by Cee Smith
“Don’t you see, it was never just about the liver. If I had never gotten this disease, I would have never gone looking for you. I wouldn’t have found the one person that I’ve felt anything for since…it was never about the liver, Hailey.”
Under any other circumstance, his words would have resonated with me. This was the most I would ever hear from him about his reason for taking me. I wondered—if he had told me up front, the real reason he took me, would I have felt any differently about him? If I had known from the beginning, I never would have let myself grow close to him. There would have been a clear, defined line that wouldn’t have been crossed.
“Clema should be up here in a few minutes with some ginger ale and crackers. You really should eat something.”
His soft fingers drifted across the top of my brow, swiping away rogue strands that escaped from my bun. He brushed the hairs back, and I felt the weight of him lift from the mattress, leaving just the weight of his presence on my soul.
The sickness stuck around the remainder of the week, and I continued brushing off Dominic’s insistence that we call Dr. Reynolds to come have a look. Every time he even mentioned the doctor’s name, I thought of what he had said that day. We should run the tests on her later this week. Those words hung from my subconscious, skirting across my every thought. No, I wouldn’t see the doctor, because he would be seeing me, whether I liked it or not. I didn’t want to see him any more than I had to.
I hadn’t seen Clema in as many as three days, as Dominic took on the duty of caretaker while I was sick. He doted on me like a worried spouse, watching cautiously while I ate. Every rushed trip to the bathroom was met with an inhalation of worry, and it only took a few trips before he stopped trying to assist me. I think I liked it better when he only came around for sex.
None of it mattered, though. We had reached an impasse. I knew it made no sense, but he had betrayed me, and no amount of kind words or looking after me would change that fact.
In those days, our relationship had transformed into something else, again. I felt shut down. Broken. Closed off. I was an impenetrable wall that couldn’t be moved or broken, penetrated or probed, and Dominic sat on the outside looking like a child that nobody wanted to play with. He looked pitiful. He still held the air of someone in complete control, unaffected by my withdrawal, but I knew better. You didn’t spend almost 24 hours with someone—day in and day out—and not know him or her intrinsically. Despite his aloofness, I knew things about his character that even he didn’t know.
Something in his eyes had changed. That was “the tell.” He looked like someone who had reached the acceptance part of grieving. What that acceptance was, I couldn’t be sure.
Since he’d taken me, this was the longest time we had gone without any physical contact, and I wondered if he missed me. If the times he left the room during the day were spent jerking out the release that was pent up with longing and frustration at our stalemate. Or, did he believe that my being sick put me at a distance? Did he think once I was healthy again that we would pick up where we left off? Truth be told, I think it was him, this place, my circumstances that made me sick.
I sat up in bed, looking. I had spent so much time in his house, but even the best of its details went unnoticed by me. The grandeur of the home was obvious; it was the small details that made it so grand that I had failed to see before.
The chandelier, hanging above the bed, was centered around intricate wood vines and flowers—mimicking the ones that draped around the fireplace. The thick crown molding was made of triple-lined slats of wood that hung around the perimeter of the room like white bands of ribbon. Every doorway was arched with rich brown wooden doors that looked handcrafted.
This was truly a home. I thought the Bartholomews’ home was extravagant with their curled wood banister and checkered marble floors, but where their home felt contrived and orchestrated in its perfection, this home was natural. Lives were lived in this home. I imagined what it was like for Dominic to grow up in a home like this.
I couldn’t imagine that he ran his business from there. The place was too remote. What was his real home like? Was it as cozy as this one? Was it a home that was welcoming and looked lived in, or was it as cold as the man who liked me in chains?
I watched Dominic dress that morning, my eyes wandering across smooth abs and sinewy thighs, disgusted that even through my hate for him, I could see the beauty in his body, in his face. He didn’t make direct eye contact with me, but I knew he saw me watching him—however discreet I thought I was. Dominic’s eyes captured everything. So when his eyes avoided mine, I knew he was doing that more for my sake than he was his.
He walked in the room in the same gray tweed pants and black V-neck sweater that he had put on earlier. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing the thin black hair shading his muscular forearms that ripped and corded when he pressed into me. I pushed away these thoughts, choosing to focus on the tray of food he brought in. Another bowl of soup with crackers and a glass of water.
“You know I’m not an invalid, right?”
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re being stubborn and obstinate because you’re sick or just by circumstance,” he replied in a monotone voice.
“Sit up.” He placed the tray across my lap as I leaned back into the pillows, righting myself.
“Honestly, I can eat more than soup. Nothing’s wrong with my teeth. I can chew perfectly fine.”
“Eat this, and we’ll see what we can do about your food.”
He stepped back from the bed, but still stood over me like he intended to watch me eat every bite of the chicken noodle soup. I looked up at him as if to let him know that he was staring, but he continued to look down at me. I reverted back to the tray, picking up the spoon and taking a soft slurp of the liquid that grated against my taste buds, leaving my tongue burnt as I dropped the spoon back in the bowl.
“Good?”
“I’m sure it would be if it wasn’t so hot.”
