He whispers the words like an answer instead of a question. I consider telling him that I’m not, that I’m just removing the goalie. But he’s not looking at me. With his jaw tight and his lips pulled into a hard line, he fixes on the garden table between us. When his eyes meet mine again he looks… lost.
“Congratulations,” he says clearing his throat. “I imagine Silas is thrilled.”
Nodding, I turn toward the door. Jeremy crushes the gravel as he follows behind me. We return to the lobby in silence and when I hug him goodbye, he barely hugs back.
“I’ll call when I know something,” I tell him.
He nods and swallows before he looks at me again.
“Bye, Sylvie,” he says.
“Bye.”
He disappears quickly behind the security doors and I wonder if some part of me had mentioned the midwives on purpose.
Chapter Twenty
My footsteps fall with a tinny thud as I walk down the hallway. The children are playing and laughing outside, just like usual, but the sounds around me ring hollow. Sylvie’s pregnant. She’ll never leave Silas when she’s carrying his child.
Finding myself back in the gym, I consider all the ways I could burn off my frustrations, my heartache, my anger. My mind spins with thoughts that I don’t want. Growling, I shove the metal tree holding the weighted balls and it flies across the room. The glass-shattering crash jars me from my fog as the balls bounce and roll away.
I stare at my fractured reflection in the broken mirror that lines the gym wall. Calm. Dark. Quiet.
“JB?”
Turning to the door, I see Jim surveying the damage I’ve done.
“I’ll pay for the repairs,” I say quietly.
Jim scoffs.
I squint an eye at him as he shakes his head.
“Things are always that easy for you,” he says. “It’s always just a matter of money or time before you have things the way you figure they oughta be.”
I don’t respond so he rolls closer and continues.
“I was coming to apologize for my outburst. I wanted to tell you that I was upset about my… losses… and that I know better than to direct my anger in destructive ways.”
Glancing around, he snorts.
“You still haven’t figured out the most important thing about being here yet. You’re leaving in a couple days, but you’ve missed the whole darn point. Maybe someone like you could never understand the things that are so obvious to the rest of us?”
Jim pivots to turn away but I walk closer and he pauses. He looks back at me and our eyes meet.
“What’s the most important thing?”
His face softens as he turns back to face me.
“Not taking anything for granted, Jeremy. For some of us, it’s an easy lesson. But for someone like you with your rich family and your fancy degrees, and your miraculous recovery… you wear your privilege like a second skin. You don’t even know it’s there.
“You think the rest of us can afford to bash up a room because our ex-girlfriend won’t leave her husband? You think you’ve lost everything. That everything has been taken from you, stolen even. But look down, Jeremy. You’re still walking. You’ve got a whole world of opportunity wide open for you and you’ve got a son, a healthy, happy son who you have a chance to get to know now. You get to be a part of his life. You shouldn’t take any of it for granted.”
The shame heating my face makes me want to defend myself, to tell him that he’s wrong. But that would be a lie. I have no recourse against the truth. So I hold his gaze until he turns and rolls away.
I don’t know how much time passes before Clint walks into the gym.
“Are you alright, Mr. Bradford?”
Glancing around the room, I nod.
“I apologize for the mirror, Clint. Please charge me for the repairs. I’ll pay extra to get it fixed quickly. I know a lot of people depend on using this space.”
“I’ll take care of it, Mr. Bradford,” he says. “But Silas Chambers is here for you.”
Groaning, I rub the back of my neck. I’d been so ready to see Silas, but now I just want to send him away. Thinking again, there are some things I want to say to him.
“Thanks,” I say as I move into the hallway.
When I reach the front, Silas is waiting.
Suited up and ready for a cold war, he meets my gaze.
“Jeremy, how are things this morning?”
Opening my mouth to offer the requisite ‘fine’ I can’t bring myself to say it.
“Let’s walk, Silas. You have things you want to say and so do I.”
With a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, Silas nods.
“Lead the way.”
The long path around the garden follows the rocky shoreline well beyond the STC property line. The sunlight glints off the bay waters just beyond. Boats dot the blue-green waves in the distance and the air is heavy with fog. We walk until I can’t see anyone and then Silas begins.
“Jack Moore came to see me last week,” he starts. “We had a talk and he’s ready to step down whenever you want your office back.”
Squinting at him, I tilt my head.
“You came here to talk to me about office politics at the company I fucking own?”
“No,” he answers. “I came to try to remind you that things moved forward without you while you were gone, but you still have your place in the world. You still have your career and now you have a son who wants to get to know you. I’m not trying to get in your way. You and I don’t need to be at odds.”
His face is sincere but guarded and we both know why. He wants what he’s saying to be true but it isn’t. An hour ago I would have argued the point, but there’s no use now. I look out into the bay and take a deep breath, letting the salty air sting my nostrils.
“Silas,” I start, ready to tell him that he was right. Knowing that she’s carrying his child is enough to make me rethink everything. “Look…”
But he cuts me off before I can say anything more.
