CHAPTER TWO
Auggie
Sitting on the wrap-around porch of our farm-style house, I was deeply immersed in the past. There I was, surrounded by all the people and things that made my life the happiest imaginable. All but one person; my first-born son.
I suppose to the onlooker, I appeared content and complete. My long coppery hair was tied with a length of yellow ribbon, and the legs of my jeans were folded up, exposing my pedicured feet. While my freckles had faded somewhat, my green eyes still never missed a thing. I looked like a carefree farm girl although I was the wife of a multi-millionaire. I’d never known what it meant to be hungry or to yearn for the unreachable — with the exception of my child. He was gone from me in so many senses.
Ford had been a happy, normal child. We’d nicknamed him for my maiden name, Langford. Although he was the fourth Worthington LaViere, it was simpler. Maybe that’s where we made the first mistake; the first alienation.
Somewhere along the way, my baby boy changed. He began to idealize the crueler things in life. It was the dark side of his LaViere genetics. My husband, Worth, had managed to subdue that tendency within himself, re-directing the controlling, vindictive, lack of conscience onto the path of a psychology professional. He’d built a business empire and developed a soul. I like to think I had something to do with that, but perhaps I took too much credit. More likely the driving force had been a hatred of his own father. A man who had given in to the darkness Worth had banished.
Worth’s father had seized whatever he wanted, including my own mother. Together they had created a child, Linc, who inherited the worst traits of both parents. It was Linc and his fateful demise that had driven my own son from me. Kidnapped and held ransom by Linc, Ford had gripped the pocket knife intended for his father’s Christmas gift. He had coldly and without remorse driven it into Linc’s neck, watching as the blood seeped out over his grandfather’s heirloom desk.
There was no residual emotion. It hadn’t been a stoic response; it had been the cold and calculated murder of a man who threatened him. A man who would have been capable of the same act.
When Ford began to express jealousy and resentment toward his younger siblings, Worth and I switched into protective mode. We had to protect our twins, Marga and Mark. It wasn’t a place any parent wanted to find themselves, especially since Worth was a respected psychologist and our living parents were model citizens.
As I began to fear my son more and more, and as he became increasingly out of control, there seemed no alternative but to agree to the judge’s orders that Ford be institutionalized. But the nightmare didn’t end there. He had been beaten and managed to escape, and we knew it would only get worse if he were sent back. We had no idea what to do, then an unlikely savior stepped in.
My personal assistant, Bernie Livingston, was the only person willing to sacrifice his life as a kidnapper and run away from everything he’d ever known. He loved my son and had been a surrogate father to Ford when Worth was otherwise occupied with his many businesses. No, we weren’t your average American family, but amongst the old money equine set, it’s sad to say we weren’t that unusual.
Bernie and Ford disappeared, and only Worth had some idea of where they were. It was too dangerous for me to know; I had the younger children to protect. I knew Worth sent Bernie money regularly to keep them both comfortable. I remembered the day, a few years earlier when Worth had taken me into his study and relayed his fears. Bernie was no longer drawing money from the offshore account. The balance hadn’t been touched in several months.
There were no communications, no contact information and no way that Worth could track them down. I remembered the fear that had crept over me, mixed with an intense guilt. What sort of parent was I?
I knew — and so did Worth. We had both been raised by a ruthless parent who had considered their own position before that of their offspring. We both understood what it was to be an outcast. If it hadn’t been for our twins, we would never have sent him away. We had to protect them, and Ford represented a very real, very potent danger. He hated them and would stop at nothing to harm them, killing them even. He had expressed desires of suicide, so he was afraid of nothing.
The entire plan had been devised one horrible night. The night of Ford’s escape. There was no time for careful deliberation. He was wanted by the law, and we had the money to get him away. We did what any petrified, thoughtless parent with everything to lose would do. We used our money to send him away.
At least I tell myself that’s what most people would do.
