My mother doesn't speak for a while after the detective leaves us. The kingdom watching over Central Park has fallen and neither one of us knows what to say. At least I don't.
After Mother down another glass of cognac, she disappears, her heels clicking onto the floors until she disappears. I have another serving of liquor myself, the amber liquid stark against the crystal, cold against the palm of my hand.
I let out a sigh and place the glass on the chrome tray of the bar cart, and hunt my mother down, following the loud noises of wood scraping on wood until I'm in the doorway of the master bedroom.
There she is, my petite mother, the heiress on her knees, moving around her antique vanity, the legs scraping along her precious, imported, authentic Parisian floorboards.
"What on earth are you doing, Mom?" I pinch the bridge of my nose before she looks up, locks of caramel hair escaping her elaborate updo.
"Oh, you're still here," she says simply as she gets up off the floor, wiping her hands on her satin-covered thighs as if they're covered in dust. The maid cleans in here every single day. Dust doesn't stand a chance with Esme Cullen-Platt's housekeeper and the tight schedule my mother keeps her on.
"Well, yeah…" I shrug, frowning. This is a crisis, after all. Would she really expect me to just bolt out the door like that?
I look around the room, the pictures in Tiffany frames along the dresser, accompanied by Jo Malone candles in a variety of greys, beiges, and all kinds of different sizes.
"Did you hear from Emmett?" I ask. "Ever?" I wonder as my eyes rake along the keepsakes my mother keeps here. There's not even one single picture of my brother in this entire house. It makes me think she forgot about his existence altogether.
Mother sighs.
"I received an invitation to a wedding some time ago," she says, fumbling with the wall behind the vanity. There's a click, my eyes growing wide as Mom uncovers a wall safe and presses the keypad. "Whether that was his first wedding or his fifth, I don't know." She shrugs as if she's talking about a stranger instead of her firstborn who she and my father eagerly pushed out of our lives.
"That's it?"
"That's it." She smiles, the lines around her eyes more noticeable in this lighting, and she steps away, giving me a full view of the contents of her safe. I see nothing but green. Stacks upon stacks of crisp bills.
"What the fuck is all that?" I blurt out, my hands in my pockets as I walk closer.
Mother shoots me a dirty look.
"Language, son," she bites.
"Seriously, does Dad know about this?"
She huffs and rolls her eyes.
"Darling, your father didn't want anything to do with the interior designing of this place. Therefore, he has no single clue about the location of my safes, even though I know about every single one of his." She sounds bitter and I can't even blame her. After all, Dad lied to her, too.
"Where did that money come from? Does it have anything to do with Dad?"
"As I said before, Edward, I do have my own money. I'm a Platt. I don't need a man. It was convenient, our marriage, and in the end, we did have a lot of fun. Before he started caring more about the business than he did about his family."
"Shit,..." I mutter under my breath as my Mother carries stacks of hundred-dollar bills as if she's scraping up sales at Bloomingdales.
"W—"
"Here, take this." Mother hauls the cash into my hands and looks at me in a way that reminds me of her taking care of me when I was little. It's odd to see that look on her face after all these years of barely checking in with each other. She's been living her own life since I turned eighteen and left for college.
I'm nailed to the ground as she turns on her heels and disappears, rummaging through her walk-in. She returns with a big, vintage, Gucci toiletry bag and unzips it before stuffing the money inside.
"That should keep you afloat for the time being."
She gave me about twenty-five thousand dollars. It barely made a dent in her safe.
"What are you gonna do? Where are you gonna go?" I ask her as my Mother continues to stuff luggage with garment bags.
"I'm staying at the Clearwater's house in the Hamptons for a while. I called Sue once I found out about your father's power-hungry, pathetic antics. I'm welcome for as long as I want to stay."
I roll my eyes. She and Sue have been rich little best bitches since the day they were born. I'm not surprised the Clearwater mansion is going to be my mother's safe haven.
"What else aren't you telling me?" I ask.
"It won't be long until I can help you out more, dear. Once I get my attorney's papers over to wherever the hell they'll keep your father, I get my half of everything and full control over my own finances. You know I'll support you, you're my pride and joy." My eyes almost fall out of their sockets.
"Wait." I shake my head. "You're getting divorced?"
"Yes." It's all she says about it. I know better than to pry.
"You should probably go, son. I'll call you tomorrow," she says before she takes my face in between her slender hands, the platinum rings on her fingers cool against my cheeks. "No son of mine will be caught walking down the street in handcuffs, Edward Cullen. Do you hear me?"
"Where am I supposed to go, Mom?" I ask her. She zips up the toiletry bag and hands it over.
"I gave you cash," she says matter-of-factly. "You can stay at the Four Seasons, or there's always room for you at the Platt on Times Square. Or any other location for that matter. If uncle Alistair complains about it, tell him to give me a call and he'll regret being born two minutes before me. Or at all."
There she is, my mother the tigress who'll gut every species on the earth if they try to harm her cub.
