C.A.K.E

"Mum . . .Dad." Casper breezes into his parents' home and shuts the door. Grinning from ear to ear, he makes his way into the front sitting area. "Where are you guys?"

"In here, Casper." Leonora's voice calls to her son.

Casper follows his mother's melodic tone toward the kitchen. The smell of her famous peach cobbler has him almost skipping into the room. "Smells good in here," he says rubbing his hands together.

"It should," Leonora says, smiling at him. "I've been baking all day for you."

He smiles, surveying the fruits of her labor. Leonora has certainly made the kitchen her second area of expertise. Anything prepared by her hands is nothing short of a culinary masterpiece. Years of medical training as a pediatrician have gifted her with an amazing amount of precision and finesse.

When his parents decided to close their pediatric practice and retire eight years ago, they spent the first couple of weeks sleeping in and watching Jeopardy. Then Manali gave birth to Jillian a month later and provided the two a whole other purpose in life.

So they inserted themselves into the upbringing of Jillian and Sophia with all the subtlety of a bulldozer. But Ali would never dream of objecting to the intrusion. The way Leonora and Charles dote on Jillie and Sophie, it's a wonder the girls aren't complete spoiled brats.

On days when they weren't fawning over their grandchildren, they struggled to find a proper hobby to fill their new surplus of leisure time. After much trial and error, and an unfortunate brief foray into ballroom dancing, Charles settled on golf and Leonora became Julia Child.

Casper couldn't be more thankful that her chosen arena is the kitchen. There's always a cake or pie waiting for him when he visits.

He gives her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Leonora accepts his silent thank-you with an enthusiasm that could rival the almost nauseating pep of a high school glee club.

She cuts him a piece of cobbler and tops it with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Still warm from the oven, the pastry begins to melt the soft serve into a delicious mess. Leonora grabs a spoon and feeds a bite of it to him.

"You're a goddess among women, Mum." Cash smiles and takes the spoon from her. He settles onto a barstool beside her and tucks into the dessert. "Still the best cobbler I've ever had."

Leonora leans over and kisses the side of his head, letting her touch linger on his temple. As she rubs his back, she watches him eat. "How is my sweet boy?"

"I'm good." A slight smile crosses his face. Having just stolen a kiss from the woman of his dreams, nothing can touch him today. He takes another bite of the second sweetest thing he's tasted in the last few hours. Arden drifts into his thoughts again, making the delight on his handsome features even more noticeable.

"Are you sure, sweetheart?" she asks, still making soft strokes along his back.

"I'm sure." Casper nods, remembering the feeling of Ardi's lips against his. He glances up at his mother. The worry on her face fails to recognize the sheer bliss written upon his. He gives up trying to convince her. "Where's Dad?"

"He's out." Her answer is rushed. She makes a very audible sigh and scoots into the seat next to him. Placing her hand on his arm, she gives it a gentle shake. "Casper, look at me please."

Without a second of hesitation, Casper puts down the spoonful of cobbler and cancels its one-way trip to his lips. He shifts in his seat to offer Leonora the full attention that she deserves. While he's looking into her green eyes, he finds something else hidden in their depths. He clears his throat and scratches at the back of his neck.

"What is it, Mum?" he asks, taking a deep breath.

"I talked to your brother this morning," Leonora speaks slowly like she's attempting to introduce her words into a pool of water without disturbing its calm surface. Still touching his arm in that quiet reassuring manner of hers, her face fades into a frown. "And he told me what happened between you two."

Casper groans and reaches for a napkin to tidy his hands, before pushing aside his dish. He gives his mother a tired smile. "So you didn't call me over here just for the cobbler."

"No, son. I didn't." She looks away from him and stares out of the window for a moment. Then she grasps his hand. "Why didn't you call me?"

"And say what?" Casper leaves his seat and turns his back to her. Running his hands over his hair, he glares at the vaulted ceiling. "This was between me and Cain. He never should have involved you."

Once again, Cain has chosen to take the bitch's way out and call their parents. They could have settled this like men without laying their problems on anyone else's doorstep.

"Casper this is a family problem." Leonora touches the cuff of his jacket and urges him to sit. When he does, she takes both his hands in hers. "And as painful as it might be, the only way we'll get through it is together."

He can't help laughing. "We can't just hug this one out, Mum. He ..." The absurdity of last night's revelation and subsequent altercation leaves him at a momentary loss for words. He scratches at his goatee while he searches for a respectful reply. "Things between Cain and me aren't going to be right for a very long time."

"I know that, honey." She gives his hand a gentle squeeze. "But ignoring each other isn't going to make things any easier. You need to discuss this like two calm, rational adults."

"All right." After a full minute of quiet seething inside his head, Cash sighs, and shrugs. "I'll call Cain in a couple days. I can't promise anything else."

