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There’s the old Angelo. The tyrant. The puppet master. The man who decides how the world should be, then forms it in his image.
“It doesn’t matter,” he continues, “because this stopped being about you, or me, or any one of us, when that new life started inside you. It started being about them. You need to go. You both need to go. And you need to do it now.”
“Angelo…”
He holds me tight, his hug possessive and enduring. “I love you, Tilly,” he says. “And I am going to make sure the three of you, or however many of you end up existing, have the best life this world can offer.”
“Will you visit?”
“No,” he says, crushing me. “There will be no visits. There will be no contact. I will keep an eye on you both. I will keep you safe. But this has to be the end, Tilly. Otherwise, the baby you want will become a pawn in a war that started long before you, and will never end.”
“He’s right.” Mark says softly.
I think we all knew Tahiti couldn’t last forever. I think we all knew we were staving off reality one sun drenched day after the other. I thought we might be able to just stay here, raise our baby in the sand, never worry about anything ever again.
But Angelo doesn’t have the luxury of leaving his life. He can only keep me safe if he lets me and Mark go. I guess I had a feeling this was how it was going to be in some way, shape, or form. A baby is a new beginning, but it is also almost always an ending too.
Our goodbyes do not last long. Nobody wants to protract the inevitable. Within the day, our bags are packed, tickets are booked, and Mark and I find ourselves on the tarmac outside the doors of a little white plane headed for freedom.
It is happening quickly, but I have the strong ongoing feeling that this has been planned for a long time. Perhaps, even before I knew he existed, this end was written. There are no accidents in Angelo’s world, babies included.
“Bye,” Bobby says. “Be good.”
“I’ll miss you,” I tell him.
He gives me a haunted little smile. “Shut up and go.”
Angelo embraces me for the last time. This man came into my life at the moment I hit the absolute bottom of my existence. I thought he was there to make it worse, to punish and torment me until I died. But he saved me. He saved me in ways I didn’t even know I could be saved. And now he’s letting me go.
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known,” I tell him.
“No. I’m not. The man with your bags is,” he says, gesturing to Mark.
“Goodbye, Angelo. Thank you for… Thank you for everything.”
He smiles at me, those dark eyes no longer seeming so soulless and cruel now. “Have a happy life, Tilly. Take care of my boy.”
“I will,” I promise. “I will.”
We get on the plane, a few short steps taking us away from everything all over again. There are just two seats in the back. I snuggle into Mark and I watch the two figures down on the tarmac as the plane taxis then rises, until Tahiti itself is just a bright little dot in infinity.
Epilogue
Angelo
I’m looking at pictures of a smiling blond baby held by a beaming young mother. One after the other, they shuffle by in a parade of happiness and true innocence. There’s a man missing in each of them, presumably behind the camera…. no, there’s a selfie of the three of them at the end. Mark has grown something of a beard and his hair is no longer coiffed daily. Tilly’s has been cut short into a cute bob. Neither of them look as though they have slept in weeks. Neither of them look as though that bothers them one bit.
“The baby looks like Mark,” Bobby says. “Think it’s his?”
If fate has any sense of kindness, it will be his. Mark and Tilly now live in a little town on the west coast of New Zealand. They’re happy, and so is their six month old son who knows absolutely nothing about the circumstances of his conception, or the question of his parentage.
It is better this way. Better for Tilly. Better for Mark. Better for the baby. But there’s a tugging, wrenching feeling which persists at my core. Tilly changed us all. She wasn’t innocent, but she was sweet. She made a good match for Mark. We may see them again one day, once their son is grown, but for the moment, their chapters are closed.
I can admit to myself that I miss them both. The darkness has grown a little more since they left. Mark was in so many ways my redeemer. Without him, I am not sure that I will be able to maintain my grasp on good.
