by JA Huss
“Of course, I remember.”
“Yes, well… at the time, I sort of told myself that what I was doing was giving you time to rest. Allowing you time to grieve. And continuing on with life as usual because that would be the best way to help you move past.”
“That’s fucking bullshit.”
“Indeed it is. It is. One hundred percent bull kak. Yes. Because what I was doing was avoiding the fact that not only was I impotent to do anything to help you—because I couldn’t protect you from what happened—but that I had my own feelings about the matter. And I just couldn’t allow myself to feel them.”
“But—”
“Yes?”
“But you could have. You could have helped me. You could have been there for me. You could have done a million things. But instead you fucked someone else. And, honestly, I don’t really give a shit about that. Jealousy is for girls.” Again, I can’t suppress a tiny smile. “But you got someone else pregnant. Someone else got to carry your baby. The baby you made with them. The baby that should have been ours…” She spins her finger around to indicate all three of us. “And that only even happened because of what happened with me. Is that not true?”
She looks at me, imploringly. Danny stares a hole right through me.
“Perhaps. Probably. I mean, the arrangement I had with Eliza always had certain parameters. One of them involved seeing to it that nothing like a child could ever happen.”
“So why did it? Was it to…?”
She chokes off. Presses her lips together.
“What? Was it to what?”
She closes her eyes, shakes her head, and says, “To punish me somehow?”
I can’t stay seated any longer. I kneel forward and go to take her hand. She pulls away. Retreats into Danny. There is a greater volume of vulnerability currently in the back of this car than could be held inside Ellis Park Stadium, and the air is thick.
“Nunu… no. The last thing I would ever want—ever—would be to hurt you.”
“But you did.”
“I fokken know I did. I know. What I started to say is that when I woke up back there in that house, I assumed that I must be dead. I must be. Because I know that if there is a Hell, that’s where I’ll be spending my eternity. And for me, the truest definition of Hell would be to spend all of time in the one place where I most hurt the only person on the planet that I would never want to hurt.” Danny shoots me a look. “Fine,” I add. “One of only two people I would never want to hurt.”
She looks as though she remains unconvinced. I go on.
“Look. Christine. Christine Keene. My whole life, I never wanted a child. Never. I couldn’t even imagine it. I mean, my childhood, while having the appearance of being all one could want, was far from it, to say the least. You and Danny? Your childhoods? Well… I couldn’t even begin to think what a wretched cunt of a father I would be. But then… finding out you were pregnant. You. With our baby… All I wanted, all I wanted, in the blink of an eye, was to be that baby’s father. And to love it. And protect it. And give it a picture-book life. Even if that picture book was drawn using extraordinarily garish colors that spilled well outside the lines. But still. One thing that child would never have had to question is that it was loved.”
She is no longer sobbing, but a single tear does drop down her cheek.
“And,” I continue, “when that was unable to happen… When not only did I fail you, but I failed that baby that was to be ours—because I couldn’t protect it either—I could see no reason to go on. So I got into situations that I knew might very well kill me. I wanted, desperately, to test Death. To see why she comes for some but not for others. To see how far I could push the boundaries. And that extended to Eliza. I think… I think I wanted to see how far I could push the boundaries there before I broke everything into an irreparable deconstruction. And I think it’s very possible I found my answer. It didn’t come as swiftly as I might have thought. But it certainly seems to have arrived. So…”
I trail off. Because words are words are words and can only accomplish so much. Apologies are generally worthless. An apology is almost always for the one offering, not the recipient. People do not want apologies. They want penance. They want to know that the person who has wronged them is going to pay. Is going to suffer. At the least, they want to know that the person who has wronged them is going to change.
There is an argument to be made that I have paid my penance. What has happened between us would be, for most, enough. But the cost to her has been greater than any cost to me. She was robbed once. Then she was robbed again. Then she was robbed of her memories and fooled into believing that there was a happy ending to be had. And when her memories returned, she was robbed of that illusory happiness yet again.
No. Whatever I have suffered is a pittance compared to what Christine has endured. And so… I don’t bother to say, “I’m sorry.” I don’t ask for a forgiveness that I very likely do not deserve. I just let my explanation for my role in the whole, miserable failure of fortitude stand on its own and wait to see if there’s any chance that Humpty fokken Dumpty can be put back together again. Someday.
She tried to kill me. She took up with my little brother, and for God knows how long, plotted to bring my world to an end. I should be pissed.
No, Alec van den Berg. You shouldn’t be.
That sounds about fair.
CHAPTER THIRTY- DANNY
I can’t look at him.
It’s not fair, it’s not gonna help anything, it’s not gonna make anything right. But I can’t look at him.
So in the ensuing silence, I look at my phone. I contact the new hotel we’ll be staying at and text the information to the driver, even though he’s on the other side of the glass right behind my head. I can’t be bothered to speak about mundane details right now.
Christine is pressed up against me, Alec is so far away in this moment he might as well not be here, and I don’t know where I’m at.
No clue where I’m at.
