Rapture

by Sonia Icilyn

  “What do you have to be sorry about?” Avril snapped arrogantly, blinking hard as though she was trying to clear her head. “Your law firm is earning good money.”

  Dale chose wisely not to approach her. “I wanted to tell you last night, but—”

  “Last night,” Avril repeated, weakened. She held her stomach and paced the floor agitated, fighting for each vestige of breath. “I spent my night with the man who made love to me knowing that my lecherous, sorry-ass sister-in-law had not only slept with my fiancé, but birthed him a child and went on my honeymoon to celebrate her actions.”

  “Don’t make this about us,” Dale pleaded, taking several steps toward her.

  “Us!” Avril’s mouth crumbled on a flow of tears. “There is no us. How could there be? Tony already knows that the baby isn’t his, but this…it’ll destroy him.”

  “Are you going to tell him it’s Maxwell’s child?” Dale asked forlornly.

  “What choice do I have?” Avril yelped. She had got it wrong. So very wrong. It wasn’t Philippa at all She could hardly think. “His boss knocked up his wife and your law firm is protecting her. I’d say that’s why Tony didn’t get his job back.”

  Dale agreed. “Avril—”

  “I want you to leave,” she lashed out.

  “I’m missing a sock,” Dale answered, looking down at his feet.

  “You’ll be missing more than that if you don’t leave now,” Avril begged.

  Dale didn’t waste any time finding his shoes and windbreaker. When he reentered the kitchen, Avril was madly attempting to untangle her hair. He touched her shoulder, consolingly. “I’ll call you,” he said, clearly upset. “We’ll talk properly, when you’ve calmed down.”

  “Calm down,” Avril repeated. The anonymous note entered her mind like a virus and with it came a sudden bout of anger, one Avril knew exactly where to unleash. “I’m going to get dressed.”

  “Where are you going?” Dale asked, watching her march from the kitchen.

  “I’m going to go and find that hoe my brother got married to,” Avril madly admonished. “And you were just leaving.”

  Chapter 12

  Elonwy Contino was standing at the front door dressed in a severe blue cotton nightdress and holding a sleeping baby. Her expression conveyed a sense of vulnerability, but Avril was not fooled. Elonwy did not look the least bit surprised to see her.

  Earlier that morning, when she had been told the awful news by Dale Lambert, she had felt betrayed and hurt. Now, as she faced her sister-in-law at the house she was staying at in Streatham, London, where she was living with friends, Avril wanted nothing more than to confront the adulterer.

  She flashed Elonwy a hard stare, even while she could see by the shadows around Elonwy’s dark eyes that she was lacking sleep. Still, her heart did not mellow. She gazed at Elonwy as if taking her measure, determined she would not be swallowed by any lame stories.

  “You sent me the anonymous note, didn’t you?” she accused briskly. “‘Don’t get married today. Maxwell is the father of my baby.’”

  Elonwy nodded calmly. “Yes,” she said. “Maxwell’s baby is mine.”

  Avril heard the deep sigh that escaped her throat at the voluntary confirmation. “I haven’t come here to argue,” she began, noting how big Elonwy had become. “But—”

  Elonwy did not give her a chance to finish. “What do you want?” she demanded.

  “Good morning would be nice,” Avril started, her face a cool mask. “But I’ll settle for your version of what happened.”

  Elonwy looked pained. “Let me put the baby down,” she said, her arms weighted.

  “Go ahead,” Avril shrugged in agreement, refusing to look at the baby. “Put Cameron in his crib.”

  Elonwy smiled thinly with faint surprise. “You can wait in the lounge.”

  Avril followed her through and entered the small living room before Elonwy disappeared to see to her young infant. As her gaze darted from one item to the next, she saw the chaos around her. There were four bags of disposable diapers piled in a corner and a changing mat on the carpeted floor where a soiled diaper filled the air with a strong odor.

  Baby talc, a rattle, cotton buds, used white towels and a bottle of baby oil were equally scattered. And on the sofa, was a pile of freshly washed baby clothes ready for folding. The room hardly seemed big enough to accommodate the inventory which also included a stroller and a small rocking cradle.

