But this attempt to regain whatever status she lost by being a deplorable bitch was just pathetic. It might have worked if we were teenagers, but we weren’t immature enough to be manipulated. Sensing defeat and still wearing her wide-eyed look of powerless disbelief, Angelica just sort of drifted off from our group. I wasn’t sure where she was going, but I was very sure I didn’t care. Angelica had earned her pariah status. People in the crowd whispered and got out of her path, deliberately avoiding her eyes and turning their backs to her.
Our discussion on the mortification of Angelica was prevented by the arrival of yet another Alexander, Alexander Junior.
I’d only met Nathan’s uncle Alexander II two or three times over our six months together, but he was one of the most intimidating people I’d ever met. Tall and stone-faced, he seemed to be in a perpetually bad mood. Today was no exception.
“Oh good,” Alexander II said with a massive frown as he approached, “you’re all together.”
“Nice to see you too,” his son replied dryly, raising an eyebrow at his father’s odd, inept greeting.
What was with this family? Did they not learn manners at home?
Nathan did that little head lift thing that men sometimes use to greet one another when a smile, word, handshake, or hug are all too personal.
“Sorry,” Alexander II said, “but I’m fresh out of niceties. I’ve got some important family news. Ladies, could you give us a minute?”
Madison and I exchanged a glance and shrugged. Whatever important family news our men were about to receive would reach us soon enough. We could wait.
“Sure,” Madison said, grabbing baby Al back from her husband, “come on Zoey, let’s get you some champagne. I can’t drink any of it, but I can still enjoy it vicariously by watching you.”
53
Nathan
The magnitude of the situation dawned on me as Zoey and Madison walked away. It was actually the tightness in my cousin’s face that clued me into it. Alexander’s dark eyes had fixed on his father’s blue-green ones with total, unwavering focus, and his expression had hardened into an emotionless mask. I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath.
“This evening he had an accident,” Alexander II began, clearly talking about his own father, my grandfather. “He fell down getting out of his chair, and we thought that maybe he’d just gotten dizzy from the pneumonia. The nurses that were attending him made sure to check all his vitals, and they didn’t notice any physical injuries at the time. At no point did he lose consciousness or complain of disorientation. Several hours ago, he started to exhibit signs that he may have suffered a stroke. He was just rushed to the hospital thirty minutes ago. On the way there he began experiencing arrhythmia that the paramedics were able to resolve temporarily. But stopped breathing entirely shortly after they used the paddles on him. He’s on life support right now.”
My uncle’s dry, mechanical delivery of his monologue and his clinical, thorough explanation didn’t strike me as odd, so much as merely depressing. We’d all been expecting this for months. It was almost a relief.
“What now?” Alexander III asked his father.
“What now? Now we have to decide what to do,” Alexander II replied with a deep frown, “we all know he’s about as Catholic as they come. Richard’s on the phone with the Bishop right now. They’re getting a priest down there to administer last rites if possible. The doctors say he probably isn’t going to wake up or breathe on his own. So, we need to decide if we will proactively take him off life support and let him pass away naturally, or keep it going as long as possible. We also need to get down to the hospital ASAP.”
“Doesn’t he have a living will?” I asked. Considering that a succession plan for my grandfather had employed multiple lawyers for generations, it seemed impossible that he wouldn’t have planned for this eventuality.
“Catholic, remember?” My uncle replied with the shake of his head, “Since life is a gift from God, it should be preserved at all cost.”
“We’re all Catholic, but obviously none of us would be that rigid. So, he doesn’t want to be removed from life support… ever?” Alexander III asked, mirroring my horror over the thought of being kept alive by a machine with no hope of recovery, “That’s really awful for him, but I guess we have to honor it. If that’s what he wants.”
“It’s more that he felt an advance directive to remove him from life support was akin to committing suicide. If we feel like we’re only prolonging his suffering,” Alexander II replied in an uncharacteristically halting tone, “we have an obligation to alleviate it. The Bishop agreed, for whatever that’s worth.” He grimaced, then admitted, “I’m not sure what the right thing to do is.” The thought was obviously disturbing to him.
This was the first time in my life I could remember my uncle Alexander II not having a strong opinion about what to do about an important issue. Usually he was the loudest, most opinionated voice in the room. I wished Zoey was still standing here next to me. My uncle’s indecision made me weirdly nervous and I wanted her comforting presence. Instead, I could see her watching inquisitively from all the way across the room.
“Has my mom been told?” I asked, suddenly remembering that I had a huge obligation to get her brought up to speed if she hadn’t. Alexander II cut off my panic by nodding.
“Of course,” he said with mild annoyance, “I notified everyone except Nicholas. I haven’t been able to get in touch with him yet. Your mother and brother say we should unplug him immediately, as does Richard.”
My mother was a pragmatist—a quality my brother and I had both inherited. She wouldn’t want her father to suffer, and I was inclined to agree. Being dependent on something to shove oxygen into my lungs and beat my heart wasn’t really living. In some ways, it was worse than being dead. But giving the order to shut off life support on someone felt awfully close to “pulling an Angelica”.
