Prologue
Prologue
October 24, 1929, the day the bottom dropped out of the stock market and the Great Depression started, was also the day I was born. It never crossed my mind to think I was at fault for that, although considering the way my father, a staunch Republican, would rant during one of President Roosevelt’s fireside chats and glare at me, I could never be certain he felt the same way.
Three years later, my sister Rosalie was born. Mother’s screams could be heard throughout the huge house we lived in—apparently there hadn’t been time for Father to have her taken to the hospital—and I’d hidden in the closet in my room, terrified. However, once the screaming stopped, I crept out of the closet and into the nursery. I thought my sister was the prettiest thing, and I wanted to hold her and cuddle her, but the servants chased me out. Rosalie didn’t survive for very long, and I was so saddened, even though she’d caused Mother’s screams. Afterward, I heard the servants talking in hushed tones about how yellow the poor little girl had been. There was talk of changelings as well, but at the age of three, I didn’t understand how that could involve me.
None of Mother’s other pregnancies resulted in a live birth, some didn’t even last a few months, and finally my parents lost all hope and stopped trying. Not that they spoke to me about this, but I’d learned to skulk around the house and gather what bits of information I could from the servants.
As the firstborn son and only surviving child, I should have been well-loved. After all, in most storybooks mothers and fathers were supposed to love their children unconditionally. However, I saw my nanny Mary more than I saw my parents, and I’d quickly grown to accept they tolerated me well enough, but that was all it struck me as—being tolerated.
The one thing they truly, unequivocally loved—which I’d also come to accept as I grew older—was Knight, Inc., the family company based in Connecticut. It meant more to them than I ever could. They looked on me as an intrusion, minor perhaps, but an intrusion nonetheless. They could live with me, but they could just as easily live without me.
Perhaps, given my family background, one would have thought I saw myself as a poor little rich boy.
Only it wasn’t exactly like that. I had an allowance that kept me in research books, some of which were quite rare and expensive, an excellent education—being a child prodigy had much going for it—the latest in diving equipment and a new seventeen-foot Chris Craft runabout to dive from, and a comfortable suite of rooms, first in the house where I grew up, then in my college dormitory, and finally in an apartment on which Father insisted he pay the rent.
In addition, I had numerous s****l partners.
The thing was…When I told people not to love me—not because I was unlovable or anything of that nature, but because I had no desire to hurt them or open myself to be hurt—why did they never take me at my word?
However, other than a few…blips…in the road, I liked my life.
