At the Brink

by Anna del Mar

  Love you too?

  “Um...” I hesitated. “Who was that on the phone?”

  “No one,” he said. “Don’t get upset.”

  “I’m not upset,” I lied. After all, he had called this Monique woman sweetie.

  “Look, Lily, we’ve already talked about this.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “But there’s one thing still bothering me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Did you have agreements like the one you made with me with all of those other women?”

  “What?” He stared at me as if I had lost my mind. “Goddamn it, Lily. No!”

  “But you said so. The night you dropped me off from the diner. Remember?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” he said testily. “You misunderstood me. I was honest with you from the beginning. I admitted to being with other women before you, not to making the same agreement. I told you, I never mix business with pleasure.”

  “If that’s the case,” I said, “why did you break your rule with me?”

  “Jesus, Lily.” He glanced at me. “Don’t you know?”

  “I’d rather hear it from you.”

  “I broke my rules because I wanted you badly,” he said. “Because you were in trouble and you wouldn’t have accepted my help in any other way. And let’s face it: Would you have come to my bed if I’d just walked up and asked you?”

  “Um, well...”

  “You would have turned me down on the spot,” he said with complete certitude. “You would’ve never allowed me to seduce you. You wouldn’t have given me the time of day. So you see, Lily, you left me no choice. I could’ve taken any other woman to my bed without the need for a ‘transaction’ as you called it, but not you, never you.”

  The realization struck me like a Mack truck. This transaction is for your benefit, he’d said in his office that first day. He’d known. He had been right. Under no other circumstances would I have considered an affair with anyone, let alone him.

  Martin had tried to use Josh, but instead, Josh had used Martin’s outrageous proposal for his own purposes. He’d gone to great lengths and taken great risks—personally and financially—to devise the only way remotely capable of bringing us together.

  I willed my mouth to close. “You knew all of that after watching me for ten minutes?”

  His eyes met mine briefly before they went back to the road, but in that moment I knew that yes, he’d known all that about me, and more.

  “Is there anything you don’t know about me?” I said.

  “I’m unclear about a couple of things,” he said.

  “Like what?” I said even if I knew what was coming.

  “Why did you marry the son of a bitch?”

  My stomach revolted. “Oh, Josh, what difference does it make now?”

  “I need to know.”

  The highway seemed darker when I thought back to that period of my life and even the car’s powerful headlights seemed to dim as I started to tell the story.

  * * *

  I’d met Martin Poe on an appropriately rainy and cold day at an art gallery just off Newberry Street. He stood beside the art broker contemplating my painting, looking very distinguished in his belted khaki trench coat. The broker introduced us and explained that Martin’s father was a collector from France interested in acquiring an original Leonard Boswell for his collection. Martin had been authorized to negotiate the purchase.

  My stare shifted from Martin to Child’s Play, the only painting my mother and I had managed to keep during the financial debacle that followed my father’s death. It had hung on the walls of our family home all my life. It was my father’s best chiaroscuro. It showed a young child coloring by the light of a single candle. Every detail was crisp and vivid. Every crayon looked as if you could pick it up from the floor and color with it.

  In the painting, the darkness swirled about the child as if it were about to smother the candle’s light. And yet, despite all that darkness, there was incredible light in the child’s eyes. I’d never understood how my father had achieved such astonishing balance. I thought for sure he was a master of darkness. It suited his temperament. It suited his mind. Of all my father’s paintings, Child’s Play was my favorite.

  Mom’s stroke had forced me to put Child’s Play up for sale. Her hospital bills, together with the nursing home expenses, had wiped out my savings. I knew that selling a work of art that was not in the artist’s official catalogue wasn’t a good idea, especially as I needed the money quickly. But I had no choice. I’d listed it with the broker in the farfetched hope that a fair-minded buyer would appear.

  Martin and I had a few interviews before he put forth a disappointing offer. It was about half of what the painting was worth. His father, the eminent collector, was apparently also a bargain hunter. It rankled me to no end, but I sold him the painting.

  After that, Martin Poe began to show up at the coffee house every morning. He lived nearby, he said. He wasn’t bad looking and he was also courteous and correct.

  His attention flattered me. He was fifteen years older than I was and a distinguished professor from Europe. He felt very cosmopolitan to me. When he asked me out, I said yes. He didn’t want to jump into my pants right away like most guys I knew. I thought he was respectful.

  Only a few weeks after we met, he proposed. His proposal took me by surprise. I told him that I didn’t love him. He laughed. He wasn’t asking for love. He didn’t believe in it. People were meant to be together out of convenience. Affection was an affliction between two people, one we would strive to avoid. The notion was familiar to me. My mother believed the same thing and my father had proven her right.

  Martin explained that his teaching visa limited his ability to do business. He needed to marry an American citizen in order to launch his own company in the United States. He also said his mother, upon her deathbed, decreed he would get a portion of his inheritance when he married. In exchange for marrying him, he’d take care of my mother’s expenses and return my father’s painting. The marriage, he said, would last only a few months, the minimum necessary to get his green card and claim his inheritance.