A flurry of beeps pulled our collective attention down to our respective phones. Richard had texted us all at once.
He just went into cardiac arrest and died at 8:05 pm.
In an instant, our family changed forever.
54
Zoey
“Merry Christmas!” Nathan whispered softly into my ear, leaning over to wake me up, “You’ve gotta get up baby, it’s Christmas morning. Don’t you want to open up your presents?”
My eyelids parted to see his blue-green eyes twinkling mischievously as he held two mugs of tea next to the bed: delicious jasmine for me and revolting yerba mate for him. I grinned a sleepy smile and reached out to grab my warm mug of tea. It was finally Christmas, and it was already off to a good start with a bedside tea delivery. Every morning should start like this.
The entire month of December had passed in a crazy, busy blur. I had vastly underestimated how much the death of the Durant patriarch would affect Nathan, or me. We’d all known it was imminent for months, and of course Alexander’s advanced age had made death a distinct possibility for years, but when Alexander Nathaniel Durant finally passed away, it was like the world temporarily ground to a halt.
Suddenly there were a thousand tasks that needed doing, and they all took Nathan away from me. Funeral planning, meetings with attorneys, and endless family meetings begged for Nathan’s attention, and he weathered it all with stoicism. The old man’s will still wouldn’t even be released for another month, but the rush was finally slowing down lately. Nathan kept it together all day, but he came home exhausted every night. We hardly even got to see each other during the run up to Christmas, adding another stressor to the already busy lives of two hardworking professionals.
Nathan said he wasn’t so much sad for his grandfather as he was relieved that he was no longer suffering, and I got the feeling from Nathan and his family that no one had been especially close to the man. One time when I had mentioned the fact to Nathan he’d shrugged and said his grandfather had scared the crap out him as a child, which just made me sad. If I ever made it to having
grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I hoped they liked me a lot better than Nathan liked his grandfather. Memories of my grandparents were some of my favorites from my childhood. Nathan didn’t have any pleasant memories of his grandfather.
“Is it really Christmas?” I asked, relieved and delighted to finally have a day with Nathan all to myself. His parents had taken off on a post-funeral cruise of the Mediterranean, and the rest of the Durant-Breyer clan had all exhausted their patience for family gatherings. The decision to spend the holidays separately was mutual and received with universal relief.
“I think so,” Nathan said playfully, “unless someone else besides Santa came into our apartment and left a whole bunch of presents.”
“Are any of the presents for me?” I asked hopefully after a long drink of tea. He’d made it just like I liked it: absolutely full of honey. The fact that I could now afford the nicest tea imaginable was a luxury that I’d quickly become accustomed to but would probably never stop appreciating.
Nathan nodded.
“Yes,” he replied with a grin, “there’s one that looks like a lump of coal that has your name on it.”
“Nuh-uh,” I said, shaking my head sleepily, “no way. I’ve been a very good girl all year long.”
Nathan smirked and cocked an eyebrow at me.
“You weren’t a good girl last night,” he said, and his voice dropped a half octave, “you did very naughty things with that nasty little mouth of yours.”
I giggled and then licked my lower lip without breaking eye contact with him.
“You weren’t complaining,” I purred at him, attempting to tug him into bed with me. He darted out of my grasp, “in fact, you begged me to keep going if I recall correctly.”
“Well there might be one present for you,” Nathan told me, snatching the comforter off of my body to get me to get up faster. I made a dramatic whining noise when the cool air hit my skin. “Why don’t you come take a look?” he suggested.
He took off down the hallway, enticing me to follow by taking my tea with him and whistling “Feliz Navidad” offkey.
Rising reluctantly out of the warmth of the bed, I grabbed my plush robe and put on my fuzzy bunny slippers that Nathan had given me to replace the pair I’d lost when I moved in. He apparently liked that I wore fuzzy bunny slippers. I padded after him, and my excitement grew as I looked forward to watching him open the presents I’d gotten him.
In the center of the living room, our Christmas tree wasn’t sparkling in the morning light as much as it had when we made love in front of it the night before, but it was still perfect. This was the first year I’d been able to have a live Christmas tree of my own, and I was already mourning its inevitable departure from our home. I hoped Nathan didn’t mind if we kept it up until it got brittle and dry.
“So,” Nathan said as I approached, patting the spot next to him on the couch for me to join him, “do you want to pick out the first present?”
“Yes, I do,” I told him excitedly, snatching the present I’d been wanting him to open for an entire month and setting the big box gently on in his lap, “open this one.”
“For me?” he asked, smiling with what was obviously genuine glee.
“For you,” I confirmed. I was practically vibrating out of me seat with giddy excitement. I really hoped he liked it.
Nathan unwrapped the large box with characteristic care and focus. He was one of those methodical present-openers who made sure not to even tear the wrapping paper, edging his fingernails under the scotch tape and delicately peeling it and the paper back to reveal a large cardboard box beneath. He unfolded the lid and peeked inside with a curious expression.
“Pictures?” He guessed, and I shook my head.
