She wondered why. Years of watching every word and placating Douglas had gotten her right to the place where she was standing.
She turned away. “I won’t bother you with whatever I find. I just told you what you need to know.”
“More than I need to know.”
“Douglas, if I were you, I would prepare a response in case anybody else brings it up.” Then despite a lifetime of training she added: “Something between passing out cigars and what you’ve said here.”
The sound of angry footsteps disappeared slowly down the hallway until the door to the garage slammed. Today he was driving himself to work. At the last minute his driver had taken a personal day, and Douglas was fuming about that, as well. She was afraid that between the son in trouble and the absent driver, the driver bothered him more.
When she looked back on her fifty-eight years, after she peeled away the superficial layers that first jumped to mind, deleted all the social events she had helped with for charity, deducted all the money that Douglas had donated to causes that propped up his financial interests? When she did all that, hoping for some sign that deep inside she was a good woman? She found next to nothing.
But today, no matter what Douglas said, she was going to see Graham and the baby.
Upstairs in the master bedroom she stared out the window and considered what to wear. The Randolphs’ house on Belvedere Island had priceless views of Sausalito and the Golden Gate Bridge, but she was too preoccupied to notice. Casual was probably in order, but casual in her closet meant expensive resort wear, nothing particularly baby proof. She remembered how, as a newborn, Graham had spit up on everything until she had asked the nanny to feed and burp him before she picked him up herself.
Had she really been that concerned about appearance and so little concerned about bonding with her son?
She chose gray pants and a matching knit top that she planned to donate to the Tiburon Thrift Shop. These days she needed brighter colors anyway. Her hair was carefully blond, like Graham’s, her face as young as the best plastic surgeon in San Francisco could make it. She still saw inevitable signs of aging.
She wondered if Douglas ever looked at her long enough to see them, too.
The drive to San Jose would probably take at least two hours, unless she waited until well after rush hour. She decided not to wait, and not to call Graham. If he wasn’t home she would settle somewhere and wait. She didn’t want to risk having her son tell her that he didn’t want to see her. She wasn’t sure what she would say to him, but her Tesla practically drove itself, and even in heavy traffic she would have time to plan. She told herself she would be ready.
Two and a half hours later, the drive hadn’t worked any magic. By the time she drove into the Willow Glen neighborhood in the south part of San Jose, she still didn’t have a speech prepared, and worse, she was lost. So much time had passed since she had visited her son and daughter-in-law that she had to pull over and set her GPS to find their house. Two turns and a few minutes later she parked on the right street, but she didn’t get out of the car. She gazed up and down the block.
Willow Glen was charming in a way that the fabulously beautiful Belvedere was not. The houses were small, cozy and individual. She had never studied architecture, but she didn’t need a college course to see that a number of styles and eras were represented here.
Yards were small, most carpeted in flowers or shrubs instead of grass. Graham and Lilia’s house was one of them, asymmetrical beds of roses and perennials, a bench and a birdbath. While she didn’t really like her daughter-in-law, she had to give Lilia credit for making the most of the tiny Tudor cottage she had inherited from an aunt. A brick walkway wound its way up to a brick porch. A vine, probably wisteria, ran from one side to the other along the front. These days the house was painted a subtle pine green. The door was ivory and the trim a bright seashore blue. Everything was too quaint, too picturesque, to suit Ellen. But she could see the appeal.
She blamed herself for Lilia. In a way she had been the one to introduce the girl to her son. Lilia’s mother, Nalani, had been the house manager for the Randolphs’ estate on Kauai’s North Shore. Douglas had bought the seven-acre property as an investment, but he had been in no hurry to sell, hoping for a zoning change that would let him subdivide and make a significant profit. So the family had visited there several times a year, and Nalani had both cared for the property while they were away and acted as housekeeper and occasional cook when they were in residence. She managed other properties, too, and when the house had to be opened in a hurry, her five children often pitched in, a family business of sorts.
On one of those occasions, ten-year-old Lilia was introduced to eleven-year-old Graham. And from that point on, until the year that Douglas forcibly broke up the friendship that had formed between Lilia, Graham and later Carrick—who had often visited the estate with the Randolphs—Lilia and Graham had taken far too enthusiastic an interest in each other.
To this day Ellen wondered if the grown-up Lilia had stalked Graham to renew their “friendship.” Both claimed their meeting years later, at a party in Berkeley where he’d been a student in the architecture department, was accidental. But the heir to the Randolph Group was an extraordinary catch. For all the laid-back, not-the-way-we-do-things-in-Hawaii attitudes that Lilia laid claim to, Ellen still wondered if the girl had known Graham would be at that party and traveled all the way from San Jose to reacquaint herself with the man who could make her life so much easier.
Of course it certainly hadn’t turned out that way.
Ellen had delayed long enough. She tucked her handbag under her arm, got out and locked the car before she started up the street, then the walkway. She’d considered bringing gifts, but that had seemed hopelessly positive. She wasn’t sure if she was here to celebrate or commiserate. Graham had survived cancer and now had an illegitimate son to deal with. Celebration would have to wait for more details.
At the front door she rang the doorbell and heard music. Not chimes, but snatches of a song. She shook her head and waited, trying again when nobody answered the door. She was just beginning to plan where she would wait when it opened.
Graham was so pale, so clearly exhausted, that for a moment she wasn’t sure this was her son.
“Graham?” She stretched out a hand and touched his arm. “Are you all right?”
He raked fingers through hair too short to need grooming. “What are you doing here?”
“Word gets out. I heard about...” She shrugged. “I heard you have a son. I heard Lilia left you.”
“And you swooped right in. Here to gloat?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why?”
“To see if I can help, I guess.”
He faked a laugh. “Cancer didn’t spur you on, but the baby did. I’ll have to think that one over.”
Early in his life Graham had learned to be cool and polite, to combat his father’s sarcasm and criticism with aloof good manners. She had never heard him be so dismissive.
“Nobody knows better than you do why I had to stay away,” she said.
“Actually I don’t know. I figure you’re an adult, and unless I missed something, my father doesn’t chain you to a chair when he’s not around.”
“I didn’t come here to fight or defend myself.”
“So tell me again why you did come?”
“I’d like to see my grandson. If it’s true that I have one.”
“Oh, it’s true. But he’s actually sleeping. For once.”
“You look like you’re going to fall over. Let’s go inside.”
“Please, keep your voice down. He’s upstairs, but God knows what wakes him up and sets him off.”
“You