Exiled (A Madame X Novel)

by Jasinda Wilder

  I am looking at you, though, Caleb. You stare me down. Stare into me. The pistol is held casually in your hand; you spin it and grip it by the barrel. Hand it to me.

  Back up a step. A second. Your gaze never leaves mine, Caleb.

  “You’ll never know, Isabel.”

  “What won’t I know?” I whisper the question.

  “What you meant to me. I told you that, once. I told you that I’m not the kind of man who can . . . express such things.” You swallow hard, Caleb. “I wish I were. I wish there were some way for me to make right all the ways I fucked up with you, for so many years.”

  “Caleb—”

  Into the rear passenger-side seat, through the still-ajar door. A last glance at me. At my belly. Brownbrown eyes, normally so flat and cold and expressionless, blink. Hard. As if seeing the child within my womb, as if seeing in a single glance all that could have been.

  And then you close the door, and Thomas puts the SUV into gear. Accelerates smoothly toward the exit.

  I do not know why I follow. Why I jog through the cloud of exhaust, pistol still held in my hand, a heavy weight, heavy with the knowledge of Len’s life cut short. Why I run out after you, Caleb, into the street. Cars honk, tires squeal. A voice shouts.

  I feel You behind me, taking the weapon away, wrapping Your arms around me. Pulling me away.

  I watch as you drive away, and I know it is the End. I know. I know.

  Good-bye, Caleb.

  A stoplight. A one-way street, three lanes abreast. In the right lane, a delivery van, white, featureless, old. In the left lane, a long black SUV. In the middle, an empty space. The Range Rover glides to a halt between the two vehicles. Idling at the light, waiting for the green.

  I’m about to turn away, as red flashes into green.

  I feel it first. In my bones, in my blood. A hum, a vibration. Followed half an eye blink later by a blinding white-yellow flash.

  WHUMP—

  BOOOOM!

  I am thrown backward by an invisible wall, by a hand snatching me in hot unseen fingers and hurling me across the road, to slam back against the hood of a cab. The wind is knocked out of me; I’m gasping, panting, trying to cough, to sob.

  You’re there, You’re hauling me into your arms, I hear nothing but a hum a buzz a ringing in my ears, see nothing but flames where the Range Rover used to be. The flames billow and ripple in slow motion. I see Your mouth moving, Your face obscuring my view of the burning wreckage. I see it behind You, though. Flames licking and flickering. Charred metal. Debris strewn across the road, chunks of burning cloth, twisted pieces, shattered plastic.

  “—Bel . . . Isabel?” You are shaking me. “Isabel! Look at me, babe.”

  I slide my eyes to You, to Your one eye, Your indigo eye. Then past, to the flames, the wreckage. Beside, to the left, the Suburban is on its side, windows smashed, metal charred. Someone is crawling out of the broken passenger-side window, bleeding from cuts to face and body. Someone rushes to help, hauls the person out of the car, helps them stumble away from the wreckage. A crowd is gathered, staring, pointing, chattering. Taking photos with cell phones.

  An oddity: The panel van is trundling around the corner. Vanishing. Unscathed. The white panels blackened a bit, but disappearing around the corner. I don’t know why I notice this, but I do.

  You lift me. Scoop me into Your arms, and I feel Your heartbeat. It is soothing, centering. I am dizzy. Disoriented. Ears ring. My face is hot, seared from the blast.

  Sirens howl, somewhere in the distance and getting closer. A fire truck, huge and red, is first on the scene, firefighters in full gear jumping out and springing into action, putting out the fire. More sirens, police cars probably and ambulances.

  I am settled into the passenger seat, buckled in. I feel the engine turn over. I am in shock, I think. Everything is slowed, my ears ring, my mind is blank, my heart numb.

  Caleb is . . . dead?

  The wrong way down the one-way street, far too fast.

  Around a corner.

  Another.

  Out the window, all is normal. Crowds cross intersections, carrying shopping bags and purses and briefcases. Couples duck into restaurants, examine menus posted outside doors. Cabs, yellow and myriad, ply the avenues.

