“Good night.” Water cascaded from him as he rose and grabbed a towel. After drying off, he gave Anya one last kiss before disappearing into the bedroom.
***
Stephanie bypassed the main office for the elevator to the executive offices two floors up, where the receptionist buzzed Jessica. “Go on in,” she said cheerily. With a painful, taut smile, Stephanie politely nodded.
“Well hello!” Jessica edged around her desk and hugged her. “How’s Anya? You look great, by the way.”
No excuse to avoid getting back in shape with a gym in the house, but she couldn’t make the inside match the outside. “She’s wonderful. And thank you.”
Jessica settled back into her leather chair and arched an eyebrow. “And how are you? What brought you back so soon?”
“I…” Stephanie laced and unlaced her fingers. “God, I feel like the worst mother ever. I’m already dying to go back to work. Is that horrible?” Dismiss it as baby blues. Please. I don’t love having shit up my arms when I change a diaper. I don’t love waking up to high-pitched shrieks at three in the morning. I don’t love wondering if she’s died because babies have such strange breathing patterns. Tell me I’m not an awful mother. An awful person. “I just can’t sit there doing nothing but taking care of a baby.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I love her to death, I really do. But I’m not that person.”
“Some people go back to work right away. Some never do. There’s no right or wrong, only what makes sense for you.”
Stephanie flopped back in her chair. She drew a deep breath through her nose and exhaled with thoughtful quietness. She’d never been one to rely on others for validation, but motherhood was still largely uncharted territory for her. For now, though, other matters required her attention.
“So here’s my idea,” Jessica said. “We get out in front of the rape allegation. Take some of the power away from whoever’s doing this.”
Stephanie shifted her gaze to the window.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought the rape allegation was the worst it could get. But last week he told me someone is threatening to release a sex video. He refuses to tell me what’s on it. Won’t even talk about it.”
Jessica folded her hands and tilted forward. “What do you think is on it?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure I don’t want to. But the way he acts when it comes up…” Beyond the glass, Lake Erie reflected pendulous rain clouds, the water’s fragile surface shivering with wind as though it would shatter. “It’s bad. And I have to find out what it is.”
***
A sudden hush fell over the office, the way it did when the subject of secret gossip walked unannounced into a room. Awkward clearing of throats and heads swiveling back toward monitors. Stephanie set her bag down, dropped into her chair, and switched on her computer, her face hot. A slew of “welcome back” and congratulatory emails had stacked up in her inbox. Thanks to the show, she no longer wrote full-time, maybe one editorial or feature a week instead of a daily column. She had shaved her fifteen-hour days, when as a reporter she arrived at First Niagara Center at 9:45 a.m. and didn’t leave until 12:30 a.m. after scrambling to submit copy, down to twelve. Now she woke at 3:00 a.m. to reach the studio by four for a show that started at six. In bed by 8:00 p.m. Though she usually made it home by mid-afternoon, the idea that she and Alex didn’t spend enough time together had grown increasingly bothersome. She’d been doing little things like hiding naughty notes in his pockets or sending racy photos to his phone, but nothing proved an adequate substitute even for cuddling and kissing, let alone making love.
She drained half her latte before she considered doing anything more significant than browsing sports blogs and Twitter accounts. That Alex was a trending story came as no surprise, but seeing her own name curdled her stomach. Tweets and blog posts dissecting her motives for staying with him, whom a number of bloggers had already condemned in the court of public opinion. The extremists who believed no woman ever lied about rape and all men were potential predators, an equally insane counterbalance for the whack jobs who claimed rape didn’t exist at all.
Hartwell needs to stop living in denial. She knows his past. The only reason you marry someone like that is for his looks.
How do you sleep next to a rapist? It’s degrading to every woman who’s ever been assaulted.
She should stop calling herself a feminist if she’s going to “stand by her man”.
And now he has a daughter. Can you imagine what her life will be like?
Stephanie crushed the empty cup in her fist. They had no fucking idea what she had endured. How very well acquainted she was with a rapist, and it was not her husband. But the entire goddamned office must know; they’d reacted to her entrance as though she had caught them masturbating. Meanwhile, the internet had decreed, because she shared her words on a website and her face on TV for a living, she was fair game. She’d married Alex, after all. Had asked him to marry her. Two public figures that, in the minds of everyone else, had revoked their rights as private individuals and normal human beings. But she had never consented to this incursion into her personal life, not when all she had done was love someone.
***
Alex’s phone lay on the kitchen counter. Stephanie peered into the great room. No Alex, no Anya, no baby monitor. Upstairs, then. Good.
She picked up the phone. So heavy in her hand, laden with secrets she did not want to carry. And yet, if she didn’t become its unwilling vector, she would drive herself insane with imagined scenarios. She tried to convince herself it was different from Joe’s invasion of her privacy. Necessary, even. Stephanie tapped the Phone icon, then Recents. Courtney Evans. A Buffalo number. Incoming call from last week, the day before he met with her. Stephanie input the name and number into her Notes app, and returned the phone to what she hoped was the exact position in which he’d left it.