Even now the guilt has not lessened. I knew Worth felt it too — although perhaps to a different extent than I. Until that talk in the study, he’d known how to get Bernie’s attention. All he’d had to do was discontinue the allowance. If the money dried up, Bernie would have contacted us. It felt like some sort of macabre tumor inside me. As long as I ignored it, I was safe. The moment I began to feel for it, to consider its effect on my life, it would blossom and smother me from within.
I substantiated all this with the instinct to protect the twins — but there was a deeper, more horrible reason… I didn’t want to deal with Ford. I’d had a lifetime of my mother and then periods with Worth’s father and our brother, Linc. That was it. I was done. May I be damned to hell for thinking that way, but I couldn’t help it.
My reverie was interrupted by the sight of Worth’s Escalade approaching down the winding road. We’d bought a former Arabian horse complex and had converted it into a series of gentleman hobby farms with a central breeding and sales facility. We’d lived there since Ford left and I would never leave. It would be the only way he’d ever find us — if he chose to.
“You look like a young girl dressed like that,” Worth said, walking up the drive and climbing the porch steps. He had begun dressing a bit more casually, and I felt a pull in my tummy at the sight of his tall, well-muscled body and tanned arms. White teeth dramatized his loving smile as he bent to kiss me. I felt the flutter strengthen.
“Are you in the mood for a young girl?” I retorted saucily, winking at him.
“I’m in the mood for you,” he assured me and took the glass of sweet tea I offered him from the pitcher on the table next to me. He took a long drink and exhaled. “Boy, I needed that,” he said with a groan of appreciation. “Where are the twins?”
“They’re around,” I said, looking toward the training barn. “We had a new white stallion arrive today, and they’re both rather enchanted with him. I’m afraid they inherited their love of horses from me.”
“I could think of far worse things to inherit,” he mused and once again I was thrust into the memories of Ford. I knew to what he was referring.
“Worth, you’ve never…” I let the question hang in the air, but he shook his head. I looked down and swallowed hard. I wasn’t sure whether it was Ford I missed or the guilt of banishment I regretted more. I hoped I might see him again, somewhere, sometime in the future. The twins were sixteen now and would be driving soon. He was no longer a danger to them. “Do you think there’s any way we could…” again I let the sentence remain unfinished.
Worth shook his head. “All the trails have dried up, Auggie. He’s a fully grown, mature man now. If he wanted us, he knows where to find us.” He refilled his glass and took a sip, setting it on the arm of his chair as he looked out to the west where the sun was beginning to seek its night. Neither of us dared to speculate whether Ford was even still alive. That thought couldn’t be allowed to take root.
I saw Worth’s arm go up in a wave toward the barn. I turned and saw the twins waving back as they approached. Both of them had inherited my coppery hair and green eyes, but they were tall and slender as Worth had been when he was their age. Marga was a beauty, I had to admit. Her cheekbones were prominent, and she had a million-dollar smile, which she flashed often. Mark was a bit more on the reserved side, but I’d heard him talking to someone on his phone one night as I passed by his room. It wasn’t the voice he used with his male friends. I knew it was only a matter of time before they were both dating and driving around the countryside as I had at their age.
Marga was the apple of Worth’s eye. As far as he was concerned, she could do nothing wrong, and she played that card often. Mark, although quieter, didn’t seem bothered by the imbalance of attention. He knew I loved him, though. Of that there was never any doubt. After losing Ford, I clung to him even tighter, never wanting to let another baby boy go. If anything, I loved him, needed him, too much.
I handed Marga and Mark a glass of tea, and they sat on the porch swing side by side. Twins seemed to have a special bond. That made me happy. They were a picture, sitting there in mucking boots with hay in their hair and the smell of horses radiating from their perspiring bodies. “Dinner will be ready in a half hour. You two need to shower.”
Marga nodded and emptied her drink. She stood and gave Worth a kiss on the cheek as she went inside. Mark remained behind.
“Is there something you need, son?” Worth asked Mark.
Mark looked at me, a bit uncomfortably. I got the message. “I need to check on dinner. See you in a bit,” I said and went inside.