  A woman, stopped at an intersection, waiting for the walk sign to light up. I play my old game, invent a life: She is still young, but older than me. Blond, beautiful. Wearing a skirt far too short, a blouse that hugs massive breasts. The blond hair is from a bottle, teased out, curled into ringlets. Wearing too much makeup. Wearing spiked heels too many inches high. A man approaches the woman from behind, waiting to cross the same as her.

  I create a romance for the two, staring at them out the window, still shocked, reeling, unfeeling, as You wait for the light. She is a stripper, maybe. Or a call girl. But she has a secret, a son at home. A little towheaded, blue-eyed hellion who is her whole world. She hates stripping, but she does it for him, to provide for him with the one resource she has. And the man approaching the same intersection, stopping behind the blond woman, the stripper. He stopped far enough away that he can stare at her. He’s a weightlifter, wearing track pants and running shoes and a tank top, despite the cool in the air. His arms are way too big, bigger than any man’s arms need be. He’s lonely. Spends his life at the gym, because despite his macho attitude, despite his massive physical presence, he’s nervous around women, gets tongue-tied.

  I imagine that the muscle-bound man finds the courage to say hello. And the stripper finds the courage to say hello back. She’s afraid of being seen as easy, because of how she makes a living, even though she’s not. She’s anything but easy, in fact. So she comes across as aloof, arrogant even. But she’s lonely, too. So she says hello. And they walk together. He asks if she wants to get a coffee or something. She discovers that beneath the rough, muscled, surly demeanor, he’s actually a sweet, thoughtful person. A hard worker, and willing to see her for who she is. Willing to see past the teased-out hair and skimpy, slutty clothes and the nights dancing naked for strangers.

  It’s a diversion, this fiction.

  Caleb is dead.

  Caleb is dead.

  I stare out the window and cry, silent tears sliding down my cheeks. I hide them, because I don’t think You’ll understand.

  I don’t think I understand.

  Caleb is dead.

  SIXTEEN

  I relive that explosion in my nightmares.

  Night after night, I feel the detonation. See the flames flickering hungrily.

  He had a lot of enemies, You tell me, in an attempt to explain it.

  It means nothing to me.

  Caleb is dead. I do not weep, after that moment in the car. I don’t know how. I think I have cried all the tears I possess. For you, Caleb, I do not mourn. I relive your death, over and over and over.

  And I relive every moment we ever spent together. All the moments I spent naked, waiting, coming, being taken, being owned, being used. Every moment where you looked at me in that inscrutable way you had, giving nothing of your thoughts away. How you would fasten your pants: left leg first, always, then the right. A slight hop to tug them into place. Button-down next, fingers nimbly fitting each button into place. Tucking the tail of the shirt into the pants. Zip, fasten, buckle the belt. It took less than a minute, all total.

  And then you’d be gone.

  And I’d be alone.

  Until the next time you showed up. At midnight, or between clients. Hands possessing me, as if my will had nothing to do with anything, as if my desires meant nothing. Stripping me, positioning me. On my hands and knees, or face to the window, as you were so fond of. On my knees, for a swift moment of oral pleasure, at the expense of my abused gag reflex.

  Day after day, night after night. I was your sexual possession. You rarely spoke to me, except to ord
er me to my knees, or to strip, or to go to my room and wait, or to tell me about the next client. We never just . . . talked. You appeared, commanded my body, and left.

  And my body obeyed. That’s what mystifies me, even still. That I always obeyed. That my body responded to your commands, that I seemed to have no will where you were concerned. As if you possessed some secret method to control me, to elicit responses from me.

  Am I mourning?

  Perhaps I am.

  I don’t know.

  I know nothing.

  Did you tell me the truth, that day in the empty building? Four years, three months, and nineteen days? Or six months? How old am I? Are the memories I’ve regained real? I remember sitting in the museum, in front of the Madame X, and then going with you to see Starry Night. I remember it. I feel it. The floor under the wheels of my wheelchair. The lights, dim, spotlights bathing each piece of art, islands of beauty in oceans of darkness. I remember you behind me, hands on the handles, pushing slowly. Pointing out pieces you know, telling me their names, carrying on a one-way conversation. Turning left, and then right, going down long hallways, and then finally coming to a stop at the Starry Night. I remember this. It is real to me.

