by Mary Peart
Her pulse quickened as she remembered the day before yesterday when she had been on the phone with the owner of a small café they had decided to buy when he had come and indicated for her to hang up the phone. She had continued talking and he had locked the door behind him and came over, turning her chair around and pushing up her dress. She bit her lips and closed her eyes as he pushed away the side of her panties and thrust his fingers inside her. She had stopped talking and felt the buzzing in her ears as his eyes met hers. She felt her belly stiffened and with a hurried goodbye she hung up the phone. He had smiled at her wolfishly and kneeling before her, he had used his mouth on her, bringing her to a shaking and mind blowing orgasm.
Chapter 11
Matthew got the call late that night. It was Friday night and he had gone to the bookstore after work to help Sybil with the books and waited until she locked up and had gone home with her. He had never asked her to come to his place and she had never asked him about it because to her it was his wife’s place and she respected that. He was deep asleep with his arms thrown around Sybil’s body when his phone rang. Sybil stirred when she heard him and listened as his voice rose anxiously. “Where is she?”
She got up and turned on the light sensing that something was dreadfully wrong. “I will be right there.”
He looked at Sybil his expression anguished and she moved towards him but he stepped back. “Celia overdosed on pills and she has been rushed to the hospital,” he told her, his expression bleak. “She is in a coma. I have to go.” He hurriedly put on his clothes and then turned to look at her for a minute and was about to say something to her but decided against it and without another word he left, closing the door behind him. Sybil felt her heart stuttered and she had a feeling he had closed the door of his heart as well.
*****
“Mom have you heard from Matthew?” Sophia asked her anxiously as soon as she came on the phone. She had called Sophia the next morning and told her what had happened. Matthew had called her from the hospital and told her what the doctors had said. She was comatose and her brain had been severely damaged. He told her that the person in charge of the home said she had not been taking her pills but saving some of them until she had taken a whole dosage at one time and they had found her on the floor unconscious. “I was with you when she was ending her life and I don’t know how to deal with that Sybil I am sorry.” He had told her and she felt her heart shatter at the finality of his tone.
“You cannot blame yourself for that Matthew she would have found a way to do it because she gave up a long time ago.” Sybil had tried reassuring him.
“But I will never know that now will I?” his voice had been anguished. “It is my punishment for loving you when my wife was sick in her mind and I cannot face myself right now.”
Or me, Sybil heard the part he left unsaid and knew she was not going to see him again. She felt a shiver of loss going through her. She was over fifty and had finally opened her heart to another man after so many years of being by herself and now this. Where was the fairness in all of it.
“You are telling me goodbye,” she whispered, not able to help herself asking the question.
“I am sorry,” he told her. “I have to stay with her now. I will always love you and treasure what we had.” He was already speaking of them in the past tense and Sybil felt her heart breaking into tiny pieces. “Take care,” he told her and hung up leaving her clutching the phone against her, her eyes filling with tears.
He had shared his love with her for a short time and it had been taken away from her. She had known that maybe someday she would lose him but she had been hoping that it would turn out better with him able to be with her, not daring to think how that would happen. But now the end was here and she was not ready for it, she had wanted one more night with him.
“She is in a coma,” she forced herself to speak lightly, not wanting her daughter to intrude on her raw moments no matter how close they were, it was too fresh and the wound was still open and oozing. “He is there with her.”
“How are you?” Sophia asked her shrewdly.
“I am keeping myself busy and praying for her. Ah I have to go and attend to a customer honey. Talk to you later.” Sybil hung up the phone hurriedly and went into the bathroom where she let go and allowed the tears to flow.
*****
Matthew sat beside the bed and looked at the woman he had spent so many years with. He tried to remember when they had first met and the happy times they had had together. The carefree moments in their marriage before the pressure of her wanting a child above anything else had overshadowed what they had had together. He remembered her laughing face and her teasing manner and the way she had hastened from the office she worked as a legal secretary at to prepare meals for them. He had promised her until death and he had meant it until she had put her not been able to conceive above their happiness and had destroyed what they had.
He sat there wondering if he had been to blame. Why did he not fight harder, demanding that they did counseling instead of just settling and moving out of their bedroom and leaving her to herself? Why had he given up as well? He took her slim hand in his and felt the lifelessness there. The machine was breathing for her and he refused to think of making the decision to end her life, surely it could not end like this! His mind went unwittingly to Sybil and he had been avoiding thinking about her but he could not help himself. He had heard the intense hurt in her voice but he had hung up before he ran from the hospital and run into her arms and stay there with her and never leave but he had a duty and a responsibility to Celia and although his heart was with Sybil he had to be here with her because he was her family.
He took her limp hand and rested his jaw against it, his eyes brimming with tears feeling the hopelessness that was his life.
