"What did you say?"

My kitten heels sink in the carpet as I march over towards Grandpa Calloway. "Why do you look like a young girl, Deidre?" Grandpa Calloway frowns at me as I approach him. "Are you a ghost?"

The last bit is a whisper as he cups my cheek with one hand. I feel tempted to move his hand away, slap his touch away from me, but I'm too engrossed in what Grandpa Calloway is saying. Maybe the way I can find out more about Deidre's relationship with her husband's father is to pretend to be Deidre, Orson's dead mother.

"Yes, yes, I am," I stutter out. "What happened?"

Grandpa Calloway's eyes are brimming with tears; they're glassy, fringe with disappointment. "I did try to protect you. I really did. I'm sorry she made you marry Elijah to hide him."

I feel stupefied. "Hide...?"

"Orson," he whispers.

Suddenly, everything clicks for me. Like a key piece to the puzzle, just that little information allows me to connect all the dots. The birth certificate. The conversation with Miss Mckinley. Why my appearance has caused such a reaction to Orson's grandmother.

Deidre Hollows was Delia Calloway's handmaiden, one of her most loyal servants. I originally thought that Orson's father, Elijah, met Deidre at her time at Calloway Manor when what actually happened must have been an affair between Jeremy Calloway, the titan of the Calloway empire, and Deidre. Deidre must have gotten pregnant with Jeremy's baby. And that baby must be Orson.

From what Jeremy Calloway is telling me, Delia found out about the affair and rightfully furious and humiliated, she forced Deidre to marry her only son to hide the birth of the child and save face. Make it look like it was Elijah's son. This whole time, the emotionally abusive relationship between Orson and his father is actually a mean-spirited put-down competition between two brothers and Orson has no idea.

"But I promise to punish her, Deidre," he promises me, grasping my hand tight with surprising strength. The way he looks at me inquisitively, with such sureness, makes me wonder if he even is crazy in the first place, "And I already did. I'm going to give him everything."

My heart is in my throat as I struggle to find my voice, "Everything?"

"Because of what she did to you, I made sure that only sons of the Calloway family are allowed to inherit the Calloway Estate and all of its fortunes."

My jaw drops. "But that means-"

"Orson and Elijah are the only living heirs entitled to the Calloway fortune," another voice interrupts. I'm frozen in motion. It's half a second before my gaze wanders to the door.

Lurking in the open doorway of the library, she is there. The shadow she throws seems so large that her five feet swallow the office hall. Delia Calloway.

"Mrs Calloway," I am alarmed and I think of the quickest excuse I could come up with to sate her, only to be blank, "I- uh- Mr Calloway just came up to me with all these crazy sayings and I-"

She holds up a hand and I am silenced by one motion. She is flanked by her two maids, who stand in the darkness. Delia's face is also covered by the dimness of the corridor so I can't see her expression either.

I'm hoping, and praying for elation.

"I don't exactly know what Mr Calloway was talking about-"

Suddenly, Delia Calloway speaks. "Playing a fool isn't a good look on you, Miss Scout."

I stay silent.

The sunfall flooding everything, her whole body lit darkly gold, I come forward, a few feet from her ambered silhouette.

"Sorry, Mrs Calloway."

Finally, slowly, a half-turn of her head. A whisper of her profile was darkened by her shudder of greying hair. I see a smile slowly creep up on her face, "Especially for a woman as intelligent as you. Come with me to my study and let's have a chat."

-

"Amory, isn't it?" The emerald brooch sitting on the wrinkled hands of Delia Calloway winks at me as a handmaid of hers pours a cup of steaming chai into my delicate china.

"Yes," I do not dare to look up from the patterned carpet of Delia Calloway's study. During the day, the study is less intimidating and more austere. The room smells like cognac, velvet upholstery and cigars. The proper colours of a massive Warhol print of a banana stand right out during the day. Behind the tiger maple desk sits Delia Calloway, wearing a high-collared champagne-coloured dress woven from Irish linen, layered with double strands of baroque pearls and an opera-length amber necklace.

