Aisling (ASH-ling)

I

In the yawning void left in the wake of my mother’s death, I find solitude in her photos. Fingers gliding over the expensive silver and gold gilt that framed her favorites – delicate pads threatening to split open and bleed along the sharp edges of her many, many voluminous portfolios – I gaze into snapshots of her past and feel closer to her than I ever did in life. My mother, supermodel and actress Vivian Mitchell, had shrouded herself in countless veils of mystery and rumor her entire life. Her career, her hasty marriage to my father, photographer and investigative journalist Peter Wells, and the subsequent children she bore him, were all scrutinized and gossiped over. From an extremely young age we grew up under the insatiably curious eye of the public and felt it as keen as a knife’s blade. With a mother as beautiful as ours, there was no escape. Even in her death, the shade of our fiercely strong, infamous firebrand of a mother, lingered around us like a miasma.

There was her career, for starters. She had been a supermodel before an actress, discovered when she was eighteen while working in Macy’s in Manhattan. After bursting onto the runway and making a name for herself (as well as numerous valuable connections), she had stunned the world by declaring that all the remaining photographs of her would be captured by only four men. They were considered by her to be “peak masters of their craft” and claimed it was only these four men who she trusted above all others to capture her true self – the only side of her she ever wanted committed to photography.

Then there was acting. When her career understandably started to wane in the wake of her revelation, she had turned to acting. She had become known for her daring, often controversial roles. Indie darling, they had called her. She had never gotten a mainstream role in her life, despite rumors that had swirled of an affair between her and Tarantino. However, every year, one of her movies was almost always, without fail, at Sundance, Tribeca, or Cannes.

****

If there was one thing about her life that my mother used to shy away from like it was the plague, it was answering the questions that swirled like a maelstrom around the events leading up to my oldest brother’s birth.

Mother had always been adamant that she married dad and got pregnant with Colum on their honeymoon in the French Riviera. The papers, however, had a much different story. They buzzed about her sudden wearing of voluminous dresses after disappearing for three months in the highlands of Scotland with one of Them, before suddenly arriving back and announcing her engagement to photographer and investigative journalist, close friend, and Pulitzer Prize winner Peter Wells.

The papers and tabloids had dubbed them: “The Four”. They were the four photographers in Vivian Mitchell’s life that constantly drew the most scrutiny, the most gossip -- the most frenzied whispers in the shadows. Graham Fraser of Banff, Scotland, Magnus Erikson of Oslo, Norway, Til Jäger of Leipzig, Germany, and Fyodor Sokolov of Moscow, Russia. I grew up with these men’s names on my lips, in my thoughts -- in my dreams. Oh, how they used to haunt my dreams! I remember how mother would drop everything the very second one of them called, and with a certain tone – a certain lilt – to her voice that was never in it when she spoke to our dad. I remember thinking in those moments that maybe the paparazzi occasionally got a few things right.

Four children. Four photographers. Coincidence?

I was never too sure.

****

The day we interred her in the – quite frankly – garishly luxurious mausoleum she had bought with our dad, had been gray and overcast. There had been a beautiful memorial service for her at Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes that morning. Her funeral had drawn a larger crowd than we thought, and while I halfway expected Them to show up, I never caught any of their faces in the crowds. Glancing at dad’s tortured, mourning face while surrounded by all four of us, I found myself wondering what I would have said or done if I had even managed to talk to one of them, had they shown.

Who are you?

Who exactly were you to our mother? What scope, form, and fashion did you come to her in? What void did you fill inside her heart, in her life?

But most importantly . . .

Which one of us did you father?

****

Back at the house our mother and father had shared together in Van Nuys (different than the one we grew up in. That one had been in Topanga Canyon), the four of us chattered amiably in the kitchen while cobbling together a mish-mash spread for dinner. Cecily was putting together a salad while Colum was marinating some burgers for the grill. Roxanna, draped in her shawls and cheap costume jewelry, was pulling out plastic Tupperware containers of homemade hummus she had brought with her and some half-stale tortilla chips she had found in the back of one of the kitchen cabinets. Colum’s wife, Madison, was settling the kids down in front of the TV in the living room. I could hear the laughter of Spongebob while we talked.