*****
“She sounded so sad Christopher,” Sophia told him that evening. They had decided to go out to dinner for a change. The restaurant was one of the ones owned by Tang Holdings and was elegant in its simplicity. The manager himself had hurried over to make sure they were seated in a private alcove and had beamed his congratulations. He had sent over a bottle of non alcoholic wine and some cream of pumpkin soup for them to start with. She had told her husband the situation and he had expressed his sympathy, privately thinking that there was no happy ending for situations like that. “I offered to come and spend the night with her and she said no.”
“Were you going to ask me?” he said her mildly, reaching over to dab the napkin against the side of her mouth.
“What?” she looked at him puzzled.
“I don’t sleep without you Sophia,” he reminded her.
“It would have been one night Christopher,” she said looking at him with laughter in her large dark brown eyes. “I hate sleeping without you too.”
“I am glad we are on the same page.” He told her lightly. He had given up wondering at the sway she had over him. He could not keep his hands off her and he wanted her all the time. She was an addiction that he was never getting over and he had become resigned to it. “Your mother will be okay in time. Dare I say that Matthew will be as well? He is feeling guilty now wondering if he had been there if it would have happened.”
Sophia nodded and wished there was something she could do to help her mother get through what she was experiencing. “She was always such a strong person.” She commented. “I barely remember my dad but knew that my mother has always been there for me and I always wondered if she was not lonely, she always seemed so content with her life and when the thing with Jeremy happened she stood by me without judgment, now she needs someone in her corner and I don’t know what to do.”
“In situations like these you sometimes want to be alone to sift through the thoughts in your head baby,” he told her sympathetically reaching for her hands. “I know you want to ease her pain but she has to deal with it herself.”
She nodded and squeezed his hands. They enjoyed the rest of the meal set before them in
silence. He insisted that they danced together and even though she protested he insisted as the soft strains of the music started playing. He pulled her up gently and led her out to the dance floor, nodding to a few acquaintances and put her arms around his neck. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered as she rested her head on his chest.
She looked up at him in amusement, her heart beating hard in her breast at his handsome face and the way the dark blue pin stripe suit sat well on his tall lean muscular frame. He was her husband and she felt the pleasure run through her that he belonged to her. “You are required to say that because you are my husband,” she told him teasingly.
“Even if I was some random guy just looking at you I would recognize extreme beauty when I see it.” He scanned the room and caught the eyes of a man sitting at the bar and gazing at her. He gave him a hard stare and the man looked away hastily. “See what I was telling you?” he asked looking down into her exquisite face.
“He was probably wondering if I am having triplets,” she told him ruefully. She winced suddenly as she felt a pinch in her belly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her swiftly, attuned to her every mood and reactions.
“I am sure it’s nothing,” she started to say when she felt a sharp pain that caused her to gasp and hold onto him. He took her slowly towards their table and made her sit and took out his phone to call the doctor, his eyes on her. “John I think something is going on with Sophia. She is feeling some pain.” He looked at her searchingly and saw her rest her hand on her belly. “I am taking her in.”
*****
He stayed in the examination room as the doctor examined her thoroughly. “Ever heard about Braxton-Hicks?” he asked them as he pulled off his gloves and dumped them in the trash.
“She was having false labors?” Christopher asked him, his eyebrows rose.
“Afraid so,” he smiled at Sophia reassuringly. “You are in your third trimester and your body is preparing you for labor.”
“So it’s nothing to worry about?” Sophia asked him. She had been holding her husband’s hand tightly, feeling worried.
“Nothing at all,” he reassured them. “It is now the end of September so you are due for a checkup at the end of October but if there is anything else just call.”
He took her home and they went into their daughter’s room to look down at her before going into their bedroom. That night he did not make love to her for fear of somehow hurting her but held her close to him watching her as she slept.
*****
Celia died the second week of October on a cold bleak day. The doctors had told Matthew that her brain had stopped functioning and she was never going to come back. He cried at her bedside as he said his goodbyes to her and then a feeling of peace had settled over him. It was over and he was relieved. He had not called Sybil and she had not called him either and he knew they were both facing their own private hell. He had suffered without her but he had wanted to pay penance even if it was something foolish to do, he felt he had to do it.
He made the arrangements quietly and realized that she had written a will a long time ago leaving him her prized antiques (she had loved collecting them) and all her other assets to her cousin in Florida. He knew he was going to sell the house. The funeral was a cold and rainy day in October and with a few people there, some from her office and the cousin and a few from his office.
He had called Sybil and told her of his wife’s death and she had offered her condolences but that had been it, she had not offered to be with him or asked him what was going to happen to them. She had sounded cool and distant and he could not blame her. He stood there in the empty house after the others had gone and looked around. He had packed up all her belongings and given her cousin most of it and the rest he intended to give to charity. He sat down at the counter in the cold and lonely kitchen and looked at the many cling wrapped parcels of food there and wondered if he was expected to eat everything. He felt the piercing loneliness and longing for Sybil and wanted to feel her arms around him and her smile warming his very cold body. He rested his head on the counter and felt the tears coming, tears for a woman who had given up before she had started living and for a woman who was so beautiful he wondered if he deserved her.
