Part 4 (1/2)
Intrigued, Barrett waited.
Ellen looked at her, ”They wanted Jimmy locked away forever. When I was twenty-one, I tried to hire a lawyer to review his case, my father blocked me, said it was none of my business.”
”Why would he do that?”
Ellen gave a bitter laugh, ”You don't know how hard I've tried to come up with rational explanations for the things my father did; it's useless. One minute he'd shower us with gifts, and the next ...” She stopped and reached back for the curtain, ”excuse me, but I'm going to need more liquor to get through this.” She signaled for the waitress with her empty gla.s.s and then turned back to Barrett. ”I think my father was clinically insane, and mother wasn't much better.”
”Insane how?”
”Erratic, paranoid, addicted to pain pills ... s.a.d.i.s.tic. You need more?”
”Toward you?”
”Yes. But mostly toward Jimmy; he got the worst of it.”
”Physical abuse?”
”Yes, but that's nothing compared with the way he'd play with our minds. Our childhood was like some gruesome fairy tale. If anyone had known what was going on in that house ... we should have been taken out of there. All of which is easy to say, but when you're a kid, you think the stuff your parents do is normal. You have no way of knowing how sick it is. And to an outsider, things probably looked pretty good. Our family is very wealthy and has been connected in New York society for over a hundred years. My great-great grandfather was one of the founders of the Knickerbocker Club. And a couple years back I gifted our Newport cottage to the Historical Society; it's now a museum. People see our kind of wealth and privilege and can't imagine children being tortured inside such a beautiful home.”
”Was there s.e.xual abuse?” Barrett gently asked, while thinking of her own financial straits, and wondering what it might be like to donate a mansion, or to own an oceanfront mansion and call it a cottage.
Ellen paused as the waitress reappeared with drinks and fresh delicacies. As the curtain closed behind her, she resumed, ”Yes, and I don't know how much. We were both exposed to my mother's indiscretions. She had a string of chauffeurs who were little more than male prost.i.tutes. She and father slept in different rooms ... different worlds, actually. I often wonder how they managed to conceive the two of us. When we were kids, and this is pretty sick, we'd sometimes spy on her in the carriage house. We used to think it was funny. Now, it just makes me sad.”
”There's more, isn't there?”
”Tons, but there's stuff I can't remember. I even went to a therapist a few times to try and get the memories back; it made things worse, like I was about to fall apart. So I stopped going, figured my brain knew what was best for me by just blocking stuff out. You see,” she said catching Barrett's eye, ”work is my therapy ... But back to your question ... I don't think my father molested me ... I don't think so. But he did stuff to Jimmy.”
”From what age?”
”Young ... you asked me why my parents didn't want Jimmy going to trial?”
”Yes.”
”I think the real reason is they were petrified of what would happen if any of this came out. In their twisted way they decided better to lock their son away, than for people to know what kind of sick f.u.c.ks they were!” Ellen looked up, ”I'm sorry, I hadn't intended to get into all of this. I've never told this stuff to anyone ... it can't go anywhere.”
”Of course,” Barrett said, finding herself with a newfound sympathy for Jimmy Martin, and his elegant sister.
Ellen reached down and grabbed a crispy duck roll. ”So Jimmy ends up spending half his life locked up, and I take over the company after my parents' death. Although fortunately for the shareholders, I got father to let me handle much of the business prior to the accident.”
”How long ago was that?” Barrett, asked, recalling something in the chart about an off-site supervised visit when Jimmy was allowed to attend a funeral.
”Three years,” Ellen said.
”And that's how you were able to get him out?”
Ellen looked up, and gave Barrett a questioning look.
”I mean,” Barrett said, ”with your parents dead you were able to work on getting your brother out.”
”Yes,” she said, ”I took over, had the lawyers make me his legal conservator, and lobbied for his release. He's my only family ... unless you count a few second cousins who're licking their chops over the fact that neither Jimmy nor I will ever have kids.”
”Because?”
”Boy, you're good at this,” Ellen commented. ”I used to think that after what my parents did to us, there was no way in h.e.l.l I'd ever reproduce-that I'd never take that risk. But when I turned thirty I ... s.h.i.+t! I'm sorry ...” Ellen swigged her c.o.c.ktail, ”When I was thirty, my thinking s.h.i.+fted and I found myself really wanting to have a child. After all of those years of throwing myself into work; I began to think-what for? And all I could focus on was that I wanted a child.” Ellen glanced at Barrett. ”Does this make any sense, or have I had one too many?”
Barrett met her gaze, ”No, it makes perfect sense.”
”I thought that maybe if I had a child, I'd get it right. And give this kid all of the love we never had, raise a little person that could take over the business-or not-if they didn't want to ... but then I started to get all sorts of weird symptoms ... headaches, hot flashes.” Her mouth twisted in a wistful smile. ”I guess you can figure where this is going?”
Barrett nodded.
”Early menopause,” Ellen shrugged. ”Apparently it runs in the family. As for Jimmy, I don't see him as the marrying type. I'd also be worried with him around kids.”
”Has he ever done anything like that?”
”Pedophilia?” Ellen asked, ”G.o.d, I hope not. But I'm a realist. I know my brother has problems. I don't think having him around kids is a good idea.”
”How has he dealt with being out? After eighteen years that's quite a transition.”
”Yes and no. He's not really free, is he?”
”No,” Barrett agreed, having read through the stringent rules confining him.
”Certainly he's happier, and he's playing cello again, and considering his time away from it, he sounds great.”
”Cello?” Barrett perked, remembering some mention of it in the histories.
”Yes, music is probably the only thing that kept us halfway sane growing up.”
”You play, as well?”
”I did...very little now ... piano. Jimmy was always the star. My brother was a child prodigy. My playing was more in the range of competent accompanist.”
”Did you do compet.i.tions?” she asked, flas.h.i.+ng on an old memory of two beautiful blond children, the boy on cello, his sister on piano.
”Yes,” Ellen met her gaze, and smiled. ”That's where we know each other, isn't it?”
”Oh my, G.o.d. That's it!” But the three-hundred-pound Jimmy that Barrett had seen that one time at Croton bore no resemblance to the cherubic blond boy who invariably took first prize in the music compet.i.tions that had been such a major part of her childhood.
”You play piano, don't you?” Ellen asked.
”Yes, but like you, it's hard to find the time to practice.”
”But you were good. You won some compet.i.tions, didn't you?”
Barrett's cheeks flushed.