Swiveling on her heels, Sylvie turns her attention to Noah.
“You said yesterday that you hadn’t heard anything! You’re a liar!”
“Sylvie, no,” says Noah.
Carter approaches with a wheelchair that must have been collapsed in the trunk. I sit and watch my brother try to explain.
“When I saw you yesterday, I was on my way to Bruce and Sharon’s. When I got there I overheard the call from the hospital. I had the bike so I beat the doctor there. I tried to call but I got ahold of Silas instead of you…. We were trying to protect you. Jeremy just woke up yesterday.”
“Woke up?” she asks, her eyes jutting between me and my brother. “You were…”
“In a coma,” I answer.
The pain that twists her face is like a knife in the gut; I want to hold her, to comfort her.
“You were in a coma, all this time?” she asks.
“The doctors didn’t know who he was,” explains Noah. “He didn’t have any ID when they found him.”
She doesn’t look at him as he speaks. She only has eyes for me and I can’t tear my gaze from her. She’s wearing knee-length tan shorts and a loose button-down shirt. I don’t remember her wearing anything so casual outside of the house. Her brown curls are piled onto her head in a messy bun. She’d never worn it long enough to put up that way before. But she’s a mother now. I’ve missed so much.
Yet somethings haven’t changed at all. She still carries her small frame with the same quiet dignity. The planes and curves of her gentle features still create a beguilingly beautiful visage that is so uniquely her. I recall studying her features trying to guess at her heritage.
I never asked ‘what’ she was; I wanted to know ‘who’ she was. When she explained to me that she was abandoned as an infant with no clues to her parentage, I was glad that I hadn’t poured salt in the wound of her missing identity. Whenever someone asked me if she was South Asian, or Hispanic, or Brazilian, or mixed. I always told them the same thing, the same thing I told Bruce and Sharon when they asked. She’s American, just like me, and I love her.
“The doctors at the hospital say they’d never seen someone wake up from a coma after four years,” Noah adds.
She’s barely listening to him. She studies me instead, drinking me in the way I’ve been devouring her image from the moment she approached the house.
“Nothing else would have kept me away from you, Sylvie.… Nothing else would have kept me away from our son.”
Her eyes flash with recognition.
“You, you know about Levi?” she asks.
“Noah told me yesterday. I saw a picture. He looks… really happy.”
“We take good care of him,” Silas cuts in. “He has a family who loves him. He’s always had everything that he needs.”
He moves closer to Sylvie as she wraps her arms around her middle and shivers. She looks away, eyes searching for the middle distance of the suburban dreamscape. His eyes bore into me. When I’d arrived at the house, he’d asked me to leave right away.
“I know that to you, it feels like she’s still yours, that just a few days ago, you were planning a life together. But that was years ago. She had to move on. It nearly killed her, but she’s happy and healthy now. I love her. I take good care of her. She always wanted a family and I’ve given her everything she ever dreamed of. Do you want to be the one to tear it all away?”
Do you want to be the one to tear it all away? Her chin quivers as she wipes away her tears. She shakes her head, warring with herself. Looking closer, I can see her whole body trembling. Silas sees it too and he winces. He steps closer and strokes her hair. She exhales and leans into his touch as her eyes fall closed.
As angry as she was with him a few minutes ago, she still lets him comfort her. Watching them together breaks my heart. She has moved on. He does take care of her… and my son. I swallow and clear my throat.
“I’d like to meet my son,” I say.
Sylvie’s eyes blink open and she opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Not today,” I add. “It’s been a… a big day already. But maybe in the next few weeks?”
“Sure.” Silas nods, relief washing over his face as he begins to stroke Sylvie’s arm. “I’ll be in touch and we can set something up. He’s seen pictures of you and Sharon and Bruce tell him stories. He’ll be really glad to meet you. I’ll call in a few days.”
Turning to her, I don’t know what to say. I want to tell her that she was the first name on my lips when I woke up, that I love her.
“You look good, Sylvie. I hope to see you again soon.”
Taking a shaky breath she smiles.
“I’d like that.”
Time slows again as we look into each other’s eyes. I don’t want to look away. I don’t want to leave her. She breaks eye contact first, pinching her eyes closed as if it hurts her to see me any longer. He steers her toward the house and she lets him. I follow her movement as Carter wheels me back to the car. She glances over her shoulder just as she slips from view, disappearing behind a carved glass door.
Noah climbs into the limo with me, but I don’t look at him. I don’t need to hear what he has to say.
“I’ll come back later to pick up the bike. It’ll be safe here.”
I don’t answer. I watch the tree-lined streets pass by as I try to gather what’s left of my shattered hopes.
Chapter Ten
The house looks smaller. The air is stagnant and the ceiling feels much lower than its twenty feet. The door bangs shut behind me and I cringe. Even the curved walls bordering the foyer appear closer than they had just a few hours ago. Standing just inside the doorway of what is arguably more properly described as a mansion, I remember the first time Silas carried me over the threshold.