I didn't notice it before but along with the priceless collections of century-old vellums and manuscripts, there are framed photos of all the Calloway children. There's a black and white photo of Delia and Jeremy Calloway on their wedding day. The whole scene radiates romanticism and fairytales- Delia in a lace white ball gown with a sweetheart neckline and loosely curled hair, the couple gazing out from the turrets of castles. Delia has been spectacularly beautiful as a younger woman. Her face is a miracle of construction- her rosebud mouth, arched brows, heart-shaped face and marble complexion remind of me of Vivien Leigh. Besides her is Jeremy Calloway, looking deviously handsome in a velvet blazer and suit. Orson is practically his twin- the jet-black ruffled hair, sculpted strong features, their profiles appearing like Roman statues on gold coins. On the corner is a date that says 7 July 1949.

Another photo reveals the Calloway family but coloured this time. Delia and Jeremy Calloway look significantly older, lacking the youthful glow of their early 20s with four of their children beaming by their side. Emilia Calloway, now Emilia Spencer and Callum's mother, is the oldest, on her mother's side. As a young teenager, Emilia possesses her mother's fresh-faced, fair-skinned face but with the signature shocking blue Bambi eyes that are inherently a Calloway trait. Emilia's younger sister, Laurene, follows in her footsteps- the two look virtually the same, almost like twins, despite being two years apart. Laurene and Emilia are your cookie-cutter debutante girls; marrying men of the gentry, having children and sending them to the public schools of England, co-finding and attending useless committees with women of the same class. 

Madeleine, however, could not be more different- in not just the way she looks, but from the way she rebelled against her family back in the 60s and 70s. She famously disowned them and called them a bunch of "money-hungry good-for-nuthins' in the press. The stories about Madeleine Calloway somehow take upon a myth-making quality; she's a true icon of the 70s, so hyped up on the freedom juice that powers through her moonlight years of being a freedom fighter in the years of Nixon and Johnson. Tales of being the subject of many of Bob Dylan's songs, the secret lesbian lover of Janis Joplin, and her Volkswagon adventures across America before settling down (eventually) in California. Madeleine coined herself "Maddie C" and never married, spending her days twilight years writing a lifestyle column for a women's magazine.

I think Maddie's biggest fear is being put in a box- she sees the way her older sisters have grown up under the constraints of a gilded life. Her sisters live their lives in a little glass box of high society, touching nothing and being untouched. People come by occasionally to tap on the glass. But they just waste away, starving, behind the glass in their empty, boring boxes, unable to get out.

Girls like Madeleine live so hard and so relentlessly, to avoid being skittish, cautious, demure, and hemmed in like her sisters. Madeleine and her mother only reconcile fifty years later, when Grandpa Calloway's Alzheimers begins to set in and deteriorate his mental health. The two women eventually put away their differences and Madeleine is slowly accepted into the family again.

To the left, I see Little Elijah, standing by his father's side, his small frame almost laughable to the hulking statue of his father. Elijah is Orson's...well, Orson's brother. I sit back, startled to see Elijah with such cold eyes even at a young age. It's the overall dullness of his expression that I find most striking—his lukewarm smile and blank gaze, so unlike the enthusiastic and tender expression of the three other girls.

Delia catches me staring at the photographs. "Sad, isn't it? Three of my oldest girls have accomplished so much; all of them are wonderful in their own right, even Madeleine, who I have my own disagreements with, has accomplished so much. And yet, only Elijah will be entitled to full control of Calloway Empire. Not because he is fit to do so, or is the brightest," her mouth curls and she sighs, "But simply because he is male."

I am quiet, not because I don't know what to say, but mostly I am thinking about what is right to say. "I'm sorry to hear that," I manage.

"Don't get me wrong, I love my son but I do wish my daughters were just given the opportunity. Alas, it's a man's world that we're living in."

"Mr Calloway never gave them a chance?"