Cecily was going through a divorce with her estranged husband, Paul, in which they were fighting a bitter custody battle over their three huskies and five house plants (I could only imagine the reaction of the judge before remembering she did live in L.A., and that he had likely heard much worse. Not-to-mention petty). Roxanna . . . well, Roxanna was Roxanna. She was a free-spirit, utterly unable to be bound to one place for any length of time. She was a wandering poet with the tortured soul of an artist. She was a captivating spirit who left the shreds of tattered hearts lying bleeding on the pavement behind her.

Not that I had any room to judge, personally speaking. My own track record with men and romance was nothing to write home about.

Gazing around at my siblings grouped around the island counter in the kitchen, watching them grin, laugh, and playfully squabble, I found it hard to believe that I had never seen the signs growing up. I borated myself for daring to believe our mother’s lies instead of what the papers and tabloids had printed, bold as you please, on the wall since her very first announcement that she was pregnant with Colum.

Which was which? Whose was whose? It was hard to tell just by looking.

While Colum and I looked alike, Cecily and Roxanna could almost have claimed adoption. Colum and I were both pale-skinned with curly black hair and green eyes (the spitting images of our mother, dad used to say). Cecily was a dainty but stunning blue-eyed blonde while Roxanna was a voluptuous brunette with olive-colored skin and smoky obsidian eyes.

Is Cecily’s Erikson’s? I couldn’t help but think as my gaze lingered on her laughing with Colum as Roxanna chastised them for daring to add preservative laden bacon bits to the salad. She’s certainly Nordic looking enough to be his. And if the paparazzi was correct, then Colum is Fraser’s. But what about Roxanna? What about me?

Am I Russian? German? Who am I?

“What do you think, Aisling?”

I jerk, Colum’s amused words bringing me out of my thoughts. I smile at him over the bounty spread out on the island counter between us, my chin resting in the palm of my right hand. A glass of barely drunk merlot sat on the countertop in front of me. I twirl the stem, watching the deep burgundy liquid inside swirl in a ruby monsoon.

“Think about what?”

Colum sent a playfully disparaging look to Cecily, who merely smiled in reply. Cecily grew up to become a supermodel like our mother, which hadn’t been hard. Colum was a stage actor working primarily on Broadway in Manhattan. We saw each other the most out of everyone, living in the same city. Roxanna was a poet and artist, living wherever the wind blew her, but mainly confining herself to the south. Currently, she seemed to have a particular adoration of Louisiana. Eyeing her voluminous robes and jewelry, I could understand why. New Orleans was as eclectic as she was.

What can I say, though? We were a creative family.

Roxanna nudged me with her elbow. “Don’t listen to them, kid.” She rolled her eyes. “They’re just trying to bring you over to the dark side.”

They laugh again and my smile grew bigger. I’m the youngest of the family – the baby. I’m also dad’s favorite, having chosen the journalism path like him. Mother always claimed she didn’t have a favorite, but that was a lie and we all knew it. I saw growing up how much she doted on Cecily and knew Colum and Roxanna hadn’t been ignorant of the fact, either. Was it because of who her father was?

Erikson. Magnus Erikson. Did she love him the most? Is that why Cecily was always her favorite growing up?

“So, what are you working on now, sis? Anything special?” Colum asked, setting aside the tray of marinating burger patties and turning to wash his hands off in the nearby sink. I shrugged. The pad of my finger traced the rim of my wineglass.

“Nothing too noteworthy, I suppose. Just some op-ed pieces my editor has me working on while waiting for the next big thing. You know, we talked about it the last time we had lunch.” I spoke, trailing off, and he nodded, remembering. I left things purposefully vague – I decided that on the plane cross-country. I didn’t plan on telling any of them anything about what I was really working on. The expose to end all exposes. The expose that would blow one of Hollywood’s best loved secrets wide the fuck open. The secret that our mother had guarded so viciously while living and which she had taken with her to her very fucking grave. The expose that would trot out every single one of our family skeletons and have them perform a Broadway musical in front of the entire world.

Which one of the Four fathered which of Vivian Mitchell’s children?

****

“I’m not going to let you do this.”

