Blind Passion

by Bronwyn Stuart

  “There isn’t anything we can do, she’s gone.”

  Sophie cried and yelled and ranted but it was no good. The life inside of her was gone.

  No more kicking, no more hiccups, no more baby.

  Max had been grief stricken and quiet, holding her as the hospital staff had delivered the stillborn from her body, wiping her forehead, holding her hand as they sedated her to stop her from crying any more exhausted tears.

  He was there when she woke the next day but he was different. It was almost as if a piece of him had gone as well. His eyes weren’t bright and happy now, they were dull and sad but he put on a brave face when his parents came to offer their condolences and when the nursing staff came and went from the room, but when he looked at her, his eyes seemed devoid of their earlier spark. The spark that had so completely drawn her to him from the get go.

  A few days later she was discharged and after a silent journey home she got into bed and fell fast asleep, worn out after the events of the last months. She wanted to wake up and find it had all been a terrible nightmare.

  In those first few days, Sophie mourned thinking it was just an unfortunate accident but after a couple of not so subtle remarks from an ever-souring Max she began to see he was right.

  “You know it’s your fault she died.”

  “How could you say something like that to me?” she’d cried. At the time she couldn’t believe he would think it let alone say it out loud.

  “If you were happy about the baby then this wouldn’t have happened to me.”

  “To you? What about me? She was mine too.”

  “You never wanted her.”

  “That doesn’t mean I wanted her to die.” She had never voiced to anyone that she’d grown so attached to her unborn child. To tell him now would just give him more ammunition to fire at her. She began to see Max wasn’t the same man she’d married. He’d changed. She’d changed.

  “It doesn’t matter, we’ll just have another one,” he said callously about three days later.

  “You can’t be serious?” She would never replace one lost child with another. While it’s true that she hadn’t wanted a baby to start with Sophie had grown used to the idea, but now she had her choices back and she didn’t want children yet especially after what they’d just been through.

  “I am,” he assured her with an evil gleam in his eyes.

  “Did you have a dead child pulled out of your body last week? Did you go through morning sickness, bloating or sore boobs?”

  “No, I didn’t” he replied as though he was trying to calm a four-year-old.

  “I will not do it again until I am ready.”

  “You will do as you’re told,” he’d roared, yanking her hair viciously, spitting the words in her face.

  It was the first time she’d ever truly been scared of another human being, scared for her life.

  Like most victims of domestic abuse Sophie tried to defend Max, make excuses for his totally out of character behaviour. She became reclusive, reluctant to leave the house for any reason other than work. She drifted even further from her friends and family and changed into someone else. When she looked in the mirror, a stranger stared back at her. She became remote and detached from everyone and everything. Her mind never strayed far from Max’s words about it all being her fault.

  One day she made the most insignificant remark about how a woman, charged with the drowning of her five children, could have done it to such beautiful, innocent babies. Max had heard her from the dining room and stormed in, grabbed her by her hair and dragged her into his study.

  “Who could kill their baby?” he’d yelled in her face. “You should know exactly how she feels being a murdering bitch yourself.” He thrust her face against the framed picture of the twenty-week sonogram, the glass cool against her heated cheek. She still remembered exactly how it had felt against her skin.

  Sophie pleaded with him to let her go, but he’d taken that final step over the brink into insanity, she could see the maniacal glint in his eyes.

  Sophie shuddered thinking about the beating he’d given her. She’d lost consciousness early but the doctor said he must have kicked her after she’d hit the floor. Weeks in the hospital and then spending a few stilted days with her parents, she’d finally gone home. Max had been ordered by the court to move out and undergo counselling as a part of his suspended sentence terms.

  After a few months her life began to return to some semblance of normality, she went back to work, even managed to catch up with some of her friends but in the back of her mind lived the knowledge that she’d killed her unborn child and it ate away at her a little bit more every day. The last time Max came back she was prepared for him, locking herself in the bathroom and calling the police from her cordless phone. That’s the day they’d taken him to jail for breaking the terms of his sentencing conditions.

  Even once Sophie knew he couldn’t get at her again she could never feel safe. She sold their marital home, bought a smaller one in a different suburb, and threw herself into her work. It helped to take her mind off it all but nothing could eradicate the gnawing guilt.

  Sophie dug her toes deeper into the sand and rested her aching head on her knees letting the bone dig into her aching eyes. She should have stayed and explained it all to Brandan. She was sure he would understand. He might even let her stay a few more days until she could figure out what else to do. Overreaction seemed to be her middle name these days.

  With a heavy heart she stood up, took one more glance at the sweeping ocean stretching across the horizon and walked slowly back to the hotel rehearsing what she would say to the man who had started to invade her feelings, her heart. She really shouldn’t care what he thought of her. She’d promised herself a long time ago that her actions didn’t have to be justified to anyone, that she wouldn’t put herself into that position ever again. She’d convinced herself she didn’t need a man in her life to feel complete.