  But it isn’t possible. The Madame X and Starry Night are at different museums.

  My memory is a lie.

  Humans can invent memories from whole cloth. We can convince ourselves a lie is truth, and truth is lie.

  So then, in the absence of memory, what do I believe?

  In the presence of contradiction, what is truth? You told me yourself, Caleb, that you lied. So then how do I know anything you told me, ever, is true?

  Am I even Isabel de la Vega? If you can create Caleb Indigo from scratch, could you have created Isabel?

  What if I am just some victim you saw, and wanted, and took? What if nothing I think I remember is true?

  Your name is Madame X. I’m Caleb. I saved you from a bad man.

  I own your past. I own your soul.

  You are mine.

  I am on the terrace. Hands on the grit of the ledge, staring out at the night, at the city as it breathes and lives and moves, reliving you, doubting you, doubting myself. Doubting everything. Doubting my name, my past, my memory.

  Nothing is real.

  Nothing is true.

  Then, oh, then I feel You.

  You lean on the ledge beside me, except You lean backward, ass to ledge. Cup Your hands around Your mouth, flick a flame into life. Smoke curls, billows. You inhale.

  You’ve left me alone, for the most part. For days. I’ve been ruminating and stewing and floundering for days. Lost in memory, lost in thought.

  “Enough, Is. He’s not worth this.” You speak the last sentence around a mouthful of smoke.

  “I’m doubting everything, Logan.”

  You tuck the cigarette into the corner of Your mouth, pull me to You. Cheek to chest, heartbeat under my ear. “Hear that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your heart.”

  “Exactly. My heart. And what is it doing?”

  “Logan, I don’t—”

  “What is my heart doing, Is?”

  “Beating.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” I wrinkle my nose in confusion, twist my head to look up at You. “What do you mean, why?”

  “Why is my heart beating, Isabel?”

  “Um, so you—”

  “For you.” An inhalation, cheeks hollowing, spewing a gray stream. “My heart beats for you.”

  “And mine for you, but—”

  “What’s your name? Your full name.”

  “Isabel Maria de la Vega Navarro.” I let out a shaky breath. “But he lied about so much, Logan. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “Believe that I love you. Believe that I love this”—You put your hand under my shirt, to the little bump—“this life, growing inside you. I love you for everything that you are. I fell in love with Madame X. I fell even more in love with Isabel Maria de la Vega Navarro. I fall in love with you every single day. That week in Spain, do you remember it?”

  “Of course! I’ll never forget it as long as I live. It was the best week of my life.”

  “Did it matter what lies Caleb told you, while we were in Spain? Did it matter what the truth was or wasn’t?”

  “No.” I whisper this, a tiny, heavy nugget of truth.

  “No, it didn’t.” You toss Your cigarette out into the street. “And when you wake up next to me, do you think of him?”

  “No.”

  “What do you think about?”

  I blush. “You. Us. Making love to you.”

  “Does it matter, then, what the truth is or isn’t?”

  “No.”

  “No. It doesn’t. You are Isabel. That’s the truth. You chose to be Isabel, to become Isabel. You chose to love me. You chose to let me love you. Now you have to choose to let go of the past. The past doesn’t define you. Our pasts shape us, Isabel. They influence us. Our pasts are part of us. Our pasts can inform our future. But our pasts are not who we are. You aren’t Madame X anymore. Maybe Caleb lied about how you met, how old you were, how long you were in the coma, who he was, all of that. Maybe what he told you was the truth, maybe it wasn’t. There’s no way to know. He’s dead, Isabel, and he was the only one who knew the truth. And you know something else? Even if he were still alive, I don’t think we’d ever know the whole truth about you, and him, and whatever else.”