*****
“Are you okay?” Sophia asked her anxiously. Christopher had dropped her and Christine at her mother’s to spend the afternoon with her because he refused to let her drive. He had gone by the office to take care of some things until she was ready to leave. Christine had gone straight to the television and demanded to watch cartoons as soon as she wriggled from her grandmother’s arms. So she was settled in front of the television with her favorite stuffed bear in her arms and her eyes glued to the tube. Sybil had made hot chocolate and baked a pecan pie and had prepared beef stew for them to eat.
“I am okay,” she said with a tentative smile. “I think this has been an experience that I can look at and say I have no regrets. I love him and I don’t regret doing so. I also know that he did what he had to do.”
“You are just going to accept it and let him go?” Sophia asked her with a slight frown, knowing that with Christopher she could never just let him go without a fight.
“I am not going to beg him to see things my way and ask him to come back to me after just burying his wife honey,” her mother told her with a shrug turning around to turn the fire off under the stew. I love him and I'm willing to let him go if that’s what he wants.”
“You are a bigger woman than I am,” Sophia said with a shake of her head.
*****
Matthew came to see her at the store a few days later and Sybil almost cried at how gaunt and haggard he looked. He looked as if he had not slept in a week and she knew he had been given some sympathy leave from work but she had not called him. The store was not very busy because it was a Wednesday afternoon and a few customers were browsing over in the nonfiction section and taking their time about it.
“Hi,” he said with an attempt to smile.
“Hi yourself,” she answered gently, not able to stay angry with him. He came and sat next to her. She had been taking some inventories and was planning to do a Christmas promotion at the end of the month. “How have you been doing?”
“Not good, what about you?” he asked her, his eyes taking in her cool beauty and the way she held herself erect and how serene she looked. He had missed her so much that he had not been able to sleep.
“I am doing well.” She did not touch him but she wanted to.
He took a deep breath and looked at her intently. “I made a huge mistake when I told you what I did before. I told myself that I should have been with her but even if I had it would not have made a difference.” He looked down at his hands. “I have not been able to function Syb, telling myself that I don’t deserve to be happy but I miss you and I want to be with you if you will let me.”
She sat there looking at him, his dear face so gaunt and dreary and sad and her heart was touched but he had hurt her so much that she was not going to just fall back into his arms. “You hurt me a lot Matthew and I resigned myself to being without you.” She smiled sadly and refrained from touching him even though she wanted to. “I need some time to think.”
She saw him blink as if he had not expected to hear her say that and then with a sobering sigh he nodded briefly, schooling his features. “I will wait for your call.” He stood up to leave and looked down at her. “I love you Syb and I know that now. I do hope that I am not too late.”
She almost jumped into his arms then but had to rein in her emotions. She really had to do some thinking about what was best for her. “I do not think so,” she told him with a slight smile.
He nodded with a sad smile and then turned and left.
*****
Christopher drummed his fingers on the table in the board room his expression thoughtful as he looked at the head of the PR department as they told them what they were doing to revamp the old hotel they had acquired downtown. The pl
ace was a relic and had been in a deplorable state for many years until Tang Holdings had taken an interest in it. They had gone through a lot of red tape and been bucked and railroaded by government personnel but they had finally gotten the word on it. The building now belonged to Tang holdings and plans were underway for restoring it to its former beauty. Sophia had been pushing at acquiring it and had made phone calls to the various departments herself to get the ball rolling. It was thanks to her that they had the building but she was not here because he had ordered her to go home and get some rest. She had been lethargic and could barely put one foot in front of the other. She was getting increasingly bigger and hardly able to carry the weight of the two babies inside her womb.
“The original structure is quite good Christopher so I think we should keep it and gut the middle of the building and add some more rooms there. There is also a beautiful staircase that needs renovating as well. It’s going to be a lot of work but I think it is going to be a masterpiece.” Martha Gaines said in satisfaction. The woman was very enthusiastic about her work and he had every confidence in her. She presented a 3D projection of what the building would look like when it was finished and with a frown he realized that she had added a large white arch at the front that took away from the magnificent structure. He remembered Sophia telling him that they should try to stay as much with the original structure as much as possible. “Get rid of the arch,” he said suddenly, his tone brooking no argument.
“Of course,” Martha said hastily, clicking on something and blotting out the arch.
“I would like my wife to see it before any of the renovations are started. Set it up.” He told them.
He dismissed the meeting and asked Martha to stay back. The woman sat there nervously ringing her hands. She had the utmost respect for the man who employed her and was always trying her best to make sure she was doing a very good job, she owed him so much gratitude.
“Relax,” he told her mildly as soon as the rest of people had left the room.