  The contrast could not be more complete to her own orderly apartment. It quickly became apparent to Avril that this was Elonwy’s reality, one where the baby invaded everything and came first. Footsteps behind her indicated Elonwy’s arrival.

  She was still in her nightdress, with her short, red-dyed relaxed hair disheveled and her broad-shaped African features appearing fatigued. Avril had the thought that in her classic-cut black suit, white silk shirt, high-heels and her hair now tamed and pinned away from her face, she appeared too poised and elegant against Elonwy’s nocturnal demeanor.

  “Do you want something to drink? Coffee, tea?” Elonwy offered composedly.

  Avril had to hand it to her. The woman had guts remaining civil. “No,” she said flatly.

  Elonwy seemed taken aback. She rubbed her mahogany-brown forehead, weak and tired. “We can sort this out,” she began on an arbitrary note.

  “Really?” Avril asked, unconvinced. “Are you intending to get a new brain fitted?”

  Elonwy drew a deep breath. “You don’t need to take that tone with me,” she answered. “This is really nothing to do with you.”

  “Considering that the man involved was my fiancé, I’d say it has everything to do with me,” Avril fired back.

  “You’re no longer with him,” Elonwy reminded harshly.

  Avril barreled on. “Maybe not,” she admitted, “but your husband also happens to be my brother.”

  “Tony isn’t good enough for me,” Elonwy suddenly confessed.

  “What did you say?” Avril asked, appalled.

  “He’s not enough of a man for me,” her sister-in-law elaborated shamelessly.

  The blood drained from Avril’s face. “I know my brother can be difficult,” she remarked in truth, “but that was not reason enough to make a play on Maxwell.”

  “He was free and single at the time,” Elonwy challenged with not the slightest hint of remorse.

  “And you were married,” Avril reminded on a high tone.

  “I have a sleeping baby in the other room,” Elonwy cautioned flatly.

  Avril was galled at her using the infant as an impediment to their conversation, but she refused to keep quiet. “You were making plans with my brother,” she continued over Elonwy’s attempt to digress, “and played him like a fool.”

  Her sister-in-law folded her arms beneath her breasts. “And you were in love with Meyrick Armstrong,” she finished knowingly.

  Avril gasped. “What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

  “C’mon,” Elonwy seethed, unfazed. “The moment you started dating Maxwell, you were all over his brother. I saw it.”

  “When?” Avril demanded.

  “There were times when I was at Greencorn Manor, too, hiding upstairs in Maxwell’s bedroom,” Elonwy confessed. “Of course you didn’t know I was there. No one did, except Maxwell.”

  “But—” Avril was lost for words. “He sneaked you into the house, while I was there, while you were pregnant?”

  “Sometimes we were upstairs together, while you were downstairs giving your attention to Meyrick,” Elonwy continued on a placid tone. “It was pathetic that you didn’t pick up on what was going on.”

  Avril’s stomach churned at the game she realized that they must’ve been playing. “Were you in the bedroom when we were sleeping?” she gasped, making an extreme effort to remain calm.

  “I used to sneak out of the house by then, after taking care of my man,” Elonwy finished.

  “You dirty, little bitch,” Avril seethed, fancying th
e idea of hitting her. Instead, Avril arched an eyebrow, feeling the torment of the last few weeks rising up to haunt her. “I was faithful to Maxwell,” she insisted. “And don’t flatter yourself. I suspected something was wrong. Meyrick was a good listener and, yes, I admit I did become stupidly fond of him, but,” and she paused long enough for the hiatus to take effect. “I’m not in love with Meyrick, though I suspect you sending me the anonymous letter had nothing to do with saving me from marrying the wrong man,” she concluded. “My guess is that you wanted Maxwell for yourself.”

  “The moment you started dating Maxwell, I wanted him to tell you that I was carrying Maxwell’s child,” Elonwy explained with a steely glint in her eyes.

  “But you didn’t,” Avril said, recollecting her feelings of confusion. “And neither did he. In fact, he continued to lead me astray, even while I begged him to be straight with me. The fact that he was doing so and you remained quiet is deplorable,” she added, hoping to detect a small crack of guilt in Elonwy’s armor.