So for lack any idea of what to do next, I pet Christine’s hair, lean my face down, right next to her forehead, and say, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
It’s no good saying ‘I’m sorry you lost the baby’ because sorry will never be enough and it wasn’t my fault anyway. I had nothing to do with it.
But not being there—that was my fault. That’s something I caused. Something I could’ve fixed. Something that mattered.
I would not have made her happy or made her forget the shit deal she was handed, but being there would’ve made a difference. Even if it was just to run interference between the two of them or keep Alec at home more.
There’s no way he would’ve taken back up with Eliza if I was there.
Maybe that’s giving myself more credit than I deserve or maybe it’s just the truth.
I wouldn’t let him walk out. I wouldn’t have allowed him to distance himself. And I wouldn’t have let Christine’s anger and resentment fester into… betrayal.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Christine replies.
I catch Alec’s response to that out of the corner of my eye. He takes a deep breath and holds it. Like he’s trying to prevent the tired sigh that wants to escape.
He hasn’t earned that sigh and he knows it.
It occurs to me that Old Danny would take advantage of this situation. Old Danny would say something like, “Let me take you home, Christine.” And Old Danny would take her home. Back to the dirty city we grew up in. Back to the old life we lived. Back to a time when there was no Alec.
Because that’s what I wanted, right? That’s all I wanted before Christine got hurt and Alec called me to go take care of her.
But that’s not what I want now.
I’m not sure where this is going. I’m not sure the three of us are as tight or as strong as we thought. I’m not sure of anything except I don’t want to go backwards.
So I say, “We’re gonna take a day.”
“A day f
or what?” Christine asks.
“To process,” I say, finally turning my head to meet Alec’s gaze. He lets out that breath and it is a sigh, but not the exasperated one he thought it’d be. It’s one of relief.
I’m in charge now. I might not be in charge later, but right now I call the shots because these two can’t.
That’s what makes us strong, I realize. When there are only two people in a relationship and it begins to fall apart there’s no one to step outside the situation and be objective. But when you have three, and two of you are having trouble, that third person can hold it all together. That third person can be the glue.
For a little bit, anyway.
So that’s what I do. I become the glue.
“We’re gonna get a room and relax. Alec…” I look at him. He looks like shit. “Alec needs some rest.”
“Rest.” He laughs, averting his gaze to look out the window at the passing countryside. “I’ve been resting for months, man.”
“No,” I say. Because he’s wrong and besides, he doesn’t get to decide. “You’ve been held captive for months. And before that you ”—I almost say ‘fell over a goddamn waterfall and somehow survived’. But I don’t. I just say—“were hurt.”
He looks at me, his eyes not teary, I don’t think, but very sad. He was hurt and not just from the fall.
He was hurt by Christine’s betrayal.
By Lars’ betrayal.
Hell, I’m the only one he cares about who didn’t fuck him over.
Which is so ironic, I half chuckle out a laugh.
Christine lifts her head slightly. Just enough so her eyes can find mine. What’s funny? she’s asking with that look.
I shake my head in reply. Nothing’s funny. It’s just... ironic.
She forces a smile of understanding and goes back to hiding her face in my chest.
I pet her hair again. Because I love her and her hurt is hurting me in this moment. I know it’s years late. I know there’s no way to take back my mistakes. Time doesn’t ever go backwards.
But the cool thing about time is that it allows for change.
That hurt she feels over losing their baby can’t be erased. The hurt Alec feels over being betrayed can’t either. But with time… with time we can replace those feelings with new ones.
The rest of the ride back into London is quiet.
We’re thinking, I guess.
I know I am.
I’m thinking about the past, mostly. Those days and weeks on the beach in the Cook Islands. Not the ones that just happened, but the ones that came before that.
The good ones.
It’s gonna be a rough climb back up the mountain. It’s gonna take a while. But we can find that place again.
We can find that… peace.
And when we pull up to the London Ritz-Carlton I make a decision.
We start looking for it again today.
I untangle Christine from my body and open the door just as the driver is getting out. “Meet me inside,” I say, looking from her face to his.
They stare back at me blankly, but I don’t add anything else. Just grab my backpack and get out of the car.
My ambassador meets me at the door.
How she knows who I am, I don’t know. But they always know who their guest is. I assume, since the three of us have stayed at the Ritz more times than I can count, they have my picture in their database. At any rate, she greets me.
“Good afternoon Mr. Night. I’m Jessica, your ambassador. Your room is ready for you.” Mr. Night is my old alias from back in the peaceful days. Funny, or maybe just continuing irony, that I’m now referring to those times as the peaceful days.
“Good afternoon,” I say. “My friends are coming,” I say, nodding to the revolving door where Christine and Alec appear, coming through separately. “We’re going to need clothes for Mr. Berger Can you do some shopping for me?”
“Certainly. What can I get for him?”
“I’ll give you a list.”
