Cruel as the Grave by Dean James

that, for now, he needed to tell the story his way.
    Gerard laughed, a little bitterly. “No, the McLendons were just ordinary, middle-class stock until my father came along. He seemed to have the Midas touch when it came to anything to do with money. It was Mother’s family, the Culpepers, who had the breeding. They were once immensely wealthy, before the Civil War, but time and change eroded all that. Father rescued Mother and her family from ‘genteel poverty’ when he married her.” He snorted in derision. “My grandparents could hardly stand to look at my father, but they were sure enough glad to get their hands on some of his money!”
    Maggie smiled, briefly, at her father’s defensive tone. He might argue with his father, but he wouldn’t let others denigrate him needlessly.
    Gerard turned back to look out the window. “Father ended up supporting pretty much the whole damn family! Retty married a man who went through money like it was water. Helena has never made much of an effort to try to support herself. Harold did, but apparently he lost all his savings a couple of years ago in some kind of financial disaster, and he’s had to come crawling back home, begging.” He snorted in derision again. “Lavinia, of course, has been a parasite all along.”
    He turned back to Maggie, his eyes blazing. “Can you see now why I was so determined to get away from him? I wanted to make my own way, call the shots for myself.”
    “And you did,” she said quietly. “You’ve made a very good life for yourself, and I’ve never wanted for anything.” She grinned. “Except for that pony I wanted when I was ten. And the Jaguar when I was sixteen.”
    Her father laughed, some of the strain leaving his face.
    Maggie patted the bed, and Gerard came to sit beside her. “What happened when you left home?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “All through graduate school, I never heard from my father, but Mother, Helena, and Harold wrote to me regularly. When your mother and I got married, my mother and Helena flew up to Boston for the wedding. Mother never said anything, but I know my father was furious with her. But she always went her own way.
    “When you were born, I thought my father would finally soften up a bit. I kept waiting for some response to the telegram I sent as an announcement. Mother, of course, called immediately, but not a word from him.” He stared down at his hands, clenched in his lap. “I waited nearly a year. Then Helena called to tell me that Mother had been very ill with pneumonia and wanted to see me. I left you and your mother in Boston and came down here right away. Mother was very weak, just beginning to recover. For her sake Father was trying hard not to argue with me. He thought there was no way I could be supporting his granddaughter in any suitable manner on what I was making at the time, and I could tell that he was furious with me for your sake, odd as that may sound.”
    Unaware that she had done so, Maggie made some small sound of denial, and Gerard squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. She leaned against him and wrapped an arm around him.
    He took a deep breath. “I had been here just two days when we had the worst argument ever. Mother was upstairs in her room—she really wasn’t strong enough to leave it—and Father and I had gone into the drawing room right after lunch. I don’t remember now what set him off, but we were going at it hammer and tongs for at least half an hour. One or two people came into the room but left so quickly that, to this day, I don’t know who they were.” He fell silent for a long moment.
    “Finally I could see I wasn’t getting anywhere with him—as usual—so I stormed out into the hallway. He followed me and grabbed me by the collar when I ignored him. I swung around and had raised my hand to strike his arm away when I heard Mother cry out for me to stop.”
    Now Gerard’s breathing was labored. Maggie pulled away from him in some alarm as he