A Sorrow of Truths

by Charlotte E Hart

  I wanted my honesty – I got it.

  Turning to look at her lying there again before he moves closer, I try to ignore the need that’s still in me, and dart my gaze over her features. Nothing like me. Taller. Prettier. Even in this sleep she seems to be in with tubes coming out of her, I can see the beauty that must have had him captivated. The soft sound of a ventilator wheezes quietly in the background, as I stare at her blonde hair, and more machines bleep and pulse almost silently around us. It’s peaceful. Serene. It makes me wonder what she was like when she was awake, what it was other than this perfect body and face that drew Gray towards her. Perhaps that’s all it was. A rich bachelor and a pretty young server.

  “How long has she been like this?” I ask.

  “There was a car crash a month before Charlie was supposed to be born. We saved him. I’ve been trying to bring her back ever since,” he replies quietly, inches from my back.

  My eyes close, as I feel his breath on my neck, his presence all over me again. “I don’t care about her, Hannah. I never have. I just want to know why she lied to me about Charlie being mine. I would never have married her if …” His hand brushes over my arm, as his voice trails off, a subtlety in it I’ve barely felt before from him. I look down at it hovering there gently, watching the slight tremble coming from something that is normally so sure of itself. “If it’s the whole truth you want, it’s you that I care about. I have never cared about anyone the way I do about you, nor have I known missing someone before you.”

  The hand leaves me, as I move sideways away from him to stand on my own again. That’s how I feel now – on my own. Nothing here is connected anymore. It feels empty of that and messy, regardless of how much my heart’s speed is increasing with his words and trying to accept this.

  “None of this explains the other women,” I murmur, remembering their faces, their words. “Why? What did you do to them?”

  He sighs. “Still more?”

  “Truth?”

  He nods and moves a tube a little, switching a button off on a machine before he comes back to stand in front of me. “Alright, sit down.”

  I edge over to the chair, unsure what’s coming but damn sure I need to hear it to make sense of what’s happening here. He’s so still when I look back to him. Impossibly still. Nothing but focused eyes and his serious face bestowing thoughts I’m not looking forward to hearing.

  “It was research, Hannah. Heather’s body functions well enough. Her mind doesn’t. I’ve been trying to stimulate it into action for years. The combination of drugs I began with had varying results, but nothing particularly proactive until I attempted to lodge myself inside her mind.”

  What does that mean?

  He leans on the side of the bed, crossing his arms as if delivering a lecture. “I trialled myself first, not particularly caring for the end result as long as I got my answers. Unfortunately, my answers were two weeks in a hospital bed barely able to function because of the combinations of drugs I used. It didn’t work. No answers. I needed something that wasn’t comatosed to trial on. They were it. I wasn’t much use to myself, or her, if I couldn’t breathe successfully on my own.”

  “So you used them so you could get answers? That’s monstrous.”

  That same level of indifference crosses his eyes, dead eyes clearly not giving a damn for what damage that might have caused. “We all have lengths we will go to to get our truths. They weren’t relevant other than what statistical evidence I could get from them.” His hands go to his pockets, not an ounce of contrition visible because of my disapproval on show. “After a while, results were better. More useful. You already know what they do to stimulate. You’ve felt some of the combinations.” A sickness rises in me at the thought, tears threatening my eyes again. “The trials aren’t so monstrous when you’re in the middle of the enjoyable results, are they?”

  I frown, complicity chasing around my veins trying to find acceptance in this. There isn’t any. All the fun and frivolities, all the fantasy and blurred, dark corners. All these feelings I have for him, the need and sensation of love that continues to bury it’s way inside my heart, it’s because of those women and the things they must have gone through, the confusion they must have felt.

  Shame makes me look at the woman on the bed, my mouth floundering around words I can’t find, thoughts I can’t process.

  “And if you want the truths to continue, I did it without consent on the first one,” he says, bringing my face back to him. “She was a young maid here. The rest of them were given a substantial pay out for their involvement in the trials, as was the first eventually. Beatrice, my sister who you saw earlier, stays on top of the data. She’s far more of a prodigy than me, but even with that, I still can’t make anything work successfully.” He nods at my body, a smile coming from nowhere, and steps towards me. “That’s her dress by the way. Red looks good on you.”

  I slip out of the chair I’m in, ducking around his frame to get to the door in the hope of avoiding his hands or his seemingly callous outlook. “This is all … I don’t know. I need time. Space. Something.”

  I can’t think here with her in the room, can’t see anything but that bed, the thought of Gray with her even it wasn’t real according to him, and those other poor women he played with.

  “I like my humans sentient when I fuck with them.”

  That’s all I can find in my thoughts, all I can hear. That’s what he’s done. With them. With me maybe. But not with her, not with his wife. She’s the only one that hasn’t been sentient.

  And Charlie? I stare out of the doors we came in through, wondering where he is, or what he even is to Gray if he isn’t his son.

  His hand touches my shoulder, as if to turn me, hold me, make me feel the same way I used to when he landed on my skin. I swipe it off, and keep staring at outside of here “No, Gray. I can’t.”

