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I turn my head to look at him, watching as he stares at me rather than the woman who gave him life.
“Are you sad because of the lady who was lost?” I nod, nothing else for it other than truths now. “She was pretty.” She was, is.
My lips lift slightly, imagining all those harsh lines and all those soft smiles, and then drop as the image of her in here last night takes hold. So angry. So hurt and confused. Rightfully so.
My fists tighten in my pocket, the chain gripped tightly, and my wedding band loose beneath it.
“Is she coming back?” he asks.
No. Not here.
Never will she be here again, regardless of the route forward from this point onwards.
“No, Charlie. This isn’t the place for her.”
Or me.
He stands quietly, as he mulls that information over. It’s profound in a way I couldn’t have imagined before Hannah. Silent but meaningful, regardless of his small size, as he thinks and eventually looks at his mother’s body. “You can’t make her better, can you?”
“I don’t think so.” Or I don’t care to try anymore. “How does that make you feel?”
He looks as surprised by the question as I am about asking it, but the following frown is one I know all too well. It’s the same line a Rothburg has, irrespective of his ancestry. More learnt behaviour presumably, but it also shows more of me in him than I’ve ever measured as feasible.
“A little sad, Sir.”
Sad.
I back off a few steps until I’m near the door and wave my hand at him, accepting the fact that because of his position in this room there’s nothing I can do to alleviate the problem we’re all in unless I ask him if it’s alright to do it. It’s not something I’m considering, nor will I ever put the burden of that responsibility on him. It’s mine alone. My fault. My issue. My problem. “Come on, Charlie,” I muse, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Tell me about your ride this morning.”
For now, that’s all I’ve got.
That and waiting for a phone call that might never come.
With these thoughts in mind, and the need to feel Hannah still engrained more deeply than any of this, I doubt I’m going to wait here much longer at all.
Chapter 20
Hannah
Idon’t think I’ve slept, and yet the day seemed to arrive and pass by without me acknowledging its existence. Dark shades now creep and glide around the floor, as if directing me into rooms and corners I’ve never been in before. My bare feet pad the stairs upwards, his robe wrapped around me, and then I turn corners to the next level. A glass roof covers the expanse of it once I get there, pointed angles showing me stars and more black obscurity above.
Gazing into what seems to be a laboratory with glass walls only lit by the moon, I pull the robe tighter around me and take in the quiet, shadowed space, as I drink some coffee. Everything’s quiet here. Me included. It’s tranquil in some ways, giving me a chance to breathe on my own and try to figure out what’s real or not.
I’ve fingered things since I’ve been here alone, touched things, smelt things. I’ve walked into rooms, leafed through his journals, and looked over the honours and acclimations on his walls for brilliance and ingenuity. I’ve picked up his expensive pen, saw the chewed end of it, and studied it, searching for a man that chews pens. Pen chewer. Not something I imagined.
And horses – they’re everywhere if you look close enough in dark corners. Paintings of them. Modern sculptures. There’s even some books on them in his study, old pictures of a huge spread of a house and farm somewhere. His family home maybe.
I’ve lain in his bed, felt the sheets wrap around me and grip me like he does. And because of all those things, I’ve found myself at home with those new feelings and sensations. They’re all him. Maybe they’re the him that I’ve never met before, or perhaps the him that I first met and got drunk with. He laughed then. Smiled with me.
My own smile weakly emerges with the image of it, and then the visions of him come crashing in again. Hands holding me firmly as we danced, then hands handling me harshly as we fucked. And then those same hands holding me gently, his eyes directed at mine as he asked me to be there with him for that one time.
I know now. I know why he kept me away, why he tried to keep the distance between us. But now I don’t know how real anything is that I’ve felt about him, or still feel about him. All I have is my conscience and this ongoing feeling that yearns and aches. But without him here, without the words to tell the truth, I can’t find reasoning about their worth.
I took the drugs.
Swallowed the pills.
I could be as screwed up as those women are about him.