I recoiled slightly, my eyebrows rising as my brain slowly registered that those words had actually come from my boss’ mouth. I blinked a couple times. “Not let me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shepard shook his head as he rocked slowly back and forth in his desk chair across from me, chewing meditatively on the toothpick clenched in-between his nicotine stained teeth. One of his hands was splayed out on the polished wooden surface of his desk. It was big and rough, with black hairy knuckles and a thick gold wedding band looped around his ring finger. In fact, those words could be used to describe the entirety of Shepard Vause, high-powered editor of the New York Times. He was good friends with dad, and his patronage when I graduated college had launched my career – he was like a second father to me. Granted, I had yet to do anything to separate myself from the rest of the teeming herd of journalists in the office (nothing of dad’s caliber, anyway) but I was nevertheless known as a pretty good journalist. Not a lot of bad reviews from readers had darkened my desk. Thankfully.

“Let me rephrase: I’m not going to let you do this to yourself.” He elaborated, gently, and my brows rose higher still.

“Do this to myself, Shep?”

“Look, kid, come on!” He spoke, exasperation now lacing his tone as he moved to lean forward on his elbows on his desk. He called me ‘kid’ like dad did. “I’m well aware that everyone wants to know who fathered Vivian Mitchell’s kids. Everyone’s wanted to know since – how old’s your brother? Thirty? For thirty years people have wanted to know! The whole damn world wants to know, especially now considering she’s dead – my condolences, by the way.” I nodded, swallowing heavily while he continued on, shaking his head. His tone grew gentle again. “I get why you want to do this. You want answers. Anyone in your situation would. But has it occurred to you, kid, what this will do to your family? A piece like this – an expose as you are intent on calling it – will destroy your entire family! It will blow it to smithereens all the way to kingdom come as soon as it hits the stands – as soon as every news channel worth knowing about, gets word of it! I’ve seen it happen, time and time again. At the very least, Aisling, you’ll implode!”

He was right and I knew it. I had told myself that very same thing when I first thought about the project. As much bitterness as I personally felt and directed towards our mother, I had initially balked at doing this to dad -- to Colum, Cecily, and Roxanna. We had grown up thinking Peter Wells was our father, and he had been an amazing one. Did I really have the right to rip that curtain away? To look each of my siblings in the face and go, no, we were wrong! Mother lied to us. He’s your father!

Colum’s logical voice filled my head. There was a reason mother never told the truth, right? Surely she had a reason!

I didn’t know what to say. I shut my mouth and looked down at my hands resting in my lap. A heavy silence fell between us and I could sense the amount of strength it took for Shepard to break it. His voice was quiet, gentle.

“Look, kid, I know you two weren’t close. I know there are things she could have done differently if she had the chance – that she could have done better. I’m a parent too and I’ll be the first to admit that we’re not perfect. Eighty-five percent of the time we spend doing the wrong thing and screaming at ourselves for having done it in the first place. But she’s your mother, kid. Whatever she did, don’t try and get at her like this. Don’t try to get at her by destroying everyone else in your family. There are better ways to seek the answers to your questions.”

I felt the harsh burn of tears in my eyes. “And how is that, Shep? Ask dad?” I gave a caustic laugh and shook my head. “I can see that conversation going over well! ‘Hey, dad, can you tell me if I’m Russian or German? I know mom fucked those other men – that they’re most likely our real dads instead of you. Care to shed some light on it? Have any comments for the press?’”

Shepard pursed his lips. “You done?” I opened my mouth but then closed it and nodded. He heaved a sigh. “Just promise me that you’ll talk it over with them before you decide on anything, okay? Especially your dad. Don’t leave them in the dark on this, kid. Take it from me: being blindsided like this is dirty fucking pool.”

I nodded. I told him I would, even though we both knew I wouldn’t. We both knew I had long made up my mind.

****

All my mother’s things are still in her room, exactly like she had left them the morning she died. Dad’s bedroom sat a little ways down the hall, the two rooms separated by an opulent shared bathroom. As I lingered in the doorway, gazing into a world of my mother I largely kept myself from while growing up, I realized that I couldn’t remember mother and father ever sharing a bedroom. It was another peculiar thing that I should have thought odd growing up but which I didn’t until now. Their marriage had been largely harmonious as one built on a long friendship often is. The fact that it seemed completely devoid of sex had never occurred to me.