* * *
We were only a week away from our wedding and I was nervous. He asked me to meet him for lunch at a new place and sent our sitter over to stay with Levi. I was considering calling the whole thing off. I couldn’t stop thinking about my son’s father. My hands shook in the car. I was expecting a restaurant, but when I got to the address it was a house instead. He stood, under a massive portico which covered oversized French doors, arms crossed with that cocky grin.
“This doesn’t look like a restaurant,” I teased as I closed my car door.
“Well, Mrs. Chambers, looks can be deceiving,” he’d replied, sweeping me up into his arms.
Before I could protest, he carried me into the house. He gentled me to my feet in the marbled foyer.
“Not bad, huh?”
Hands on my shoulders, he kissed the top of my head as I looked around.
“Ah, it’s terrible,” I joked. “This restaurant doesn’t have any food.”
“Check again.”
His eyes twinkled as he led me to the massive kitchen. In the center of the dining area, a marble and wrought iron kitchen table was set with our wedding china and crystal. He helped me into my chair and an older woman with soft tan wrinkles placed a crab cake salad in front of me.
“Mr. Chambers said that crab cakes are your favorite, Mrs. Chambers,” she said in a gentle Latin accent. “I am Paloma, Mr. Chambers hired me to take care of your new home.”
Looking between the two of them, I laughed.
“You’re kidding. This place is enormous. It’s too big for just the three of us. And it’s so… ostentatious. Why can’t we just live at your place? Your townhouse is beautiful.”
“Well, hopefully, it won’t be just the three of us for long,” he said.
We’d already had this conversation more than once. The fact that he wanted more children was one of the reasons my feet were chilly. I started to remind him that I wanted to wait to talk about more children, but he rushed ahead.
“Baby, there’s lots of natural light, a beautiful garden in the back, and a great neighborhood to walk Oscar around. Besides, this place is closer to Levi’s grandparents
. All of them: Bruce and Sharon, and my parents. I know that you feel guilty that Levi will never know your family. I know you don’t like to talk about growing up in the system. But I want you to know that our children will be surrounded by love. They will never be alone and neither will you.”
My chilly toes warmed as he spoke. That was the moment that I fully committed to my life with Silas. Knowing that he understood what mattered most to me melted my every inch.
* * *
It’s been almost two years, and I’ve never doubted my husband’s intentions to do what’s best for me and for my son… until today. When Silas places his hands on my shoulders and kisses the top of my head, I shrug him off and step away. Glaring, I search for a hint of guilt or remorse in his pale eyes. His jaw clenches but his face is impassive.
“You’re not even sorry, are you?”
Lifting his chin, he sucks on his bottom lip and his eyes narrow.
“Are you going to divorce me?” he asks.
The question throws me back a couple steps. Confused, I shake my head.
“Is that a ‘no’ or was my question unclear?”
“I don’t even know how to begin to think about answering that question. I’m so mad I could just…”
I end with an exasperated growl and he arches an eyebrow. He’s got his lawyer face on and—not for the first time—I pity the slobs who have to face off against him. No wonder his clients pay him crazy money to work the law in their favor. When he steps closer to me I don’t know if I want to hit him or hug him. I’m panicked and vulnerable, more confused and alone than any time since those first months when Jeremy disappeared and I realized I was carrying his child. I hate that I can’t run to the person who’s been my rock for the last three years.
“You could what?” he asks gently. “What do you want to do now?”
He drills into me with eyes that demand an answer. My husband towers over me, so close but for the first time, we’re not on the same side. That’s when I see it; I see him. I see that look in his eye that no one else would recognize. I’ve only seen it once before. He’s scared.
That day—the last time I saw him this way—I woke up in the hospital plugged into machines that beeped and hummed. He stood over me, stroking my cheek and telling me everything was going to be okay. But he looked so uncertain, so vulnerable. That was the only time I’d ever seen fear in the ice-blue eyes of the indomitable Silas Chambers. Before today.
It all clicks together: Silas taking the day off to pack away Jeremy’s things, the man who never begs pleading for me to tell him I no longer loved the father of my son, the desperation in his kiss when I refused his advances.
“You thought I would leave you as soon as I found out he was alive?”
A glaze coats his eyes and his nose flares, but he doesn’t break eye contact.
“Is that what’s happening?”
My heart aches and a lump forms in my throat. I’ve imagined Jeremy returning to me so many times and in so many ways but the fantasy always ended with the relief of seeing him again: knowing he was still alive, hearing that he loved me, seeing Levi with his father, being with him again, having everything just as it was before.
Looking into the eyes of the man who’s cared for me and protected me, the husband who has loved me and my son for years, I see that everything I imagined was only a fantasy. The romantic notions to which I’ve been clinging were never grounded in more than a few months of infatuation. What Jeremy and I had—that nascent taste of immaculate, resplendent love—can never be patched back together. Not just because I vowed to love another man, but because I meant it.
Tilting his head, Silas grimaces at my lingering silence. His eyes are glassy and his breaths are short.
“Are you going to leave me, Sylvie?” he asks again.
“No,” I answer and he squints as if he doesn’t quite believe me.
“No,” I insist, offering him as much reassurance as I can with only that single word and my eyes to communicate my loyalty.
My hand cradles his face and he closes his eyes to enjoy my fingers brushing his stubbly jaw. We stand that way for a long time. Breathing together, bound. Husband and wife.
