A Scandal II
I used my key to open the gate at the house and again on the front door. It felt good to be home. I hit the light and discovered my bike where I always keep it. My stomach dropped. I looked around the downstairs area, turning on lights. The kitchen and bathrooms were just as I left them. I could feel my breathing quicken as I tipped up the stairs. I could feel my heart beating in my ears as I walked up the stairs to check the second bathroom and my bedroom. Both areas looked untouched. Once I checked the entire house out, I felt relieved. I didn't sleep well.
It was a few days later when I received a text message. “Edoff Bandstand at Lake Merritt, 3:00 pm, Monday.”
I read it and knew instantly who it was. I didn't have a client which meant they knew my schedule.
I found him sitting alone on a park bench when I arrived. I looked around and sat down next to him.
“Thanks for returning my bike,” I said, not knowing whether to be happy or angry with him.
He didn't acknowledge.
“What should I call you?”
“You don’t call me. I call you.”
“She doesn't understand me. She has no idea what I've done for her and this country. She has no idea. I’ve put presidents in office and then I protect them at all costs. I work for the freedoms you enjoy. No one knows. No one knows. And she hates me. She defies me at every opportunity. Getting involved with the man I'm responsible for keeping out of harm’s way.”
“Obviously your relationship with your daughter is important to you,” I said.
He didn't respond.
“So defiant, so damned...defiant. Sleeping with a married man. He will use her and toss her out when he's done. And I'm supposed to protect him.”
Who is she involved with, I thought. And why would he have to protect her and her lover?
“They're both fools. I taught her better than that. They could bring the entire country down.”
I want to ask questions but his anger made me cautious, uneasy.
He continued as if I wasn’t there. “We are always at the disposal of white people. She hates me so much she can't wait to rub it in my face. She thinks she in love. She’ a fool.”
She’s involved with someone in DC who's powerful enough to need his protection, I thought.
Someone who could bring the whole country down, someone white...
I begin to listen for clues about him.
“Why do you think your daughter hates you?” I asked.
“She thinks I'm evil. She doesn't know me. She knows some things but she doesn't know me. She thinks that everything bad that happens in the world I'm responsible for. That I've somehow got a hand in it.”
“Do you?” I ask.
He looks at me with the eyes of a reptile, cold and empty, and doesn't answer.
My gut told me I was talking to someone who practices mind over matter: “I don't mind and you don't matter.”
“What I hear you say is she doesn't know you. Perhaps she does. Could she somehow be like you, and you don’t like that?”
A vein throbbed at his temple. I couldn't help but wonder if I had said too much.
He quickly batted down my question and began to start talking about her again when I cut him off with another question.
“What if she loves this guy and it doesn't have anything to do with you?” I asked.
“She doesn't love him! She can’t love him! She likes power. She's looking for someone to protect her from me.”
“Why would your daughter need someone to protect her from you.?”
He rose, appearing puzzled by my question, and walked away.
Tags: Narcissism, Anti-Social Personality Disorder, Scandal, Olivia Pope, Eli Pope, Dr. Vernita Marsh, Power, Familial Relationships, Family Therapy, BOSS, Lake Merritt
