“Something for someone else,” Eli said.
“Exactly. That’s just what she did. How did you guess?”
Ignoring the question, Eli said, “What did she ask for?”
“An education for her son at the finest school in the world, from freshman to PhD.”
“Yes,” Eli said softly. “She would.” He spoke louder. “But what happened?”
“We, ah, we . . . Later we . . . We got to know each other a great deal better.”
“So why didn’t you stay together?”
“I hesitated and she saw it.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You know how scared you were when you thought your life might change drastically if you went to live with your dad and Heather? That’s what I saw. A man who worked for me made me see that if I stayed with your mother it would be the end of my life as I knew it. I wasn’t ready for that. I guess I thought the things I’d worked for were what I wanted.”
He looked at Eli. “I think I wanted it all. I wanted the lights and the accolades, but I also wanted a home. I wanted someone to wait for me and be glad when I showed up.”
“Mom would be glad if—”
“Yes,” Frank said, cutting him off. “Your mother would have waited for me, but she would have been very unhappy.”
“Like she is now?”
“Worse,” Frank said.
“What are you going to do now? About my mom, I mean.”
Frank went to his desk, pulled out a leather pouch, and dumped the contents onto the little coffee table. They were unopened letters, all of them addressed to Miranda Stowe, all of them labeled returned to sender. “I’ve written to your mother every day since a week after we parted. It took me that long to realize what a mistake I’d made. You want to hear what happened?”
r /> “Yes,” Eli said.
“When I got back to town, my girlfriend, Gwyn, was waiting for me. She is really beautiful. She’s been on the cover of some magazines. She’s also smart and educated, talented and quite likable. When I got home, I told myself I was really glad to see her, glad to get out of a world of having to catch my own meals, and back to my own personal kingdom where people jumped to do my bidding.”
Frank got up to pour himself a drink, and he gave Eli more seltzer. “I was really happy for about four days, then . . . I don’t know what did it, but I became restless. I missed my right-hand man, Julian, but I was too proud to say so. I had to hire three people to do all the work he did. But it was okay because I had Gwyn. She was great. Perfect.”
He looked at Eli. “I’m not sure why, but I began to not be able to bear the sight of her. Trust me on this, but perfection is a highly overrated attribute in a human being.”
“My mom is perfect,” Eli said, sounding as though he was offering a challenge.
“She is, but in a different way,” Frank said. “Anyway, it was a bill for a Dior gown that sent me over the edge. I thought of something Julian said, then . . .”
Frank shrugged. “Anyway, I went to spend time with my cousins in Maine. I stayed there for about three days, listened to all the screaming children, went out on a boat with them. It was all the things that had bored me in the past.”
“It sounds good to me,” Eli said.
Frank smiled at the boy. “I thought about you a lot. You know what I decided? That I liked you and your mom better than all the Dior dresses in the world.”
“Is that good?”
“Very good,” Frank said. “When I got back to Denver, I had a whole new purpose in life, and I began downgrading.”
“You mean your computers?”
“No. I downsized my entire life. I delegated.” He smiled. “I shared. I turned over a lot of my businesses to my little brothers and to one of my sisters. And I began to write to your mother.”