“Absolutely,” she says, beaming her luxury-hotel customer-service smile. “Would you like to see your room now?” she asks, just as Christine walks up and slips her arm into mine. Alec stand next to her, looking uncomfortable in his ill-fitting clothes, and pretending to smile.
There is a private elevator for all ambassador-level guests, and that’s the route we take up to the Prince of Wales penthouse in the adjoining mansion. It is opulence on a grotesque level, but that’s what we need right now.
We need to be reminded of just who and what we are.
That is my job in the triangle today.
Ironic, yet again. Because historically it has always been Alec who wore this hat. I don’t look the part, I don’t act the part, and I don’t want the part.
But sometimes we all gotta take one for the team.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - CHRISTINE
It’s not that I haven’t been drowning in luxury for half my life and it’s not like I haven’t been to the Ritz in half a dozen cities around the world, or even that I haven’t stayed in this particular part of the Ritz London before.
It’s just… I haven’t been in a place like this with them in a very long time.
Four years. A little over four now. It doesn’t seem like a long time and in the grand scheme of things, it’s a blip and nothing more.
But it feels like lifetimes since we did this. Many, many lifetimes.
And even though it’s somewhat childish that this kind of pampering can make me smile after all the things that have happened over the past few months, I do smile.
I hold tightly to Danny’s arm all the way up to the room, and keep hold of it even after we enter and he’s digging through his jeans for some cash to hand out a tip to the talkative ambassador in charge of us.
She thanks him and leaves.
We have no luggage to speak of. Danny has his backpack and I have a bag leftover from shopping that I left in the car… this morning. Jesus. Was that just this morning that we arrived?
“OK,” Danny says, prying my arm off his. “This is home for now. Alec, I need you to jot down your measurements. Jessica is going shopping for you. Christine, if you need anything, put it on the list. I’m gonna have her get me some sweatpants.”
I smile. I can’t help it.
“What?” Danny says. “I want to cut them off into shorts so I can feel comfortable.”
Alec walks over to the desk and takes a seat. He looks tired. No. Weary. Tired implies you’re working too hard and maybe just need a nap to recharge. The look he’s wearing implies he’s been through hell.
I feel bad for unloading on him in the limo but then again, when I catch sight of myself in a hallway mirror, I realize I look weary as well, so the guilt fades.
Danny looks… resigned. He’s fucking with the switches that control the drapes in the living room. He flicks all the wrong ones, opening the inside curtains first. Then they close and the outer ones open. Which he decides is not what he’s after, so he flicks all the switches again.
There’s a symphony of whirring motors as the two sets of curtains do the exact opposite of what he intends.
It’s so him, I smile again. He never could figure out how to work the curtains in hotel rooms.
Alec gets up, drops the pad and pen on the desk, and walks over to him. “Jesus, man. I’ve explained this a million times. The outer curtains are on the inside and the inside curtains are on the outside.”
“Because that makes sense,” Danny quips, heading for the minibar. Which is actually not mini at all, but a whole slew of top-shelf liquor behind an actual bar.
He chooses a bourbon, something with a green label that I don’t recognize, gets three glasses, and pours us all drinks.
I’m watching him do this. As is Alec. And he’s just about to start handing them out when he looks at us, holds up a finger, then fishes two ice cubes out of a bucket and plops them both into one glass.
Mine.
Smile number three. Becau
se he remembers.
“I don’t want one,” Alec says, putting up a hand as Danny approaches.
“It’s not optional.” He says it with a snide, sideways smile. “You need it. So drink it.”
I don’t bother protesting, even though I don’t want one either. I guess he thinks we need this to soften up, and I’m not up to making my own decisions at the moment, so I accept the glass and begin to sip.
It goes down smooth, the burn coming whole seconds later once the drink is in my gut.
Alec downs his whole glass in one gulp. Which has Danny raising his eyebrows behind the bar. But he just shrugs and drains his as well.
“Let’s have another,” Danny says, once again pouring. He takes the bottle and his new drink over to the coffee table in the middle of the room, and then refills Alec’s glass.
Alec considers objecting again, but he’s too weary. So he just downs it as well.
“Sit,” Danny says to both of us. “We’re gonna figure this shit out.”
I sit on one couch, Alec takes the one across from me, and we stare at each other for a second before averting our eyes.
Danny places the list Alec made into the butler’s cubby, then presses a button on the wall near the door, indicating we have needs that require attention.
Gotta love five-star hotels. You never have to see anyone if you don’t want to.
Danny takes the chair to my right, props one ankle up on one knee, and sets his glass down on his thigh. “OK. Have one question for you both.” He stares at me, then Alec. Neither of us say anything. “Do we love each other or not?”
This morning I would’ve said, Of course we do.
But now?
I don’t know.
I love them, I know that. Even after Alec’s betrayal and Danny’s abandonment, I can’t imagine loving anyone else.
But I hurt Alec. I did this to him. I am the reason he’s… weary.
So I can’t get the word out.
Alec averts his eyes and pours himself another drink. Sips it this time. Then looks at me and says, “Of course I love you. But…”
But.