But it didn’t stop at yelling or throwing her out of the room. One evening, we caught her watching us through the keyhole. There is a second door in her room, which is unused. It leads directly into Kyle’s room, and her bed is directly in front of the door, so that it cannot be opened. There was a poster on the door, which Tanya ripped off noisily. When he heard it, he knew what had happened, and he rushed to her room, where he found her masturbating in bed. Kyle was furious:
“What the hell are you doing?” he screamed, lunging at her. Tanya was frozen with terror. She pulled the covers all the way up to her chin and stared at him with frightened eyes. I stood in the doorway, looking at her uncomprehendingly. Kyle ripped off the covers and grabbed her by the arm.
“Have you lost your mind?” he yelled, pulling her out of the bed. He held her by both arms and shook her violently. I tried desperately, to hold him back, but he was much stronger than I. She didn’t say a word, but what could she have said? She hadn’t really done anything wicked or forbidden. Finally, she managed to drag herself from his grip, and she ran into the hallway with Kyle hot on her heels. She didn’t get far! In the living room, she tripped over the carpet and fell hard, landing on the glass coffee table.
Never before had I heard anybody screaming like that. She must have caught the edge of the table with her hip, or perhaps it was one of the steel legs. She rolled onto her back, and for a moment, it was deathly still. Even Kyle seemed shocked. But then, Tanya seemed to muster up all her strength, and she let out a bellow, that seemed to let out all the frustration we had set free within her, with our insults and cruelty over the past few weeks. I covered my ears involuntarily, and Kyle tried to pacify her.
“Be quiet, Tanya. You’ll wake the whole building!” he said. He leaned over her, but she was still thrashing about wildly, and inadvertently hit him in the face. Kyle went flying, and for a minute, I thought he was going to hit her back, but he just sank back into an armchair.
“Tanya, honey, calm down,” I said. I knelt down beside her and tried to take her in my arms, but she resisted. Then I realized that some of the sharp shards from the glass tabletop had bored into her hip, through her nightgown. “She’s bleeding badly, Kyle. We need to get her to the hospital right away.” Kyle looked at me, completely at a loss for words.
“I’ll drive her myself,” he said finally.
On the way to the hospital, we agreed that we would say it had been an accident. Tanya had tripped and fallen onto the table. We tried to justify it by reasoning that that was exactly what had happened, but it didn’t make us feel any better.
“Kyle, why are you so violent with her?” I dared to ask. I covered my eyes in shame.
It was very early in the morning, and we had just got back to Kyle’s apartment. We stood there, staring aghast at the scene of destruction in his living room.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps I’m too weak for this world.”
And then I told him that I was Tanya’s mother.
Chapter 42
At first, Kyle didn’t believe me.
“This isn’t the time for jokes,” he said irritably. Only when I persisted, and stuck to my story, did he begin to believe me bit by bit.
“So, does that mean you did all of this, only to get close to Tanya?” he asked. I nodded.
“That means that it has nothing at all to do with me?” That was the problem – he played too big a role, but I couldn’t tell him that.
“I did it so that I could get my daughter back,” I said. “I didn’t know how things were going to turn out.”
“And what now? Do you want to tell her that you’re her mother?”
“I don’t know. You’re her father. It’s your decision.”
“You got the ball rolling! Now you have to stop it by yourself!” Kyle said.
Now, it was all up to me. But I wasn’t sure that I was strong enough to tell Tanya that I was her mother, and to answer all the questions that she would certainly have. Why had I given her up for adoption? Why did I search for her for such a long time? I had lost control of the whole situation.
Kyle and I were prisoners of our own emotions. Tanya’s accident and the way we reacted to it had shown us how precarious the situation was. Now we had to decide where the whole thing was going.
There was no way that we could continue with our secret relationship, without Tanya getting in the way, and we had no idea how to deal with the situation. So, instead, we threatened her with punishment if she told anybody about us, and forced her to leave the apartment and keep quiet every time that Kyle and I were together.
The last time I tried to get closer to Tanya was at Kyle's birthday party. Hanna, you had already left, and I sat down beside her on the sofa. She didn’t say a single word to me, and that was when I finally lost all hope of her ever calling me “Mommy”.
Chapter 43
Finally, Angelica finished telling us her story. For several minutes, nobody said anything, and then Simon went back to bed, leaving Angelica and me alone in the kitchen. When he had left, Angelica looked at me sadly. I had no idea what to say to her. Then I remembered how frightened Maria had been.
“But why are you so afraid? Tanya isn’t going to hurt you, and neither is your husband!”
“I know! That’s not the problem,” she replied, “but…” she hesitated. She was visibly agitated.
“Has something happened with Kyle?”
“No.”
I realized that something else was wrong, but she simply wasn’t saying what it was.
“Is there somebody else? Someone who might get violent?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Angelica. I am also having another affair!”
I sat there calmly, not allowing my shock at her words to penetrate to the outside. But inwardly, I felt really uneasy about all these secrets that were coming out, about a person I thought I had known.