  “Can’t? Or don’t want to now? I’m still who I was, Hannah.”

  That might be true, but all this around him is far from what I knew before.

  And that makes him someone completely new to me.

  “I want to go. I can’t be here with you,” I murmur.

  A pause happens. A pause so long I don’t know how time works around the feel of it in my mind. It seems like hours. Hours with nothing but breaths and silence while we’re not looking at each other.

  “Alright. I’ll have Jackson bring the car around for you.”

  I look back at him, unsure of the finality that statement brings or my feelings about either option. He smiles sadly, as if that’s all he’s got to give me. It’s not enough because now I’ve made a choice and decided to leave his voice behind, I can’t bear the thought of not hearing it again.

  Swallowing the need to go back to him, pushing it downwards into recesses so I can think clearly without the need for him building any further than it is doing, I choke out another sob I can’t control. It hurts. Everything does. Even my bones feel weary, as he walks over and opens the doors for me. I can smell him, feel him, and even see him when my eyes are closed.

  Hallways pass by in a blur of pale colours, the peculiar silence of the place feeling as uncomfortable as the room I’ve just been in is. No warmth. No heat or happiness. There’s nothing that gives me a sense of him to cling onto at all, only the sound of his footsteps that, as always, seem in time with my own heartbeat.

  “You have your truths. You can do what you want with them,” he says, as we reach the main foyer in this vast house. He picks out his cell and quickly presses something in, opening the door to the night air again. A shiver rides over me the moment we step out into it, and his jacket is placed on my shoulders before I’ve even noticed him take it off.

  “I’m sorry if it hurts, for what that’s worth,” he says quietly, walking us down the steps. He sits when we reach the last one, looking at the spot next to him as if I should take it. “I did try to say no to you. Several times. And I did tell you you didn’t want to know this. You’re quite
tenacious. And too damn beautiful.” I keep looking down at him, watching as he looks out into the night rather than at me. “Never had someone do that to me before. Didn’t believe in love either. But here you are.”

  My eyes widen, fingers gripping the lapel of this jacket, as if losing it might mean losing him.

  “You can sit, Hannah. I won’t bite.”

  A small smile comes to me at that through my trembling lips, as my hands wipe away the tears I will not continue to cry in front of him. “You might. You’ve done it before.”

  “Not tonight, though.”

  Not tonight.

  I sit with him and look out into the sky, not knowing what to say, do, or think. So many truths. All of them now out in the open for me. I’m so tired. Drained, shattered and crushed. If I could do anything now other than give myself space, I’d crawl into his arms and let the rest of the night pass us by in sleep, perhaps hoping that when we woke, when the birds chirped and the sun came up, everything would be full of snow and ice again rather than this impeccably presented display of lies.

  It was safer there at Malachi’s. Less honest in some ways maybe, but yet more honest because of that deceit.

  The thought makes me look back at the house, at the sight of something that is nothing like him and think of Heather in the bed. All these years of his life devoted to something that doesn’t apparently mean anything to him. Why? It seems so counter intuitive. So pointless and futile if there’s no love or care. He could have made another life by now. Lived it.

  “I still don’t understand why,” falls out of my lips. “Why the need to wake her if you don’t care? Why not just leave her and …” A self-loathing settles in me at what I was going to say. Move on? Forget? Ignore the body and pretend it never existed?

  He sighs and then chuckles a little. “Because I’m an obstinate brute, apparently.” Well, that’s probably true. I look over the lines of his face, both fascinated with them and regretful for the fatigue that seems as carved in as mine own feels. “A brute who wanted answers to lies. Perhaps I’ve been persistently senseless, stupid maybe, but either way she hasn’t deserved rest. Nothing else mattered until you. I don’t know now.”

  All those words mean too much for me to be able to fathom. I’m too tired. Too confused. And too emotional about things that have made my heart both beat in joy and break in sorrow to find answers anymore.

  His car pulls around the corner after a while of continued silence and stops in front of us, Jackson stepping out of it and opening the back door.

  “Mrs Tanner would like to go home, Jackson,” Gray says. “Can you get her clothes and bag from the guest suite in the west wing please.”

  Home? I have no home. I listen to Jackson disappearing, and think on the only place that even remotely feels like home - Malachi’s castle with its snow and ice. That’s not going to get me anywhere. It’s no more truthful than this place is in some ways. He’ll twist things, make up games and talk in riddles like he always does as if I’m some tournament to amuse himself with. There will be no peace there, no silence to think in.

  I stare aimlessly at the open door to the car, unable to move forward and still gripping tight to this jacket. “I don’t know where to go,” whispers out of me. Not my apartment either. Rick’s there still. Rick and the lies and a failed marriage. “There’s nowhere that feels like truth.” Nowhere where I can just be me and try to find reasoning and feelings that make sense to me.