“I want you to know that I am sorry for my part in how this all played out, Jeremy.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I drill into him with my eyes and step closer.
“What exactly are you sorry for, Silas?” I ask, renewed suspicions surging as my mind churns. “What was your part?”
Taking a deep breath, Silas ignores my question and continues.
“I won’t apologize for falling for Sylvie and I won’t apologize for marrying her and I’m not going to apologize for defending my marriage. But I understand why you’re so ready to fight for her, for both of them.”
I exhale the distrust nagging at me. The whiplash of conflicting impulses makes me want to go back to the gym and pound the wall until I can think straight again. I don’t want to listen to his whole speech. It’s not necessary anymore. I’m not monster enough to try to get between him and the woman carrying his child.
“Silas, Sylvie was here earlier…”
“I know. She told me she was coming, just like I’ll tell her I stopped by to see you today. We don’t keep things from each other, Jeremy. We don’t have that kind of marriage. So if you think that you can dredge up some old secrets and use them to…”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Squinting at me, he tilts his head.
“Jeremy, I get that you want her back, but the last thing she needs is you taking the carefully maintained life I’ve built for her, for my family, and turning it into a messy chaotic nightmare. You could harm her in ways more severe than you can imagine.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Do you know how I met my wife?”
I’m not eager to hear the story of their meet-cute, but I answer anyway.
“Noah told me that Bruce and Sharon asked you to pay her to disappear. They didn’t think Levi was mine.”
“Not only did they think he wasn’t yours, they didn’t believe Sy
lvie was pregnant. Did Noah tell you what she wanted from them?”
“No.”
“Bird whistles,” he chuckles. “All she wanted was to get your things from your apartment. She said there were a few personal items she wanted: Clothing and books, a scrapbook she’d made, and she wanted your bird whistles. Bruce and Sharon locked her out of your apartment as soon as you disappeared. They had her stuff packed up and sent to her work.”
“How did they even do that? She was living with me.”
“She wasn’t on the lease,” he answers. “I convinced the landlord that the family should maintain control of the apartment until you came back. Your parents were convinced that she wanted money, so they sent me to find a price and get her to sign an agreement to stay away from the family”
Swallowing, I wish that I’d been there for her. She’d had to handle so much alone.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I knocked on her door. Bruce and Sharon are prone to exaggeration, but the way they described her… well, I wasn’t expecting Sylvie.”
He smiles in a way that is not directed at me and I want to slug him in the jaw. Reminding myself that he has information that I need to hear, I clench my fists at my sides.
“Her eyes were swollen when she opened the door,” he continues. “She had a pink nose and she was clutching a box of those organic corn puffs. Her hair was a mess, curls flying in every direction and all she had on was this long blue satin robe. I made a fool out of myself when she opened the door. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.”
I remember that robe. I remember her slipping it off before she crawled into bed with me every night.
“When she excused herself to run to the bathroom, it was pretty obvious that Bruce and Sharon were wrong; she was pregnant. We talked for a long time that first day. I told her who I was and why I was there and she just burst into tears. She asked me to leave but I couldn’t leave her that way. She was too busy running to the bathroom to put up a fight. I found some soup in her kitchen and got her to eat a bowl. When she threw that up I made her some tea. She eventually told me that she wouldn’t go anywhere near Bruce and Sharon again, even if it meant not having anything of yours for her baby. She said she had her photos on her laptop and a few other things and that would be enough.”
Pausing, he looks at me and shakes his head.
“They were awful to her. Another lawyer wouldn’t have helped them drag her through hell that way, but I didn’t know who I was hurting at the time. I was just doing my job.”
Sneering, I bite my tongue. Silas clearly has more to say.
“My sister told me that when she was pregnant she drank kombucha to help with the nausea,” he says, “so I bought Sylvie a case and dropped it by the next day. A few days later, I dropped off some of those corn puffs that she was eating. Then chocolate a few days after that. I couldn’t stay away from her. After a couple weeks I was just coming by every day for an hour or so. I’d bring her dinner. Sometimes I cooked. We talked about everything.”
“Mostly,” he pauses and turns to me, “she talked about you. How much she missed you. How much she loved you. How she was searching for you and how she feared that you’d run away and left her and the baby behind. She was heartbroken.”
Something about the bitterness in his voice brings me a fucked-up sense of satisfaction. Lifting my chest, I fight the urge to ask how the fact that Sylvie loved me so much might make me decide to let her go. But he continues before I can say anything.
“One day, I dropped by at the usual time and she didn’t answer the door. I knew she kept a hide-a-key on top of the hallway light so I found it and let myself in. She was face down, passed out on the bathroom floor next to a tub filling with water.”
Silas has my full attention as he tells me that he’d called 911, administered CPR, and waited for the ambulance to take her to the hospital.
“The doctor said she was exhausted, dehydrated, anemic, and her blood pressure was dangerously low. He said the pregnancy and the stress of your disappearance had exacerbated a pre-existing arrhythmia. It makes her heart beat too slowly sometimes which makes her hands shake. It can also cause low blood pressure and make her pass out.”
