“Where’s Charlie?”
“He was still asleep when I left,” Emilio said.
Arthur nodded. Time for the showdown. He didn’t want this. And when he’d left New York he hadn’t known what to do. But during the flight he’d prayed and placed the problem in God’s hands.
And praise the Lord, by the time the Gulfstream had landed he had the solution.
He strode toward the low dome that was the only part of the house visible from the garden. He tapped the entry code into the keypad and the door swung inward. He passed the door of the waiting elevator, preferring the extra time the spiral staircase would afford him. As he descended to the top floor, the endless grandeur of the Pacific opened before him.
Arthur had built the house downward instead of up, carving it into the rocky face of the oceanfront cliffs. It hadn’t been easy. When he finally found a suitable coastal cliff south of Carmel that was an extrusion of bedrock instead of the soft clay that dominated the area, strong enough to support his dream house, he ran up against the California Coastal Commission. Many were the times during his epic battles with those arrogant bureaucrats that he’d wished he’d never started the project. But he was determined to see it through. After all, he’d promised Olivia. It took threats, bribes, and in one case, plain, old-fashioned blackmail to get all the permits. It was during that period that he learned the power of government, and decided that the only way to protect himself from it was to join the club and wield some of that power himself.
But Paraiso was finally built, exactly to his specs. The entire front was a dazzling array of floor-to-ceiling windows, enticing the sky and the sea indoors, making them part of the interior. From the sea, Paraiso appeared as a massive mosaic of steel and crystal—a three-story bay window. At night it glowed like a jewel set into the cliffside. On sunny weekends the waves below were acrawl with a bobbing horde of boats, private and chartered, filled with sightseers pointing and gazing up in open-mouthed awe.
Within, the ceilings were high, the rooms open and airy. The dining room, the kitchen, Arthur’s office, and the bedrooms made up the two lower levels.
Arthur paused on the first landing and surveyed the sprawling expanse of his favorite place in the world, the pride of Paraiso—the great room that occupied the entire top floor. The afternoon sun beat through the glass ceiling; he adjusted a switch on the wall to his left, rotating the fine louvers above to reduce the glare. He gazed outward through the convex expanse of glass before him and watched the whitecaps flecking the surface of the Pacific. Carved into the living rock of the room’s rear wall was a huge fireplace, dark and cold. He and Olivia had planned to spend the rest of their days entertaining friends and family in this room. Since her death he’d converted it to a chapel of sorts. No pews or crosses or stained glass windows, just a quiet place to pray and contemplate the wonder of this majestic corner of Creation. It was here that he felt closest to God.
Be with me, Lord, he thought as he tore himself away from the view and continued toward the lower levels.
He found Charlie in his bedroom, its walls still decked with the Berkeley pennants and paraphernalia leftover from his undergraduate days. He was sipping coffee from the lunch tray Juanita had prepared for him. He looked up and slammed his cup on the tray. His eyes blazed.
“Damn you to hell.”
Arthur stood in the doorway, unable to move, unable to speak, staring at the son he hadn’t seen in nearly two years.
Charlie looked awful. The old gray sweatsuit he’d worn to bed hung around him in loose folds. He looked a decade older than his twenty-five years. So thin. Cheeks sunken, face pale, his black, sleep-tangled hair, usually so thick and shiny, now thin and brittle looking. His eyes were bright in their deep sockets. The dark stubble on his cheeks accentuated his pallor.
“Charlie,” he said when he finally found his voice. “What’s happened?”
“What’s happened is I’ve become the Prisoner of Zenda.”
Charlie had never been a sturdy sort, but now he looked positively gaunt. Arthur wanted to throw his arms around him and tell him how much he’d missed him, but the look in Charlie’s eyes stopped him cold.
He sat on the foot of the bed, carefully, so as not to upset the tray.
“You know better than that. This is your home.”
“Not with turnkey Sanchez around.”
“Charlie, I brought you back for your own good. That’s not the kind of life for you. For anybody. It’s an abomination in the eyes of God.”
“It’s my life.” Charlie’s eyes flashed.
Arthur had never seen him so defiant.
“It’s a sinful life.”
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—isn’t that what a United States Senator is supposed to protect?”
“I want to help you turn your life around.”
“Just in time for the primaries?”
If only it were that simple, Arthur thought. If that was all there was too it...
He shuddered as old memories surged to the fore. Violently he thrust them back down into the mire where they belonged.
No. This was not only for himself. Charlie’s sodomite urges were a test. If Arthur could help his son out of this moral quagmire, he would prove himself, he would...redeem himself. And God would know what a weapon he had in Arthur Crenshaw.
“Do you like the life you’re living, Charlie?”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“It has its moments.”
“In the wee small hours, Charlie...when it’s just you and God and the dark outside the window...how do you feel?”
Charlie’s gaze faltered for the first time. He fiddled with a slice of toast on his breakfast tray.
“I wake up at three or four in the morning, shaking and sweaty. And I sit there thinking about how I’ve failed you. I remember how Mom never put me down, but every so often I’d catch her watching me and there’d be this unreadable look in her eyes. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I have to assume I disgusted her. And I know what you think, Dad—you’ve always been up front about that. So I sit there in the dark thinking about the revulsion I sparked in the two most important people in my life.” His voice fell to a whisper. “And I feel like such a loser.”
Arthur felt his throat tighten. He had to help this boy. He reached out and put a hand on Charlie’s arm. Dear Lord, it was so thin.
“You can’t be judged a loser until you’ve given up trying, Charlie. And that’s why I brought you home. I want you to try.”
Charlie looked up at him again. “Try what?”
“To change.”
He shook his head. “That’s not possible.”
“It is, Charlie,” he said, gently squeezing his arm. “With God’s help and the right doctors, you can do it.”
Charlie’s laugh rang hollow against the walls. “I think God must have lots of concerns more pressing than my sexual orientation. And really, Dad, if it’s the election you’re worried about, relax. No one connects me with you. And even if they did, it could actually work to your advantage. We’re a pretty cohesive voting block now. We proved that in the last election.”
We...Arthur shuddered at Charlie’s casual alignment of himself with the likes of Act Up and Queer Nation and the pathetic human mutants and aberrations that marched in those Gay Pride parades. If getting elected depended on their votes, he’d rather not run.
But public knowledge of Charlie’s homosexuality was only part of the real threat.
“I won’t deny the election is important to me. You know that. There’s so much good I can do for this country if they’ll only let me. I have plans. I can make us great again.” He didn’t just believe that—he knew it. “But if I can’t help my own son back on the right path, how can I expect to do it for an entire nation?”
“Dad—”
“Give me a year, Charlie. One year of prayer and therapy. That’s all I ask. You’re young. One year out of the rest of your life is not too much for your father to ask, is it. If there’s been no change by the end of that time, and if I see you’ve made a sincere effort, then I’ll accept your...the way you are and never bother you again about it.”