AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mama?” My son sticks his head into the kitchen.
“Yes?” My mother and I respond at the same time.
She smiles sheepishly. “Some habits die hard,” she says, and holds her arms out to my son. My heart swells with affection, as I watch him crawl into her lap.
“What is it, Darling?” I ask him, when he settles into his grandmother’s lap.
“Eva said Hanna is having Papa’s baby. Is that true?”
By the time I press a kiss to my sleeping son’s brow, it’s 8pm. He’s the last one to fall asleep tonight, and I creep stealthily out of his bedroom. I feel the need for a workout and a good stiff drink. The pandemonium that ensued after Henri asked about Hanna lasted all day. Telling them about Hanna and answering their questions was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. They’re confused, excited, worried about me, and worried about their father.
But it’s done, and I’m glad. Now, I can be, too. I get into the shower and wash my hair, get back out and make two braids for it to dry in overnight. I’m tempted to throw away my flat iron, but that feels like overkill.
Last year, Time magazine did a write up on Marcel. They described me this way. “
His wife, the famously beautiful socialite extraordinaire, Regan Wilde-Landel, is by far his greatest coup. Twenty years his junior, she makes him look like he might just know what he’s doing. She’s not just beautiful and the belle of every ball. She also comes with a very impressive pedigree of her own. It’s not the five-hundred-year-old French Duchy of her husband’s ancestors, but it’s nearly as rich. Regan Landel is the face of the modern American woman. She’s the best dressed, most well connected, most philanthropic, and her parties are the most coveted invitation. She is, unapologetically, embracing full-time motherhood, and yet, manages to look like she just stepped off a runway. She’s the woman we look at and think, there’s no way that’s real. The one we all either want to Fuck, Marry, Or Kill.”
That, in a nutshell, is who everyone thinks I am. And I was prepared to let them think it, until the day I died, because I was afraid of being without my family. All because I was so afraid, I’d end up like my mother.
Now, I’ve landed in worse waters than she’s ever been in, and they just keep getting murkier.
The chime of my doorbell startles me out of my dark thoughts. I open the nest app and see a small package on my doorstep. It’s addressed to me, but I can’t make out the return address.
I turn on the flashlight on my phone and peer closely. There’s a row of postage stamps that have Colombia printed on the top. My heart does a double take, and I clutch the package to my chest and inhale, searching for a whiff of him. I don’t know if it’s my wishful thinking, but I catch a trace of coconut, and the ache of longing, that I normally ignore, floods my veins, and I can’t do anything but surrender to it.
I hurry through my chores; secure the house for the night, clean my kitchen, and brush my teeth.
And then, I climb into bed to enjoy my dessert.
I tear the package open and pull out a hard-sided book with a dust cover and a stack of letters tied together with a gold ribbon. When I open the book, a piece of paper flutters out and lands on my feet. But my eyes remain riveted to the inscription. Written in a little boy’s hand, “You’re my Venus, I’m your Mars,” with a note that’s written in an adult’s below it that says, “True then. True now. True always.”
I run a finger along the ribbon, my heart thundering in my ears, as I bend down to pick up the piece of paper that fell. I unfold it and start reading.
Regan,
I’ve been writing you these letters since I heard the news about your grandfather. I didn’t intend to mail them. And then, I found this book - with the inscription I wrote when I was ten years old. I wanted you to have it then. And I want you to have it now, just as you have my heart.
I know you’re not in a place for more than friendship. But I want to at least be that. So, when you’re ready, write to me, call me, send a smoke signal…wherever you are, I’ll find a way to answer. Because, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said… “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
In the meantime, here are the letters I wrote you. Read them in order the first time.
Love,
Stone.
I read it ten times before I put it down. He couldn’t have known that this is exactly what I needed. Or that today would be the day I’d be open to receiving this. But like every other time this man has entered my life, his timing has been uncanny.
I untie the ribbon and start with the next one.
Dear Venus,
Last night, I drank enough to forget my own name. But I can’t forget yours. I can’t stop thinking about you. You asked for distance, and I’ve given it to you, even when it’s killed me to do so. So, these letters are my entreaty, my fair lady. I will write you, and one day, I’ll have the nerve to send them. Until then, I want you to meet me where the gods gather to make love…and we’ll build our world there.
Yours,
Mars
Oh my God. I am undone. I keep reading. My heart feels like it’s been hooked to a source of electricity and is humming in my chest.
