Will You Be Sorry When I'm Gone?

Chapter 18

Present

“Search teams have been combing through the area where Amelia Davenport’s car and purse were found three weeks ago. So far there has been no sign of the missing woman and authorities are starting to become increasingly concerned.

Amelia Davenport’s car was found at the bottom of the embankment near the Almeda exit of the 410 highway through Renfrew-Almeda. The state of the vehicle made it obvious to investigators that the missing woman was involved in a serious accident, likely on the evening of Founder’s Day, when she was last seen by her family.

According to reports, Amelia Davenport was out running an errand before her family was set to leave for the Founder’s Day fireworks in the town square. She apparently never made it to the store she was heading to. Police have been to speak with the shopkeeper and have reviewed the store’s camera footage for that evening. Amelia did not enter the store at any point between 7:15, when she left the family home and 10:13, when her husband Matthew Davenport, President and CEO of Davenport Industries, last heard from his wife. Based on where Amelia’s car was found, she was involved in an accident on the way to the store.

Investigators with the Fire Marshall’s office and Police Forensics have been able to determine that the fire that consumed Amelia Davenport’s indigo Miata was not caused by the car catching fire, but rather from a cigarette that was thrown from the road above which caught on dry grass on the hillside and was then accelerated by gas that had leaked from the car’s gas tank.”

“Our concern now,” Aaron Shelton was saying to the reporter. “Is that it’s been three weeks since Mrs. Davenport went missing and there has been no sign of her that anyone has reported. The state of her vehicle indicated she must have received serious and possibly life threatening injuries. She has not, as far as we have been able to tell, shown up at any of the local hospitals or trauma centres. There has been no activity on any of the Davenport’s accounts and a thorough examination of her personal computer by our forensics experts has found no hidden accounts, no indication she was involved with anyone else with whom she could be hiding, and we do not suspect foul play in her disappearance. However, we are highly concerned about her state of well being considering the length of time she has now been missing and the injuries we believe she may have suffered.”

“Forensic examination of the Miata,” the reporter continued. “Shows that there was blood on the broken glass of the car’s sunroof. It is believed to belong to the missing woman though the fire that destroyed the car has made typing the blood a challenge.

Meanwhile, Amelia’s family sits at their Renfrew home waiting for any word on what has happened to the 44-year-old mother of two and the wife of one of the city’s most prominent businessmen.

The Davenport family has offered a one million dollar reward for any information that leads to Amelia’s whereabouts.”

The camera panned back to my family, standing miserably on our front driveway.

“We are maintaining hope that Amelia will be found,” Matthew said.

He looked so worn, so drawn. He’d lost weight in the past three weeks. The kids, too. It broke my heart seeing them suffer so much and knowing I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t tell them where they should be looking.

“The kids and I are waiting for Amelia to come home,” he said.

“Mom,” Alex said, again. “I don’t know if you’re somewhere where you can hear this, but please, Mom, please come home. We miss you. Please, Mom?”

The camera panned over to Anna who was openly crying. She put her arms around her father and buried her head in his shoulder. My baby girl. I’m so sorry. I wish I could make this all better for you.

Alex, my handsome son. I’m so sorry, too. I am where I can hear you. I’m just not somewhere where you can hear me anymore.”

The story returned to the newsroom and the grim faces of the newscasters, wearing little indigo ribbons on their shirts.

“This story is just so sad,” Julie, the anchorwoman said. “Not one word or clue about where Amelia Davenport might be? And no one has been able to even track her cellphone since Founder’s Day. I know that everyone watching our broadcast has nothing but hope for the Davenport family. Please, if anyone has any information on where Amelia might be, please call the hotline number on your screen, or you can find it on our website. Any information, no matter how seemingly insignificant, could help lead police and investigators to find Amelia Davenport.”

“It’s so hard to see her kids suffering and not knowing where their mother is or what state she might be in. And her husband?” Michael shook his head solemnly.

“It’s so, so sad. But we here at News Channel 4 hope the Davenport family receives some good news soon. We hope Amelia is found soon and returned home to her family.”

I sighed.

Matthew sat back on the couch, Anna curled up into him. Alex was sitting in a chair nearby. David and Rachel were in the dining room, sitting quietly. David looked absolutely miserable. Rachel, I sighed, Rachel looked troubled.

“Why were you so horrible to her?” David said quietly, hoping neither Matthew nor the kids heard him.

“I wasn’t horrible to her,” Rachel said defensively.

“Would you say you were kind?” David said, tersely.

“I treated her just fine,” Rachel said, sitting up in her chair looking all the regal matriarch she thought herself.

David shook his head.

