American Queen

“The night grew late, and everyone went to bed but Luther, who stayed up by the fireplace in the central hall, drinking and looking into the flames. He was so absorbed that he didn’t notice the caretaker and his wife clearing away the empty glasses, or their little boy helping them. Finally, the little boy walked up to him and touched his arm. ‘Do you want help back to your room?’ the boy asked.

“‘I do want to go to bed, but not to my own,’ Luther said. He was too drunk to care that he was talking to a child. But this child was more observant than other children. ‘I can take you to her room,’ the boy offered quietly. The man didn’t answer, but it was obvious he was gripped with some kind of indecision.

“‘I can take you around the outside and through the balcony door,’ the boy said. ‘No one would see you then.’ Luther looked up, his eyes growing clearer, and then he stood and followed the boy.”

I find I’m leaning forward in my chair. I make myself sit back. “What happened then? Did he go to her room? Did she kick him out?”

“No. She welcomed him inside and locked the balcony door behind him.”

“But she resisted him for years! Why give in now?”

Merlin shrugs. “The human heart is a mystery. Perhaps she loved him as ardently as he loved her and couldn’t bear to hold herself back any longer. Perhaps it was the alcohol or the seclusion. Perhaps he wore her down. I do know that she and her husband separated shortly after—perhaps they’d already agreed to the separation and she didn’t see her marriage as an obstacle any more. But what is certain is that they spent the night together—and several more after that. And that winter, she had a baby.”

I search all my memories of President Luther, all of the stories I’ve heard from Grandpa. “I don’t remember Luther having any children though.”

“No children that he claimed.” There’s a fleeting look of sadness in Merlin’s eyes. “The woman, she died in childbirth. It’s rare in this day and age, but it happened. An amniotic embolism. At the time of her death, she and her husband were in the middle of divorce proceedings and the husband knew the child wasn’t his. Luther, for all his public peccadillos, knew it would be politically dicey to claim the baby as his when the child’s conception was shrouded in a cloud of adultery and unseemliness. So the baby was absorbed into the system and put into foster care. Her husband kept their little girl—still a toddler—and Luther went on living his life, although I’ve heard he was never quite the same after her death.”

I think of that woman, perishing before she could hold her own child. Was she alone? Was there anyone to comfort her as she labored, to hold her as she died? “This is awful.”

“Greer, can you think of anyone you know who was raised in the foster care system? Any famous orphans that you know of?”

It takes a second for his words to tumble over in my mind, to find purchase in what I already know. “You can’t mean…”

“I do mean. Maxen Colchester is Penley Luther’s son. Abandoned at birth to be raised by strangers for the sake of political expediency.”

I think of that picture in Ash’s dressing room, arms wrapped around Kay and his foster mother. “Maybe it was for the best,” I say slowly.

“That he was raised by the Colchesters? Happy and safe, instead of growing up in the public eye? Yes, I think it was for the best. Some might even say it was meant to be. His destiny.”

I look up at him. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

Merlin returns my gaze, kind and direct. “Because you deserve to know where Ash came from. You deserve to know his history, because it’s about to become his future.”

“What does that mean?”

Merlin sighs. “It means a lot of things, I’m afraid, because Luther’s lust has sown a lot of seeds that cannot be unsown, but right now, it means that someone has gotten a hold of this story, at least according to my sources, whom I trust. It may be a week before it breaks or it may be a year, but when it does break, it will be incredibly disruptive. And now that you are with Maxen, you must expect to be disrupted too.”

I don’t ask how he knows I’m with Ash. Whether Ash told him or whether he knows it because he seems to know everything, I always knew, deep down, that Merlin learning about us was unavoidable. I do ask another question though. “When did Ash learn about it himself?”

There’s a flash of anger in his eyes, real anger, but I recognize it’s not meant for me. “At Jennifer’s funeral. Of all the places.”

God. Imagine not knowing anything about your birth parents until you’re thirty-five. Long after you’ve given up hope of knowing your real origins. To have your origins be so sordid and so miserable. And then to learn it in the middle of your own personal tragedy…

“Who told him?” I ask.

The anger settles into a hard glitter in Merlin’s dark eyes. “His half-sister.”

“So she knew.”

“Oh yes. Her father made sure of that. Made sure to impress upon her how their lives were ruined by Luther, and how her mother was essentially murdered by Luther’s lust. Her father nurtured a deep bitterness inside her, the way you might nurture a hothouse flower. With lots of care and attention. Who knows when she finally found the baby that killed her mother, who knows how long she bided her time to confront him about the sins of his father, but she timed her blow with killing accuracy. She couldn’t have found a more vulnerable time to tell him.”