“Thank you,” she replied a little awkwardly and blushed a wonderful shade of pink.
“It suits you,” I went on, unashamedly exploiting her uneasiness. Eventually, she was going to learn to accept compliments without feeling embarrassed or undeserving. “Especially when my hands are in it to muss it up, and you are under my body moaning in pleasure.”
“Marcus,” she shrieked and smacked my shoulder.
“Yes, darling?” I said innocently.
“I’m about to meet your mother. Can you, please, behave?”
I threw my head back and laughed while she wrinkled her nose at my lack of chivalry and pulled her denim jacket tighter around herself. I suspected she was only doing that to conceal the hardening nipples that poked at her blouse.
The drive was short and uneventful. Charlotte rolled down her window, and the salty breeze wafted in like the flapping of wings, soft and soothing. The streets were less frenzied with people, and the usual clamor faded into a pleasant background buzzing.
I veered east and drove down the street that led to the estate that Isaac had bought twenty-two years ago. Wrought iron gates opened to grant us access, and the keeper on duty saluted me with two fingers placed to his temple. He motioned us forward as the gates closed behind us.
The road was flanked by old maple trees that created a breathtaking tunnel of flaming leaves and twisted, gnarly branches.
The maples thinned until the winding labyrinth gave way to a greensward. The turf girdled the two-story manor and ended somewhere far to the west where a thin stretch of white sand separated the estate from the ocean.
I parked the car in the ample cobblestoned driveway, but my fingers never loosened and never let go of the steering wheel. Sucking in a harsh breath and flinching slightly, I glanced down at Charlotte’s hand stroking my knee and closed my eyes.
After decades of keeping Mother’s story under lock and key, it was excruciating to start digging up all the horrible memories. My chest ached, and my throat constricted as wounds that never properly healed opened once again.
“We can come back when you’re ready,” Charlotte whispered with immense patience and kindness. I hadn’t realized a lone tear had trailed down my cheek until Charlotte reached to wipe it then kissed the skin that had chilled in its wake.
Shaking my head, I kissed her hand and took comfort in the warmth of her palm tightly pressed to my cheek. Charlotte was a sanctuary, the balm to my despair and the hope that cast light in the dark and sinful recesses of my life.
“Mom was a ballerina. She traveled all around the world. She even stayed in Russia for a few years and was a part of the Bolshoi Ballet, then she came back home and met Isaac. She thought she had met her future, but he was her doom.”
I gasped. Invisible knives stabbed and sliced me from the inside out. I hated Isaac for what he had done to such a beautiful creature, so pure and elegant and full of life that she was otherworldly, but I hated more the idea that I could be the same kind of demon for Charlotte.
“She gave up everything for him, her dreams, her job, eventually her life. She stopped dancing and started teaching so she could spend more time with him. Then, they had me, sooner than expected and definitely long before I was wanted. Mom has always loved me, I’m sure of it, but Isaac, well, I doubt he ever has. My arrival was the event that tipped his perfectly balanced world into chaos.”
I flexed my fingers around the steering wheel and averted my gaze. I didn’t want Charlotte to witness the abounding hatred and rage festering there. I couldn’t handle it if she were disgusted by what she saw, or worse, if she feared me.
“I only have pieces that I gathered from the people who knew them. The puzzle is far from being complete,” I grunted, struggling to keep my voice calm and quiet. “My aunt says that pregnancy changed Mom. She required more stability, more comfort, more care. And while she gave up everything to be with him, Isaac never could do the same. He was a damn agent. He had missions, and they were always more important than his wife and son.”
Charlotte’s hand never left my knee, and her touch gave me comfort as well as strength to carry on. My hair stood on end, my skin crawled, and dark spots swam around in my vision, but in the end, I managed to paraphrase the story Isaac had told me.
I told her about how betrayed Mom must have felt, how she went searching for her husband, how he so recklessly made her part of his operation, and how he took the risk of losing her instead of risking the mission he had been working on.