“Always inviting Seline to dinners when we invited Matthew and Amelia over. Conveniently forgetting to set a place for her? Barely acknowledging her, dismissing her achievements? Rachel, you isolated and pushed that girl to the brink. And for some reason, she kept combining back and talking the abuse you doled out to her,” he said.

“That isn’t fair, David,” Rachel said.

“Yes it is, Mother,” Matthew said, coming into the dining room. “From the day I brought her home to meet you and Dad, you’ve treated her worse than you treat your staff. Why? Why did you treat the woman I love with so much disdain?”

“Disdain? What are you accusing me of? Do you think Amelia being missing is my fault?” Rachel asked.

“I’m saying you contributed to her feelings of isolation. She tried, she tries, so hard to get you to give her a single kind word. A moment where you aren’t looking at her as though you scraped her off the bottom of your Louboutin,” Matthew frowned.

“I didn’t hear you complaining when Seline would come for dinner or if we invited her to brunch,” Rachel challenged.

“Seline and I were friends. Her parents moved across the country and she has, had, no one here but us. I thought you were being kind. I thought you were keeping an eye on the daughter of a friend. I didn’t think you were trying to break up my marriage and have me remarry Seline. I married Amelia, Mother,” Matthew spat at her. “I love Amelia. Seline and I have nothing going on, so you understand?”

“You forget where you came from, Rachel,” David said, simply.

“I absolutely do not forget where I’ve come from. It’s because of where I come from that I wanted better for my son!” She said.

“Better how?” David frowned. “What was so wrong with Amelia that you think she isn’t good enough for our son?”

“She came from, comes from nothing! What value does she bring this family? The company? Seline’s parents own the second largest import and export business in the state. We’re the largest in the country. Together we could have increased the profitability of both companies, secured a legacy for you and your children.

But no, Matthew. You had to go and fall in love with a nobody from nowhere!” Rachel argued.

Anna and Alex had just walked into the dining room, hearing their father arguing with their grandparents.

“Remind me, Rachel, what it was your father did for a living when we met?” David said.

“What does that even matter now?” She asked, petulantly.

“Did you see too much of yourself in Amelia? Were you afraid she was going to usurp your position in the family somehow? I watched that poor girl try so hard to gain your approval every time we were together. And each time she tried, you rebuffed every advance. You never gave her a chance. What were you so afraid of?” David said.

“I didn’t want our son marrying someone who had nothing to bring to the family,” Rachel said snootily.

“Nothing to the family?” Matthew said. “Do you not see this home? This house my wife maintained? The children she sacrificed her career for? Your grandchildren are both in Ivy League schools. You don’t just get there because grandpa or dad paid for a building. These kids got in because of the sacrifices Amelia made for them. Even when they didn’t appreciate it, Amelia was the one who edited essays, poured over biology, math, law books with them. She was the one who encouraged our little guppy Anna to try out for the Masterson swim team. She’s the one who, knowing little about baseball, pushed Alex to try out for the school team. She was at every single one of their games and meets. She tried to instill good values in our kids. She taught them to be good people. To not take everything we have for granted!”

“Mom tried so hard, Gramma,” Anna said. “Why don’t you like her?”

“I never said I don’t like your mother,” Rachel said.

But, Rachel, you never said you did, either. You still haven’t. You treated me like less. Like I was dirtying the name of the family. You let me get pushed off to the side.

“You never said you like her, either,” Alex said.

“I don’t have to listen to this,” Rachel said, standing up.

“Sit down,” David growled at her. “Your son deserves an explanation. Have you even looked at him since this all started? Do you not see the pain your son is in? Your grandchildren? Your own husband? You sit here day after day expecting everyone to serve you while the rest of us are trying to simply make it through the day.”

“I have nothing to explain,” Rachel sniffed.

“I think you know that’s not true,” David said.

I was enthralled. How come I had to die to learn all these secrets?

“Mom?” Matthew said. “What does Dad mean?”

“Fine,” she breathed out, frowning at her husband. “I saw myself in Amelia. And it made me uncomfortable because she seemed so comfortable merging into this life. I thought she was just trying to get our money. I thought she was a gold digger and I thought she would ruin the Davenport name. I thought she wanted to take my place as matriarch.”

“That makes literally no sense,” Matthew said. “For starters, how could she take your place?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t being rational. I felt threatened by her. She was, she is, so smart. She’s so adaptable. She never said a word if I ‘forgot’ to set her a place. I wanted to challenge her. I wanted to see her fight for her place. I wanted her to work to belong. Like I had to. But she didn’t. She didn’t have to. She was embraced by our friends. She moved in our circles so seamlessly, and it wasn’t fair! I worked really hard to be accepted in your father’s circle, and here this girl with no standing comes waltzing in and our friends accept her without question.”