  I said no many times, but he kept coming around. Then this new doctor came to town, advertising a new treatment capable of restoring brain function to stroke patients. The consultation cost a fortune. The only person I knew who could help me would do so, but at a high price. Back then, Martin still had a few thousand dollars to his name, money he was willing to invest in me.

  So I did it. Bree tried to talk me out of it, but I saw no other choice. Martin wasn’t a bad prospect and I was lonely, frazzled and desperate to bring Mom back.

  But Martin hadn’t been truthful. He’d neglected to tell me three vital things: First, a green card takes time. Second, the inheritance would only be paid to him at the time he produced a son. Third, he had a roving eye and an appetite for reckless sex with strangers, students and coworkers. We were never physically attracted to each other and yet, for the sake of the elusive inheritance, he became obsessed with making me pregnant.

  That’s where I drew the line. I didn’t want to have a child with Martin and I wasn’t willing to play Russian roulette with my health. I told him no. He came back at me with a deposition saying I’d committed marital fraud by marrying him. He said that, if at any point things went badly for him, I was on the hook. Marital fraud was a criminal offense punishable with years of jail time. Even my attorney feared the charge. If I didn’t do what Martin wanted, I’d go to jail. If I went to jail, who’d care for my mom?

  He tried to get me pregnant. It was a disaster. After a while, he went to the doctor who told him he couldn’t have children. He stopped, bringing me a measure of relief, but he kept squandering what little money we managed to save and seducing his students. And I had to live like that, day i
n and day out, because I’d been gullible, naïve and stupid.

  * * *

  “So that’s the pathetic story,” I said, staring at the white lines speeding toward me on the road. “That’s how I ended up shackled indefinitely to Martin. Because I believed in fairy tales where my mother could get better and Martin told the truth.”

  “He’s a goddamn predator,” Josh muttered, slowing the car down to exit the highway. “He took advantage of you.”

  “That may be true, but...”

  “But what?”

  “Sometimes, I think I deserved Martin.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was desperate and greedy.”

  “Greedy?” Josh turned onto a country road. “You have a tendency to believe what people tell you, that’s true. You also neglected to do your due diligence. But if there’s one thing I know for sure it’s that there isn’t a greedy bone in your body.”

  “Maybe not for money.” I fisted my hands on my lap. “But, God, how I wanted that painting back.”

  “Child’s Play?”

  “It was the last remembrance I had from my father.”

  “It was more than that,” Josh said with astounding certainty. “The child in the painting, the illuminated girl standing at the brink of darkness, she’s you, isn’t she?”

  I stared at Josh’s impassive profile. My father never told anyone. The portrait was never included in any of his catalogues. Josh had never seen it. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Easy,” he said. “You’re the light in the darkness...for me.”

  His words struck me like rain on parched soil. I knew at that point that he was more than the wishful dreams of a lonely woman, a man of substance, insight, depth and heart, a person who knew and needed me, the person meant for me.

  “Where’s the painting now?” he asked.

  “What?” I said, still reeling.

  “The painting,” he repeated, turning into an unmarked gate and driving down a private road. “Where is it?”

  “Martin’s father sold it for a profit,” I said. “It’s off the grid, gone for good.”

  The car lights illuminated a two story farmhouse that stood at the end of the driveway, a white colonial manor that emerged from the night like a pop up from a children’s book.

  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was with Josh, and that meant that I had to be open-minded about the possibilities. Best case scenario, this place was a boutique hotel. Worst case scenario, I faced an upscale interpretation of a pleasure house of some sort. Or was it the other way around?

  Josh parked the car in the front of the house and turned off the engine. He seemed a little...nervous?

  “Is this a bed and breakfast?” I picked up on his anxiety. “I didn’t see a sign back there.”

  “Since we’re here,” he mumbled, “we might as well get out.”

  He got out of the car and came around to open the door for me. A thin layer of ice crunched beneath my boots when I stepped out. I looked up at the house. It was both beautiful and daunting against the night sky. An icy breeze cut through my clothes and made me shudder. I buttoned up my coat and hugged myself.

  “Lily,” Josh said. “I don’t want you to freak out, okay?”

  My eyes narrowed automatically. “What do you mean you don’t want me to freak out?”

  “I probably should’ve told you before now, but I wanted—I needed you to come.”

  “Tell me what?” I said, more alarmed by the moment.

  “This is my parents’ house.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Lily

  The cold breeze must have frozen my mouth open, because it wouldn’t shut. My throat, lungs and belly turned to ice. We were at his parents’ house? If Josh had told me this place was a Chinese massage parlor and that he wanted to spend the night in it with me and three of the house specials, I would have been a lot less surprised.

  As it was, he’d just hit me with the most inexplicable, shocking and unexpected announcement of our brief but tumultuous time together.

  A thousand thoughts zinged through my overloaded brainsphere.