Eventually, through a jaw that hardly moved and eyes that had visualized the same horror for an entire lifetime, I told her about the accident, about how the doctors thought she would not survive, about how I had been a boy of seven, missing a mother that had never really returned to me.
“In the accident, her spine was sectioned in the lumbar area, and she has never walked again. My beautiful, exuberant mother trapped in a wheelchair—”
I still remembered the first time I saw her after that cursed accident. I was nine, and after almost two years of living with the conviction that Mom had abandoned me because I had been a very bad boy for having put a frog in one of her little pupil’s backpack, we met again.
The meeting was not the fairy tale I had so joyously hoped for. It had been a complete nightmare. Mom had been unable to say whether or not she had forgiven me.
In fact, she had been so troubled that she had some sort of seizure. She had nearly dropped from the peculiar chair she had been sitting in when I entered her room. The unripe mind of the boy I had been soaked up the dreadful image and let it scar its way into my brain forever.
“Her brain was also injured. She speaks very little, and most of the time she has difficulty understanding what we want to tell her, but she is not crazy, Charlotte. My Mom is still in there.”
My head fell against the headrest, and a harsh breath left my lungs in a rush. My insides twisted, and the ache was searing and vicious, much like a razor that slipped under my skin and cleaved my veins open.
Charlotte unfastened her safety belt and crawled into my lap, wrapping her hands around my head and nestling me tightly to her chest. She didn’t speak as harrowing sobs wracked my body, but in the warmth of her embrace, I found all the comfort I needed.
I grieved and panted for breath, and through it all, I almost wished I could have cried. Yet, no more tears left my eyes. I had flooded universes with my tears. I had no more to spill.
“She needs around the clock care,” I explained. “The fact that she cannot speak properly or call for help if she needs it makes it very difficult to leave her unsupervised. And I think, struggling every day to make herself understood would have been a painful fight, and she has already been hurt enough.
“So I can’t blame Isaac that he took her to this place. He bought the manor and had it staffed and fully equipped for my mother’s every need. At first, she was alone in there, and the doctors advised Isaac that she shouldn’t be cut from the world so drastically, that interaction with people with similar conditions could be helpful. It was eight years after her accident that Isaac finally allowed for the east wing to host other patients as well. Like I said, providing for her and keeping the truth about her a secret has been the only good thing he has ever done.”
The white door of the Victorian house opened, and a nurse dressed in pink floral scrubs stepped onto the porch, gazing a little surprised at how Charlotte was cocooned in my arms. Taking a deep breath, I straightened and steeled myself.
“It’s the lack of trust that broke them and Isaac’s arrogance that destroyed my mother,” I said, staring deeply into Charlotte’s eyes. “You have to trust me, Charlotte. I don’t need you to always agree with me, but I need you to trust me even when we are at odds.”
“I trust you,” Charlotte promised, stroking the hair out of my face, then sucking my lips between hers in a long, fiery kiss.
She didn’t understand the desperate, bottomless need I had for her complete, unrestrained trust. She di
dn’t understand, not yet, but she was going to.
Charlotte rotated in my lap and hopped out of the car first, then taking her hand and lacing my fingers with hers, I joined her in the driveway. The nurse smiled encouragingly as we climbed the short flight of stairs that led to the porch and eyed Charlotte with an examining look that wasn’t actually prying.
“Hello, Khloe. How are you today?”
“Very well, thank you,” she replied brightly. “I see you have brought a friend.”
Khloe was a petite woman who sheltered in her small, slender frame herculean strength and an unwavering will. With sandy blonde hair, a sharp and slightly long nose, and eyes so dark they were almost black, the nurse did not embody a staggering beauty, but that sincere ever-present smile of hers breathed a sort of radiant charm into her features that few people had.
She never complained and never let sadness creep past her resplendent grin. She was the sunshine in a facility where reasons for grief and despondency abounded, and because of that, she was Mom’s favorite nurse and therefore, mine.
