He stopped, thrilled that his mother and father were not fighting, and then he heard the voice of their governess, Rosemary. ‘You’re married. I want you to leave me alone.’
And he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He loved his mother and he loved Rosemary. His father was a terrifying stranger.
The picture on the screen flashed to a series of shots of Harry Stanford posing with Margaret Thatcher … President Mitterrand … Mikhail Gorbachev … The announcer was saying, ‘The legendary tycoon was equally at home with factory workers and world leaders.’
He was passing the door to his father’s office when he heard Rosemary’s voice. ‘I’m leaving.’ And then his father’s voice, ‘I won’t let you leave. You’ve got to be reasonable, Rosemary! This is the only way that you and I can …’
‘I won’t listen to you. And I’m keeping the baby!’
Then Rosemary had disappeared.
The scene on the television set shifted again. There were old clips of the Stanford family in front of a church, watching a coffin being lifted into a hearse. The commentator was saying, ‘. . . Harry Stanford and the children beside the coffin … Mrs Stanford’s suicide was attributed to her failing health. According to police investigators, Harry Stanford …’
In the middle of the night, he had been shaken awake by his father. ‘Get up, son. I have some bad news for you.’
The fourteen-year-old boy began to tremble.
‘Your mother had an accident, Tyler.’
It was a lie. His father had killed her. She had committed suicide because of his father and his affair with Rosemary.
The newspapers had been filled with the story. It was a scandal that rocked Boston, and the tabloids took full advantage of it. There was no way to keep the news from the Stanford children. Their classmates made their lives hell. In just twenty-four hours, the three young children had lost the two people they loved most. And it was their father who was to blame.
‘I don’t care if he is our father.’ Kendall sobbed. ‘I hate him.’
‘Me, too!’
‘Me, too!’
They thought about running away, but they had nowhere to go. They decided to rebel.
Tyler was delegated to talk to him. ‘We want a different father. We don’t want you.’
Harry Stanford had looked at him and said, coldly, ‘I think we can arrange that.’
Three weeks later, they were all shipped off to different boarding schools.
As the years went by, the children saw very little of their father. They read about him in newspapers, or watched him on television, escorting beautiful women or chatting with celebrities, but the only time they were with him was on what he called ‘occasions’ – photo opportunities at Christmas time or other holidays – to show what a devoted father he was. After that, the children were sent back to their different schools and camps until the next ‘occasion’.
Tyler sat hypnotized by what he was watching. On the television screen was a montage of factories in different parts of the world, with pictures of his father. ‘. . . one of the largest privately held conglomerates in the world. Harry Stanford, who created it, was a legend … The question in the minds of Wall Street experts is, What is going to happen to the family-owned company now that its founder is gone? Harry Stanford left three children, but it is not known who will inherit the multibillion-dollar fortune that Stanford left behind, or who will control the corporation …’
He was six years old. He loved roaming around the large house, exploring all the exciting rooms. The only place that was off-limits to him was his father’s office. Tyler was aware that important meetings went on in there. Impressive-looking men dressed in dark suits were constantly coming and going, meeting with his father. The fact that the office was off-limits to Tyler made it irresistible.
One day when his father was away, Tyler decided to go into the office. The huge room was overpowering, awesome. Tyler stood there, looking at the large desk and at the huge leather chair that his father sat in. One day I’m going to sit in that chair, and I’m going to be important like Father. He moved over to the desk and examined it. There were dozens of official-looking papers on it. He moved around to the back of the desk and sat in his father’s chair. It felt wonderful. I’m important now, too!
‘What the hell are you doing?’
Tyler looked up, startled. His father stood in the doorway, furious.
‘Who told you you could sit behind that desk?’
The young boy was trembling. ‘I … I just wanted to see what it was like.’
His father stormed over to him. ‘Well, you’ll never know what it’s like! Never! Now get the hell out of here and stay out!’
Tyler ran upstairs, sobbing, and his mother came to his room. She put her arms around him. ‘Don’t cry, darling. It’s going to be all right.’
‘It’s … it’s not going to be all right,’ he sobbed. ‘He … he hates me!’
‘No. He doesn’t hate you.’
‘All I did was to sit in his chair.’
‘It’s his chair, darling. He doesn’t want anyone to sit in it.’
He could not stop crying. She held him close and said, ‘Tyler, when your father and I were married, he said he wanted me to be part of his company. He gave me one share of stock. It was kind of a family joke. I’m going to give you that share. I’ll put it in a trust for you. So now you’re part of the company, too. All right?’
There were one hundred shares of stock in Stanford Enterprises, and Tyler was now a proud owner of one share.
When Harry Stanford heard what his wife had done, he scoffed, ‘What the hell do you think he’s going to do with that one share? Take over the company?’
Tyler switched off the television set and sat there, adjusting to the news. He felt a deep sense of satisfaction. Traditionally, sons wanted to be successful to please their fathers. Tyler Stanford had longed to be a success so he could destroy his father.
As a child, he had a recurring dream that his father was charged with murdering his mother, and Tyler was the one who would pass sentence. I sentence you to die in the electric chair! Sometimes the dream would vary, and Tyler would sentence his father to be hanged or poisoned or shot. The dreams became almost real.
The military school he was sent to was in Mississippi, and it was four years of pure hell. Tyler hated the discipline and the rigid life-style. In his first year at school, he seriously contemplated committing suicide, and the only thing that stopped him was the determination not to give his father that satisfaction. He killed my mother. He’s not going to kill me.
It seemed to Tyler that his instructors were particularly hard on him, and he was sure his father was responsible. Tyler refused to let the school break him. Although he was forced to go home on holidays, his visits with his father grew more and more unpleasant.
His brother and sister were also home for holidays, but there was no sense of kinship. Their father had destroyed that. They were strangers to one another, waiting for the holidays to be over so they could escape.
Tyler knew that his father was a multibillionaire but the small allowance that Tyler, Woody, and Kendall had came from their mother’s estate. As he grew older, Tyler wondered whether he was entitled to the family fortune. He was sure he and his siblings were being cheated. I need an attorney. That, of course, was out of the question, but his next thought was, I’m going to become an attorney.
When Tyler’s father heard about his son’s plans, he said,