  But Elonwy seemed to be far from cracking. “I chose to buy you time to discover that you were in love with Rick,” she said lamely.

  “What you chose was to safely remain quiet because you didn’t want to lose Tony if Maxwell didn’t come running,” Avril corrected, cuttingly.

  “That’s not true,” Elonwy insisted.

  “Maxwell doesn’t want you,” Avril hit the nail home, finally. “He’s one of those men who, when they become a father, choose the worse of two ways. They either become more responsible, or irresponsible.” A hushed silence descended on the room. Two minds, sharing a single thought about one man.

  “I know that he proposed to you after he knew about the baby,” Elonwy said. “After our affair, but we never ended it.”

  “Even though you saw what he was like?” Avril reproved. “He wanted nothing to do with you or the baby,” Avril moved on. “In his head, it was probably some sort of game, like the risks he takes with people’s lives on a wager. You then decided to stop my wedding to try and force Maxwell into accepting his parental rights.”

  Elonwy tapped one foot profusely, suddenly realizing that the fantasy she’d shared with Maxwell was never truly real and could never be recaptured. “What do you want me to say?” she asked, cracking slightly. “I told him I was pregnant and my reward was hearing that he’d started dating you.”

  “And Tony suspected something,” Avril said, recalling her most recent conversation with him. “My guess is that you argued.”

  “He hit me!” Elonwy yelped, before putting a hand across her mouth as though the horrible truth should not even be spoken.

  “I’m sorry he did that,” Avril flinched, aware that she’d slighted her own brother for his actions. “But I supported you all the way and you weren’t even worth it.”

  Elonwy nodded sadly. “My momma always told me that if a man ever lays his hand on me, I should leave smoke.”

  Her pain bounced against Avril’s senses, but she could not ignore the facts that led up to Tony behaving the way he did. “You left so fast, we all saw the smoke.” She swallowed, her voice quivering as she remembered the tears Elonwy had cried when she’d gone to see her. “But it must’ve occurred to you that my family and I would ask questions eventually.”

  “Yes,” Elonwy nodded, the cracks beneath her armor now becoming more evident.

  “What hurts is that when I called you to invite you to my wedding, you said nothing,” Avril said, feeling fraught with residual emotions. “You allowed me to fret and worry about you knowing that you were betraying my trust. You allowed me to take sides against my brother, knowing you were pregnant with another man’s baby. And when you gave birth, we only got a picture, not even a name. Have you any idea how that makes me feel, knowing my own mother had to petition the courts?”

  Elonwy quaked at the evidence. “I was talking to my attorney by then,” she admitted, almost on a whisper.

  “Philippa Fearne,” Avril acknowledged. She wanted to tell Elonwy how she’d suspected this woman of being the mother of Maxwell’s child and how her suspicions had wrought her budding relationship with Dale Lambert. Instead, seeing no relevance in doing so, she pressed on. “You retained her services to sort this mess out, didn’t you?”

  Elonwy nodded, overawed. “I do care about your brother.”

  In the intricacies of the legal process, Avril could hardly imagine Elonwy thinking of Tony at all. While she had been devising revenge strategies to reign down on Maxwell after she’d jilted him at the altar Elonwy, on the other hand, had been trying to build an alliance with him, using their baby as the bargaining tool.

  The rewards Elonwy saw went far beyond money. It was about social grace and, as a Nigerian woman, acquiring a certain place within the African-Caribbean community. Philippa Fearne had had her innings. All that was wanting now was Maxwell’s cooperation.

  “If this is the extent to which you care,” Avril almost spat out, pausing slightly to let the sarcastic inflection sink in, “then you need to be certified—insane.”

  Elonwy took a moment to compose herself. “What are you going to do?”

  “I want you to tell Tony everything,” she said flatly.

  “I can’t,” Elonwy weakened, twisting her wedding ring with regret.

  “He’s lost his wife and his job—”

  “His job?” Elonwy interrupted.

  “Maxwell’s refusing to give Antonio his job back at Armstrong Caribbean Food Limited,” Avril revealed.

  Elonwy closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “I told him recently about Tony hitting me when I was pregnant,” she confessed, sorrowful at how the situation had now escalated.