“With whom?” I asked quietly, although I already knew the answer.
She turned her face away from me, but I didn’t take my eyes off her for a moment. She paced up and down the kitchen, then she sat down and buried her face in her hands.
“With Derek Dagger,” she said finally, between clenched teeth.
So, Paul Flakers had been right. I stood up and put my arm around her shoulders. “And he has found out about you and Kyle?”
She nodded, wordlessly, and clung to my arm.
“Please don’t leave me alone. He’s a good person, but I don’t know how he’s going to react.”
“But, how did he find out about it?”
“Kyle and I decided to tell him. We couldn’t bear the situation any longer.”
“I understand. But do you really think that Derek would do something to you or Kyle?”
“Not to Kyle. But to me. You won’t understand it, but Derek is never going to give me up.”
Angelica stood up again and started wandering around the room aimlessly. Then she said: “There’s no point in putting off the inevitable any longer. And I don’t want Maria to know about any of this. It would be a great help to me if you would start taking care of her again, from time to time.”
“I’d be glad to,” I said, “but on one condition. Eileen Evans is a friend of mine, and I want you to accept her as such.” Angelica agreed. Eileen was the least of her problems at the moment.
“I’m going to speak to Derek now,” she said. “He’s going to confront me sooner or later anyway.”
We checked on Maria quickly, then we went to Angelica’s apartment. “Thank you for listening to me. I’m so grateful to you,” she said, as she attempted to unlock her door. But the door wasn’t locked.
I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as we entered the apartment. The light in the living room was on. I stopped in the hallway, and Angelica whispered: “He’s already here.”
Chapter 44
Derek Dagger was sitting on the sofa. He seemed quite calm, but perhaps he was making an enormous effort to keep his emotions in
check. Angelica turned to me and said: “I’ll be okay now. You can go back to bed.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes. Thanks for everything.” I hugged her and left her alone with Derek. When I got back into bed, Simon woke up.
“Is everything okay?” he asked quietly, turning to me.
“I’m afraid not,” I sighed, snuggling up to him. I slept fitfully, waking up often, with a feeling of dark foreboding. And my fears were justified.
I would have overslept if Maria hadn’t woken me. Simon had already gone to work. He’d probably woken me, but I must have fallen asleep again.
“Hello Honey,” I said softly, looking at her sleepily. She was standing in the doorway.
“Where’s my mommy?” she asked.
“We’ll go to her in a minute,” I said. I got up and put my dressing gown on, then we went to Angelica. I picked Maria up and we waited at the door for a while before Angelica opened. I took an involuntary step backwards when she finally opened the door. She stood before me, gray in the face, her eyes reddened from crying.
“Please don’t ask,” she said in place of a greeting. “Perhaps I’ll tell you about it some time.” She took Maria from me.
“Did you sleep nicely?” Maria shook her head.
“You always sleep best in your own bed, don’t you?” Angelica forced a smile.
She looked as though something terrible had happened, just as she had predicted, and I didn’t dare to speculate as to what it could have been.
“Would you watch Maria for me today?” she asked quietly. Although I didn’t really have any time, I agreed. I wanted to help Angelica, and I could ask Eileen to take care of the little girl.
Luckily, Eileen had time, and she promised to watch Maria for a few hours. I didn’t tell Angelica that I’d delegated my task to Eileen – she had enough troubles of her own! Simon would take over from Eileen a bit later, when he got home.
When I got back that evening, Maria was playing with Simon on the living room carpet. Angelica still hadn’t arrived to fetch her daughter, so I went and rang her doorbell.
“Is Maria okay?” she asked.
“Maria’s fine. I just wanted to check on you,” I said.
Angelica seemed to be longing for her daughter, but on the other hand, it was clear to me, that she just couldn’t cope with her at the moment. I was rather confused. Simon and I wanted a child so badly, so it was difficult for me to understand how Angelica could be so absorbed in her own problems, that she seemed indifferent to her daughter’s needs. I almost asked her about her husband again, but in the end, I refrained from doing so.
“Thank you very much for taking care of her,” she said.
I tried to look her directly in the eye, but she avoided my gaze.
“Come in,” she said finally, but it was clear that she was just being polite and really wasn’t in the mood for my company at all. She seemed to have forgotten the heart to heart discussion we’d had the previous night.
“Angelica, what happened with Derek?” I asked, laying a caring hand on her arm.
“Nothing!” she said evasively, shrugging my hand from her arm irritably.
“Something must have happened,” I persisted. “This morning, you looked as though you hadn’t slept for weeks!”
“Perhaps.” Her ignorant manner annoyed me terribly. “But I haven’t got any time right now…” Angelica continued.
“Angelica!” I exclaimed, but with an absent expression, she simply closed the door in my face. It was all very strange. Something was going on, and I couldn’t figure it out! One moment, she invited me in, and the next moment, she closed the door in my face. Something was wrong. After all, I’d made sure that her daughter was taken care of for the entire day.
