I’m dying, and I’m content. My children are here with me.
I’ve never been much of a father. It was a role I neither sought or cherished. To me, my businesses were my children. I either gave birth to them or adopted them, I nurtured and cherished them, and had favourites that I’d spend more time with than others. Eventually most would triumphantly graduate from my tutelage though a minority would be discarded, cast out in shame to the orphanage. Businesses were my protégés: I was firm yet patient, demanding yet supportive. My children were tolerated inconveniences.
I’ve had my share of wives and certainly my collection of mistresses, both imposing their separate frustrations. The trophy wives effortlessly amass more diamonds than Amsterdam, whilst mistresses are great fun for a few months before they too turn into wives, proffering opinions and demands, becoming yet another tiresome matrimonial bosom. The one common interest the two do share is the desire to secure their finances by ‘expanding the family’. Unfortunately, both are far too fertile for a man of my age. I had my last son Jack when I was 65.
Having said all this, it’s therefore unsurprising then that I have 7 or 8 children. The uncertainty is due to my determination to refute the paternity of ‘Child X’ as the courts delicately christened her. The child may or may not have been mine, that I’m not contesting, but there’s no way either of them will get a coin out of me after ‘that incident’ with her mother. Fortuitously, neither mother or child have been in contact since the court’s judgement was passed so I consider that an episode from the past.
But today is special. Today is for my six children with me here in this room. It’s so good to see the children helping each other. Normally they battle over my estate. Six times my will has been contested by this shower and I’m not even dead yet. In any other context I’d embrace their cold determination, it would make me proud. Not however when it involves my money.
I look around the small room, watching their expressions one by one. The slow monotonous ping of the life support system is comforting, helping me to concentrate and focus, regulate my breathing. Very soothing. I’m slightly surprised by my calmness. I can feel my body relaxing. This isn’t unpleasant. Not at all what I was expecting.
Poor Janet is getting very distressed, sobbing, her eyes fixed on the life support machine, chanting ‘why why why’ to no-one in particular. She always was a delicate flower: beautiful but needing constant tending. She was tolerable until her early teens when she inherited her mother’s cold ruthlessness, bitches from hell the two of them. Still, I shouldn’t think like that now, no more spitefulness. I’ll be dead soon, a minute at most, then what will any of that matter?
I concede that my children’s resentment of me could be regarded as my failing. I understand the nurture/nature debate. I recognise children are the product of their environment, and between their mothers and I, that environment was absent of love. They rarely saw me during their infancy. I was concentrating my time on making more money, whilst their mothers concocted more ways of spending it. If we consider the nature argument, I'd admit that I look even more guilty; you don't amass my wealth without acquiring more skeletons than the local graveyard. I've done things, am doing things, that will certainly make Saint Peter shake his head in despair in a few short moments.
Those few thoughts however are the extent of my guilt, I don’t believe I’m innocent or should take all of the blame. If I was that bad, then surely all my children would be the same; they were all seeds from the same plant after all. But Cassandra has been a gem throughout. From the moment she could walk her priority was caring for others, she’d potter around looking for ways to help. She was never demanding, always patient, never quarrelled, leaving that to her siblings. She was the child that all fathers would want. I always looked forward to coming home from a trip, opening the door and seeing her running down the hall towards me even before I’d take my first step into the house. I’d toss her into the air, hearing her screams of laughter as we tried to get her closer and closer to the ceiling. Even that one time when her back made contact, she was laughing so hard that she forgot to cry.
