The Dark at the Bottom of the Stair

There was a playground in one section of the park, and we watched half a dozen children playing on one of those slides that spiral down to the ground. One after another they'd climb to the top of the ladder and then let go, spiraling down until they were dumped out onto the ground. "Just like me," I thought wryly.

As we strolled, I gestured toward the precious little girl in front of us with a questioning look on my face. Grace understood. "It's cerebral palsy," she told me quietly. I nodded. I didn't know a lot about CP, but I did know that Susie would need special care for the rest of her life. I put my arm around my daughter. "I'm so sorry, baby."

"Don't be," she replied evenly. "She's my daughter and my responsibility. I've got it under control."

I looked at her questioningly, but she seemed certain of herself.

Some of my earlier anger resurfaced then, but I didn't want to alarm Susie, so I tried to keep my voice low. "The least you could have done is let me know I have a grand-daughter now."

Grace looked at me sadly, and then led us over to a park bench. She and I sat side by side, and she rolled Susie's stroller back and forth in a gentle motion. The combination of the sun and the motion of the stroller seemed to have lulled Susie back to sleep.

After checking on her daughter, Grace turned to me, and with a gentle expression, she said, "Poor Daddy, you just don't understand. Susie is not your grand-daughter."

"Of course she's my grand-daughter," I said indignantly. "You're my daughter and she's your daughter. That makes me her grandfather."

She took my hand gently. "You're my Daddy. You'll always be my Daddy, but you're not my father."

I heard a roaring in my ears, or maybe it was the faraway sound of the gods laughing.

"That can't be," I gasped. "I was there when you were born. Your mother and I made love . . ." I stopped myself. Even at that moment I found it difficult to talk about sex with my daughter.

Grace shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, Daddy. I've seen the DNA test."

I broke down and cried then. Finding my daughter after so long only to lose her again was just too much for me to handle.

We must have made a strange picture: the older man hunched over crying bitterly, the younger woman with her arm around his shoulders trying to comfort him, the toddler napping in her stroller.

I struggled to regain control of myself, but I still wasn't thinking clearly. "But if I'm not your real father, who is?"

Grace just looked at me, and the pieces all suddenly snapped together.

"When did you find out?" I asked her.

"Oh, not till after . . . not till much later," she said.

I wondered at that, but just then Susie began to stir. "We really ought to get her home," Grace said, and so we started back. We didn't talk – I still had questions, but my misery was too great to ask them just then.

It was becoming clear to me now: Maddy wasn't the protagonist in this little tragedy -- I was. It was my role to be tormented by the gods, taking one blow after another. I thought about the often quoted line: "Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad." I could relate to that: I felt like I was clinging to sanity by my finger-tips.

Grace fixed us a simple dinner, and I again helped her with feeding Susie. After the meal, I held the little sweetheart in my lap and read to her from one of her favorite books. She pointed enthusiastically at the pictures as I read the words on the pages.

After we put the little girl down to bed, Grace and I returned to the living room. The time spent with Susie had brought a brief respite from my mental turmoil, but now I needed answers to my questions.

I wanted to find out what had happened to Grace during the five years when she'd gone missing. "Tell me again why you ran away to Chicago," I started.

"It was simple, Daddy. I came here because I wanted to see him, to confront the man who had ruined my life and was threatening to break up my family. I had to know what kind of man could make Mom do what she did."

"So what happened?" I asked.

"Well, finding him was easy; everybody knew where Carleton Morrison lived. So I just marched right up to his mansion and demanded to see him. And when I told them I was Maddy Moore's daughter, he let me in."

"What did he have to say?"

"Oh, he readily admitted that he'd been having an affair with Mom for years. He even said he hoped it would continue. He showed absolutely no remorse; I wanted to claw his eyes out."

She sighed. "But then he began asking about me: why I had come, what my plans were. When I admitted that I didn't have any plans, he offered to let me stay in one of the rooms in his mansion. He told me if I needed money, he'd pay me to do odd jobs for him. And I thought, 'Why not?' I had no place else to go, and he owed me for the hell he'd put me through. Besides, I thought that maybe by being near him I could understand more about why Mom had cheated with him."