“Mom!” Matthew was incredulous. “You treated Amelia like s**t because you felt threatened by her?”

“I saw so much of my younger days in her,” Rachel said, bowing her head. “The optimism, the belief that everything would fall into place. The work she put into making you happy. And I worried if something happened to me, she would step in and take over.”

“Gramma!” Alex said. “Mom just wanted to be treated like she mattered to you.”

“Mom,” Matthew shook his head. “She wasn’t trying to challenge you. She wasn’t trying to take anything away from you. She just wanted you to like her.”

“The night of the twins’ graduation party, Amelia was almost completely bowled over that you actually complimented her on the twins’ party. That you managed to not find anything wrong to complain about,” Kieran said coming into the dining room, having heard Matthew and the kids’ voices rising. “She’d complain to Alecia, Emily and I that she had no idea, after twenty something years married to her son, she hadn’t managed to c***k the ice you put up when she’s around. The look in her eyes at the slightest praise from you nearly broke my heart. She tried so hard for years for you to accept her and you couldn’t spare a single compliment even once because you felt threatened by the world’s least threatening human being?”

“Except in the courtroom,” David smiled.

“What do you mean?” Matthew asked.

“I went to a couple of her trials before you had the kids, while she was still working. She was cut-throat. If you’d let her go back to work and gotten our legal department to hire her, we’d probably have never lost a single case, if anyone had dared sue us knowing she would be representing us. There’s a reason she made Junior Partner in less than five years. And you let her squander her talents,” David looked at Matthew pointedly.

“I was jealous of her,” Rachel said quietly.

Everyone turned to look at her.

“What?” Matthew asked, incredulously. “Why?”

“Amelia was everything - is everything - I saw in myself before I met your father. Don’t get me wrong. I love your father, and I love our life. But Amelia accomplished things I never did. She put herself through school, and didn’t have to rely much on student loans because she got scholarships and worked herself through school. She struggled, much like I did, but she never thought only of herself. Like her mother said at your wedding, she never spent the money Colette sent her, until she got home from school and used that money for her family. She was able to do things I was never able to do, and our backgrounds aren’t that dissimilar,” Rachel said.

“But, I don’t understand,” Matthew frowned. “If you grew up similar to Amelia, why didn’t you embrace her? You understood her better than I did, maybe, in that regard.”

“Because she accomplished more than I did. And I was jealous. She went to university and then grad school. I wasn’t able to finish university because I had to go help my family. She became a lawyer, I wanted to be a doctor, and then I wanted to be a chartered accountant. I was good at math. I am good at math. Amelia didn’t let her humble upbringing dictate where she landed. She went after what she wanted, and I let life come to me. I met your father, we got married, had you and your brother, and I never wanted for anything ever again. I went from being poor to being rich and respected. But every day I feel like a fake,” Rachel looked at her lap. “Like I’m living a lie. And I suppose in a way, I am.”

“How?” Alex asked.

“Because I spent my entire married life pretending I came from money. Your mother didn’t come from money, and she didn’t act like she did. She acted like a normal human being who happened to not have to struggle financially. I grew up living hand to mouth. My father was a labourer. He picked avocados and other crops. He always worked, but he didn’t make a lot of money. I always wore hand-me-downs that we got on sale at thrift stores or from church charity. I started working part time when I was in high school, just to cover my own expenses. Just to try to fit in with the other girls at school. I never wanted to feel like I was poor once I no longer had to worry about money. And I let my own discomfort with my past colour how I treated your mother,” Rachel explained.

“Mom didn’t have a lot growing up, either. And if you look in her study, she doesn’t have a lot, still. She has a five year old laptop because she won’t let Dad replace it. She says it works fine, why replace it? She recycled stuff. When Anna and I outgrew stuff, instead of throwing it away, she always donated it to Mrs. Watkins’ church or something,” Alex said.

“You treated my wife like she didn’t deserve to be a part of our family because you were jealous of her accomplishments? Because things that were never in your control, her upbringing, your upbringing, and how you each navigated the world, both mirrored and were so considerably different? What did you think Amelia was going to do? Divorce me and marry Dad?”

“I would have been proud to have someone like Amelia as my wife, had I not already been married to your mother, and if she’d been a few years older,” David said.

I smiled. I had always liked David. Not because he showed me any particular amount of respect, but because he never outrightly treated me with the disdain Rachel seemed to. And he’d offered me many kind words, albeit in private, that made living in this family just a little more tolerable.

I looked around the dining room. Six miserable faces, contemplating their treatment of someone they could never apologize to. And they still didn’t even know that.