I sent the gifts back unopened.”

“You still should have told me,” he said, shaking his head.

She sat on her knees on the bed and pleaded with him. “I know that now.”

He rubbed his hand across his head. “Do you still have feelings for him?”

She looked down at her hands and then back up at him. “No way. As I said, it was never
serious. I was young and thought I was the next Mary J. Blige. He thought he was the
next Sean Combs. We both were looking for something other than love in the relationship.
It ended when we realized we couldn’t advance each other’s careers.”

Isaac rolled away from her and got up from the bed. He looked down at her. “You slept
with him to advance your career? Is that why you slept with me?”

Rebecca’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t believe that. I love you, Isaac. What was
between Michael and me was nothing compared to what we have. I love you.”

“So you say,” he said. “Your words would be easier to believe if you’d told me about
Michael and the gifts from the start. Now they sound like an excuse, a weak excuse.”

“You have to believe me,” she said.

Isaac’s mouth opened but no words came out. He turned, then, and stormed out of their
bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

Rebecca folded over and began to weep. She prayed she hadn’t ruined her marriage,
but somewhere deep inside, she knew she had.