  A card gets pushed towards me, and his hand slowly takes mine and folds it around the piece of plastic. “Go back to mine. You have all the answers you need there. It’s as honest as I am if you look closely enough. Explore. I’ll stay away until you tell me to come back. Make a decision so I can make mine. Take as long as you like.”

  I look at him, confused with the offer and his words. “I don’t understand.”

  He sighs and looks out over the view again. “I’m in love with you, Hannah. It’s not something I know how to feel and I need to know if you want more or not. I don’t know how this works, but I’d like it to.”

  He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear, both a smile and a huff coming out of him as he stands and takes a step away from me. I stand with him, mouth open to reply, to tell him how I feel about him, this place, her, but the words won’t come out yet. They’re muddled. No order to them. No order to anything in my mind.

  “If we’re moving forward,” he says. “If you want that, then I won’t live in the past anymore. I’ll need to do what needs doing so we can be honest with each other from this point onwards.”

  He backs away further until he’s under the porch and I’m left alone between him and Jackson waiting quietly at the car. “Go Hannah. Think.”

  I don’t want to.

  But I turn for the car anyway.

  ~

  It seems no time at all before we’re pulling into an underground parking lot I’ve never been in and Jackson is opening the door for me again. I look up at him, my body still shrouded in this jacket, and wonder where time went on the journey. He holds a hand out to me, a kindness etched into his eyes that I’ve never seen from him before.

  “I’ll take you up, Mam,” he says.

  Up. All the way up. Not down anymore. Not into rabbit holes and tunnels where life spirals and nothing matters other than fun. I take his hand and get out, then walk, barefoot, across the concrete and glance at all the highly polished cars lined neatly around us.

  Spoils of the rich, I suppose.

  “Does he use these?” I ask, still looking at the array on show, as we pass them.

  “No, mam. Not for the six years I’ve been with him. He barely leaves the building most days.”

  Has he really been so reclusive because of the last ten years? Because of a lie he couldn’t get the truth for? Some would call that madness. Who would do nothing with their life because of a lie? He has everything money can buy, all the wealth needed to live a full and good life. And instead of living it, he’s done nothing other than rot in memories of a thing he can’t get answers to.

  Following Jackson into a concealed elevator, I rub my eyes and wait for the doors to open again so I can be alone. That’s all I need now. Some time. Why I think being in Gray’s apartment will help me achieve that, I’m not sure, but anything is better than going back to somewhere that I’ll never get the truth from.

  My eyes tip up, looking at the ceiling as we travel. At least up there I have truth. It might be the most disturbing truth I’ve ever dealt with, and it might not be something I can’t come to terms with, but it is truthful. He is.

  Love.

  “Mam?” What?

  I look back down and find the elevator door open, his hand offered forward for me to exit. I do slowly, bare feet padding the floors in another sense of silence. More comforting this time, though. More familiar at least.

  “Just press this button if you need me, mam,” Jackson says, pointing to a small remote on the table. “I have an apartment beneath this one. Unless you’d rather I stayed?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  He nods and turns to leave, his body getting straight back in the elevator, and I look away to gaze at the view. “Mam?” My head twists back, brow arched, to find him holding the elevator open as if he’s got something else to say.

  “Hmm?”

  “He never smiled before you. Not once in the six years I’ve been with him, other than necessity for courtesy, have I seen him smile about anything. He does for you. I just thought you should know that.”

  My body turns fully, perhaps desperate for more information like that to help me make decisions, but the doors are sliding closed before anything else can be asked.

  Chapter 19

  Gray

  S leep has been fitful. Non-existent in reality now the cold light of day is present.

  It’s seven am, and I’m here on this swing seat on the wrap around veranda, coffee and cigarette in hand, as I stare out over the land I own while the storm batters
down on it. I know the feeling well lately. Rain soaks through the air and lands heavily, darkening and moving the soil as if it has a divine right to change the way it behaves. It does. Growth. Development. Progress. An evolutionary and relevant process of rebirth before the timeline comes to its inevitable conclusion and decay sets in.

  It’s not something I’ve ever given time to examine in great depth before, but today, as I sit here analysing the merits of her smile and her laugh and the way she’s buried herself inside a mind that was riddled with cynicism and annoyance before her, it’s become worth the consideration of scrutiny.

  “Why are you out here? You’re never out here?” Beatrice says, from behind me somewhere.

  “It seemed useful.”

  “To what?”

  I flick the cigarette away, huffing out a breath. “Nothing. Everything.”

  She chuckles lightly and comes to sit beside me, the blanket around her tucked in tight. It makes me remember my childhood home, the swing seat there that we used to play on as kids. “Cold,” she says. I grunt in response, not overly interested in words this morning with anyone that isn’t Hannah. “You’re not presumably.”

  “No. I’m considering going for a ride.”

  “In this weather?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  To feel her next to me again. “Don’t know. I don’t even want to be here.”

  “Then why are you?”

  “I need to …” My voice dies off at the thought of what I need to do. It’s not just for Hannah. It’s for the thought of more years trying to get answers out of something that has suddenly, and irreversibly, become unimportant in my life. Never really was now I’ve found something that is.