Inner Harbor
Page 48

She took her seat again, prepared herself. "I'll tell you everything I know."
Chapter Twelve
it was easier now, almost like a lecture. Sybill was used to giving lectures on social topics. All she had to do was divorce herself from the subject and relay information in a clear and cohesive manner.
"Professor Quinn had a relationship with Barbara Harrow," she began. She put her back to the window so that she could face all of them as she spoke. "They met at American University in Washington. I don't have a great many of the details, but what I do know indicates that he was teaching there and she was a graduate student. Barbara Harrow is my mother. Gloria's mother."
"My father," Phillip said. "Your mother."
"Yes. Nearly thirty-five years ago. I assume they were attracted to each other, physically at least. My mother…" She cleared her throat. "My mother indicated that she believed he had a great deal of potential, that he would rise up the ranks in academia quickly. Status is an essential requirement to my mother's contentment. However, she found herself disappointed in his… what she saw as his lack of ambition. He was content to teach. Apparently he wasn't particularly interested in the social obligations that are necessary for advancement. And his politics were too liberal for her tastes."
"She wanted a rich, important husband." Cueing in quickly, Phillip raised his eyebrows. "And she discovered he wasn't going to be it."
"That's essentially true," Sybill agreed in a cool, steady voice.
"Thirty-five years ago, the country was experiencing unrest, its own internal war between youth and establishment. Colleges were teeming with minds that questioned not only an unpopular war, but the status quo. Professor Quinn, it would seem, had a lot of questions."
"He believed in using the brain," Cam muttered. "And in taking a stand."
"According to my mother, he took stands." Sybill managed a small smile.
"Often unpopular with the administration of the university. He and my mother disagreed, strongly, on basic principles and beliefs. At the end of the term, she went home to Boston, disillusioned, angry, and, she was to discover, pregnant."
"Bullshit. Sorry," Cam said shortly when Anna hissed at him. "But it's bullshit. There's no way he would have ignored responsibility for a kid. No way in hell."
"She never told him." Sybill folded her hands as all eyes swung back to her. "She was furious. Perhaps she was frightened as well, but she was furious to find herself pregnant by a man she'd decided was unsuitable. She considered terminating the pregnancy. She'd met my father, and they had clicked."
"He was suitable," Cam concluded.
"I believe they suited each other." Her voice chilled. They were her parents, damn it. She had to be left with something. "My mother was in a difficult and frightening position. She wasn't a child. She was nearly twenty-five, but an unwanted and unplanned pregnancy is a wrenching episode for a woman of any age. In a moment of weakness, or despair, she confessed all of it to my father. And he offered her marriage. He loved her," Sybill said quietly. "He must have loved her very much. They were married quickly and quietly. She never went back to Washington. She never looked back."
"Dad never knew he had a daughter?" Ethan covered Grace's hand with his.
"No, he couldn't have. Gloria was three, nearly four when I was born. I can't say what the relationship between her and my parents was like in those early years. I know that later on, she felt excluded. She was difficult and temperamental, demanding. Certainly she was wild. Certain standards of behavior were expected, and she refused to meet them."
It sounded so cold, Sybill thought now. So unyielding. "In any case, she left home when she was still a teenager. Later, I discovered that both of my parents, and myself, sent her money, independently of each other. She would contact one of us and plead, demand, threaten, whichever worked. I wasn't aware of any of this until Gloria called me last month, about Seth."
Sybill paused a moment until she could compose her thoughts. "Before I came here, I flew to Paris to see my parents. I felt they needed to know. Seth was their grandchild, and as far as I knew, he'd been taken away from Gloria and was living with strangers. When I told my mother what had happened, and she refused to become involved, to offer any assistance, I was stunned and angry. We argued." Sybill let out a short laugh. "She was surprised enough by that, I think, to tell me what I've just told you."
"Gloria had to know," Phillip pointed out. "She had to know Ray Quinn was her father or she'd never have come here."
"Yes, she knew. A couple of years ago, she went to my mother when my parents were staying in D.C. for a few months. I can assume it was an ugly scene. From what my mother told me, Gloria demanded a large sum of money or she'd go to the press, to the police, to whoever would listen and accuse my father of sexual abuse, my mother of collusion in it. None of that is true," Sybill said wearily. "Gloria always equated sex with power, and acceptance. She routinely accused men, particularly men in positions of authority, of molesting her.
"In this instance, my mother gave her several thousand dollars and the story I've just told you. She promised Gloria that it was the last penny she would ever see from her, the last word she would ever speak to her. My mother rarely, very rarely, goes back on a promise of any kind. Gloria would have known that."
"So she hit on Ray Quinn instead," Phillip concluded.
"I don't know when she decided to find him. It may have stewed in her mind for a time. Now she would consider this the reason she was never loved, never wanted, never accepted as she felt she deserved to be. I imagine she blamed your father for that. Someone else is always to blame when Gloria has difficulties."
"So she found him." Phillip rose from his chair to pace. "And, true to form, demanded money, made accusations, threatened. Only this time she used her own son as the hammer."
"Apparently. I'm sorry. I should have realized you weren't aware of all the facts. I suppose I assumed your father had told you more of it."
"He didn't have time." Cam's voice was cold and bitter.
"He told me he was waiting for some information," Ethan remembered.