Until I grew older. Until I entered into relationships of my own and figured out how crucial sex is to one.

Until I learned of the Four. Then I understood why.

Mom was too busy fucking other men to fuck our dad.

I winced at the words. They were harsh and unfair, even coming from me. Even for the tumultuous relationship mother and I had together.

Mother had lived like a Queen. Giant king-sized bed with plush down pillows and comforters – Egyptian cotton sheets. Deep, luxurious carpet – a walk-in closet that would have made any fashionista envious. Her white marble vanity was the other focal point of the room and it was to here that my gaze lingered. It was here that my mother kept framed pictures of Them, and maybe They were the reason I never wanted to be in here as a child. Mothers should not keep in their bedrooms framed pictures of other men who are not their husbands. Maybe I was afraid I would look at one of them and see myself gazing back.

The room still smelled like her – like Cool Water by Davidoff. It wasn’t Chanel or Dolce&Gabbana for Vivian Mitchell. It was cheap, but mother loved it. Her favorite cologne for a man was Curve. Why do I remember these small little details so vividly?

Hesitantly, I take a step inside this unknown (enemy) territory, then pause. I halfway expect to see mother come striding out of the closet or come walking in from the balcony. She would smile, brown eyes bright and joyous. She would hold open her arms while exclaiming how happy she was to see me, and despite whatever it was we had argued about that morning on the phone before my arrival, I would walk into them. I would let them fold around me and hold me close. I’d breathe in her cheap perfume and she’d make me feel warm and comforted. She’d make me want to cling to her like a child. Like I never had as a child.

You were always too preoccupied with Cecily to give a damn. I thought, bitterly, as I slowly crossed the room to the vanity. Your precious little girl. Your precious little supermodel-in-training. How it must have galled you, when Roxanna and I turning out the way we did. Free and fluid. Not giving a fucking shit about fashion and being pretty.

After one of the worst arguments between mother and me, dad had comforted me by telling me we fought the way we did because we were so alike. That whenever Vivian looked at me, all she saw was herself gazing back. He told me that was the thing mother loved so much about me: out of all her children, I was her most faithful reflection.

“Well, you could have told me that every once in a while, mother.” I muttered, the bitter tone not having left my voice yet. I took a seat at my mother’s spacious vanity. White marble topped with a triptych of beautiful gilded mirrors; expensive make-up, creams, various bit of jewelry, and bottles of perfumes lay scattered haphazardly across the surface. A sheer scarf, beaded and the color of a robin’s egg, lay draped over the left mirror. Underneath the scarf sat a photograph of the first of the Four: Graham Fraser of Scotland, who the press became convinced was the biological father of Colum.

The picture had been taken on one of the lush, emerald green moors of his home country. With a background of snow-capped mountains, he had been surrounded by lush, emerald green grass and purple heather. He was a big man – tall, broad-shouldered, and padded with muscle. He was clad in well-fitted jeans, a black wool sweater and matching peacoat. His face was ruggedly chiseled, his eyes a clear blue as he gazed into the camera, and his hair was a thick, rich copper. I scanned his face trying to find hints of my brother. I found a few. The shape of Colum’s eyes and the tilt of his chin were eerily similar – the kind of similarity you only got from a direct blood link. My brother wasn’t as muscular as his rumored biological father, but he certainly had his height. Yes . . . I’d think it was pretty safe to say that Graham Fraser was Colum’s dad.

I sought out Magnus Erikson next, if merely to confirm what I already knew. His photograph was of him standing in a crowd on Bergen’s Bryggen Hanseatic Wharf in Norway. Standing in front of picturesque wooden houses on an ancient cobblestoned street, I understood how mother could have become enamored with him. Like Cecily (who he had clearly fathered), he was a tall, blue-eyed, golden-haired God with chiseled Nordic features screaming of Viking heritage. He easily matched Graham Fraser in height and weight. As I gazed at him I could feel my mind whirling. This one. This one had been different from the others. Had they been in love? Was that why Cecily had been mother’s favorite? Had she reminded her of the man she had . . . what? Left? Been abandoned by? I felt frustrated by all the questions I had no answers for.