“Would you like me to get you some ice cubes?” I couldn’t tell whether he was being facetious or if he really would go get me some ice cubes. I had half a mind to tell him yes. Dick.
“You know, I was starting to get used to the sulking Dominic. It’s good to know the asshole isn’t too far away.”
“Asshole? Don’t think I’m not keeping track of all your transgressions. You’re sick now and I understand that’s making you irritable, but you seem to forget your place here.”
“Irritable? My place? What I am can’t be summed up by the words irritable and my place. My place is never forgotten. No, what you fail to realize is I don’t give a fuck. You’re going to do what you want to do anyway, so I might as well do and say whatever I want. There’s nothing you could do to me that would be worse than you’ve already done, Dominic.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You think because I let you want me, because we fucked, because I didn’t tell you the truth, that that was the worst I could do to you, but it’s not. The truth is, I could only do to you what you’ve allowed me to and that’s what really gets under your skin. Am I right?”
“Fuck you. You’re delusional. You just don’t want to take responsibility for what you’ve done. The fact that you’re willing to do this to me after everything just lets me know how twisted you truly are. And there’s no coming back from this, Dominic.”
“For someone who acts so numb to it all, you sure are suppressing a lot of rage in there. I know how to let it out,” he leaned in close for his last words, the mist of his breath on my ears, his lips brushing against my hairline. His words were laced with a yearning and a release all in one breath, and my legs clenched in between the words that rushed out. I had no control over my physical response to his words, but I wasn’t oblivious. Just like every time before, he used sex to hide his emotional response to something he didn’t know how to deal with. He wasn’t just stunted when it came to love, he lacked in how to deal with any emotions that didn’t stem from ha
te.
“Make sure you eat your food. You have an appointment later.” With those words, he traipsed back to the door, and I was left feeling like a raging inferno swallowed by a swell of water that obliterated any thought of warmth.
An appointment. Those words killed any appetite that floundered to the surface after a solid week of being sick. How could he sound so unaffected while sending me to be slaughtered? I promised myself I wouldn’t shed any more tears about that fact, but I couldn’t help the tear ducts that went into overdrive at the mention of my appointment.
My lips trembled, and I held my shaking hand out against the air to measure how affected I was by this new development.
It had been over a week since I had slipped Sampson the note, and I began giving up hope that he had any interest in helping me. Either way, it looked like my fate was sealed. Whether I wanted to or not, I would be taken to that appointment—either by will or force.
Dominic came back an hour later. I knew because I counted the minutes, listening to the clock tick until he came to collect me. He arrived perfectly blank, as if our earlier conversation didn’t happen. This version of Dominic made me weary; nothing good came from his silence.
The door creaked open, and I threw back the covers, revealing the pajamas I’d been wearing for the last two days. I wondered if anyone near me could smell my hopelessness. He silently waited for me to get up, like I was an obedient dog meant to follow him wherever he led. With the remaining dignity I held, I got up, stopping just to the right of him.
“Well, let’s get on with it,” I said waving my hand towards the door as if to shoo him forward. He huffed out an exhaustive breath and led the way, down the staircase, past the kitchen and dining room—which was more vacant than I’d seen since my arrival—and towards the door that led to the basement.
He opened the door, revealing the staircase to the basement, and I paused, watching as he took two steps down before looking back at me as I still waited in the doorway. I looked down the hall at the large double doors that led to the front yard. They looked intimidating. Like the door to Narnia, on the other side would be a whole new world that was exciting and scary all at the same time. I felt a lifetime pass in those stolen moments of fantasizing about being free from that place.
Dominic must have sensed my straying thoughts. “Don’t,” he said in a stern voice. The spell was broken, and I looked back into the closed-in hall that housed stairs, which disappeared in the darkness beyond Dominic’s mass.
I took one last glance back at the door before hitting the switch for the lights to the basement. He gave me the equivalent of an eye-roll, and I took the first step into the basement. I was surprised by my own willingness to follow him into the depths that held my future, or lack thereof.
He had intimated that there would be an “us” after stealing my liver, but I was fresh out of hope where he was concerned. I didn’t have any more faith that what he said was true. I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I didn’t want to live in a world where I was the reason a man like Dominic was alive. What would happen when he got tired of me? He had a taste for taking someone against her will. Who was to say this wouldn’t be the last time? Maybe he found he had a knack for it.
He opened the door to the hallway that I had traversed many times before on my way to the pool, but this was different. I looked at the windows that lined the ceiling on the left wall and watched the fluttering snowflakes as they frosted onto the windowpane.
We stopped outside the door, as if we both needed a moment to brace ourselves before crossing the threshold where our lives would become interconnected. In a way, what we were walking into was deeper than marriage; it was binding by blood, by tissue, by atoms that made up matter that would soon be a part of him. I never thought of it that way until we were facing the door that led to that inescapable future, but as I thought of it more and more, the idea was overwhelming. Dominic and I were sharing something that was bigger than us. It was science. It was chemical. I swallowed the saliva that pooled in my mouth, feeling my throat stick as the sides of my dry throat separated to push the moisture down. I looked up at Dominic, not quite sure what to make of everything that passed through my mind in those few moments of time. He looked just as nervous as me.