  “With his baby,” Avril inserted, feeling a burst of anger. “That figures.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to tell him,” Elonwy persisted.

  Avril was amazed that there were no tears. No repentance. “I’m not going to leave it like this with my brother thinking he should take you back,” Avril said, rejecting her excuse. “If there’s one thing I know about Tony, he doesn’t like being made to look an idiot by anyone, especially a woman.”

  A pulse in Elonwy’s temple began to throb. “We don’t need to tell him who the baby’s father is, do we?” she pleaded.

  “Tony already suspects the baby isn’t his,” Avril disclosed. “He’s mentioned to me about having a DNA test. So if you don’t tell him the truth, I will.”

  Her intention was to scare Elonwy into confessing to her husband, but Avril was surprised when she merely gathered a second wind. “You wouldn’t dare,” Elonwy challenged instead.

  “Wouldn’t I?” Avril threatened. “Let me remind you what’s at stake here. This is not about you taking a vacation to the Mascarene Islands with Maxwell on what was supposed to be my honeymoon,” she began.

  “That was his idea,” Elonwy stammered, shocked that Avril seemed to know so much. “Maxwell wanted to talk.”

  “Nor is this about you being introduced to his family so that the Armstrongs could dote on their new addition,” Avril continued, ignoring the insertion. “Let me also not forget that Georgie Armstrong couldn’t even look at me when I saw him recently at the Amateur Tennis Awards dinner because he obviously knew you were my brother’s wife.”

  “Why would you care anyway?” Elonwy admonished madly.

  “I care because I know what this would do to Antonio,” Avril said, “To pull something like this on him when you have a christening coming up shortly would simply ruin him.”

  Elonwy shook at Avril’s overwhelming documentation of her shenanigans. “You know about that?”

  Avril nodded. “Yes,” she admitted firmly, sickened by the revelations. “You know, when you married Tony, I saw you as someone brave and courageous and wonderful, but I’ve obviously misjudged. Now, there’s a baby involved. You need to do what’s right for him if Maxwell is to have any visitation rights.”

  “Don’t turn this around to try and make me look anything less than a goo
d mother,” Elonwy said defensively. “If Tony had really wanted our marriage to work, he should’ve pulled his weight. I couldn’t go it alone, carrying us both emotionally. I’m the only one who tried. And you have no right to be here accusing me when you’ve betrayed Tony, too.”

  Avril was thrown. “What?”

  “I was staying at Greencorn Manor with the baby after Maxwell and I returned from the Mascarene Islands,” Elonwy breathed. “I was there introducing the baby and Meyrick told him that you’d met someone else. He heard it from Delphine, his fiancée. Apparently, she caught you and Dale Lambert kissing at his home.”

  Avril felt the rush of blood to her face. “I don’t see what that has to do with what’s going on between you and my brother.”

  “Oh, but I do,” Elonwy taunted, her face cool and unreadable. “Imagine how Antonio would feel to discover that you’re now dating Dale Lambert whose law firm was retained by me to sort out financial support for the baby with Maxwell. You know what Tony’s like. He’ll see it as you collaborating with me against him.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Avril responded, tight-lipped.

  “Maxwell and I have a mutual understanding of each other,” Elonwy said in desperation. “You know what that’s like, when you have deep feelings for someone, if not for Meyrick, then maybe for this Dale Lambert you’re with.”

  With a spasm of revulsion, Avril blinked. “You heartless cow,” she snapped. A wave of indignation swept through her. How dare Elonwy compare the sleazy coupling of her frail affair with Maxwell to her feelings, her passions and emotions for Dale. “I’m giving you one week to tell Tony.”

  “He’ll blame you, too,” Elonwy snarled.

  “Then, “ Avril returned, steadfast and harsh, “I’m not going to spare his feelings one bit.”

  The baby started crying, prompting her to leave. The last expression she saw on her sister-in-law’s face was that of a woman who had just been forewarned. Avril left with a sense of having put Elonwy in her place.

  Her heart thudded with total unease and resentment as she returned to her apartment block. The rancor was still with her as Avril took the elevator. She’d wasted half the morning talking to Elonwy instead of attempting to filter into the lives of her neighboring tenants for Reuben Meyer’s report.