“Well, I imagine you and Nick have figured out what this is all about,” Parker said.
“Not really.”
“I cared for your mother very much,” Parker said. “We had some very nice times together. It was a mistake, though.” He paused. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to suggest-”
“I understand,” Patch said.
“What I am trying to say is that I should have remained faithful to my wife. Your mother and your father-or at least, the man you knew as your father-were having trouble conceiving. And so when your mother became pregnant, she was happy. For Esme, it seemed like the solution. We were a perfect foursome. Of course, only she and I knew about it.”
“My father never knew?” Patch found this hard to believe.
“No, that’s not entirely true. He found out, which was difficult, to say the least. And my wife, Nick’s mother, found out as well. It split up our little group. It was a sad, sad time. Particularly when your mother had her difficulty. I wanted you to be close, and so I arranged to help subsidize the apartment that you and your grandmother live in now, as Eugenia was having trouble paying the maintenance fees. Your grandmother, by the way, doesn’t know that; she believes that her fees were simply lowered on account of her age. My wife, needless to say, was not pleased about any of it.”
“So that’s why she’s disliked me all these years,” Patch said.
“I wouldn’t say that, Patch. She’s just worried about Nick.”
“Oh, you mean, she doesn’t like him hanging out with the kid from the wrong side of the tracks?”
“You’re hardly from the wrong side of the tracks!” Parker laughed. “You come from one of the most distinguished families in New York. George Madison and your grandmother made a fine pair. As did your mother and father-well, you know, Patch, Jr.-oh, dear, this is complicated. Anyway, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed of anything,” Patch said.
“That’s good.” He paused and pulled out a cigar. “Would you like one?”
Patch shook his head. Why was he trying to act like he could suddenly be his dad? Patch had seen how Parker treated Nick through the years, and he knew that the man could turn his charm on and off in an instant.
Parker cut the tip from his cigar and then lit it, blowing puffs of smoke into the air.
“How did it all happen?” Patch asked. “I mean, how did it go down?”
“I’m not sure I can get into all that,” Parker said. “Dendur was a complicated matter.”
“I’m sorry, ‘Dendur’?”
“We called it ‘Dendur,’ as Esme and I believed that you were conceived on the last night we were together, the evening of the last Dendur Ball. After that, the lawyers all called it the ‘Dendur situation.’”
“What involvement did they have?”
“Helping your family out, making sure your grandmother could stay in the building even after your mother and father no longer had their apartment. And setting up the trust for you with your grandfather. I had promised all that to your mother. Palmer didn’t understand it at first, but once I explained it to him, he acquiesced. I think he was jealous. The Bells and the Evanses. We’ve always liked your family. You know about his feelings for your grandmother.”
“I’m so glad we could be a source of amusement to you,” Patch said. The cigar smoke was making him nauseous.
“Don’t be so flip,” Parker said. “You have always had something special, Patch.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you know what a caul bearer is?” Parker stood up and went to his copy of Webster’s, flipping it open. “You are a child who was born in the caul, which, not to mince words, is the amniotic sac. It is very rare, unlike anyone else in our family. Traditionally, it has marked a child for greatness. In ancient Egypt, it actually meant that a baby was fated for the cult of Isis, an order that some say still exists today.”
“Oh, let me guess,” Patch scoffed. “You’re the head of the cult of Isis, too?” He may have been sarcastic on the surface, but he had to admit that he was intrigued.
“Not exactly,” Parker said, laughing. “You’ll have to discover that one for yourself.”
“Okay, I guess I’ll add that to my to-do list,” Patch said.
“It is a shame that your greatness has not truly emerged yet,” Parker said. “Thus far, you have been nothing but a weak link in the Society, a link that has threatened to bring it all down. In December, when you were initiated, I thought we might begin to see some of that greatness from you. Instead of fulfilling that mission, you and your friends have been Infidels. I would expect more from my sons. Of course, in many ways, you have completed exactly the pattern we see in all our future leaders: you start out as rebels, and eventually you find yourselves in charge.”
Patch felt an anger welling up inside of him as he stood up. Almost out of nowhere, he found himself yelling at Parker. “For seventeen years you keep this secret from me, and now you want to call me your son? I don’t think so! You’re not my father, and I’m not your son. You don’t get that privilege automatically. It’s something that you have to earn. My father was the man who drowned twelve years ago. Don’t ever forget that.” Patch was shaking as he said these words, but he had never felt so strong in his convictions.
Parker looked as if Patch had upturned an ashtray in his face, but he did nothing as Patch left the room.
As Patch stormed through the Bell foyer and into the elevator, he thought about the greatness that Parker had mentioned. He wondered whether this greatness was really intended for him, or if he had merely been born in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Chapter Forty-Four
The year 1603, according to Phoebe, was the last year of the Tudor dynasty, ending with the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Phoebe was convinced that the salient piece of information in all this was one word: Tudor.
“Come on, Nick,” she prodded him after they had said good-bye to Patch in front of the Algonquin. “What have we seen recently that’s Tudor?”
Nick shrugged as they walked east. “Beats me.” It seemed like another one of his grandfather’s mind games, even if it had been administered from the grave.
“I can’t believe it-I was hopped up on tranquilizers and I remember the Tudor-style house that we all met at, the day after Thanksgiving. It was the day that-well, you know.”
It was the day that Jared’s death had been announced. It had been a traumatic day for everyone. Phoebe had been driven in a town car from the city after nearly having a nervous breakdown. It wasn’t a day in which Nick had been focusing on local architecture.
“I don’t know much about houses,” Phoebe continued, “but I do know what a Tudor revival looks like. We had them all over Los Angeles. It was what rich people lived in to make it look like they were descended from British royalty or something.”
Nick nodded dumbly. Why hadn’t he thought of that himself? Four digits. A year. Now it seemed so obvious.
“Okay,” he said. “Then we go to Southampton.”
Phoebe, Nick, and Patch arrived at the Southampton property, which Nick said was known as Eaton House, after the Mayflower-era family who had farmed the land, the next day around noon. While his father had mentioned the name of the house before, none of them knew who owned the house or what went on there, only that they had been summoned to it for that Society meeting in the fall. Thankfully, Nick’s maplike memory of Southampton’s back roads had come in handy, as he remembered where the house was without even having an address. It all started coming back to him: the grand house, greeting Phoebe at the door, everything he had felt being separated from her and then seeing her again. How he knew then, without a doubt, that she was the one. He remembered leaving the house that day and spending the night at his parents’, the first night they had spent together.
Nick chided himself. This wasn’t the time for fond memories. They had a job to do.