“Is she… is she going to be alright?”
“She’s fine. She didn’t have any more episodes after that day. But I kept thinking that if it’d happened when she was in the bath instead of beside it, or if the water had overflowed and covered the bathroom floor.… She would have drowned. I couldn’t let that happen to her. I convinced her that she had to stop looking for you and take care of herself and she did. I made sure she had everything she needed. And after a while she… she let me take care of her. And since then, she’s been mine, both of them have been my family. And I take care of them. I’ve protected her from your parents. I got her a service dog. I hired a full-time nurse to be with her at the house.”
“Is it that serious?”
“Sylvie doesn’t think so, that’s why she doesn’t take the dog everywhere or keep up his training the way she should. And the nurse is technically our housekeeper.”
“And now that Sylvie’s pregnant again, you’re worried the arrhythmia might flare up?”
Silas’ eyes narrow and he stares at me for a long minute.
“Sylvie told you she’s pregnant?” he asks.
“Is it a secret?”
He tongues his molars and tilts his head.
“It’s private. And I would appreciate you keeping it private. Sylvie doesn’t need any extra stress or drama. Not now. Not ever. It’s not good for her.”
Stepping closer, I lift my chin.
“I would never do anything that would harm Sylvie or Levi,” I tell him.
“Then we understand each other?” he asks.
When I don’t answer right away he leans in and drops his voice.
“I will protect my family by whatever means necessary, Jeremy. Don’t ever doubt that.”
“I don’t,” I tell him honestly. I lean in and let all of my resentment flood my voice. “I will never harm Sylvie or my son, but they’re my family too, Silas. Remember that.”
He snorts, licks his teeth, and rocks back on his heels. Shoving his hands into his pockets he shakes his head and walks away.
“How could I forget?” he mutters as the water laps at the rocks below.
Chapter Twenty-one
Driving into the mountains, I imagine what it must have been like for him all those years ago. He was hurt and alone when they found him. How did he end up so far from home? Why wouldn’t he call me and tell me were he was going?
“Sabrina, my best friend from college, grew up around here,” says Phoebe. “She spent her summers in high school working on a vineyard. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“I guess?” I mumble, too lost in my own thoughts to consider what a ‘fun’ high school job would have looked like.
“Did you have high school jobs?” she asks.
“Not exactly,” I tell her, as the guilt and confusion driving me to focus on Jeremy give way to the sadness and resentment that accompany discussions of my youth. I’d spent my afterschool time and summers doing whatever my foster parents bidding might be. Most of them called it doing my chores or earning my keep but it was basically slave labor.
“I worked at my aunt and uncle’s printing shop,” she says. “They made signs—mostly for real estate and builders. They did tee shirts too. It was really fun working there.”
“I imagine it could be nice to work with family,” I reply.
Phoebe is uncharacteristically silent, but it takes me a bit to realize why. Glancing over to the passenger seat, I see her guilty expression and I chuckle.
“It’s okay to talk about your family, Phoebe. I didn’t mean to sound bitter. It really does sound nice.”
“I just don’t want to… rub it in or whatever. Immy says I shouldn’t blurt out everything I’m thinking like a jerk so I’m trying to be
more… circumspect.”
“That doesn’t sound like Immy.”
“Well, I guess her exact words were something like,” lowering her voice and slowing her speech in an imitation of Imogen she says “‘Phoebe, maybe a more mindful approach to choosing your words would serve you better?’”
Laughing, I nod at the impersonation.
“THAT sounds exactly like Immy. But you weren’t being a jerk. Just because I don’t have any family or childhood friends doesn’t mean you can’t talk about yours. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to make friends. I was just moved around so much that I couldn’t.”
“How come you don’t have friends from college?”
I smile at Phoebe’s characteristic bluntness. She’s never really had much of a filter and that’s why I asked her to join me today. She’s a person who bathes in honesty and she can sniff out a lie from miles away. It’s her superpower.
“By the time I got to college, I’d given up on making friends. I mean I liked a fair amount of my classmates and we even hung out a bit, but I guess I just didn’t see the point in keeping in touch.”
“My therapist would call that an attachment disorder. Maybe you should talk to her about that. Though, I guess you got over it because you keep in touch with me.”
Her bright smile makes me laugh again.
“Well, having a baby changes everything.”
“Yeah, when things get rough, you need your friends.”
“You know, I think that Jeremy was the first real relationship I’d ever had. I mean… I think he was my first friend.”
Phoebe goes silent again and my sideways glance finds her literally biting her tongue. When I quirk up an eyebrow, she exhales.
“Okay. I know I’m not supposed to say this. I was at your wedding and Silas clearly loves you, and he hasn’t done anything wrong, and I know we should all be cheerleading your very moral and loyal decision to stand by your vows and all that, but…”
Keeping my eyes on the road, I brace myself for what’s coming next.
“Sylvie, isn’t Jeremy the love of your life or something? Should you really be dismissing the idea of being with the father of your child?”
Everything Stolen Page 11