She ascended the stairs. The unstructured anger, the hurt, her unspeakable doubt in Alex, had compounded by the hour, her already dubious ability to trust others reduced to radioactive remnants. Another painful lesson imparted by her ghostly instructor: Trust no one. Their private pain had become public spectacle, his jury the general public, and her feelings—even about her right to love her husband—collateral damage. Perfect strangers felt justified to weigh in not only on Alex’s guilt or innocence but also on their marriage, their parenting, literally any and every facet of their lives the media could drag into the light.
Alex was lying in bed in the master suite, Anya on his chest as they watched an animated show on BabyFirst TV. “Hey.” A kind but unenthusiastic greeting. “How was the first day back?”
Her pulse in her ears, intrusive and foreboding, a reminder of how quickly time was ticking away no matter how she grasped at it, clinging to the last plank of a ship capsized in a dark and merciless ocean. She had played out the conversation in her head on the way home, cautiously analyzed all potential arguments and comebacks, plugged in all possible scenarios to what appeared insurmountable except by one path. In her head, Alex grasped the importance of her conclusion and agreed with it, however half-heartedly. He was different now.
“Things didn’t go so well. There’s so much crap about me—us—on the internet, and everyone was talking behind my back.”
“I’m sorry.” Guilt coated his words. He patted the comforter. “Sit. I think we need to talk.”
“Yeah. We do.” But she didn’t sit. She couldn’t be close to him, or she’d lose what little faith in her convictions she had.
The lines in his forehead deepened.
“Until some of this blows over, I think I need to be somewhere else for a little while.” Leave it at that. Don’t overcomplicate it. Tears sliced down her cheeks nevertheless. She retreated to the walk-in closet where she stored her travel bag.
“I was going to suggest we go to couples’ counseling to help us deal with everything.” Alex, carrying Anya, followed her. “What are you saying? You’re
leaving?”
“No, I just…need some space from all of this.”
“From me, you mean. That sounds like leaving.”
She tossed clothes into the bag, heedless of what they were or whether they matched anything else. She could go shopping later. “I’m not trying to push you away. But I need to be me again, separate from you.”
“Right. Good thing you didn’t change your name, da? Makes it that much easier to disconnect from me.” Unshed tears saturated his eyes, a deep, verdant forest in which she longed to lose herself.
“I thought we could have a mature discussion about this.”
“We’ve been married eight months, and you’re telling me you already need space. What do you want me to say? How do you expect me to react?”
She looked away from the pain that was hers to abide as much as it was Alex’s. She’d never told him the truth, why this particular tribulation hurt so much more than any other had. How could she possibly expect him to understand why she had to get away? And yet the right words, the necessary ones, refused to come. “Not from you, Alex. From everything else. It’s affecting my job. The fact that you won’t tell me what’s on the video isn’t helping, you know? And this lung thing—”
“I get it, Steph. But we should be facing all of this together. A united front.”
She strapped the baby carrier to her chest. “Give her to me.”
“Nyet.” Alex bundled his arms around Anya and held her to his chest. “You’re making this choice, fine. But you don’t get to drag Anya into it. You don’t get to uproot her. She should be at home, where she belongs.” He glared at her, the veins in his neck standing out, though he maintained a peculiar calm. A medicated calm.
Anya wailed and flailed her limbs. Alex curled his arm under her and with his free hand smoothed her hair, but he did not take his fiery stare from Stephanie. A forest aflame. His breath hissed in and out of his flaring nostrils despite his stony expression.
Her nails bit into her palms as she attempted to control her shaking. “I’ll see if Jacob and Nicole have room, and you can come over any time to see her, but she needs to be with me.”
“You think I did it, don’t you? Because I won’t tell you what’s on the video.” He blinked away the liquid sheen in his eyes only for them to refill immediately.
“No. I don’t.” Stephanie hoisted the travel bag and plodded down the stairs. She felt him behind her, the commanding presence of such a large body looming like a hurricane. She’d come back for Anya later, when cooler heads prevailed. Reason with him. To believe Alex would relinquish his baby girl to her, especially under current circumstances, had been idiotic at best. “I will never think that.”
“When do you start to trust anyone? Me, especially?”
“Not everything is about you, Alex. And this isn’t. I’m asking you to give me something I need right now. To trust me.” She opened the door and stepped outside. “You need it too, whether you realize it or not. I’m not disconnecting from you or shutting you out.”
“Bullshit,” he muttered.
“I have to reconnect with myself. People need to see me as more than just your wife. I need to see myself as more than that.”
“What’s wrong with being my wife?”
“Nothing.” Stephanie reached for his hand; he yanked it away and moved back, increasing the space between them. “I love being your wife. But I have to be more than that. You need me to be more than that.”
“How long will you be gone? Are you planning to see other people? Am I allowed to contact you?” The color had bled from his face; her leaving was in itself an act of emotional violence, a knife plunged into the heart she had pledged to protect. Anger was so much easier to handle than his sadness. He deserved answers, what little comfort she could give him, the reassurance that she was coming home eventually.
Alex smeared his forearm over his eyes. He didn’t allow her to respond. “If this is your answer when things get tough, then maybe you should leave.”
