The Family Game
Catherine Steadman
Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.
—Josephine Hart, Damage
Our most basic instinct is not for survival, but for family.
—Paul Pearsall, neuropsychologist
Prologue
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25
I come to on the parquet floor of the entrance hall, my face pressed hard against its antique wood, with the clear knowledge that this is not how Christmases should go.
Around me the Gothic grandeur of The Hydes slides back into focus. The Holbecks’ family seat, everything multiple generations of wealth and power can buy you; this imposing Hungarian castle ripped brick by brick from the Mecsek Mountains, packed, shipped, and grafted into upstate New York soil. Their ancestral home a literal castle in the sky dragged to ground and anchored into the American landscape and its psyche. A testament to sheer bloody-mindedness and cold hard cash.
In the 1800s a Holbeck bride wanted her beau to “lasso the moon,” and here’s the solid proof he did. He made a dream real. Some might say: more money than sense, maybe, but from down here, bleeding on their floor, even I have to admit this place is beautiful. And who, in love, doesn’t hope for a lassoed moon? After all, that’s what love is, isn’t it?
Across from me the front door stands ajar, so close and yet so, so far. A crisp winter breeze tickling my face as I watch snowflakes float peaceably through the air outside, freedom just beyond my reach. Past that doorway the grounds roll out in all their splendor, snow-blanketed ornamental gardens, an ice-crusted boating lake, crystalline lawns that finally give way to miles of thickly packed Holbeck woodland. And at the limits of that moonlit forest a fifteen-foot-high perimeter wall, encircling us, separating the Holbeck family from the rest of the world. A sovereign state, an enclave, a compound with its own rules and self-regulating systems.
I have been found lacking, by one, or all. And steps are in motion. I might not survive the night.
If I could stand right now, if I could run, and scale the perimeter wall, the nearest town would still be over an hour on foot. If I had my phone, I could call the police. But given who I am, who they are, I can’t be sure the way things would go when they got here. There is a way to read any story and I might have found myself with a slight credibility problem.
A girl with a past tries to marry into money and all hell breaks loose. We all know how that story ends.
It’s funny: in-laws are supposed to be problematic, aren’t they? That old cultural stereotype. I guess it’s funny because it’s often true. In-laws can be difficult. Families can be difficult. And I can’t argue with the facts, here, bleeding on their floor.
I carefully ease up onto my forearms, the dark stone of my engagement ring shifting moodily in the light. A sleeping creature woken.
If I could go back now, to the day he proposed, would I do things differently? That is the billion-dollar question.
My temple throbs as I carefully wipe blood from my eyelashes.
They say head wounds seem more serious than they are, because they bleed so much. They say the human body can do incredible things in a crisis. People walked for miles to hospitals on broken legs after 9/11, women give birth in war zones, new mothers lift cars to save their children. I hope that’s true.
Twenty years ago, I almost died. I hung in silence, death all around me, but somehow, I survived. And if I could survive that, I can survive this, because since you showed up, I have so much more to lose, and so, so much more to gain.
We’re going to survive this, you and I. They say you can’t choose your family but they’re wrong. You can. It just takes way more effort than most people are willing to put in.
And with that thought in mind, I slowly push up and stumble to my feet.
1
Fairytale of New York
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21
Christmas lights twinkle in the rain as I duck down Fifth Avenue—reds, greens, and golds glimmering in reflection on puddles and glass as I dodge along the busy sidewalk, my phone pressed tight to my ear.
“And the good news is, it’s looking like we’re going to hit the million-copy sales mark by the end of this week! We did it, Harry!” my literary agent, Louisa, cheers on the phone. Her voice is as warm and close as if she were bundled up against the cold beside me in the sharp New York City chill. I try not to think of the three and a half thousand miles of distance between New York and London—between me and my old home and its soft, damp grayness—but every now and then the pangs of homesickness wake and stretch just beneath the surface of my new life. It’s been four months since I left England, and the pull of home is somehow stronger now that winter is setting in. New York can be cold in so many ways.
“For all intents and purposes,” she continues with glee, “here’s me saying you are now officially ‘a million-copy bestselling author.’?” I can’t help but yelp with joy—a surreptitious half skip in the street. The news is incredible. My first novel, a runaway bestseller, has been on the charts since publication, but this new milestone isn’t something I could ever have dreamed of until now. New York swallows my ebullient energy greedily. I could probably lie down on the sidewalk and start screaming and the festive shoppers would just weave unfazed around me. It’s an oddly terrifying and yet reassuring thought.