“It was about time,” I said, glancing fondly at Charlotte.
She blushed, shaking Khloe’s hand more hesitantly than she usually did, and greeted her in a small voice that made her seem younger than she really was. I wrapped my arm around her waist and kissed her temple just as Khloe winked and opened the manor’s door to let us in.
“How is she today?” I asked, bracing myself for an answer that was not always favorable.
Khloe led us to the west wing where my mother lived with the sure step of someone who crossed the same distance on a daily basis. Her stride never faltered, and her smile never left her face as she answered.
“A little better than yesterday, but she is still rather agitated.”
It wasn’t uncommon for my mother to be agitated, but I still found myself asking, “Why?”
Khloe kept walking, but her features tightened, and the corners of her mouth dipped downward in a disapproving contortion that I had yet to see on her. My hold on Charlotte’s hand tightened until I heard her gasping. My heart started pounding a dangerous warning in my chest.
“Khloe, do you need to tell me something?” I demanded roughly, all but growling.
“Your father visited her yesterday morning,” she answered cautiously, her eyes shifting away before she could witness the rage that took hold of me. “Her disposition has been hectic ever since.”
My whole body turned to stone. Isaac and I had an unspoken arrangement. He stayed away from my mother, and I didn’t completely forget he was my father and make him regret the day he was born. He strayed from that arrangement now and then, and every time he did, things did not end up well.
Charlotte massaged my back, kneading knots out of stiff muscles. Gradually, my nerves settled, and my breath regained its normal, controlled rhythm.
“Would it be alright if we saw her?” I asked Khloe, and only when her soothing smile fluttered across her face, did I realize how nervous I had been.
Khloe placed long, bony fingers on my arm and ushered Charlotte and me toward my mother’s door.
“She loves whenever you come. It would do her good.”
“Thank you,” I sighed then looked down at Charlotte for confirmation that she was ready.
She smiled, a nervous tension etched on her features, but it was affection and enthusiasm that prevailed in her gaze. She tightened her fingers around mine and nodded bravely then turned to face the slightly open door.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Khloe said and hurried down the hallway that connected the west wing to the rest of the building.
Chopin’s Joie de Vivre flowed from wireless speakers placed all around the ample room. Mom’s chair faced the glass wall that looked over an English landscape garden, and her fingers moved slowly over the leather armrest, with the same grace I supposed she would have embraced if she had played the piano herself.
Where a door was opened, the curtains coiled and shivered as fresh, salty air filtered inside. Mom absorbed it greedily, with eyes closed and chin held high. If she heard our approaching footsteps, she made no gesture of acknowledgment. Sinking to my knee, I waited for the song to end then bowed and kissed her hand.
“How are you today, my princess?”
“Ma-argh-kus,” Mom croaked and smiled, and just like that, all the hurt and the anger disappeared.
Everything was peaceful and uncomplicated when we were together. I didn’t have to be strong or defiant or rebellious. I didn’t have to pretend when I was with her. I only had to be her boy. I only had to love her, and that was the only thing that came naturally. Or it had been the only one until my heart learned to love somebody new.
“Mom, I’d like you to meet someone.” I murmured and stroked her soft, ageless cheek. “She is very important to me, just like you are.”
I held my hand for Charlotte, who walked closer, one small step at a time. Her bottom lip was between her teeth, and her eyes crinkled at the corners with a cautious smile as I sat her on the cream leather footstool facing Mom.
The two women analyzed each other, chocolate eyes meeting hazel in a tangle of sifting glances. Eventually, their faces broke into genuine smiles. While they silently became acquainted with each other, I sat at their feet, marveling at their beauty and my good fortune of holding the affection of such angelic, softhearted women.
“I’m Charlotte, ma’am,” Charlotte said simply and covered my mom’s hands instead of a handshake.
“No,” Mom gurgled and gave a soft shake of her head.
Charlotte retracted her hands like something had burned her, and those soft brown eyes turned hurt and uncertain.