They're both quiet for a few minutes before Leonora decides to speak again.

"There is no excuse for what Cain and Karma have done." She glances down at her hands and takes a deep breath. "But you have to understand your brother. He was an only child for twelve years before you came to live with us. He never quite adjusted to that change. And that's my fault."

"No, Mum. It isn't." Casper shakes his head. "Whatever Cain has become is a result of his own choosing."

"I made him resent you." Leonora strokes his cheek and gives him a weak smile. "When your father died ... and with Ophelia ..." Tears glisten in her emerald eyes. "I was so focused on making sure that you felt wanted, that I ..." She pauses to swipe at her cheeks, then meets his gaze again. "I could have done better ... by both of you."

Seeing her cry brings tears to his own eyes. He puts his arms around her, hugging her so tight that he might crush her. "You did everything you could for me. Cared for me like a son. I'll never be able to thank you enough for that."

It's true. Leonora has always treated Casper like her own. Some would even argue that she doted on him more than she did Cain. But both boys had the same advantages and the same benefit of Leonora and Charles' unflinching love and support. Every family tree has at least one bad apple. At some point, you have to stop blaming the roots for the wrongdoing of its fruit.

Just like Casper's success is his own. The implications of Cain's lack of conscience are a product of his own depravity, not their parents.

They continue to hang onto each other, both choking back the emotion that neither can find adequate words to express. Leonora kisses Casper's cheek, then pulls back to look into his eyes. Cradling his face in her hands, she sighs and shakes her head. A sad smile nudges at her full cheeks.

Cash glances down at the space between them. He's never been able to tolerate that look from her. The last time he saw it was at his wedding. That weak smile and the clouds in her eyes always make him think of the first woman to ever leave him. And even as a man in his mid-thirties, that wound still hasn't found the time to heal.

Before he can find his feet to run from the inevitable phrase that's waiting on her tongue, she utters the dreaded words. "Your mother would be so proud of you."

With one sentence, he's that seven-year-old boy standing beside his mother's casket with a single white rose in his hand. Your mother would be so proud of you. She would be. Not she is. The list of things that Ophelia will never be is long enough to fill countless pages a billion times over. Something new seems to add itself to the queue every single day.

The walls are closing in on him all of sudden. He tugs at the collar of his shirt, desperate to break free of its now suffocating clutches.

"I um ... I gotta go." An inexplicable pain cracks at his voice, stripping his deep tone of its usual easy confidence. He gives her a rushed kiss on the forehead and slips out of her grasp. "I love you. Call you tomorrow."

Leonora follows him, her feet working double-time to match his long strides. She tugs on the edge of his jacket. "Casper, wait."

He blinks several times, grinding his teeth into each other. The memory of his mother's body being lowered into a six-foot hole in the ground torments him as he tries to block the vivid imagery from his mind's eye.

Just as he's fighting with that painful bit of his past, another unwelcome recollection begins screaming for his attention. The unmistakable smell of bleach and human decay fills his nose. It's seven years after Ophelia's demise, and he's at his father's bedside. He remembers how helpless he felt watching the once invincible Frederick Buhari drift into death's cold grasp.

He reaches for the front door handle, trying to laugh through the tears that are beating against his eyelids. "I have some work ... to finish before tomorrow."

Leonora puts herself between him and the door and presses the stained glass fortress of oak closed again. "Sit with me for a minute ... please."

Giving no other acknowledgment of his acquiescence, he allows her to lead him into the living room. She takes a seat on the sofa and he joins her, choosing to sit with his elbows on his knees and his face half-buried in his palms.

She places her hand on his shoulder. "Sweetheart, do you remember her?"

The question strains at the fragile grip he has on the last thread of his composure. She's still with him. Everything about her is etched into his memory with an eery vibrancy, like light shining through the negative of a photograph.

without any substantial flesh. Details like her laugh, how she always smelled of vanilla and cinnamon, or the way it felt to cuddle up with her in that worn blanket and relax against the comforting rise and

to behold. Her features were rather ordinary. No one would have accused her of being the most gorgeous woman to ever walk the earth. Most of her beauty lay in the

Just when he felt those memories beginning to lose some of their glamour, another angel came along and

score to settle with Casper. So much so that she sent a petite package after her own name to blast a wrecking ball through his life. His wife and brother have plunged a knife so deep into

knows that

the back of my hand. Every smile. Every sight, sound, scent." Casper nods and fiddles with his fingers. "I

her." She smooths her other hand over his hair. "It's okay to grieve

bit of flesh between his index finger and thumb. He shed all the tears he ever planned to weep for his mother a long time ago. His grief is resting beside two

he never wept for his father. Life had cheated Frederick of his one true love. Death meant the end of suffering so great that it was difficult for him to take a breath every morning because of

sentence to endure without his cellmate who made the pain of her absence bearable. He's been going it alone for years. Talking about their loss just makes pretending that he's okay even harder.