He hurled the door shut.
Chapter Six
“I’m sorry for the imposition,” Stephanie said as Jacob led her to the guest room.
“No imposition at all. You guys are the only people we know here. Nice to have company.” He opened the door to a room devoid of any decorations on its gray walls, and housing only a full-sized bed, a nightstand with a ceramic table lamp, and a dresser. “Not quite finished in here, but make yourself at home. So, uh, it’s not my business, but Sasha’s a good friend, and…”
“There’s a lot coming at us right now. And you know how the media is. Suddenly I’m the biggest idiot in the world for marrying him. We need space right now.”
“He loves you more than anything. You know that, right?”
“Yeah.” She sighed and opened the travel bag, then folded her haphazardly packed clothes before setting them in dresser drawers. “Jake, did he ever tell you about a video?”
“A video? Like…”
“A sex video.”
“No. I take it that’s part of the problem.”
“He won’t tell me what’s on it. If it’s just sex, I mean, who cares, right? But he broke down telling me it even existed.” She looked up at him, hoping he possessed the words to dissuade her from her quest.
“Steph, I don’t think that’s a path you want to go down.”
She already knew that. Not good enough. “I thought we were past keeping things from each other. And that’s not even all of it.” On cue, she coughed into her fist. “They found a spot on my lung.”
His eyebrows shot up. He stroked his chin and stared at the floor. “God. I don’t even know what to say. Is it serious?”
“I had a biopsy last week. When I get the results, don’t tell Alex. Please.”
“If you think that’s best.” But he was shaking his head and looking away. “Do you have everything?”
“I think so. Thank you.”
Several minutes later, a soft knock sounded on the door. Nicole had just arrived home from work, judging by her sapphire blue suit and matching heels.
“Jacob called me a little while ago. Everything all right, sweetie?”
“No.” Stephanie collapsed onto the bed. It was that last day of school all over again, the afternoon she and Alex had said goodbye. Already too jaded to believe she’d ever see him again. She disintegrated into a flood of tears as Nicole put her arms around her.
“It’s all going to work out, Steph. The first year is always the hardest, but you two love each other too much not to get through this.”
“Everything is falling apart. I know he needs me, but I can’t right now. I’m not strong enough for him.”
Nicole smoothed Stephanie’s hair. “You stay as long as you like. Jacob will keep an eye on Sasha. I’m assuming Anya is still at the house.”
“He refused to give her to me. Which of course he wouldn’t; she’s the love of his life. But now I’m alone, and it’s my fault for—”
“No one should have to be in this situation, especially not with a new baby. Stop beating yourself up. I’m sure Sasha is upset, but give him some time. He’ll understand. That’s why you’re here, right? So you can both get some perspective.”
“I keep hurting him. It’s as if I can’t even help it. He’s always been afraid that I don’t love him as much as he loves me, and here I am, doing everything to prove him right.”
“You both just need to cool off. Sasha’s smart; in time, he’ll see that this was the right thing to do.” Nicole gave her another squeeze and rose from the bed. “I’ll let you finish settling in. You’re more than welcome to join us for dinner.”
“Thank you.”
Nicole closed the door behind her. Stephanie pulled out her phone and stared at it, gnawing on her lip. Her strained muscles twitched. She drew up her knees and clasped them tightly together. Her fingers had gone cold. Her mouth tasted of buttermilk. She opened the Notes app and pressed the hyperlinked phone number.
“Hell
o?” said a young woman’s voice.
“Courtney Evans?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
Stephanie faltered. Her heart slammed against her breastbone.
“Hello?”
“Yeah. Sorry. My name is Stephanie. I’m Aleksandr’s wife.”
A long, charged pause. “Oh.”
“I’d like to talk to you. About the video.”
“Look—”
“I need to know what’s on it. I have to see it.” She tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could pick at a cuticle.
“I don’t think—”
“Please. Can we meet somewhere this week?”
Courtney blew a loud, perturbed sigh into the phone. “Fine. Okay. I’ll give you my address. I’m free on Wednesday afternoon.”
“Thank you.” Stephanie mentally recited the address until she’d memorized it. “I’ll see you then.” Her insides roiled as she ended the call.
She lay sleepless that night, every conceivable horror pecking at her brain until a meaty pulp incapable of forming a coherent thought remained. A train whistle fractured the night’s suburban silence, a sound so desolate and yet an enticement to escape. If not for Anya, maybe. Once she’d left her parents’ house nine years ago, running from pain of any kind had become almost instinctual. She was all out of fight, and that left one option.
Which meant Alex was right.
***
Alex
“She’s fine. We’ll take good care of her.”
“She won’t answer my calls.” Alex stared at the glimmering shards where he’d slung an empty vodka bottle at the fireplace. It hadn’t woken Anya, but he had instantly hated himself for succumbing to temptation with his daughter asleep upstairs. “She said she wasn’t trying to push me away, but I can’t even talk to her.”
“She’s dealing with a lot right now. You both are. Give her a couple days.”
What's Left Of Me (The Firebird Trilogy Book 2) Page 5