"He never really gave any woman a chance, to be fair. Cigarette?" She offers me a thin white cigarette produced from an archaic Lucky Strike packet. A handmaid of hers bends down to light her cigarette. "I don't quite think it's Jeremy's fault for never trusting a woman. His father before him- William- hated women. William's opinion of women was that they were stupid, inconsequential and irritating. Do you know what Jeremy's father said of me when he first met me?"

I shake my head as I take the cigarette offered to me. Her maid helps me light my cigarette too.

"'That dumb bitch', it was his favourite phrase for any woman who annoyed him: a fellow driver, a waitress, maids, grade-school teachers. It's a miracle Jeremy never laid a hand on me, considering all his father ever did was called his mother and sister 'that dumb bitch'."

My cigarette starts to collect ash on the tip. Delia pushes the glass ashtray in my direction. "I'm sorry," I manage again. Delia's Cheshire grin puts me on an edge.

"Don't be," Delia remarks. She looks towards her handmaids and murmur: "Laisse nous."

The two ladies promptly bow and leave the room. My anxiety spikes up the minute the door is closed behind me.

Delia sighs out a big billow of smoke before she finally speaks. "Jeremy spent the first ten years being an adequate enough husband. He bore me four children, he tried his best. He never wanted to be with me, this I've always known. We were a marriage of convenience, an arrangement that suited our families. There were always women on the side, this- I don't mind. His little affairs didn't bother me. They were never serious and he respected me enough to screw the girls in other countries. France, Hong Kong, America. I thought I was so lucky. Other wives have put up with so much more. I thought about some of my own friends. A friend of mine got left by her husband for the nanny. The nanny. I couldn't imagine the humiliation. I was so lucky that my husband at least spared me the humiliation of having an affair with unknowns in another country. Well, that is until little Deidre came along."

Delia sighs, like talking about Deidre bores her. "Deidre, that good-for-nothing whore, was actually one of my favourite handmaidens. Very competent and so sweet. I was actually very happy with her. That was before I found out she was sleeping with my husband."

Deidre pours more milk into her tea and stirs it as she rests her cigarette on an ashtray. "That's terrible," I say, unsure why she's telling me all this. What game is she playing? "But why are you telling me this?"

Delia smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes. "I thought I explained since my doddering husband has already told you everything. I'm just connecting all the dots for you." A glint appears in her eyes, "I thought I would make it easier for you but it seems like you're more than capable of putting together pieces."

"What do you mean?" Her words punch me below my gut; they weigh more than a hundred pounds each.

"As I said before, Miss Scout, you seem like quite an intelligent woman. Anyway, where was I? You see, I was ticked off already by the affair my husband conducted with one of my handmaids. I was even more inflamed when I found out he had impregnated that filthy handmaid. It was going to be a national scandal and I couldn't risk the humiliation."

"So you forced her to marry Elijah," I resume for her, "And hid the birth of the baby, which was Orson."

Delia narrows her eyes at me, "Look at you. You're smarter than the last one he brought along."

"Georgina?"

Delia nods, "Orson has a tendency with women who resemble his mother." She gives me a smirking once-over, "Though, after a closer look, I can see you're even more of a reconstruction of his mother. It is almost....uncanny."

Except my nose has been reshaped, my cheeks hollowed out and my lips are plumped. The roots of my hair have been bleached platinum, destroying all traces of brunette on my head.

"Jeremy never liked the fact that I forced Deidre to marry Elijah but I couldn't risk anyone knowing he had fathered a child with a handmaid. It was too much; I have forgiven every transgression, every random social climber from other nations....but this was the last straw. I convinced Elijah to break it off with Maral momentarily, to make the marriage happen. Jeremy loathed me for sending away his beloved, but I did what I had to. For our reputation."

My voice is small when I decide to speak again, "Mr Calloway said he punished you for what you did to Deidre," I get steadier with every word; "I assumed he did something after you forced his...lover to marry your son."