  You tip my chin up with a fingertip. “And here’s the thing, Is: It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. Not anymore. Because you and me, honey, what we have is a beautiful future together.” You kiss my lips; I taste smoke, but it’s You, and I don’t mind. “It’s unwritten. We can make our future whatever we want. But to do that, you have to let go of Caleb, let go of Jakob, let go of Madame X.”

  I just breathe. I breathe in Your scent. Press my palms to Your chest, flutter them up to Your throat, feel Your lips, the stubble on Your jaw, bury my fingers into Your hair. I breathe You.

  Kiss You.

  Taste You.

  And in that kiss, in that taste of my lips on Yours,

  I kiss,

  I taste,

  I breathe in the future.

  With You.

  SEVENTEEN

  Two months after the explosion, our doorbell rings.

  I am reading; You are cooking.

  You answer the door; I hear murmurs, an unfamiliar male voice.

  “All right, come on in, I guess.” I hear Your voice, wary and cautious. “What is this about?”

  “I have to speak to Miss de la Vega, Mr. Ryder. I’m sorry, but I cannot divulge anything to anyone except her.”

  I am showing now. I have taken to wearing loose dresses and yoga pants with stretchy waistbands. I put my e-reader down, and wait. You appear first, casual and perfect in jeans and a tank top, barefoot. The visitor is tall and thin, slightly hunched, as if expecting a blow any moment. Balding, only a fringe of graying dark hair remaining. Dressed in an expensive three-piece suit, complete with a pocket handkerchief and a matching tie, and carrying a slim brown briefcase.

  I stand up. “I’m Isabel de la Vega.”

  A hand, extended. “Good afternoon, Miss de la Vega. My name is Michael Yancey Bowen. I’m a senior partner at Bowen, Brown, and Callahan.”

  “How can I help you, Mr. Bowen?” I put on what I think of as my Madame X persona, cool, aloof, superior. I have almost forgotten her, I think, and it is a relief to know I can still summon her indifference when I must.

  “My firm represents the interests of Caleb Indigo, and by proxy, the entire Indigo spread of companies.”

  “And again, how can I help you?”

  Michael Yancey Bowen glances at a cha
ir kitty-corner to the coffee table. “May I sit?”

  I gesture, imperiously, to cover the nerves I feel. “Please. Would you care for coffee or tea?”

  “No, thank you.” Michael takes the chair, sets the briefcase on the coffee table, and opens it with a flick of thumbs against latches. Withdraws a manila folder, turns it to face me, and sets it down in front of me. “As you may be aware, Mr. Indigo was an extraordinary businessman. He was extremely wealthy, and conservative with his wealth, considering the scope of his assets. He owned the high-rise here in Manhattan, a few vehicles, a private jet, and a small estate in the Caribbean. Other than that, there wasn’t much . . . except a startlingly massive amount of liquid assets in banks and tax shelters all over the world.”

  “What does this have to do with me, Mr. Bowen?”

  Bowen gestures at the manila folder and the small stack of papers therein. “The tower, along with all of his other physical assets, businesses, and subsidiary corporations, have been sold. He had no outstanding debt, so everything sold was at a rather tidy profit, and added to the already significant sum of money he possessed in movable liquid assets.”

  “Again, Mr. Bowen, what does this have to do with me? Spit it out. I have no time for wading through legalese.”

  Bowen gestures insistently at the folder. Withdraws an expensive pen from an inside suit coat pocket, taps the topmost paper. “Mr. Indigo had a standing will, which I personally drew up for him several years ago, and which he had me update four months ago. The update was simple, but sweeping.”

  The line Bowen tapped, near the bottom of the paper, is a number. A large number. Three commas between dollar sign and period.

  “One more time, Mr. Bowen; what does this have to do with me?”

  “The update made four months ago was to make you the sole inheritor to all of his assets upon his death.”

  “What?”

  “Once the tower, estate, and various businesses and enterprises were sold, the sum total to be distributed upon signature acknowledging receipt, is fourteen billion, eight hundred seventy-seven million, five hundred forty-three thousand, two hundred and thirty-one dollars and twenty-one cents.”