He straightens himself after a while and takes my hand, pressing a kiss into my palm before he squeezes it between both of his.
“I made lunch,” he says. “We should talk.”
I nod and Silas leads me into our kitchen.
He tucks me into the table and hands me a plate of hummus and sliced veggies. I’m not hungry but I want to eat everything. I want to fill the pit of emptiness that’s hollowed out my insides. So I eat. We both eat. Our deafening silence fills the kitchen with an odd kind of quiet.
“Where’s Oscar?”
“Paloma took him to the dog park. She must have heard the excitement and taken him away for a bit.”
“Oh.” I nod and continue eating in the laden silence.
“Are you going to go see him?” he asks.
“Of course.”
The swiftness of my answer surprises even me. I can’t offer Jeremy my heart the way I had the last time we’d been together, but he’s still Levi’s father. He’s still… Jeremy.
“When?” Silas asks.
“I don’t know. Soon?”
Sipping his water he watches me suspiciously.
“You still don’t believe me?” I ask. “You really think I’d just… what kind of person do you think I am, Silas?”
“I think that Jeremy is Levi’s biological father,” he says. His voice grows quiet when he adds, “and I remember you telling me that you would do anything to be with him again.”
“Silas, that was years ago! I was obsessed with finding him. I wiped out my savings to have an investigator search for him. I personally went to every hospital within fifty miles of his office.”
“I remember,” he says, swallowing. “I remember the nightmares that used to keep you up at night. I remember the panic attacks that made your whole body shake for hours because you wouldn’t risk harming Levi by taking your meds. I remember you lying in a hospital bed telling me that you would never stop loving him.”
Looking away, he exhales. I squeeze his hand with mine.
“Things are different now.”
“Are they?” he whispers.
I don’t think he’s really asking me and even if he were, I don’t have a better answer than the ones I’ve already given. His whole body is tense as he chomps on his carrot. The grind of his jaw betrays all the anxieties he’s failing to hide. I’ve told him that I’m choosing him and I can’t vacillate if I want him to believe me. Biting into a zucchini stick, I claw for some way to ease his fears. If I want to secure my marriage, I need to put to rest any lingering doubts about my intentions toward Jeremy Bradford.
“Let’s go away,” I propose.
He sits up straighter and meets my gaze.
“You want to go away with me, now?”
“Yes, I want to take Levi out of school for a few days and go to the beach or the mountains or someplace where the three of us can be alone. We can tell him about Jeremy coming back and you and I can… focus on what’s next.”
A hint of a smile plays at his mouth and I nod. When he stands and moves closer, I rest my head on his hard abs.
“I have a few things to wrap up at work,” he says. “But I could probably get out early tomorrow. You’re serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. I’m not going anywhere, Silas.”
Looking up, I try to beam my intentions into him and I think he understands. His jaw throbs as if there’s something else he wants to say, something he wants to tell me, but he doesn’t speak. I rest my head on the strong center that has shielded me from so much hurt. My husband strokes my arms with hands that have served me and cared for me and brought me so much pleasure and love. He holds me tighter, reminding me of the most important truth about Silas, the truth that makes my choice so certain. He’s h
ere, relentlessly, devotedly, always here.
Chapter Eleven
The foamy splash crashes against my sun-soaked skin and I yelp. Taking a breath of salty sea air, I press forward, deeper into the cool water, enjoying the way the sand feels between my toes.
“Mommy!” calls Levi, giggling as I make my way through the waves. “That was a big one!”
Raising my hand to shield my eyes from the Santa Barbara sun, I smile at the image of my son comfortably seated on Silas’ powerful shoulders. They both welcome me with smiles as I wade deeper into the ocean and the waves break gently against our bodies.
“Your mother’s tougher than the biggest wave, son,” Silas says when I reach them.
“You’re so high, sweet pea! Are you having fun?”
“So much fun! I can see everything. I like being big. You look small from up here, Mommy.”
I wiggle his toes and laugh, but Silas shakes his head.
“Don’t underestimate your mother. She maybe small, but she’s stronger and smarter than anyone else.”
“Stronger than you?” asks Levi.
“Much stronger than me,” he answers.
Silas winks at me and I plant a kiss on his chin.
“Here comes another big one!” calls Levi.
Silas and I jump to keep our heads above the wave and Levi giggles with delight from above. The three of us play in the rippling afternoon tide and I hear nothing but the caw of the gulls and the laughter of my family.
Hours later, I’m sitting under an umbrella while Silas helps Levi construct an elaborate sand structure at the edge of the tree line. Kayaks dot the water and a large golden retriever sniffs at a lump of seaweed before she moves on. I flip my phone in my hand and contemplate calling Noah. He’d left a message asking me to call him back, but I’ve been putting off the call for days. He wants to talk about Jeremy and I have no idea what to say.
I want to savor this uncomplicated time, this moment of quiet before I have to face the messy reality of Jeremy’s return home. My son’s squeal draws my attention and I turn to see Silas pouring water into the moat surrounding their castle. Levi claps and jumps up and down.
Everything Stolen Page 5
