Episode One: Look Back in Anger Read Free Page A

fact, Arles had found the wound had long gone. “You’re a piece of trash that came along with your mother. Nothing has changed.”
    “Everything has changed.” It wasn’t what Marx had said that set his teeth clenching together so fiercely his jaw ached, not really. Rather it was the reminder of his mother and how she too had been fool enough to buy into Marx’s bullshit. “I’m not one of your little girls. You can’t get in my head, Fath—”
    “Do not call me Father!”
    “I’ve always known, you realize? That you married her only for what she could give you. Even as a boy I knew what you were.” When he swiveled about again to face the man, he’d erased all trace of emotion from his features. He set the image back on the desk, though a purposeful inch or two from its original place.
    “Just tell me what it will take, Arles.” Marx hurried to right the photo, driven by some compulsion that amused Arles more than it should have. “What do I have to do to get you to crawl back under your rock where you came from and leave this family alone?”
    “Tell me what you’ve done with Sammy.”
    “Still at this, are we?” There was a definite snarl there. Arles was sure he saw a slip of the man’s decrepit facade in his warning tone. “Go to hell.”
    “I heard recently she’s taken ill again. That’s strange, don’t you think? The other two girls are so healthy. Of course, they’ve put some serious distance between you and them, haven’t they?”
    “She’s fine. My girls are none of your business.”
    “Poor Sammy, always in the hospital. Even with all the money you have, that you have stolen from me , you can’t keep her well.”
    “Money.” Marx’s voice was back to booming levels in a matter of breaths. “That’s all you’ve ever cared about, isn’t it? That’s all you think about. You take this company from me and you destroy all of us. The whole family.”
    “But I’m not part of this family, remember?” Arles rode his chair in dizzy circles like some little boy reluctantly taking a lecture from his ill-tempered daddy. “I’m just the obstacle between you and what you want most. Always have been.”
    “I was a father to you. And this is how I am repaid. I sent you to the best schools. You never wanted for anything.”
    “I wanted my mother. How about that? I wanted a real family.”
    “You wanted my girls, you sick little bastard. From the moment your mother brought you into our lives, that’s all you’ve ever wanted.”
    Arles snorted. His spinning in the chair slowed, but he continued the deliberate round-and-round just to spite the man who’d beat him blue for the same action many times as a boy. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but it still seemed to irk the old man enough to be worth doing. “I was a child.”
    “To hell you were! You were a snake then and you’re a snake now.”
    “Really, Father, first I am a weasel, then a rat, and now I am a snake.” The sigh was long and dramatic, and he ended the chair’s motion long enough to deliver his reply with as much straight-faced bewilderment as he could manage. “You exhaust me with your pronouncements. I’ll never meet with your approval if you keep changing your expectations of me.”
    “You insufferable ass—”
    “See!” He gave the chair one final violent spin before rising from his seat to lean over the desk, both palms placed firmly on its smooth surface. “How am I supposed to keep up?”
    “There must be something to satisfy you. Something you want from me. Otherwise you wouldn’t bother with this personal visit. You’d have one of your lackeys sent down to do your dirty work.”
    “Perhaps I just enjoy causing you grief.” He flashed his teeth, malevolence masquerading as a grin.
    “I’d almost believe it, but I know you. What do you want?”
    Arles canted his head thoughtfully, and gave the playful pretense of having to put some thought into the words that followed. “You said it yourself.