Delia leans into her seat. She sips her tea before setting it back down on the cup's tray. "Ah, you see my husband is a petty, vindictive man. He hated what I did to Deidre, even though I was the one who cleaned up his mistake for our sakes. So for his last act as a sane man, he decided to punish me and his daughters by changing his will and making sure only sons born from his bloodline could inherit the Calloway inheritance."

With Orson, you damn sure hit the jackpot. Maral's words dance in my head, like a clanging bell.

Suddenly, Maral's words of whispers made sense. Elijah's cruel abuse doesn't come from a place of fatherly malice but intense brotherly jealousy. The target on Orson's back is not only painted in red, but it's also practically beaming bright laser red.

Jeremy Calloway used his last shred of sanity to change his own will after his wife forced Deidre to marry his son, making sure that none of the female heirs of his legacy would ever come close to owning a piece of the Calloway fortune. Jeremy Calloway pitted his own two sons against each other- each from a different woman. Jeremy was punishing Elijah for marrying his beloved by making damn sure Orson is the only one in his way of owning the entire Calloway empire. And Jeremy was also punishing Delia for her misdeeds against Deidre by making sure his bastard son, Orson, will be in the most perfect position to take away all of her riches one day.

"So Orson is the only other living heir to the Calloway fortune, except for Elijah?" I hear myself ask out loud.

"Exactly," Mrs Calloway confirms for me with a crooning smile, "I was right about you, wasn't I, Miss Emerson?"

A cold, hard ball falls into my stomach. Mrs Calloway laughs a little at the sheer terror on my face. I'm waiting for this to be a bad dream until her mouth moves, shattering the alarm bells ringing in my head.

"Don't worry, Miss Emerson. Don't be alarmed; I admire women like you. You are plucky, resourceful, and incredibly sharp." She grabbed a folder sitting in front of her and tossed it in front of me. It's a whole fucking dossier. She must have hired a PI to dig up information on me.

I do all I can to make sure my voice doesn't shudder. "How did you know?"

"The minute you walked through the door. You still have the formulations of a Brooklyn accent and you said you were from California. Not to mention, you talked about your background as if you were from high society, taught in old money manners but the way you sit, fold a napkin, and eat with a salad fork told me you had no idea. To the younger generation, like Carmen and Orson, who were never traditionalists and kept their judgement open- as long as you had a wallet to match theirs, you could've easily fooled them. But to me," the corner of her lip curls, "I could tell the minute you walked into my house." 

I remain silent. I take a deep breath and will my facial expression to remain neutral. (Thanks to years of Botox injections this wasn't much of a challenge.) "We're not here to discuss the manners of your background," she carries on, "Quite frankly I don't care what that bastard child of Jeremy shacks up with, he's not part of my bloodline. And I'm assuming you manufacture your backgrounds to maybe worm your way through the ranks of the New York Elite or find a way to win some of that Calloway influence, like how every other low-profile social-climbing gold-digger has tried in the past. But, oh Miss Emerson, you're just not some ordinary gold-digger, aren't you?"

"I guess not," is what I end up saying.

"You scored 150 on an IQ test one time in middle school. You, for some reason, some Brooklyn nouveau riche orphan, manage to scam your way through the ranks and win the favour of some of the most powerful people in your circle. I might ask you how you do it but we don't have time for that. You see, you know something about Orson I don't want him to know. And now I know something about you that you don't want Orson to know."

I raise my chin up to meet Mrs Calloway's gaze. She might be one of the scariest women I've encountered but I can bluff my strength out of this. "We're at a stalemate."

"Yes, exactly." Delia Calloway stretches from her seat, rising to walk over to an opened window. "Now, I want you to make sure Orson never ever finds out about his inheritance or his real father. Can you do that for me?"

I hesitate. My mind spins at a million miles an hour, trying to decide what I can do before I ultimately decide at the moment I have no leverage. "I can."

"Brilliant. And I'll keep the truth about your identity quiet," Mrs Calloway throws a wink at me as she pats the folder of information she has amassed upon me. "I'm glad we understood each other."

sorry for disappearing but the last half of 2022 quite frankly kicked my ass