Chapter 2

Zelda Lambert came out of the bedroom in her nightgown and saw her husband sitting slumped on the floor, his back to her.

She didn't say anything. She just quietly fetched the mop and a rag, crouched down, and started clearing up the mess on the floor.

This was how their home worked now. Father and son were two cornered animals that tore into each other the moment they met, and she was always the one left to clean up the battlefield.

"William, let it go."

Zelda spoke softly as she wiped the floor.

"Let it go? What do you mean, let it go?"

William jerked his head up, his eyes rimmed red.

"What have I worked for my whole life? I don't smoke good cigarettes, I don't drink good liquor. Every cent I've ever earned went into this family, into him!"

There was a catch in his voice now, and the despair in it was real.

Looking back over these twenty-odd years, in the eyes of relatives and friends, William Finch had always been the model father.

When Duke started elementary school, he'd signed him up for the most expensive advanced math program and driven him there and back every weekend, rain or shine.

When Duke went to middle school, William had pulled strings and given gifts and worn out his smile to get the boy into the top class.

There were strict rules at home. Up at six thirty every morning to study vocabulary, homework finished before nine thirty at night, no TV on Saturdays or Sundays, phone handed in.

As long as Duke scored well, whatever he wanted, sneakers, a computer, William bought it without a word.

If he flunked, the belt was never far behind.

William had always believed that a good son came from a firm hand, and that a big reward would draw out a brave man.

Plenty of money, strict discipline. There was no way the boy could go astray.

But reality had slapped him hard across the face.

Duke really hadn't gone astray. He didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't get into fights. But he hadn't gone the right way either.

He was like a bonsai that had been trimmed too clean. Not dead yet, but with no desire left to grow.

"Do you remember Duke when he was little?"

Zelda's hands went still. She sat down on the floor, her gaze drifting somewhere far off.

"Back then he loved to draw. He covered the walls with his pictures. You came home, saw them, and without a single word you snapped every one of his brushes. You said drawing was something only beggars did."

William frowned. "Can drawing put food on the table? Wasn't I doing it for his own good?"

"Later he wanted to apply to a media school. You forced him into accounting. You said it was a job for life."

Zelda turned her head, looking at her husband, and the tears slid down without a sound.

"William, you kept a hold on him, you gave him money. But you managed the soul right out of him."

William opened his mouth to argue and found something like a wad of cotton stuffed in his throat.

He got to his feet and paced the living room, agitated.

He wouldn't accept it.

He didn't believe his way of raising the boy was wrong. He thought he'd just had bad luck, that he'd fathered a son with no fight in him.

"Tomorrow I'm going over to Edward's."

William stopped short and blurted it out of nowhere.

"Going over there for what?" Zelda blinked.

"That son of Edward's. I hear he just made director, and he bought a place in New York, too."

William gritted his teeth, a flash of resentment in his eyes.

"Edward used to just coast through life, and the family never had any money. I don't believe he's got some brilliant trick up his sleeve. I'm going to go see exactly where the difference is."