Chapter 1 - Maddie: Childhood
The thunder roared above me, as I pushed my legs faster and harder. Running became a passion of mine in the last few years of high school. It allowed me an out from the crazy reality that was being a Vandlewoods.
Vandlewoods was a name that many envied and admired. Maybe not in this small town of Riverroad, but in New York, my name was considered powerful. It carried a lot of influence. I could make things happen at the snap of a finger.
Many people saw the glitz and glamour, but what they didn’t see was the loneliness and the empty feeling that occupied my heart. I had all the things in the world that many spent their whole lives trying to achieve, yet I wasn’t happy.
Know that saying ‘more money, more problems?’. Yeah, well for me, that could not have been more true. Now I’m sure everyone has heard a similar story before; a young, rich heiress with the world at her fingertips yet yearned to just have the simple things in life.
To be honest, I sounded like a starter pack to a bad Hallmark movie. A young, rich girl returning to her hometown after almost two decades in search of her roots and trying to figure out who she truly is.
Okay, I think I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, so let me backtrack.
6 months before
The only sound that could be heard was the clanging of cutlery against the expensive China my mother bought.
I don’t know why we even had these stupid ‘family dinners’; it wasn’t like we were even a proper family. The only time I ever saw my parents was at the office. I had moved out years ago, but my mother had insisted that I come over every Sunday for dinner.
It was no surprise that, with all the success Fiona and Richard Vandlewoods had in the corporate world, their businesses took up the majority of their time. Which meant that their daughter and only child became an afterthought.
I always wondered what my life would have been like if I’d had a little brother or sister. Would I have been less lonely?
As a child, I had begged my mother for a sibling. I had even looked up some adoption agencies because I really wanted one. They acted like I was talking about a pet or something—which I was also not allowed.
She had told me repeatedly.“One of you is enough. I don’t have time to be pregnant.”
It wasn’t like she didn’t have an army of assistants that could do the work that she could not do for herself. In addition, we had at least twenty people working in the house a day. Surely, she could get a nanny for the baby.
Besides, the baby hadn’t been for her; it was meant to be for me. Now that I said it out loud, it really did sound like I was talking about an animal.
I guess I was deprived of love as a child, so I sought to find it somewhere else. With a baby brother or sister, I would have someone who looked up to me and would love me unconditionally. It would have been unfair to bring them into a home like mine where my parents barely registered my existence, but I would have loved him or her so much, they wouldn’t have missed our parent’s presence.
Sadly, my hope of a sibling never came to be, and I lived in the Vandlewoods' sky castle alone. Many would have killed to live in the Vandlewoods' tower, especially in the Penthouse, but they didn’t know the burden it came with.
My eyes moved from my plate to my parents who were looking at each other strangely.
There were times I had even wondered if they ever were in love or if their marriage was just some kind of business transaction like the rest of their lives.
My mother then moved her eyes to meet mine, and her icy blue gaze pierced through my soul. She looked away and then looked back to my father who had a blank expression on his face.
Where was Daniel when I needed him?
Daniel had been my boyfriend for one and a half years. He always accompanied me to Sunday dinners, but today he had flaked on me. It had something to do with a modeling job. I had wanted to give him grief about it, but I had let it slide.
He had always been by my side when I needed him the most and him missing one dinner wasn’t that big of a deal. But he was going to need to make it up to me in five different positions later tonight.
I placed my fork down, my food long forgotten. “Are you two getting divorced?”
Both their heads snapped to me so fast, that I thought maybe they had gotten whiplash or something.
“No.” My father cleared his throat.
For a man who was pushing sixty, he looked good for his age. It was no wonder why so many women in New York still swooned over the ‘silver fox’. I guess a good diet and enough money to buy a small country would do that to you.
“So why are you two acting weird?”
My parents looked at each other again, like they had before, and then turned their attention back to me. They were masters of the poker face, so even if they were worried about something, I couldn’t tell.