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“Mmm, hmm,” he said. “Look at me, Maddie.”
Listless, I pushed myself up and turned to face him.
“I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll take some time to consider this news and let you know my decision. Goodbye.”
With that, he turned and began to walk out of the bedroom.
Goodbye?
A wave of horror and disbelief broke over me. I threw the sheets off and ran after him. Hooking my hand against the door jamb, I yelled, “Goodbye?! Decision about what, Grey?”
Without turning back to face me, he continued to walk down the hall towards the front door.
“Grey!” I screamed. “Come back! Please!”
The pace of his stride never altered. As he passed by a stunned Katy, her eyes traced his movements like a wary marksman. At last, he opened the door and began to step through it into the hallway.
“Grey!” I cried out. “Grey!”
GREY
You’d think that having more money than you need or ever hope to spend in your lifetime would give you the goddamn freedom you need to enjoy it while you’re alive. Yet here I sat, at thirty-eight thousand feet in the air, winging my way across the globe in my jet to wrap up another mind-numbing deal.
Funny thing is, I didn’t use to think of them like that. The face-to-face, pressing-the-flesh interactions. Hell, I lived for it. After all, business is the ultimate form of combat. Life or death. Survive or die and I fucking loved everything about it. So I always took the responsibility that came with it in stride, despite the inconvenience.
Were they tedious? Yeah.
Unnecessary? Almost without exception. I nearly always got the exact same terms I negotiated over the phone.
But mind numbing? No. No. Not that.
For as long as I could remember, the high I got from closing a large transaction, well, not much else came close to pure pleasure in my world. But fuck all if this trip wasn’t the last thing I wanted to do right now.
Half a bottle of vodka gone, I waved off my flight attendant, Melanie, as she offered me some water.
“Ice,” I grunted. “And a goddamn fresh glass.”
Melanie swallowed hard as she took the crystal from the table in front of me. The snarl in my tone reflected in her hands, which trembled as she attempted to steady the tray.
With a slow blink and a deep exhale, I swallowed and said, “I’m um, sorry. Sorry about that Melanie, sweetheart.”
A nervous smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. “It’s okay. Anything else Mr. Sinclair?”
I shook my head. “No, dear. Just the fresh glass and some ice, please. Thank you.”
Melanie turned and walked away, disappearing from view as she returned to the galley at the front of the aircraft. Resting my elbow on the table, I closed my fingers together and pinched my lips between them.
I stared in her direction, looking at nothing.
The sound of ice cubes dancing inside a glass broke my train of thought for a moment. A few seconds later, Melanie reappeared. As she swung into view, I noticed the tray contained a full ice bucket and four clean rocks glasses. She placed it down on the table without comment. I allowed her to do so without observation.
After she finished, she nodded at me.
“Anything else Mr. Sinclair?”
I shook my head. “No. Not right now.”
She turned to walk back to the front.
A few seconds later, she’d vanished again. Grabbing the vodka bottle, I tilted it upward. The liquid gurgled into the glass, splashing out in random drops as it ricocheted off the sharp angles of the cubes. I placed the bottle back down on the table with a single thump and then lifted the glass to my mouth.
The alcohol no longer burned as I gulped it down. Numbness took its place.
Finally.
I poured another. And another. I must have hammered back three glasses in five minutes.
With each one, the heat from the booze hit me later and later until at last I reached the point I wanted, needed. Nothingness. I wrapped my fingers around the sharp cold of the glass, and slugged one more back with two hard swallows.
The alcohol coursed through my veins, relaxing my muscles.
My mind though…
Melanie had a boy. Lucas I think his name was. That sounds shitty doesn’t it? Why wouldn’t I know the name of the woman’s son, when I spent probably a quarter of my waking life with his mother? It wasn’t intentional. I just never paid much attention to children. Seen and not heard kind of thing.
I never cared for my own childhood much. Couldn’t fucking wait to grow up, really. After my father died so young, I was in a goddamn hurry despite my grandfather’s care. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the man or what he did, but a boy without a father is like a ship without a captain. Rudderless, adrift and ready to run aground at any minute.
I beached my early years more than I cared to goddamn remember.