  “I can’t go in there.” I judged the distance down the driveway. “What are your parents going to think? My God, Josh, you can’t possibly tell them that I’m your...”

  “That’s not the case anymore, remember?” Josh tried to hug me. “It was never the case.”

  I shrugged him off and started to walk down the driveway. I wasn’t ready to meet Josh’s parents. This was too sudden. They’d probably think I was just another floozy.

  “I want to go home.”

  “Calm down, Lily.” Josh caught up to me. “Let me explain.”

  The house’s red door opened, disgorging a band of wild children—well, okay, there were only three, but in my present state of mind, they seemed pretty wild.

  “Uncle Josh!” The tallest boy, a kid of maybe six or seven, launched himself at Josh. I watched in shock as Josh absorbed the blow and gathered all three children in his arms, greeting them with hugs and kisses.

  “Mom says to come in,” the oldest boy said. “She says you’re going to freeze out here.”

  “Has she been looking out the window?” Josh asked.

  The boy nodded.

  Josh took hold of my arm. “We better go in.”

  I considered the country road beyond the driveway. What were the chances than an Uber driver would be passing by this secluded area just this minute? A cab? A Greyhound on the way to Timbuktu? Anybody?

  “I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” I barked under my breath.

  “Come on.” He nudged me toward the door. “You’ll be fine.”

  The two women who met us at the foyer were identical in every way, tall, athletic and dark haired, with brown eyes that could’ve been cloned directly from Josh’s face. Other than their clothes, the only difference between them was that one wore her hair up in a clip while the other one wore her hair down. The one with the long hair checked me out from head to toe before greeting Josh.

  “Hello, little brother,” she said.

  “We’re glad you came,” the other woman said. “Who do we have here?”

  “This is Lily.” Josh stepped between me and the women as if we were about to face an attack dog—or two. “Lily, meet Jan and Emma.”

  The one called Emma smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Jan muttered.

  I immediately labeled the twins as Mousy and Meany in my head. Oh, lord, couldn’t we just leave now?

  “Who’s there?” A woman called from the back of the house.

  “It’s Josh,” Meany announced.

  “And he’s brought a girl,” Mousy said.

  “She actually seems kind of normal,” Meany added.

  “Jan...” Josh rumbled. “Be nice or I’m leaving.”

  My face heated. My nails dug into my palm. I swore I was going to kill Josh the moment I could find a weapon. The children shouted around us, engaged in a fray with plastic swords. I wanted a real sword.

  A woman bustled out of the back room. She was blond, fair and petite, contrasting in every way with the other adults in the room.

  “Oh, yes, have no doubt about it,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I birthed all three of these giants.” She hugged me. “I’m Josh’s mom, Evelyn. And you are?”

  “Mom, this is Lily.” Josh put his arm around my shoulders. “She’s my girlfriend.”

  The room went suddenly silent. The women stared at me as if I were an alien from another planet. Even the children seemed to pause. I got the feeling that if Josh had introduced me as his contracted sex toy they might have been less surprised. In all honesty, I was surprised too. He�
�d just called me his girlfriend. In front of his family. His girlfriend.

  Evelyn recovered first. “Well, come on in.” She entwined her arm through mine and led me down the hallway. “I have some hot chocolate on the stove. Pipe down,” she said to the children who’d resumed the skirmish in the parlor. “Those are Emma’s kids, Christian, Caleb and Cara.”

  We ended up sitting around the big table in the enormous kitchen. I surmised from the conversation that it was Evelyn’s birthday tomorrow, the big six-oh. Emma explained that the party entailed a celebration, a yearly tradition, with friends and relatives invited for afternoon tea. Instead of presents, they would bring canned goods and non-perishable foods to stock the local homeless shelter.

  I thought it was a beautiful idea. “Can I help?”

  “There will be plenty to do tomorrow,” Emma said.

  Josh held my hand the entire time. I don’t know if it was his way of apologizing, if he was afraid I would bolt at any moment, or if he needed my touch as much as I needed his to get through the evening.

  “Where’s The General?” Josh asked.

  “Bowling,” his mother said. “He’ll be in later tonight.”

  “When did he take up bowling?” Josh said.

  “Oh, about a month ago,” Evelyn said.

  “Tell him, Mom,” Jan said. “He’s not just bowling these days. In four weeks, he’s become the president of the damn bowling league.”

  “You know your dad. If he gets into something, he’s got to be the boss of it.”

  “Like father, like son,” I muttered.

  They all looked at me and then broke into startled laughter.

  “You have it so right, Lily.” Evelyn smiled then turned to Josh and patted his hand. “You look good, son. And even though I told Jan not to pester you about this, I’m happy you decided to come and I’m glad you brought Lily.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” Josh kissed her on the cheek and at that moment I caught a glimpse of the precious little boy he’d once been. “It’s been a long day. I think we’re going to turn in.”

  “I’ll get the kids out of the guestroom,” Emma said.