I shook my head. "That's so hard for me to imagine," I told her, "you living in the home of your worst enemy."

She smiled ruefully. "I know, Daddy, but you have to understand, he's a very persuasive man. He knows how to flatter you and joke with you until you find yourself doing what he wants. It's no surprise to me that he was able to date all those models and starlets. Even without his fortune, he's a charming companion."

She looked down for a second. "Daddy, it wasn't long before I began to understand how Mom could have been seduced. He has a way of getting you to talk about something so that after a while you feel like it was your idea in the first place. Then he just tells you how smart you are to have suggested it."

Her face darkened, and she wouldn't look at me now. "Daddy, I don't know if you were aware of it, but I always felt like Mom and I were competing with each other."

That was no surprise to me. One of the things I had noticed was that although Maddy and Grace would fight with each other like alley cats, Grace was always trying to emulate her mother. And when Maddy noticed Grace's efforts, she'd try to up the ante in one way or another. Oh, yes, I'd noticed the mother-daughter competition.

Grace still wasn't looking at me. "So I started out wanting to find out what kind of man could seduce my mother. But after a while, I found myself wondering what she had done to seduce a man who could have virtually any woman he wanted."

I began to feel sick. This couldn't be happening.

Grace was crying again now. "Daddy, I'm sorry -- I did it. I began sleeping with him. I wanted to prove that anything Mom could do, I could do better. She might have taken Carleton Morrison for a lover, but I took him away from her. And I did, Daddy, but I paid the price for it. He made me do terrible things, things I'm ashamed of even now. There were other men, and women too, and . . ."

"Stop!" I shouted, "I don't want to hear any more. I don't want to know."

Then the energy went out of me like the air in a balloon that's been punctured, and I slumped back down on the couch. Grace had slept with her mother's lover, her own father! Not only had Morrison cuckolded me, he'd committed incest with his daughter!

Suddenly, a greater horror galvanized me. "Who is Susie's father?" I demanded.

Grace began sobbing.

I fell back to the sofa, unable to move, unable to speak, barely able to breathe. I thought distractedly about the slide at the playground we visited earlier in the day. It seemed there had been one more turn on the downward spiral, and I hadn't seen it coming.

Finally, I roused myself from the sofa and went over to Grace's side. She was still crying, but I had to ask. "Did you know that he was your father?"

She hiccupped, but then recovered. "No, not till later," she told me. "I never even thought about birth control when we were together, and for a long time I was lucky. But then I got pregnant, and he demanded that I leave. I was heartbroken, but he wouldn't be deterred. He told me he'd take care of me, but he couldn't afford to have a pregnant woman in his house. It would be bad for his reputation, he said."

She looked up at me again. "I refused to go, and that's when he told me I had no choice because I was his daughter, and the publicity would ruin me. When I called him a liar, he had a DNA test run. When I saw the results, I knew I had to leave for my baby's sake. He told me they'd take Susie away from me if anyone found out."

Something about Grace's story didn't make sense to me. Morrison had cuckolded me, but how in the world could he have known Grace was his daughter and not mine? Then another link clicked into place. Maddy, I recalled, had wanted a DNA test from me sometime shortly after Grace was born. She told me that it was recommended by the police, a way to prove identity in case something unthinkable ever happened to Terry or Grace. I'd never heard of such a thing, but the test was as simple as a swab to the inside of my cheek, so I went along with it. Maddy told me she would keep the records in the safe deposit box, "in the unlikely event we ever need them." I had never looked at them, and I probably wouldn't have understood them even if I had. Now, I felt sure, I had just found out what really happened.

Grace saw me thinking and jumped to the wrong conclusion. "Daddy, he may have been a shit, but at least he was honorable. He set me up in this townhouse and helped me to find a job. He also paid all the bills for Susie's delivery and her medical bills since then."

"How very generous of him," I sneered. "He paid you to stay out of sight and hide his sin

Grace sat huddled in her chair like a small child. "Now you know why I couldn't come home, Daddy. I knew you would hate me, but not as much as I hate myself," she sobbed.

