Emmy said, taking a sip of her coffee.
The glimpses of vulnerability that he'd displayed tonight were tantalizing, and she was hungry for more. This was a side of Eric unlike anything she'd seen before.
"I'll give it a try," he said, speaking slowly, hand cradling his mug as he stared into it, avoiding her gaze. "It's something that's been hanging over me — over my family — for so long, and yet we avoid discussing it at every turn. It's stifling."
"Why is it so hard?" she asked.
"My father," he said, short.
"Because of his job?”
“Because of everything. This is pretty much all his fault.”
Eric was radiating discomfort as he spoke — Emmy could well believe this was something he'd never talked about.
"If you really want to know the ugly saga of the Glenisons, we need to go back to my freshman year at school. The confrontation happened during spring break that year — Owen was a senior, and he was getting ready to go off to Harvard after graduation. It was really warm, balmy weather and we'd gone out for a few days to Nantucket."
He smiled into the distance but didn't meet her eyes.
"We had a place there. Still do, as a matter of fact, but I haven't been there for a long time. Anyhow, picture the scene — it's after lunch, the sun is shining, we're out on the porch in shirtsleeves, my mom bustling around, my dad reading the Times, and out of the blue my big brother decides to tell us all that he's quitting everything to join the Marines. That he's signed up already, in fact — and he's off to Parris Island in the morning. And he's not going to follow in Dad's footsteps after all, sorry and goodbye."
Emmy tried to imagine it — the sun shining golden through pale green spring leaves, throwing dappled shapes onto the gray shingle siding, teenage boys loafing in deckchairs, the stern patrician figure of Senator Glenison presiding over the scene. It was all too easy to picture as the before the fall scene in a family drama.
"And how did your dad react?"
"He just exploded. He was so angry that Mum was terrified. I think she thought he was about to have an aneurysm so she didn't dare intervene, she let it happen. The thing is, Em, my dad was — is — a fucking bully. He had a very precise idea of what our family was supposed to be and it went: supportive, meek wife; cherished firstborn heir; and the spare. So I was the fucked up, nerdy, unpopular kid, who my mother fussed over, and he didn't give a shit about, and Owen was the prized athlete and golden boy, primed to do as Dad did — banking, then politics, and it all unraveled in one afternoon."
There was real distress now in his eyes. Emmy could well believe this wasn't something he usually shared.
"Dad tried to stop him, ordered him to stay and finish high school — and you've probably seen my father on the Senate floor, he can be pretty fucking terrifying — said he'd pull strings, but Owen stood firm and refused everything. So Dad told him that if he walked out that was it — he could never come home again. He was out of the family for good. And Owen left."
"And you haven't seen him since?"
Eric shook his head.
"Of course," he added, slowly, as if each word cost effort, "there was more to it than just a rejection of the future planned for him. Owen wasn't just acting out of rebellion — he was escaping. And I hated him for it."
"Escaping?"
The pause stretched, to the extent that she worried he wasn't going to pick up the thread again.
"When I said my father was a bully, I don't just mean he shouted at us. He was... physically abusive. He believed in good old-fashioned discipline. When we were small, it was spanking, then we graduated to belts, and even fists. Owen bore the brunt of it — because it was all about molding him in Dad's image. Until he left, and Dad turned to me."
Emmy was speechless.
"Of course, it was always done under the pretense of keeping us on the straight and narrow," Eric added, bitterly. "But it's not until Owen was gone that I realized quite how violent Dad could be. I guess Owen had shielded me for a while, but he couldn't take it anymore. But God, I hated him for leaving me behind."
He sighed,