She hugged him long and hard back and was so grateful for his continued friendship. She needed a friend right now. While she was in the hospital, when her mother would come to visit, she would come by with the latest news and let Amber know that Victor had gotten remarried. “How’s Josie?”
Victor let go of her still smiling, “She’s great, she’s due in two months.”
Amber stared at him agape and managed a small smile, “Really? So you’re gonna be a father again?”
Victor shoved his hands down his pockets and took another peek at Peyton, who, by this time, was hiding behind his mother’s leg completely, “Yeah, we’re having a girl.”
Amber’s heart swelled up, “That’s wonderful Victor, I’m really happy for you.”
“Thanks Amber,” he said honestly, looking completely at Peyton now. “And this must be…”
Amber didn’t hold Peyton up this time to show him off but rather just let him linger around her leg a few more seconds. She did however run her fingers through his head of hair. “This is Peyton.”
Victor let his smile drop; let the recognition sink in and then caught Amber’s eyes beginning to swell up. “What’s the matter?” He finally asked at last.
Amber stared at him again. Should she tell him? Well, it was the reason why she was there in the first place! “Do you have a moment? So we could talk?”
“Josie went to the market; she’ll be back in about half an hour…is that enough time for you?”
“All I need is ten…”
*****
Victor went to go and answer the door again. He wasn’t surprised actually to see his brother now on his front doorstep. He still looked the same, damn him, and Victor didn’t greet him with a smile, but rather a drawn out glare.
“I’m here for Amber.”
“She’s not here,” Victor just relayed, admiring his woodwork on the door he had sand down last weekend.
“Don’t play stupid with me Victor, her car’s outside.”
“Don’t try to bully me Eduardo,” Victor bit back, “Your presence doesn’t frighten me. I’m your brother, I see right through your high and mighty act. We used to wear the same K-Mart shoes you and I, or does your Harvard brain seem to forget about all that?”
Eduardo allowed the insult to roll off his hundred dollar shirt, “Where is she?” He let go exasperated.
“She’s with our kids.”
That hurt. He knew Victor maliciously didn’t mean to say it the way, but Eduardo just felt like Victor just cut his heart out. Knowing that his brother had her first always seemed to injure his soul. “I’ll wait for her.”
“They went to the park, it’ll probably be awhile.”
Just then, a car pulled up in the driveway and Eduardo watched it come to a halt and a pregnant woman exited out of the driver’s side carrying a grocery bag in her hand. She stopped short of entering, stared at Eduardo and Eduardo in turn, stared back at her. Eduardo turned to his brother, “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
Victor noted his wife’s reaction to him; she was obviously entranced by his facade. Fuckin Eduardo, he wished that he’d just have an accident already and disfigure his face. “So she can fall in love with you too? Com’on Josie, just walk around him.”
Josephine Sanchez walked around her brother-in-law, but her eyes never wandered off his gorgeous face.
“Whether or not you believe it Victor,” Eduardo said, gazing away from his wife now entering under Victor’s protective arm. “Amber is my soul mate, so if you want to go on believing that I stole her away from you, then you’re disillusioned.” He stopped abruptly when Victor crossed his arms across his chest. “Why in the hell is she here anyhow?”
“I’m her best friend,” Victor quickly reported.
“Her best friend? I’m her best friend.”
“You can’t even be a husband to her.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“She told me about the other woman Eduardo—I told you if you ever tried to hurt her or use her, I would fight to the death to protect her, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“She came over here distraught and crying—she doesn’t even look the same anymore! Even I knew she went through a complete transformation once she tasted alcohol, why the hell didn’t you? What the fuck are you doing over there Eduardo?”
Eduardo stared at Victor who suddenly got the better of him, “How convenient for you to continue to play the martyr. You don’t know the truth. I told you I would never use her, she’s mine and I always take care of what’s mine.”
Victor laughed, “Does that line really work? Cause it smells like bullshit to me.”
“I don’t care what you think, I love Amber.”
“But you’re attracted to Stacey Somers, aren’t you?”
Eduardo’s heart sunk. Good God, he knew? His little brother could always read him. Eduardo wanted to lie but figured what’s the use. “Yes.”
Victor tsked at his older brother. “Always the same womanizer—you know I’ve stood back and watched you in action? Envied you on how easy it was to get any woman you desired; average, sweet, incredibly gorgeous, young, older, flawless women, your entire life. And not once have I ever seen you appreciate what you had...until you slept with my wife. See, I know what you have now, there’s no more begrudging Eduardo Sanchez...I know what it’s like to hold her, to kiss her—” Imagining his wife lying down with his little brother thoroughly undid him yet again. Eduardo cut him off right away, “Are you done yet?”