That left the other two for Roxana and me, not as clear cut as Colum and Cecily. The German and the Russian -- Til Jäger and Fyodor Sokolov. Which was which?

Their pictures were missing from the vanity.

****

I found dad in his study, hunched over his desk, gaze intent on the glow of the computer screen in front of him. Lingering in the doorway, my gaze perused the office of dark woods and the comforting smell of old books. Dad had been a renowned photographer and investigative journalist and the work he was most proud of hung framed on the walls. I had gazed at these framed articles my entire childhood, secretly hoping for the day I would become as great as he was. National Geographic, LIFE, The Times – dad had written for all of them and many more. On a shelf above the desk with its computer sat a framed copy of the article for Smithsonian that had won him his Pulitzer. The gold discs sat in their own case beside it, polished to a shine.

I smiled and entered the office. “You know what they say about sitting too close to the computer screen, old man.”

“Exactly what I told you kids growing up.” He spoke without looking away from it. “But I’m afraid I’m too old to give a shit about going blind anymore.”

My smile turned upwards into a grin as I moved over to him. My hand fell onto the back of his springy leather chair. “What are you working on?”

“Just grading some papers while I have the chance. Trying not to bathe them in red type. Kids these days . . .” He gave a world-weary shake of his head. “They have no chutzpah in them.”

Dad was too old now to do what he loved. Going into warzones and wading hip-deep into government protests to get the real scoop and some real photos. He taught photojournalism at the University of Southern California now. He liked it. He didn’t love it, but he liked it.

After a few moments, he heaved a sigh and turned away from the screen to face me. He smiled. “So, what’s been up with you, kiddo? Got anything exciting on your desk?”

“Hardly.” I scoffed before shaking my head and crossing my arms in front of my chest. “Did a bunch of op-ed pieces before leaving the city. Shepard insisted on it. I’ve got something I’ve been thinking about, but . . .” I trailed off. The words were on the tip of my tongue. For a moment, I almost told him. I tried telling myself that dad would understand. After all, hadn’t he done stupid things for a story he knew would be groundbreaking? Game changing?

Home-wrecking?

I swallowed heavily, my gaze on my feet. “I don’t know if I should do it, though. It’s a bit . . . controversial. Shep said I needed to really think about it before committing to a course.”

He nodded, slowly. “Well, if Shep thinks it’s controversial and you need to think about it, then I’m inclined to believe him. Shep’s been in the business for a while – he knows what he’s talking about. But, you know what I always said, kid: the best stories are often the grittiest. It’s easy doing fluff pieces. It’s the ones with all the hard, sharp edges that linger. That people remember. The ones that make you great.”

I shook my head, feeling the burn of tears in my eyes. “I don’t know if this one will make me great, dad.”

His eyebrows shot up. “That bad?”

I nodded as, once again, the words bubbled up in my throat and died. I thought of the others again – debating on whether or not I could really upend their entire lives like Shepard said the piece would do. Colum and Cecily had never shown even the slightest notion that they believed any man other than Peter Wells was our father. The one time I asked Roxanna, the only person who seemed to maybe disbelieve our mother like I did, she merely shrugged and said: “Its mom, Aisling. It’s just mom. So what if she fucked her photographers! So what if we have different dads! Why does it matter? Peter was good to us – none of us would take him back for the world! That’s what matters! Not four men halfway across the world who never bothered to ask a single word after us! Who never even tried to meet us? Fuck them.”

She spoke these words with bitterness in her voice and even then, I knew. I knew why she was the way she was with her relationships. Why everyone who had ever chosen to be with her ended up broken and bleeding with their hearts torn from their chests. While she might not believe our mother, she was nevertheless on her side. She was like her. I couldn’t help but feel betrayed, at least a little bit.

“Maybe mom didn’t want them to.” I spoke, my arms crossed tight over my chest. “Surely she had her reasons.”

Roxanna arched a black eyebrow. “You’re actually sitting there defending her for once?” She scoffed a laugh and shook her head. “Still. They could have tried.”

How do we know they didn’t? After all, not many men would have willingly consigned another man to raise their kid. Even a man as good as Peter Wells.