Using this fabricated narrative of mental incompetence, Eleanor and my father had aggressively maneuvered to take over his finances, assume control of his sprawling, lucrative commercial real estate holding company, and isolate him in the remote guest wing of their massive suburban estate. They treated him like a burdensome, dying pet they were simply waiting to expire.
I finally spotted him.
And the moment I did, the blood in my veins instantly, violently boiled.
Eleanor hadn’t just placed him at a table in the back of the room. She hadn’t just seated him with the distant, undesirable cousins.
She had seated him entirely alone.
He was placed at a tiny, wobbly, high-top cocktail table that had clearly been dragged in from the hallway at the last minute. The table was wedged tightly into a dark, drafty corner, directly between the swinging doors of the busy catering kitchen and a massive, stainless-steel industrial trash receptacle used by the bussers to scrape dirty plates.
Arthur was eighty-two years old. He was wearing a faded, slightly oversized grey suit that looked as though it hadn’t been tailored in a decade. He was sitting on a hard wooden chair, his hands resting quietly on his lap, staring blankly at the empty, white porcelain plate in front of him.
Just a few feet away, a young waiter hurriedly scraped the remains of a half-eaten filet mignon and mashed potatoes directly into the trash bin beside him, the loud, wet
thwack
