Carla Neggers - Betrayals

He found his mother in her stone garden house, transplanting pink geraniums into scrubbed terra-cotta pots. Gardening, he felt, was one of those chores Annette Winston Reed pretended to enjoy but secretly loathed. At sixty, she had chosen to play the game of representing the honor, dignity and charm of a bygone era-of being the proper Boston Brahmin dowager. She looked the part well enough with her gracefully graying hair, her reserved style of dress, her unconventional beauty. With age, she’d come into her particular kind of attractiveness; her strong features and height made her seem elegant without being frail. She sat on the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations and was generous with her time, energy and intelligence. People saw her as a well-bred, if formidable, Beacon Hill lady.

Yet there was another side to Annette Reed: the side that had made her the successful, imposing chairman of Winston & Reed, the woman who had led the company since her husband’s death. It was she who had transformed it into a major player in the volatile and lucrative real estate and construction markets of the northeast United States. However, she seemed ambivalent about her power and her business triumphs. Oddly true to her own background and era, in public she credited her husband for his conception of the company and her son for running it. In private, however, she made sure Quentin knew who was in control. Yet, at the same time, she didn’t hide her frustration with him for acquiescing to her will, seeing it not as respect for her abilities but as a sign of weakness in him. Not that she’d have tolerated anything else. Quentin had come to see that his mother’s need to control stemmed not from strength and intelligence, as he had once believed, but from insecurity and selfishness. As for himself, he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

“Quentin-dear, it’s so good to see you.” She pulled off her gardening gloves. “Kim just put out lemonade in the garden. Shall we?”

As if he had any choice. “Of course, Mother.”

“I was going to come into the office,” she said, leading him out of the garden house, “but I felt this is a private matter properly discussed at home.”

Quentin made no comment at her assumption that he, too, would consider the Winston house his home. She gestured to the chair at the white iron table he’d occupied since boyhood, and he sat down obediently, letting her pour two glasses of fresh-squeezed, lightly sweetened lemonade. There was the ubiquitous plate of sugar cookies as well, their sweet smell mixing with the scents of the garden, an unusually large one for Beacon Hill.

His mother withdrew a folded section of newspaper from the khaki jacket she always wore gardening. “I saw this at the pharmacy earlier this morning and decided I should call you.”

She shook the paper open as she handed it across to him, her hand steady, and Quentin tried to conceal his reaction when he saw the two photographs occupying most of the front page of the popular national tabloid. He could feel himself going pale, could feel his stomach begin to burn. The picture on the left was a famous shot portraying the final American withdrawal from South Vietnam. It was seared in Quentin’s mind for all time. There, again, was twenty-year-old Rebecca Blackburn carrying an infant and supporting the weight of a seriously wounded Jared Sloan as she got them all into a helicopter, only hours before communist troops entered Saigon. Rebecca’s anguished expression-of shock, horror, betrayal, grief and determination-had captured the mixed feelings of so many as the nation of South Vietnam ceased to exist, and two decades of American hopes and promises ended.

The photograph on the right was a recent one of Jared Sloan in San Francisco, decking a motorcycle tough who’d insulted his fourteen-year-old Amerasian daughter, looking on from her grandfather’s limousine. Quentin’s gaze lingered on Mai Sloan. He absorbed every detail of her pretty face with its unusual, distinctive features. He could see Tam in her.

Tam…

After so many years, Quentin was amazed that he still felt betrayed by her, still felt such unrelenting sorrow over how they’d lost each other. She’d died that last day in Saigon. Her child-Jared’s child-had lived. “It’s painful to look at, I know,” Annette said tartly, snatching the clipping from him. “How Jared could let such a thing happen…” She broke off with an irritated sigh. “There’s not much of an article. Fortunately, we weren’t specifically mentioned, but they did find out Rebecca Blackburn’s back in Boston. I’m afraid there could be ramifications for us, Quentin. We should be prepared.”

“Mother, don’t be silly. I haven’t seen Jared in years-”

“That doesn’t matter. He’s your cousin. And if the press should learn Winston & Reed had hired Rebecca-and let her go-we could be in for some nasty publicity.”

Quentin doubted his mother would ever let him forget that he’d inadvertently allowed a Blackburn to come under contract with their company. It was the sort of oversight Annette Winston Reed would never make. He said awkwardly, “You know I took care of that problem in as discreet a manner as I could.”

She scowled. “There shouldn’t have been a problem to take care of.”

“Mother,” he said gently, knowing that trying to defend himself would only make matters worse, “I’m confident I can handle the media should anyone want to pursue this story, but frankly, I doubt anyone will. What would be the point? The Blackburn-Winston thing’s been exhausted twice, in 1963 and again in 1975.”

Annette stiffened, annoyed. “Don’t patronize me, Quentin. Your cousin should have considered us when he decided to attack that fellow.”

“I doubt Jared’s even thought about us in years.”

“I’m sure you’re right about that,” she said bitterly. “Nevertheless, you’ll remain alert, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“And stay away from Rebecca Blackburn. She’ll only cause trouble.”

“Mother, she’s as much a victim in all this as you or I-”

“A Blackburn a victim?” Annette fell back into her chair with a derisive laugh. “Now who’s being silly?”

Regretting his unthinking comment, Quentin slipped into silence. Once he’d finished his obligatory glass of lemonade and sugar cookie, his mother allowed him to leave, with further promises that he’d do whatever he could to keep her, himself, and Winston & Reed out of the newspapers. He walked back out to Beacon Street, crossing onto the Common and stopping at the Park Street subway station. The vendor there had plenty of copies of The Score. Quentin bought one for himself.

His walk slowed and he felt a little faint, almost sick, as he stared again at fourteen-year-old Mai Sloan. He ’d never even met her. He wished circumstances had allowed him to know his cousin’s daughter. Tam’s only child. But that would have meant breaching the unspoken agreement between his mother, Jared and himself. Jared’s illegitimate half-Vietnamese daughter was his concern. In the unforgiving mind of Annette Winston Reed, Mai was an embarrassment to suffer, not a member of the family. To disagree with that summation would have required more courage than Quentin could muster.

And for his part, Jared seemed content with his exile from Boston, from the Winstons and the world he’d known as a child. There were times Quentin envied his cousin his freedom.

He looked again at the photograph, at Mai’s beautiful almond eyes and her father’s livid face, and he sadly realized there was no one he’d risk injury and the notoriety of his picture in The Score to defend. He wondered if Jared regretted the outburst that had landed him on the cover of a supermarket tabloid, but thought not. Jared had always been one to act on impulse, but he willingly accepted the consequences for whatever he did. Quentin had always admired his cousin’s courage, his ability not to look back.