I thought about her living all that time with her guilt and self-hatred, and I realized that she was as much a victim as I was. As I held her, I knew what had to be done.

I stood up. "It's getting late, Grace. It's been a traumatic day for both of us. I need to get back to the motel and get some sleep."

She tried to stop me. "Can't you spend the night here, Daddy? I could move Susie into my room and you could have the day bed in there. I know she'd love to see you when she wakes up."

I forced a smile at her. "I wouldn't dream of disturbing Susie. You guys go on to sleep; I'll be fine at the motel."

She threw her arms around me and hugged me as though she never wanted to let go. "I've missed you, Daddy, I really have." She pulled back far enough so that she could look me in the eye. "I love you, Daddy. And no matter what, you'll always be my Daddy."

I hugged her back. Despite everything that had happened today, it still felt wonderful to be reunited with my lost daughter.

As I started for the door, she grabbed my arm. "Daddy, you're not going to do anything crazy, are you?"

I smiled at her. "Terry asked me the same thing. I promised him I wouldn't, and I'll make you the same promise." Then I headed out the door. Sometimes a good parent has to lie to his children.

When I checked into my motel room, I was exhausted, but the day's revelations wouldn't let me sleep. I wished that I could talk with our minister back home because I badly needed someone on whom I could unload the horrors that had befallen me. But there was no one in that motel room but myself and those laughing gods who kept finding new blows to strike at the hapless mortal.

After tossing and turning, finally I could take it no more. I got out of bed and booted up my iPad. Then I went searching for information on Carleton Morrison, the antagonist who had stolen my wife, my daughter and my now grand-daughter from me.

There was no dearth of information on the man some frustrated English-major-turned-journalist had dubbed "The Playboy of the Midwestern World." Morrison, I learned, had inherited his initial fortune from his father. But unlike so many rich men's sons, Carleton had done very well in his own right. Taking a portion of his inheritance, he taught himself about the commodities market. Then, through a series of shrewd but daring moves, he'd managed to double his father's money during one of the periodic bubbles that arise in the commodities arena. He certainly wasn't on the scale of a Bill Gates, but he was nevertheless a very wealthy man.

Then, as if guided by some sixth sense, he'd cashed out, leaving thousands of other investors holding the bag when the bubble inevitably burst. There was talk of an investigation, but as best I could tell, nothing had ever come of it. Instead, the young multi-millionaire had switched his attention to the world of art, becoming a major patron while simultaneously dating some of the most attractive women in the public eye. The stories of the parties at his Chicago mansion were legend; the gossip surrounding his romantic exploits filled the pages of a dozen tabloids.

But I noted with interest that there were very few recent entries, and I finally found a group of items with the explanation. Apparently, the playboy had suffered a stroke a year ago and had withdrawn from the public scene.

That news gladdened my heart; moreover, it gave me encouragement. In his weakened state, I thought, my revenge might be easier to exact. For make no mistake about it, revenge was what I meant to have. This man had wreaked unspeakable harm on me and my family, and I wasn't about to let him get away with it. Today's revelations had been like a series of hammer blows, each driving me lower and lower down the spiral, until I felt his murder was the only way I could end the pain.

I knew that I wouldn't escape punishment for such a crime, but I didn't care. How can you punish a man who has already died? At least I'd have the satisfaction of knowing that I'd taken him down with me. And I already knew how to do it. My daughter had inadvertently shown me the way.

I went back to bed and waited for sleep to come. Now that I had committed myself, I felt my resolve would surely bring the rest I so badly needed. Yet I found I still couldn't sleep. Instead, I kept thinking about the quotation that had come to me that afternoon: "Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad."

Was that to be my fate? Had I already reached the point of madness? Did I have to take that final step of murder? Once I had done so, there would be no redemption, no way back. Was I predestined to wind up this way, a mere pawn in some Olympian game? Or was there another way?

I lay there pondering eternal questions for a long time; then I fell asleep.

When I awoke the next morning, I felt strangely refreshed. Perhaps making a final decision does that. Whatever the cause, it was a good thing I had gotten some rest because I had a lot of preparations to make.

I worked all morning, stopping only to eat a little food when my stomach protested. By the time I had completed my preparations, it was noon.