I exhaled as the effects of the vodka kicked in, at last.
I’d even met him a couple of times, Melanie’s boy. Polite enough. She seemed like a great mother. Frankly, she never spoke much about him, but I suppose that’s because I never asked. I mean, she’s doing her goddamn job and everything. She probably figured it wasn’t appropriate. Man, if I could get a hundred Melanies working for me, what a pleasure my life would be.
Fucking Maddie.
What the hell was she thinking? I thinned my lips as I looked out small oval window into the blackness of the night sky. A hard swallow forced its way down my throat. I never suspected she’d be this goddamn irresponsible. Months she’d kept this from me!
Shit.
What had I done not to deserve her trust? I’d given her everything. A start in business, a rekindled acting career. She owed it to me to tell me. I flicked at the edge of the empty glass, spinning it like a top on the table in front of me. Looking up, I noticed Melanie peeking around the corner at me. A soft smile came to her face as I caught her glance.
“Do you need anything, sir?”
What I needed, she couldn’t give me.
Shaking my head, I broke her gaze and looked out the window once more.
The hum of the aircraft always soothed me. Thousands of parts working in absolute synchronicity, propelling me tens of thousands of feet in the air, getting me anywhere I wanted to go in the world in a matter of hours.
Fucking amazing, really.
Even so, the tiniest malfunction could bring the beauty of it all crashing to the ground, obliterating it, and me, in the process.
How goddamn long was she gonna keep this a secret? Jesus fucking Christ!
I snatched the bottle and swung it to my mouth, gulping the last of it down. I drank so fast, some dribbled out, spilling down my chin. I slammed the bottle down on the table and chuckled as I wiped the wetness from my face.
The kid was coming.
What the fuck was she going to do? Show up to the set with a goddamn stroller and then tell me? I scoffed and shook my head in disgust in silence for several moments.
“Melanie,” I slurred as I cast another glance towards her. “Another bottle, honey.”
She nodded, grabbed one and hustled over to me. Cracking the bottle open with a flourish, she placed it down on the table in front of me.
“Mr. Sinclair?”
I licked my lips as I reached for it. “Hmm?”
“Are you… okay?”
I lifted my head at her and exhaled. Melanie’s face softened with concern.
“Tell me about your son,” I said, shrugging her off.
Her face brightened a bit as she tugged a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Lucas?” she asked.
Well shit, I did get it right after all.
“Yep, Lucas.”
“Um, what do you want to know?”
“Don’t care. Anything.”
She proceeded to tell me a story about a school project he’d done. A science thing or some such. I only half-listened. More than anything, I watched her face and body language. You can’t fake that shit. People think it’s easy to lie but the body gives it away. You can’t hide from the truth. Or run from it.
As she finished, I nodded.
“Thank you, honey.” I said. “Sounds like a damn fine young man.”
“Yes sir, he is. He’s my entire world.”
I looked at her as she spoke but didn’t reply.
“Why did you want to know about him? If you don’t mind me asking?”
Pouring another glass, I glanced up at her.
“No reason, Melanie. No reason at all.”
MADDIE
“Maddie, please…” Katy begged. “You can’t do this to yourself. You have to eat.”
“Why?” I moaned.
With my head resting on the pillow, I dragged the nail of my index finger in a lazy, mindless maze.
“Why should I care anymore?” I whispered. “Grey doesn’t.”
Katy clapped her hands together in fury.
“Fuck Grey!” she screamed. “Maddie, you’ve got to get it together! Please! You’re going to hurt the baby. Is that what you want?”
Listless, I moved my hand back down towards my stomach and touched my belly as Katy chastised me. Grey would tell me to get rid of the child. That would be his ‘decision’. I was certain of it. That is, if I ever saw him again.
Katy, good friend that she was, strategized and plotted any number of ways I could force him to fulfill his obligations as father but I didn’t care. If he didn’t want the child, I just didn’t care anymore.
When he left, I broke down. He crushed me.
I cried so much in the days afterward, my throat hurt. And now the dull ache served as an ever present reminder of his cruelty and my foolishness. I wondered what I could have said or done to change his mind.