“No,” Mom repeated, glancing at Charlotte’s hands then at the quiver of her lips, which she disguised in a taut line that curved slightly downward at the corners.
When Charlotte looked at me for guidance, she looked so adorably clueless, that I almost bent to kiss the worry away.
“She doesn’t like to be called ma’am,” I explained with a grin. “And she doesn’t like that you let go of her hands.”
“Oh,” Charlotte breathed appeased and cupped my mom’s hands again. Mom smiled and blinked approvingly, and so did Charlotte.
“Jackie,” Mom instructed, with a wise look about her.
“Jackie it is then,” Charlotte agreed and stroked her hands like they had known each other for a lifetime.
Undoubtedly, Mom felt better. I could tell by the discreet widening of her eyes and her smiling mouth that remained mostly quiet, but in its silence, it still participated in the conversation. Those were little gestures, but they were indicative of her understanding what Charlotte and I so enthusiastically told her.
We gave her the edited account of how we met and what happened in our lives in the short time since then, excluding the part Kai had played that first Friday night or the treacherous waters we waded in because of Jack Stewart’s case.
“You look happy,” I told Mom after Charlotte and I finished our recount. Mom nodded slowly and pointed to me, which meant that she knew how happy Charlotte made me and in return she was happy.
Khloe came in just as the music stopped again. She went about her business as if nothing out of the ordinary was taking place, but as she administered Mom’s late morning pills and helped her sip from her mug of tea, I could see the furtive smiling glances she was trying to hide.
“All done,” Khloe said, fondly pinching Mother’s cheek. “Now, let’s brush this gorgeous hair of yours, Jackie.”
Mom stiffened and started shaking her head. Charlotte stood to her feet and intercepted Khloe.
“May I?” she asked, holding out her hand for the brush Khloe had just picked up from a nightstand.
“Of—course—” Khloe said, slightly hesitant, but definitely pleased with the outcome.
Mom and Charlotte smiled at each other, and I found myself turning away in an attempt to hide the raw emotion in my eyes. There was a tightness that clawed at my throat
and a heaviness that seemed to expand within my ribcage, but the sensation was not unpleasant. It was an aching kind of pleasure, an unbearable load of relief that came so unexpectedly that it proved to be overwhelming.
I fixed the audio system and replayed Joie de Vivre, Mom’s favorite, then leaning against a windowsill, I watched them.
“You are so very beautiful,” Charlotte was telling Mom.
Mom smiled wistfully. She directed her gaze out the window, out of the confines of her body, and back to a time when she was happy and glorious and extolled.
Charlotte brushed her long hair, touching reverently the white threads mingling with her thick, hazelnut curls. When she finished getting all the tangles out, she weaved Mom’s mane into an elaborate French braid that she tied with a lilac bow made of satin ribbon. Gently, she placed the braid over Mom’s shoulder and pressed a quick kiss on top of her head.
“Thank you,” Charlotte mouthed when I caught her eye.
“I love you,” I mouthed back, and she blushed then looked away.
Mom became sleepy soon after, and although she wasn’t quite pleased to see us leave, she grudgingly complied with her favorite nurse’s command. Khloe returned and shooed us as sternly but just as kindly as she had received us.
I was holding the door for Charlotte when her hand slipped from mine, and she took a step backward, closer to my mom.
“Can I?” she asked softly, a little uncertain.
I nodded although I wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do. Charlotte returned to my mother and knelt, cupping her cheek with a gentleness so immensely affectionate as if Jacqueline King was her own mother. She gestured and whispered animatedly but quietly enough so I didn’t hear a word. After a few moments, Mom broke into the most brilliant smile I had ever seen.
Standing and blowing Mom a kiss, Charlotte returned to me. A weight I hadn’t been aware existed lifted from her shoulders, and she seemed carefree as she walked by my side. Even the tense frown that used to knit her brows was gone, and her countenance resembled the sated look that danced on her face after we made love.
Darkside Love Affair Page 52