  Sex was something a body could do without, especially waking up to someone else’s bad breath every day. She didn’t need it that badly.

  What she hadn’t counted on was how lonely it was not to have a companion to share your everyday thoughts with. Someone to complain to, to laugh with. Sophie had fooled herself into thinking marriage was only made up of love and physical intimacy, both things she could live without. After spending only forty-eight hours with a total stranger he’d managed to not only shatter her illusions but also find a piece of her heart she’d thought lost forever.

  Providing he didn’t kick her out, she would only have a couple more days to keep her heart hardened to his considerable charms and then she would never see him again. Never see his cheeky grin or the way his teeth clenched when he was angry. Never see his bare chest or feel his hands warm and alive in hers.

  By the time she got back to the hotel lobby she thought she was going to cry again.

  “Miss, are you ok?” The worried concierge approached her cautiously. He was another man in a long line that seemed almost allergic to the sight of a woman’s tears. Gone were his lewd winks and even lewder smiles.

  She nodded, thanking him for his concern telling him that she had received some bad news. At his nod he walked with her to the elevator and swiped his own card punching the penthouse button.

  Her heart thundered in her ears as the doors swished open. She hesitated, wondering if she could go back down to the ground floor and have a stiff drink before facing her nightmares. She couldn’t even do that since she had no cash.

  “Sophie? Is that you?” Brandan called from the living room.

  Mechanically she stepped out of the elevator and gathered her strength for his condemnation, for his rejection.

  ~

  “Sophie?” Brandan asked again, rising to his feet. He knew it was her, he could smell her perfume mingled with the fresh ocean smells. Obviously she’d needed time alone to think but in that time he’d imagined all kinds of terrible grisly scenes involving her throwing herself
in front of a truck or swimming out into the ocean and letting her life drown away with her haunting past.

  When her ex had said those words to him he thought he was lying to make trouble but when she had confirmed it, Brandan knew there had to be more to it. No one said something like that and didn’t follow it up with a story. Maybe she suffered post-natal depression, maybe it had been some kind of freak accident and she still blamed herself.

  He might not be able to able to see her but he could instinctively tell that she wasn’t the kind to hurt just for the fun of it. She was a vulnerable, confused and scared woman and he wanted to understand her. He wanted to comfort her and make it all right. He had more money than anyone else he personally knew and there wasn’t much that money couldn’t do if she’d let him help.

  He heard her shaky intake of breath, like she was barely holding the threads of her emotions and at any time she would drop the ball and unravel at his feet.

  “Please, Sophie, let me help you.”

  “There’s nothing you can do,” she said quietly. He hated to hear her pain, but was sort of glad he couldn’t see it as well.

  “I can listen,” he offered.

  “I don’t want you to be nice to me.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I don’t deserve your help.”

  “Everyone deserves to have their side of the story heard.”

  “You’ll hate me, I know you will, I did a terrible, terrible thing.”

  “Sophie, I know you well enough already, you didn’t do this. You couldn’t have.”

  “You don’t know me at all,” she yelled, the force of her despair almost making him recoil.

  He captured her hands in his, rubbing his thumbs over her fingers. “I know it’s hard to let someone in,” he said softly. “It’s hard to tell our fears to other people but it’s just you and me here. You don’t have to be scared.”

  “You’ll hate me,” she repeated, but where there was pain and anger before, now there was resignation.

  “Nothing could make me hate you.” He said the words but he had his doubts. Whatever she was about to tell him would inevitably make him think differently about her but how different would depend on what he knew she needed to say.

  “Would you hold me?”

  This time it was his turn to lead her. He took her into his bedroom and lay down next to her on his bed. He had a feeling this was going to be a long day.

  Sophie snuggled deeply into his side and rested her cheek on the hollow of his shoulder while he softly stroked the length of her back with his hand. She needed comfort and there was no way he would deny her that.

  “My baby girl would be almost two now if she’d lived.”

  “What happened to her?”

  She told him the whole sordid story leaving nothing out. Over the next hour she told him things she’d never said out loud to another person. He listened silently, didn’t ask questions, didn’t interrupt. He just held her until the words ran out and long after the tears that soaked his shirt abated, then she fell asleep, safe in his arms.

  So many conflicting thoughts raced around his brain but his first and foremost thought was that he would kill her son-of-a-bitch husband if he ever got his hands on the creep. What had been a tragic accident that happened to so many women every day around the world had been turned into emotional torture and a self-made mental prison.

  He cursed inwardly that no-one had told her what she needed to hear. That it wasn’t her fault and that her scumbag husband had played on her guilt and sadness until it had built to this all-consuming hell.

  His sister had lost her first child when she accidently fell pregnant as a teenager. At first Michaela had had the same thoughts as Sophie, that it must have been something she did or didn’t do, that it had to be her fault because she hadn’t wanted the baby. Being surrounded by people who loved her had helped her to understand that it was just the way the body worked. Perhaps the baby hadn’t been healthy. Maybe her body hadn’t been ready to carry a life.

