Chet Williamson - Reign

"That's a nice boy," Marvella observed. "A wonder he turned out so friendly, his daddy the way he is." She paused a moment, and then added, "The way he was."

"I thought you liked Dennis," said Terri, her eyes on the job before her.

"I do like Dennis. I love Dennis, the way you love a spoiled child. But that doesn't change the fact he's spoiled."

"So's Evan," Terri said.

Marvella looked at the girl. "Why are you so down on him? He likes you well enough."

She snorted something that may have been a laugh. "That's the truth. I just don't want history to repeat itself."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't know about my mother? And Dennis Hamilton? Back in the good old days?"

"I know he was sweet on her, that what you mean?"

"Well, that's one way to put it."

"That's the way to put it. Honey, I knew Dennis back then, and believe me, if there was ever a more innocent baby – at the beginning, anyway – I never saw him.”

“And so is his son then, huh?"

"Evan's a good boy. A little mixed up about what he wants to do with his life, but everybody goes through that. Joining the Marines was the only way he could get away from his daddy, or so he thought. Had to get himself into a situation where Dennis couldn't haul him back home again, or stick him in another school."

"Well, maybe he's the sweetest boy in the world, but I don't want anything to do with him."

Marvella's eyes narrowed. "What's got you so skittish? Just that your momma and Dennis liked each other once?"

"Liked? That's past tense."

"Now hold on. If you're thinking that Dennis would try to get something going again with Ann, you're wrong, girl. He's married, and he loves Robin. He's not like that. Used to be, but not anymore."

"You've never heard of reversion to type? A good-looking man, not at all old, rich and famous with the reputation of being a ladies' man? How long do you think he can stay faithful, Marvella? I mean, I've noticed the way he's looked at me from time to time, and -"

"All right now, you stop coming up with these soap opera plots and you get your mind back on your work, girl. You just forget about Dennis and your ma, and you especially forget about Dennis and you. There's gonna be no funny business in this theatre, believe you me.. .”

~* ~

Robin was sure that Dennis and Ann were having an affair when, in the middle of a Friday afternoon two weeks before Christmas, she returned from the office to the Hamilton suite and heard voices coming from the bedroom. One of the speakers, she was sure, was Dennis, while the other, though she heard the voice only in brief snatches, was a woman.

"Dennis?" she called. The voices stopped, and she said again, "Dennis?" There was a shh, then quick whispers, and Robin thought she heard the woman (the woman? Ann Deems, god damn her!) giggle. That did it. She would not be laughed at. To be cheated on was bad enough, but to be laughed at was intolerable. She rushed to the bedroom door, flung it open, and stepped inside, ready to explode, to tear the woman apart, to wipe from her face forever the smirk that her laughter made all too clear.

But the bedroom was empty. That was the one thing Robin did not expect. She was prepared for nudity, for sexual gymnastics, for the most pornographic and blatant evidence of her husband's infidelity, but she was not prepared for negation, for an utter denial of what she had known to be the truth.

Or was it a denial after all? The room appeared to be empty, but the bedclothes were so disturbed that even the bottom sheet had come off to expose the mattress cover beneath. There was a trace of perfume in the air, Ann's perfume, mixed with the scent of naked bodies, the musky smell of rutting. And the bathroom door, usually open, was closed.

She was astonished at their audacity. To hide in the bathroom? Did they think she was some kind of moron not to realize that that was the only place they could be?

"You bitch," Robin said, jerking open the bathroom door.

The light was on, but the room was empty.

"How the hell…”she whispered to herself. "How the hell…”

On her way down to the office, she met Sid on the stairs. "Have you seen Dennis?" she asked.

"About half an hour ago. He said something about going for a walk."

She eyed him keenly as he passed her. Was he lying, covering up for his friend of many years? She had always trusted Sid before, but now he seemed like a stranger.

In the office, when she mentioned ever so casually that she had not seen Ann today, Donna told her that she had asked for the day off to do some Christmas shopping in Philadelphia, and, since she was well caught up with her work, Donna had obliged.

Shopping. Sure, Robin thought viciously, shopping for her husband's cock. They did it, goddammit, whether she caught them or not. They did it right in the bed she shared with Dennis, right in her own goddam bed, and Jesus, how that hurt, how that shamed her.

But she would say nothing. Not a thing. Not until she caught them, and she would catch them, it would be impossible not to, as careless as they were. She had no idea how they had gotten out of the bedroom, where they had hidden, but that they had been there was as true as the smell of that bitch's heat in the air. And when she found them

Robin could not remember ever being so angry. She was, she knew, mad enough to kill.

~* ~

A week before Christmas, people began to disappear, but in a benign manner.

Marvella Johnson took Whitney and went to her sister's home in Baltimore, where Whitney's mother would also be for the holidays. Donna flew to her mother's home in Fort Myers, Florida, while John Steinberg went to his brother's house in upstate New York. Curt also returned home, leaving the only non-Hamilton in residence at the Venetian Theatre Sid Harper, whose parents were both dead, and who had no siblings.

Evan Hamilton wished that he had other relatives he could visit over the holidays, but his relationship with his paternal grandparents was even more forced than it was with his father, and he had not seen his maternal grandparents for a dozen years. He did not relish the thought of spending Christmas with Dennis and Robin. Nothing, he felt, had really changed between him and his father. Despite early indications to the contrary, Dennis seemed more withdrawn than ever before. Robin had invited him to have dinner with them several times, and at first Evan had great hopes that he might finally become friends with his dad. The first few meals together were warm and friendly, and there had been moments of closeness and affection.

But lately the invitations had come less frequently, then not at all. It was just as well. Ever since Thanksgiving, a grand and glorious feast cooked magnificently by Sid, Dennis and Robin seemed to be at cross purposes, as though a wide and unbridgeable abyss lay between them. Evan wondered what was wrong, but could gather no hints.

His unease at having to spend Christmas with his uncommunicative father and stepmother was relieved when Dennis visited his suite and told him that he and Robin were flying to London for the holidays. "I hope you understand," Dennis said. "Robin's been working awfully hard the past few weeks, and I think it's important that we have a little time to ourselves. It'll be lonely around here, but at least Sid's staying. I just hope you're not disappointed that we won't have a family Christmas."

Evan made a gallant effort to show the proper amount of dejection the situation warranted. "No, I understand. It's fine. I hope you have a great time."

~* ~

They did not have a great time, nor even a good one. They had first come to London on their honeymoon, and Robin had loved it, entranced by every pub sign, by every plaque on what seemed like every house, by the overwhelming presence of age that hung over every twisted street, each little byway. The churches had awed and inspired her, the shops had delighted and tempted her, and Dennis had pushed her into every temptation. They had eaten in the little out of the way restaurants, most of them ethnic, that Dennis had discovered and cherished on previous trips across the Atlantic, had laughed, enjoyed, loved.