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I’m going to fucking kill Benedict. I don’t care who he is. The fact that he put his goals ahead of his daughter’s welfare…I can’t comprehend it.
“They came for me. They got me. I’m still here.” Standing with my arms spread wide, I allow her to take a good look at me before I pull off my jacket, hanging it on the towel rail. I roll my sleeves to my elbows as I continue watching her huddle in on herself. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The breeze from the open windows blusters through with the end of November chill cooling the air around us.
I would close them, but Arabella is one of those people that has to balance the hot with cold. She sleeps with her legs outside the duvet even though she tucks herself in up to her chin. She heats up the car but cracks the window open to let the fresh air in.
So I don’t close them. I leave them open, and instead, I dip into my suit jacket and take out the Lucky Strikes that she prefers to the Marlboro Reds I normally smoke. They’re milder.
Handing her a cigarette, I light it for her as I brush my free hand through her hair. I’ve always loved her hair. It’s thick and unruly; even when it’s tamed, all it takes is a drop of moisture for it to rebel. It’s a bit like her—hard to contain and impossible to subdue.
When she relaxes, sitting back into the bath, I take off the earrings she still has on. They’re nothing over the top. A simple thread of small cascading diamonds, but they’re heavy enough that her ears must be somewhat sore.
I know I shouldn’t take advantage of her fragile state, but my gut tells me that if I don’t ask now, she might never tell me. And I need to know. I can’t carry her through something I don’t entirely understand. And I really can’t wrap my head around why she left me. How she could do it.
Sitting on the floor beside the bathtub, I light up my own smoke before I take the hand holding the side of the bath and twine our fingers.
“You didn’t answer my question earlier.”
“We can’t keep my dad waiting out there.”
“Yes we can. He’s not going anywhere until I know what the fuck is going on. Until I get my answers, he doesn’t get to leave.”
“Fuck.” A dry laugh rumbles from her, and I have to suck in a lungful of my cigarette so I don’t lose it.
I ask people questions every day. I get answers every fucking day. But figuring this shit out with my wife…
Fuck.
“You really are hell-bent on hating me, aren’t you?” Contrary to her caustic words, her fingers tighten around mine as she snuffs her cigarette in the empty soap dish on the wall.
“No, baby.” I kiss the back of her hand, trying to alleviate some of the frustration inside me. “I’m hell-bent on loving you through all of this, Arabella, and more. So much fucking more…”
Leaning over the edge of the tub, she wraps her arms around my shoulders. Her action gives me warning of where this conversation is going. The severity of it.
“I love you, Christopher. I don’t know what else to do but love you. My life is all about that one thing—loving you more than I love myself.”
“Then why did you leave? I don’t understand. You were there, and then you were gone. I wanted to see you and…I didn’t know you were okay. Do you know what that felt like?”
Her hold on me is desperate, and the tighter it becomes, the more I want to kick myself for putting us in the situation we’re in right now.
“Yes. I do.”
“Then—”
“I made a mistake. I fucked up and I need to make it as right as I can. I need to try and fix this. I wanted her so much, and I was selfish and everything a good mother shouldn’t be. I put myself above you and our baby. I forgot my place and my role.”
Letting go, she slips back into the bath. Her arms hug her legs to her chest as she rests her head on her knees.
Broken doesn’t do her justice. What they’ve done to her…
No.
What we’ve done to her goes beyond annihilation.
“Your place and your role are with me. Beside me.”
“Oh Christopher, you’re good at these games…tactics and strategies—”