of his ills scares him.

conversation." He glances over at her, quiet

her own emotions, she nods at him. Neither of them utters another word on the matter. Even if they did have something further to say, it would be drowned out by the boisterous entrance of Charles and

house, struggling to balance the bag of golf clubs that are slung

Cain sits down his things and takes the heavy bag from his father. "Winner gets the first

only won by one stroke." He smirks at Cain. "Beginner's luck is all. I'll wipe the links

around his father's shoulders and proceeds to walk through the archway that connects the foyer

shoves his hands into the pockets of his khakis. He steps further into the room, regarding his brother with a smug

rises from the couch and stands a few feet in front of Cain. The air between the two becomes a charged minefield. One false move from either of the men and this whole

to embrace the other man who has become a source of immense pride

Dad." Cash steps back and admires the older

his gut moving in time with his deep

them for a brief moment. As the two continue their light back and

again. Charles and Nora stare at their children, unsure of how to defuse this powder keg. They've fought with each other on numerous occasions. But there

emotional maturity, Casper attempts to revive the dead air between them.

not sound like much. But in a man's world,

he doesn't care. The latter is the more likely

regards his youngest with a mixture of frustration and disappointment. "Don't

pressure of the stern stares of his parents, he recovers his willingness to piece

harsh whisper, glancing over

breath stating the obvious,"

waver. "You didn't let me finish ... brother." Though it's midday and the room is awash in natural light streaming in from its bevy of windows, a shadow overtakes his face. A chilling grin accompanies the darkness. "I'm sorry ... that

exclaim in tandem. They gape at him, seeming to be in complete disbelief at

like that?" Charles asks. "And in front of your

a hand on his dad's shoulder. He nods at Cain, digging deep to make the remorse on his face

one daring to look away first. At this moment, they're more

Leonora steps into the middle of the fray and urges the boys away from each other. "I know

gaze between Casper and Cain. The angered expression seems foreign on her otherwise docile features. She takes several shallow breaths as

behavior that he can't meet her eyes. He apologizes to his parents and mutters a quick goodbye to them both before heading for the door. Paying no mind to the ignorant bastard who is burning a hole into the side of his

on a pair of aviators and allows his anger to take the empty seat next to him. He peels out of the driveway, ready to push his endgame into high

out of hell. Forcing his usual smile with his colleagues as he stalks to his spacious corner of the office building, he decides to go ahead with the plan he concocted last night. Whatever shred of rationality he had left this morning, has been decimated by Cain's latest absurd demonstration of his jealousy

will be a conference call

senior ad executive. His company bio details Cain as a promising talent, and an invaluable contributor to the firm. It goes on to name him as the

gentlemen?" Casper greets the two men who

few clever

loud and clear over the phone. He's a large presence even

built next

Ukrainian?" Casper asks, with

she is." Matthew laughs. "And she just started taking yoga classes. I

ain't the word for

I'm glad to hear that life is treating you both so well."

you, Cash?" Arthur

over the "send" button on his computer screen. The doctored bank statements will form the crux of the plan he's devised to feed his heart's hunger for revenge. According to

brother's career. Cain could earn a

treadmill over his

smirk on his

do to change that, you know all you have to do is ask," Matt speaks his offer without a moment's

his ergonomic chair and props his loafers on the edge of the glass desk.

done," Art

smiles and takes a breath.

short, he's

do you ask?"

to fire him," Casper says,

sack our best

a good reason behind this request." Matthew sounds like he's

associate has screwed over his own family with a surprising amount of ease. But the truth doesn't cast Casper in the

pause to allow the proper anticipation to

ideas with the competition?" Arthur's voice adopts a harsher tone. "I knew that Asics campaign

elusive behavior has made things easy for Cash. He

don't trust your opinion, Casper. But do you have

Cain's bank

their conversation as the two men locate an electronic device to pull up

little bastard," Matthew

fast, his head will spin," Arthur exclaims. His once genial tone transforms into one

a moment, Arthur. Another possibility just

"What's that?"

divulge your company's proprietary information." Casper picks up the engraved paperweight given to him by Cain, tossing the silver

we do about him, son?"

suspension without pay." Casper puts his feet on the floor again and sits up straight. "It would give him some time

as he's still a part of our staff, he can't look for another job without violating the terms of his employment." Matthew sighs. Then a boisterous chuckle sounds over the

in the hell did you even catch

his office at the sunlight

been making an effort to be

of business, son. Either way, we owe you

know this goes without saying. But ... Cain can't know where

is our