“OK?”
I didn’t know what that one word meant. OK? Was I OK to go in now? Was I OK with what was about to happen? Was I OK, as in, would I splash vomit across his shoes? That OK? I didn’t know, but that didn’t stop my head from subtly nodding.
He opened the door slowly, and I found myself peeking around the edges of the door, trying to catch a glimpse of the room. I didn’t know what I expected from the room that was always hidden from my curious eye, but I was surprised by what I found. It was part mancave, part medical facility.
I could see what this room would have looked like in its glory days—an escape, a place to unwind after a long day at work. A place to entertain the guys while the ladies hung out upstairs gossiping over this and that. The room was large with two well-worn leather club chairs facing the fireplace. A glass rested on the mantel above the fireplace, and I looked at Dominic sardonically. It seemed he noticed where my eyes had landed and spoke before I had the chance to open my mouth.
“Why don’t we wait to hear what Dr. Reynolds has to say before we jump to any conclusions.”
“As if it matters,” I said rolling my eyes as I continued my perusal of the lounge room. The same ornate motif of vines and roses that was in his bedroom was carved into the mantel of the fireplace. The walls were painted a deep burgundy color that complemented the warm brown of the seats and the cream of the carpet. I walked a little deeper into the room and caught our reflection in the large gilded mirror on the wall. I squinted, trying to catch a clear reflection of Dominic’s face. He looked a little pale. At least I wasn’t the only one who looked sick.
“What? Are you afraid I might not be a perfect match? That I won’t fit the glass slipper?” I taunted him.
“What a perfect analogy. Cinderella was an orphan girl, too—lonely and looking for someone to rescue her. I don’t remember her being this ungrateful though.”
“Ungrateful? You piece of s—”
“Hailey, how lovely to see you again,” Dr. Reynolds interjected, looking at Dominic with the same sneer I remembered from the first time we’d met. He was still hidden in the shadows of the low light, but he moved closer until his lanky body had slinked over me.
He held out his hand, but I didn’t return the gesture. His hand dropped once he realized I wouldn’t be shaking it and then motioned for me to move closer to the hospital portion of the room.
Being on that side was a blatant picture that Dominic was sick. I took a seat on the makeshift exam table while I thought about this. Dr. Reynolds walked to a counter next to where Dominic sat and pulled out vials and needles. I turned my head, not wanting to see all the reasons he opened and closed drawers and cabinets. His movements were precise, part of a routine. Then it hit me—all of those days that Dominic disappeared…
“How often do you come here?” I said to Dr. Reynolds’ back. He turned around to face me, but looked to Dominic before answering.
“She has questions. You have answers. I’ll stop her if they become too…invasive,” Dominic said looking back at me.
“At least once a week, sometimes more depending on how things are progressing.”
“And this liver problem?”
“It’s cirrhosis. A genetic anomaly that runs in his family.”
I didn’t know why, but something about hearing that made me feel a little better. It made me feel like at least he wasn’t some wasteful, little snot that had one too many scotches and was now paying the price for a scarred liver.
“I don’t know how much he’s told you, but it has been very hard to find a match for him. Even a man with his resources wouldn’t be able to buy his way to the top of the list. The medical field doesn’t work that way—not when
you’re talking about life or death. Some of these people who need liver transplants will die paying off the expenses of this surgery.”
“Oh, he’s sooooo lucky. No, all he had to do was steal a donor.”
“You weren’t listed as a donor, but I’m curious, would you have come of your own accord?”
“That’s enough,” Dominic blurted out. His eyes were frantic as if he were rushing against time in an attempt to beat me before my words were thrown into the air recklessly. I told him this before. I told him that I would have come willingly if he had approached me like someone who mattered. Like someone who had family, who had a life.
His outburst had both Dr. Reynolds and me looking at him inquisitively. I’m sure Dr. Reynolds had never seen an outburst from the well-composed Dominic Callas, but I was confused as to why he didn’t want me to repeat what I’d already said. Was it too hard for him to hear, or did he not want me to reveal that bit of information to the doctor? I was tempted to answer the question out of spite, but I needed to get out of there. I wanted everything, all of it, to go away.
After Dr. Reynolds shook off the outburst, he turned back to me.
“I just need to run a few tests to make sure that you’re a good match. Nothing too invasive, just a typical physical exam and some blood tests. I’ve reviewed your health records, so unless anything has changed, we don’t need to rehash the details. Would you like us to leave while you change into a gown?”
“A gow—” Dominic and I asked at the same time.
“Yes, for proper precautions, you need to have a Pap smear.”
“Absolutely not! You never said anything about a Pap smear. You can do whatever you need to do over her clothes.”
I was surprised by Dominic’s adamant tone of voice, but I agreed whole-heartedly. It was bad enough without having to strip down and bare myself for this man who seemed even more sadistic than Dominic. He looked like he would enjoy seeing the flesh peeled from my bones. It gave me the creeps to even be touched by him. I didn’t dare look at Dominic, but I could feel the heat pouring off him. It was stifling to be in the same room with him when he was that angry.