“Why, the truth hurting you Eduardo?” Victor spitefully spewed out. “I had her first estúpido! You don’t even comprehend what you have big brother! You don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. Desaparecido, vanished.”
“Shut the hell up Victor, you don’t know what went on between me and her...you might think you know, but you don’t.”
“Have you had sex with her yet?”
“Who? Amber?”
“Stacey.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“By you stealing my wife, you’ve made it my business.”
Eduardo looked his little brother up and down. Couldn’t believe he was still at his mercy. “I’ll just wait in the car.”
“Yah, you do that, run away, get the hell out.”
Eduardo turned to really look at Victor. His little brother, the little pain in the ass that he always tried to hide from…the little annoying kid who was now all grown-up. Eduardo didn’t know whether to keep arguing with him or give his little brother a high-five for effort. “I’m sorry Victor.”
Victor bore into his brother’s eyes.
“You know something Eduardo? I’ve come to terms with it. Oh yah, I was upset in the beginning, I even hit you in the knee with a baseball bat, recall that? That’s how mad I was at you for taking her away. But later, I realized that she must have always loved you, and that’s what really hurt the most. Because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that you two were always together. Sitting next to each other, walking together, laughing, swimming in the pool, she was always following you. She’s never given me that much attention,” he hooted, “and we were married!”
Attention? Yah, he had that right. Eduardo was always trying to gather up Amber’s full attention, “So what advice can you give me?”
Victor looked away from him and across at Eduardo’s fancy car. “I may have been a little blind…or maybe it was just that I trusted her so much to allow her to spend so much time with you, but I remember when there was once a time the two of you were just friends. Do you remember that?”
Eduardo did remember that. All those years...how many were they again? Ten—ten painstaking years of wishing and yearning to kiss Amber, hoping that she’d notice that he had been in love with her and to have her act on the attraction, “Yah, I remember.”
“So she needs a friend right now.”
Eduardo shoves his hands down his coat
pockets. “A friend?”
“Yes, a friend, shit, why does it have to be all or nothing with you? If you think about big brother, this is really the hardest relationship you’ve ever had.”
Eduardo gulped...again, he was absolutely right; school, grades, money and especially woman were effortless to him. Relationships, appreciation, empathy...those were difficult for him to always achieve. He had to get Amber to stop drinking. Could he do it? “Victor, do me a favor?”
Victor started to snort, “A favor? That all depends.”
“Don’t tell her I was here. I’m going home.”
Victor wanted to continue talking to him really. He missed their conversations with one another. He missed...his older brother—period. His marriage to Amber had been over years earlier even before they began having their affair. He knew there had been something wrong in their marriage, Amber felt reserved even when he touched her back in high school and saying ‘I love you’ had always been so difficult for her to admit.
Chapter FIFTEEN
It was midmorning and Amber was outside in her backyard in the hot summer sun trying to work on her tan. She was in her bikini and was rubbing tanning lotion all over her skin. Conveniently next to her was also a bottle of SKYY Vodka—quickly becoming her liquor of choice—along with a champagne glass filled with cranberry juice.
Peyton was not too far away, only about twenty yards or so kneeling in the gated sandbox his father had built for him and every now and then, he and Patience tried to do something funny that would normally put a smile on his mommy’s face, but mommy continued to be sad. He tried everything to make Amber laugh, but mommy still looked gloomy.
Amber was in total anguish. If her husband was attracted to a new conquest then that meant that Amber was no longer the woman he desired. She wasn’t all things to him anymore.
Peyton was laughing and playing with all his pretend patients while Amber continued to drink, her mind wandering off to a private lonely sector; a place where she could escape from today and back into the past when Eduardo once loved her and his thoughts weren’t preoccupied with this new blond and she closed her eyes trying to wish it true when she popped them back open within hearing the pool man’s whistling. Gazing over at him, the fella entered through the squeaky entrance pool gate. She gave him a friendly wave, and he back at her.
Dustin Jacobs, aka Dusty Denver, was an out of work adult film star, angry and preoccupied. He was thinking too much about his girlfriend who dumped him last weekend via text message and forgot the water chemistry kit he left back in the truck.
Inside the pool area and lounging already on the deck, was Mrs. Sanchez stretched out on a wrought-iron chaise longue chair, looking mighty fine, slim and put together. She looked amazing in her tight-fitting Aqua bikini over bronzed skin, so sun-kissed, so do-able and tempting. He lusted after her for a few more moments when he noticed that she was wearing a mismatched top and bottom and looked as if she were about to pass out. He’s seen her like that before and shook his head from the waste and placed his net and pool pole down to go fetch the chemicals.
