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I was about to call to him, but I stop myself when the dim stair lights come on and I catch a glimpse of his face before he proceeds up to the third floor.
He doesn’t look like himself. He looks drained.
It’s curiosity that makes me follow.
Carefully and cautiously, I follow him up the stairs, keeping to the shadows and making my steps light.
When I get to the top of the stairs, I stop and hide in between the crevice as he enters a room. He leans against the mantel piece of a wall-mounted fireplace and rests his head against it.
I watch him wondering what could have happened today, then I look up as he does at a painting of a very beautiful woman.
She has long brown hair and is wearing a wedding dress. There’s a hint of a smile on her face that reflects in her bright brown eyes.
Vincent gazes up at the painting. His stare lingers on it,on her. It’s then I realize the woman meant something to him.
I’ve been so caught up in being here and Dad that I haven’t thought of the glaring questions.
Vincent has a son, and the only women I’ve seen around the house are Marguerite and Lydia. No one else.
Is the woman in the painting his wife? An old girlfriend? Is she his son’s mother? I feel she is, so what happened to her?
Vincent continues to stare up at her, then he shakes his head.
“It’s not right, baby,” he says. His voice is just above a whisper, fueling my curiosity. “It’s not right that you aren’t here. I can’t forget you.”
I can literally feel the love rippling from him. Something happened to her. I can sense it. Something bad.
I shrink away when he looks over his shoulder, probably sensing my presence.
He closes the door, and I take the moment to leave and go back to my room.
I think of the woman in the painting.
It was strange to see Vincent so …different when he looked at her. That was definitely love I sensed in him.
What would it feel like to be loved by a man like that? A man so full of mystery and danger.
The mystery and danger is all there with enough warning to stay away. At the same time, there’s a side to him I’m drawn to. Maybe it was the same part of him that drew her in too. That woman.
In my case, that’s the part I need to be careful of. It wears me down and I can’t allow that to happen. That opens the door for confusion.
I need a reality check. I’m a debt repayment. Here for sex.
I need to remember that. I’ll do what I’m told and pray for freedom. I’ll do it, and I’ll try to feel nothing, no matter how real I think it is.
I’ve come too far in my life to mess everything up. When bad things happen to you that you can’t even speak of or think about, and you can rise above them, there’s definitely a sense of accomplishment in it.
I worked hard to rebuild myself and have some sort of a normal life after the nightmares of the past. It was years ago, but to me, it will always feel like yesterday.
I sound like I faced my fears, but it wasn’t that. What I did was move them out of my mind. Maybe that was wrong. The shrinks tell the broken and damaged to face their fears and problems. I didn’t think that advice applied to people like me. So, I took my fears and problems out of my consciousness and locked them away somewhere.
My mind is filled instead with my dreams to write.
That’s why I can’t throw away my future.
I won’t allow the mafia to take everything away from me.Again.
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