The shadows of the previous night seemed to have disappeared very quickly in the light of the new day. But, on the other hand, I had nothing concrete against her, except perhaps the fact that she didn’t seem to care too much about her daughter. Her confession, that she was having an affair with Kyle Benton was hardly 24 hours old, but there was no longer anything to indicate that just 20 hours previously, she had feared for her life.
Chapter 45
A few days later, Eileen visited me.
“Angelica came to see me yesterday,” she said. I frowned! I hadn’t expected that. “It really surprised me!” she continued.
“I can imagine! What did she want?” I looked at her curiously.
“She asked me if I would take care of Maria more often, especially in the afternoons and evenings.”
“Did she say why?” I asked.
“She said something about having to work more.” I found it rather curious, but I simply congratulated Eileen on her well-paid babysitting job, because I knew she needed the money. Maria still visited me occasionally, and I really enjoyed her visits.
From then on, the general mood in the building worsened. There were neighbors with whom I had virtually nothing to do. For instance, I didn’t speak more than two sentences with Mr. Gould and Paul Flakers remained invisible, which suited me just fine. I didn’t need his weird behavior in my life.
Angelica was desperate and very sad, and although I would have liked to have helped her, our friendship never really recovered. And when I took care of Maria, Angelica was sometimes absolutely intolerable and ungrateful.
In time, Eileen and I became quite good friends, and we spoke about Angelica a lot. But I didn’t tell her everything that Angelica had confided in me.
The only person I didn’t see at all, was Derek Dagger’s wife, Claire. I had no idea whether she knew about her husband’s affair with Angelica. There was some indication that she did, but I couldn’t be sure. Claire Dagger remained a stranger to me.
Chapter 46
One evening, when Eileen and I had fetched Maria from kindergarten, we ran into Derek Dagger at Angelica’s. I thought that, by now, he must be aware of the fact that I knew all the intimate secrets of his life, but we never spoke about it.
“How is your wife?” I asked. “I haven’t seen her for months.”
“She is ill,” he replied. “She spends most of her time in bed now.”
“Oh, poor thing! Please give her my regards.”
“I’ll do that. She has a serious bone disease and can hardly even stand anymore.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said earnestly. “Isn’t there nothing they can do for her?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s not as if she’s going to die anytime soon, but her life is hardly worth living anymore.”
I remembered the first time I’d visited her, when she’d told me about her disability. “That’s awful! I wish her all the best!” I said.
It really was terrible. Claire Dagger was suffering from such a debilitating illness, and at the same time, her husband was cheating on her. I felt terribly sorry for her.
After a while, I began to doubt what he’d told me. I became convinced that Derek had made up the story about his wife’s illness. In fact, I began to doubt everything that Angelica, Maria and Derek Dagger said. I even began to doubt Eileen.
We seemed to be living our lives on two different levels. On the one hand, nothing had changed. I went to the travel agency every day, Eileen received her “callers”. Angelica kept on working at the Town Hall. But on the other hand, our friendship, our affection for one another and our emotions were an orchestrated parody, but at the same time, we were all dependent on one another in one way or the other. When Angelica asked me or Eileen to take care of Maria, because she had to work, I always suspected that she was lying. Did she really have to work, or did she just want to clear the way, so that she could go to Kyle or Derek for sex? I couldn’t rid myself of that suspicion.
I don’t know if you could have called whatever it was that developed between us hate. But it was certainly mistrust. We were no longer friends. We were – nothing. The only thing that still connected us, was the past. To be precise, our only connection was her past, an
d she’d dragged me into it. But worse was still to come.
Chapter 47
A few weeks passed by in relative normality, until one evening, when the power suddenly went out and a terrible commotion broke out in the stairwell. The noise alerted everyone in the building, and in no time, several of the tenants had gathered in the hallway.
“Mommy, Mommy!” Maria screamed. She came running up the basement stairs, her face bright red. “Mommy!” she screamed with all her strength. Angelica ripped the door open, white with shock.
“My God! What’s wrong?” she asked. Maria kept on screaming, whilst waving frantically with her hands.
Eventually, she managed to make herself understood: “Claire! Claire has fallen down!”
“What’s happened to Claire?” Angelica asked.
“She fell down the stairs! She fell down the stairs, and Didi… with the hammer …”
“That…that can’t be…” Angelica stammered. “That can’t be. What did he do?”
“Mommy, I can’t say it.” She sounded more confused by the minute, and she began to choke up with tears. “She fell down the stairs. He had the hammer in his hand, and he hit her on the head! Red… everything is red!”
A moment later, we heard heavy footsteps on the basement stairs, and then Derek Dagger appeared. He tried to take Maria in his arms, in what was meant to be a comforting hug, but she ran away from him, her eyes wide with fear.
Derek was soaked to the bone, but there was no sign of any blood.
“My wife fell down the basement stairs,” he said to all those who had assembled in the hallway. “I have already called an ambulance. She’s going to be fine. Then, he disappeared into his apartment.
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