Meanwhile, Peyton watched the pool man wander away and out of the gate when Patience sprung to attention within noticing him too and darted off toward Dusty to greet him. Peyton dashed right after him and managed to grab the puppy right before he got a taste of freedom and gave him a choke hold while he headed back to the safety of his sandbox.
“Bad poppy,” Peyton scolded him, watching the dog’s ears lower down in submission. Patience laid down all of one second when his vision caught hold of something calling him to the water. Being energetic and eight months old now, Patience didn’t like being cooped up very long and decided to run away again, only this time toward the pool area where a floating tennis ball, bobbed up in down in the water.
“Patience,” Peyton screamed and ran after him. The puppy dived into the water and dog-paddled its way toward the ball and Peyton immediately thought the puppy was in trouble and jumped in after him.
Peyton knew how to swim—mommy and daddy had been sending him to the YMCA for swimming lessons—and Peyton swept his way toward the puppy that was still dog-paddling its way en route for the ball. Peyton finally reached the puppy at last and yanked him by his collar. But on instinct, the puppy’s back legs circled around and Peyton was too small and too inexperienced to properly control the rescue and the puppy ended up unintentionally dragging the boy down as it began its descent toward the steps of the pool. Peyton’s head submerged instantly, but then his little body popped back up again only to surrender to his modest arms that gave way to all the energy that was being expelled to breathe. His arms were failing fast as he struggled to keep up, but his efforts were unmet and Peyton dismally succumbed to the trouble.
Amber at first woke up from the screaming; a high-pitched shriek that was painstakingly hurting her ears. It was Mrs. Lopez…and that noise was coming from her? Amber noticed her on the other side of the pool—not in it, but beside it—with her hands to her face, screaming and carrying on, making a fuss about something…but, why?
She was only gone for five minutes! She only went into the house to get the boy some sun-screen, when Mrs. Lopez noticed the puppy drenched from being in the water and then observed a dark object at the bottom of the pool. A fright so intense, spread through to her skin, “Ah mi dios! Mi bebé de piscine! El bebé!”
In doubt, her body froze and not two seconds later, Amber watched Dusty come out of nowhere and dives into the deep end. Did he even ask to go swimming—how rude of him, she thought as she found her feet at last to stand up to follow his path in the water. Her heart dropped and in slow motion, Amber watched Dusty as he suddenly came up to the surface with an obvious bundle inside his arms with what looked like…a body?
OH MY GOD!
Amber collapsed to the ground almost immediately. Her intoxication along with her over exertion caused her to faint within viewing her little boys’ dead body.
Mrs. Lopez finally turned around to find Mrs. Sanchez passed out on the concrete; she then gazed around to watch Dusty as he tried to retrieve Peyton by administering First Aid.
The little boy was pale and blue on his chest, face and lips. He was not breathing, there was no pulse and he couldn’t feel a heartbeat. Of all the days! Of all the Goddamn days! Between breaths, Dusty voiced, “Call an ambulance!”
Mrs. Lopez’ feet wouldn’t move! Her shoes felt heavy and plastered to the ground but she nodded her head from the instruction and ran into the house as fast as she could where she dialed 9-1-1 and then sadly for Mr. Sanchez.
Eduardo was in the middle of a meeting with Stacey, Philip, Gordon and Martin. His face went white with alarm within hearing the news; at first, he choked back tears then five seconds later, ran out of the office to throw up his lunch.
Chapter SIXTEEN
Eduardo met with the Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney at his office first before heading off to visit the Los Angeles County Coroner. Amber was at home however, but on the verge of being charged with child neglect and child endangerment.
In the past, Eduardo had worked with the district attorney over the years and had many friends and associates within the city. His familiarity with the municipality and his personal association with the District Attorney himself gave him partiality. Without a doubt, Amber would have been taken into custody immediately to be arraigned. But since Eduardo Sanchez, Esq. was already a public figure, his reputation spotless, the Deputy District Attorney and the City of Los Angeles decided not to file charges against his wife; cause of death was ruled an ‘accidental drowning’.
Eduardo came home with hollowness in his heart and pain so extreme; the circumstances could never be really healed. Seeing his little boy naked and flat, motionless and unresponsive on that cold impersonal tabletop at the morgue all but broke his spirit to live. It was heart-wrenching to say the least and no parent should ever have to make funeral arrangements for a child.
Broken Obsession - Part Two Page 10