Nathan reached inside the box and lifted out the first silver frame. In the frame was my first piece on Durant Astronautics that I wrote when I returned to The Monitor six months ago, covering the second manned test launch during which Nathan stayed up in orbit for a full twenty-four hours. He looked at it in pleased wonderment, and then shot a smiling glance at me.
“For my office?” He asked, and I nodded.
“Yes, to hang next to the first one from four years ago,” I answered.
He pulled out the other three, each piece profiling subsequent successful launches of the Starflier module.
“I know you don’t like to brag about your successes,” I continued, “but I think you should add some additional milestones to your office wall. You’ve won the space race and that’s kind of a big deal!”
Nathan leaned over to kiss me, and I could only hope he really liked the present as much as his smile implied. Nathan was not an easy person to buy presents for. He literally had every gadget known to man already. His Roomba was smarter than my smartphone.
“I really love these,” Nathan said seriously, and then his expression shifted to amusement, “although I’m pretty sure this counts as a Zoey-decoration incursion into the hallowed man-space of my office.”
My eyes widened indignantly.
“You don’t have to hang them up!” I protested, hoping he didn’t think that I was trying to win by subterfuge what I’d compromised on never to decorate, “I swear I wasn’t even thinking of that.”
Nathan just laughed good-naturedly, and I knew he didn’t mean it. He wrapped one arm around me to pull me close to him and kiss the top of my forehead.
“I love them, Zoey. Thank you. They’re perfect,” he said to reassure me. I melted into him and stole a few kisses until he pulled away with a shy smile.
“Now it’s my turn to pick a present!” Nathan told me excitedly, setting the four framed articles aside and springing up to his feet to inspect the pile of gifts beneath the tree.
We’d made a deal to only get one another a single “real” present and make everything else jokes or edibles. I wondered what I was going to get when he set the small, bow-topped box in my hands. I shook it cautiously, hearing nothing from the little package.
“This better not be a lump of coal,” I told him, smirking. He shrugged like he had no idea what could be inside.
I unwrapped the present by violently tearing the sparkly paper way as quickly as possible to get at what was inside. It was a little, red, velvet box. A ring box.
Oh my god.
The world around me focused down to tunnel vision as a sudden burst of adrenaline shot through me. This could not be happening. I looked over at Nathan, who folded down to one knee in front of the tree in front of me.
I felt my expression go entirely slack from shock and amazement. The hands holding the box, the hands that didn’t even feel like my own at the moment, were shaking like an old woman’s. Nathan took a deep breath.
“Yes,” I blurted before he got a chance to say anything, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Nathan and I both laughed, and then I pounced on him, pinning him on his back in front of the couch as I kissed him within an inch of his life. His initial surprise gave way after a second and he rolled us over and pinned me instead.
“You didn’t even let me ask the question,” he protested with a petulant expression, “I want a do-over. And you didn’t open the box. We have to do it again.”
My whole body felt giddy and light. Although I hadn’t started crying yet, I could feel it coming.
“A do-over?” I repeated, trying to keep myself together, “sure. Ok. That’s just fine with me.”
Nathan could propose to me over and over if he wanted to. I was totally fine with that. I’d say ‘yes’ every time.
Excitedly, and seemingly determined to do the proposal ‘right’ by some subjective standard that meant something to him, Nathan grabbed my shoulders and repositioned me where I’d been sitting on the couch. He got back down on one knee, popped the ring box open and looked me square in the eye.
“Zoey Atkinson,” he said seriously, “will you marry me?”
I nodded dumbly. I didn’t reply because my mouth had popped open in shock when I came face to face wi
th one of the biggest, most sparkly diamonds I’d ever seen. Set in pink gold, the gigantic white diamond was square and surrounded by little round diamonds in a halo. It was gorgeous.
“Yes,” I finally hard my voice saying, sounding thick with the tears that had started crawling down my cheeks, “I’ll marry you. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he replied simply.
Nathan took the ring out of the little red velvet box and slid it onto my ring finger, and it made me feel slightly less insane to see that his hands were a bit shaky too. His smile when he looked up at me from his position on his knees in front of our Christmas tree was breathtaking. How I’d managed to get this sexy, smart, handsome, funny, wonderful man to love me shocked me every day. From the moment I’d first laid eyes on him until the day I died, there would never be anyone else in my heart but him.
I snuggled into Nathan’s chest when he settled back next to me and looked down at the ring on my finger, marveling at how sparkly and perfect it was for me. It was like a little sun on my finger. We’d never even talked about what type of jewelry I preferred, but somehow, he’d managed to divine exactly the type of ring I wanted. It was uncanny. He must have asked my mom or Nika what I liked when we were in Florida or something. Or maybe he just found my secret ‘wedding dreams’ Pinterest board, which was literally peppered with rings that looked like less-beautiful versions of what I now wore on my finger.
“Wait,” I finally managed, tears still falling down my face in fat, hot, wet drops, “diamonds are made out of carbon, right?”
Kiss and Tell (Scions of Sin Book 2) Page 25