I packed up my belongings and went to the front desk to check out. The manager was on duty, and as he processed my bill, he must have noticed my original reservation. "We weren't expecting you to depart until later, Mr. Moore. Was everything satisfactory?"

I smiled at him. "Oh, yes, everything was just fine."

He thought he saw an opportunity for some repeat business. "Then may I help you with a reservation for your next visit?"

"No," I said, "I'll never be here again."

I saw the puzzled look on his face as I turned and left.

The drive south from Skokie was pleasant enough; traffic was lighter than normal on a Sunday. That gave me a chance to think about the women in my life. Maddy's infidelity had shaken me to the core. How could she say she always loved me when she had carried on an affair for years? And then there was Grace. I could understand the stresses that had caused her to run away, but I couldn't comprehend how she could wind up becoming the lover of the man who had seduced her own mother. And then there was poor little Susie, the only true innocent. Yet she too was a victim of the unholy relationship between her mother and that man.

That man -- everything kept coming back to Carleton Morrison. He was, I realized, my mortal foe, the enemy of my family and the true antagonist in this drama. I had to deal with him; unless I did, our wounds could never heal. That knowledge brought me a strange sense of serenity. When you reach the point when there's only one thing left to do, I guess it settles the mind.

The Morrison mansion was located in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago. When I finally found it, I couldn't help but be impressed. The place was enormous, with a wall of stone and ironwork encircling the huge lot. The building was three stories high, clad in a grey stone veneer topped by turrets and battlements. The place looked more like a fortress than a home.

There were no parking places on the street, so I parked in front of a fire hydrant. What did I care if the car got towed away?

The main entrance was protected by a heavy steel gate. Instead of swinging open, it rolled to the side. I noticed the steel beam reinforcing the center of the gate. Nobody was going to ram their way through that.

My plan was simple: I took my lead from Grace. She'd been able to get into his lair by appealing to both Morrison's curiosity and his vanity. I intended to use those same weaknesses to breach his castle wall.

I walked up to the speaker box beside the gate and pressed the button. A disembodied voice demanded to know why I was there. "I'm here to see Carleton Morrison," I said confidently, looking directly into the closed circuit television camera watching me.

"What is the nature of your business," the voice asked coldly.

"I'm an old friend of Madeline Moore. I'm bringing a final gift from Maddy to Mr. Morrison. Tell him Madeline Moore sent me – he'll remember her."

There was a long pause, and I was beginning to think my confidence had been unwarranted, but then the voice spoke up again. "Please proceed down the driveway to the front entrance. Someone will meet you there."

At that, the massive gate began its slow roll until it was open wide enough for me to pass through comfortably. Once I had done so, the gate reversed course and closed with a metallic clang.

When I reached the front entrance, the door swung open and a servant greeted me. "Whom shall I tell Mr. Morrison is calling, sir?" she asked politely.

"The name's Raleigh," I said. Then I waited while she went to notify her master. The front hall she walked through was encircled by a spiral staircase. She opened the heavy double doors directly beneath the curve of the staircase and disappeared inside. As I waited, I looked up. The ornately carved staircase was massive, stretching up a full three stories.

When I looked down, the housekeeper had reappeared at my side. "Mr. Morrison will receive you in his office, sir. If you'll just follow me . . ." With that, she led me toward the double doors from which she'd just emerged. As we passed under the staircase, I thought to myself, "So this is what's at the bottom."

The room we entered was oak-paneled and dark. Even the huge leaded glass windows were insufficient to illuminate the place. Sitting behind an mahogany desk in front of the largest window was a man with the face I'd come to recognize from all those photographs I'd seen on the Internet. His most distinctive feature was his full head of brown hair, combed across his forehead. "I'll bet the women loved to run their fingers through that," I thought.

The housekeeper turned to leave, pulling the heavy doors closed behind her.

As I approached the desk, he stood somewhat awkwardly and extended his hand across the desk to shake mine. "Come in, come in, old boy," he said. "Sorry I didn't come out to meet you. Suffered a bit of a stroke a year back, and I don't get around quite so well these days."