  Obviously no-one had been there to reassure Sophie, to promise her it wasn’t her fault, it was just something that happened and it more than likely wouldn’t happen again to her but it would certainly happen to another woman in another place at another time.

  When she’d needed comfort and cuddles all she got were angry, hurtful words and an angry husband’s fists against her silky-smooth skin.

  He tensed again as violent thoughts rolled around in his head. His money certainly couldn’t make her feel better but he could help by finding decent counselling, making her life easier so she wouldn’t have to work for a while. What she needed was a real holiday, away from any reminders of her old life and he could give that to her. He would be happy to give it to her but first he had to deal with the matter of his eyes.

  Tomorrow when the bandages came off, he’d find out if he was permanently blinded or vision impaired, then he could decide what to do. He smiled as he thought of lying on the beach on a private tropical island making love to her all day everyday, when they weren’t drinking margaritas and laughing together.

  His smile vanished in the next heartbeat. He was making plans.

  He’d never made plans in his life and never involving an emotionally challenged woman he’d yet to lay his eyes on. Instead of being daunted by his over-active imagination he was excited. How could he not be when he had a woman like her snuggled against him?

  She trusted him enough to tell him everything when she could have grabbed up her stuff and run a mile. There was a chance he could keep her and instead of scaring the shit out of him, he was actually excited.

  Brandan no longer had the feeling she hid something and it was incredibly invigorating. Now he could get to know the real Sophie, not the woman she presented to the world as a front.

  First things first he needed to tell her she was not to blame, make her see that it was all a tragic event she had no control over.

  He woke her gently with his hands and lips. “Sophie, we have to talk about this.”

  She sat up and went to move away but he pulled her back and held her firmly in his arms.

  “You don’t want me to go?”

  “Do you want to go?” God, he wished he could look into her eyes. He wanted to see what she was thinking, know her expressions and react well instead of late.

  “Please, don’t toy with me. Do you want me to go or not?” She didn’t have the breath to waste on answering more questions with questions. She rubbed the grit from her eyes and sat up.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? I won’t stay and be your pity post.”

  “You don’t need pity,” he told her.

  “You’re damn straight-” she started but then stopped. Not what she’d expected. “What?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I am sorry that you lost your child but none of this is your fault.”

  “Have you listened to anything I said?” she asked disbelievingly. She didn’t want more games. Not now. Not from him.

  “Yes, every word.”

  “Then how can you say that?” She pulled away completely, swung her legs over the bed and stood up.

  “Because it wasn’t your fault any more than it was the Easter Bunny’s. Listen to me carefully.” He sat on the edge of the bed behind her. “If every child could be killed by a negative thought or an unkind word from their parents there wouldn’t be any children left in the world.”

  “You don’t know. I didn’t want the baby in the first place!” she groaned, gripping her scalp between her hands.

  “How many young or first-time mothers do you think plan their pregnancies? Do you think they all have thoughts of happy lives, true love and picket fences when they first find out? I doubt it.”

  “It was different for me.”

  “I know. The man who said he loved you tricked you. I know what that’s like.”

  “You couldn’t possibly know,” she breathed sitting down next to him, her energy gone. She did
n’t want to fight or argue. Nothing he said could change her past.

  “You’d be surprised,” he replied drily. “You really don’t read gossip rags at all?”

  “I don’t.”

  “I know what it’s like to lose a child.”

  Sophie’s intake of breath was loud and she slipped her hand into his, holding it tight. Of all the things she’d thought he would say, that wasn’t it.

  “My ex-wife fell pregnant a few years ago.”

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

  “I’m not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We went through the pregnancy together, happy, in love. We went to the classes, the sonograms and the doctor’s appointments and when her water broke I knew I was going to be a dad in a matter of hours. I was the happiest man alive until the baby was born.”

  “What happened to the baby?”

  “Nothing, little guy had a healthy set of lungs, ten fingers, ten toes and jet-black hair typical to his Asian father.”

  “His what?”

  “Yep. She had told me he was mine because she didn’t want to lose the security of being my wife. Pity she didn’t love me the way that I loved her, she may never have had the urge to cheat. Several times.”

  “Oh my God.” How could anyone do that? Especially to him?

  “I held her hand for nine of the longest months of my life, catered to her every need and when the doctor gave me that ‘you poor bastard look’ I knew it. I’m just glad the baby had the distinctive features otherwise I could be raising another man’s kid in domestic bliss, still unaware that I was being screwed every which way from Sunday.”

  “Where is she now? Was she sorry?”

  “Only that I found out. She tried to make it my fault. You know, all that crap about ‘you were never there when I needed you’, blah, blah, blah.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “But it wasn’t my fault. It was out of my hands the moment she was unfaithful instead of talking to me about how she felt. It was out of your hands the moment Max pricked those condoms.”