Right now, however, I am on the stage, staring into a cluster of media microphones and video cameras, trying to fight down the panic. This is high profile. The whole city is watching. Much of the world, in fact. Something about it has caught the public’s attention. Something about me, really. I’ve become sort of a media darling, the amnesiac who spent six years not knowing who she was, my former life and profession as Madame X—now that you have passed, Caleb, many of your secrets have come out—and my romance with Logan, my lovely heteropaternal twin babies, who are the sweetest of siblings under most circumstances, inseparable most of the time. And then my creation of The Indigo Foundation, using a colossal, exorbitant, unbelievable fortune for philanthropy, that really caught everyone’s attention. I used it all, the attention, the media. Used it to leverage donations, to snag doctors willing to spend a day or two every week in the clinic, nurses willing to come in after their normal shifts and spend a few hours. The outpouring of support has been overwhelming, honestly, both for MiN and for The Indigo Foundation, and for me personally.
But right now, all I know is that I have to make a speech.
“I was lucky enough to have my husband with me,” I start out, “when I had my babies. I didn’t do it alone. Logan was there every single step of the way. Attending doctor’s visits, helping me with the nursery—by helping, I guess I mean doing everything by himself because I was too pregnant to move. He was there for me. But not everyone is that fortunate. And that realization is what led to the creation of Mothers in Need. I thought one day about what it would be like to have to go through a pregnancy—an admittedly unexpected pregnancy, with twins no less—alone. How impossible that would have been. How impossible it would have been to juggle doctor visits with work. Assuming medical care was even a possibility, you know? I’d already found out about the money I was to receive, and I already knew I wanted to do something with it. I knew it wasn’t money I could ever keep for myself. But I didn’t know where to start. There’s so much to do, so many causes in need. I’ve got pages full of ideas and projects and charities I intend to help. But where did I start? When I had that realization, about the impossibility of going it alone as a pregnant woman, I knew instantly where to start. So, after I had my babies, I got started. And now, a year and a half later, here we are, about to cut the ribbon. Although, I have to say, even though this is the official grand opening ceremony, we’ve already been hard at work. Drs. Minksy and Hartzell have both donated many hours of their time this past week in the clinic, over a hundred appointments taken between them just in the last seven days. I’m proud of Mothers in Need, proud of everyone who was part of making it a reality. Especially Mike, Jimmy, Abe, Luke, Danny, and the rest of the guys from McAskill Builders for working so hard over the past year to get the center built. Couldn’t have done it with you, guys, so thanks. But most of all—Logan, my love . . . thank you. For supporting this crazy, over-the-top project of mine so fully, even when it seemed like it was overtaking your own work. To all of you who came out here today to support our opening, thank you.”
Cameras flash, and the clamor begins.
I manage to avoid too much direct media attention after that, but near the end of the party, a reporter manages to corner me, camera pointed at me, light blinding, mic in my face.
“Isabel, can you tell us what’s next, now that Minnie is off the ground?”
“Minnie?”
The reporter grins. “It’s what everyone is calling it.”
“Minnie. Huh. I like it. So . . . what’s next?” I know the answer to this, because I’ve been working on it as the final details of MiN got ironed out. I smile, breathe, focus on projecting calm. “A project I’m calling A Temporary Home. Similar to what we’ve done with Mothers in Need, I’m planning to buy a building somewhere in the city—I haven’t even really started looking yet, so don’t ask where—and it’s going to be a resource center for the homeless, for runaways, for victims of domestic abuse, for anyone who needs somewhere to sleep and the resources to improve their lives. There will be support staff, clinicians, a detox facility, a food pantry, therapists and psychologists and social workers, a warm bed to sleep in . . . whatever other resources I can wangle and cram into the space. Basically a safe, welcoming environment where you can get your life back on track.”
The reporter, a beautiful young Asian American woman, pulls the attention of the camera back to herself. “I don’t mind admitting, there was a time in my life when I could have used a place like that.” A pause, and then a bright smile, focus turned back to the cameraman. “Well, there you have it, from Isabel Ryder herself. A Temporary Home, coming soon to New York. I can tell you I’ll be making donations, and I hope everyone tuning in will too. Jake, Alessa, back to you in the studio.”
The light turns off, the camera is lowered, and the reporter seems to wilt, the bright energy when faced with the camera dissipating. The young woman takes a seat on a nearby stoop, microphone still in hand.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
A shrug. “I was homeless for a few years, when I was a teenager. I was a runaway, bad home life, the usual. I got lucky, scored a job flipping burgers, just because the manager happened to be a decent dude. I worked my ass off, slept in an alley, and washed up in the bathroom before my shifts. I worked while being homeless for another year before I was able to score a little place of my own. And I worked my ass off to get where I am. But . . . I could have used a place like A Temporary Home back then. Would have been nice to have a bed to sleep in, somewhere safe to take a shower, you know?”
“That’s why I’m doing it, and why it will work,” I say. “Because people like you will step up and help out, because they’ve been there. And if you’ve been there, you want to help others who are going through it.”
“Exactly.” A bright, gorgeous smile. “So when you get that place going, let me know. I’ll do a piece on it. And I’ll probably volunteer, honestly. I remember being in that place. And almost as much as you need a bed and a roof and a meal, you need someone to talk to you like you’re just a normal person, instead of seeing you as a damn charity case.”
“See, I wouldn’t have thought of that. That’s why we need people like you.” I hand the reporter a business card for MiN—Minnie, I guess. “You can volunteer now, if you want. The women going through there, they’ll need someone to talk to as well, you know.” I gesture at the center.
“Maybe I will.” Another of those smiles, and then the reporter and camera are gone, on to the next story.
And You’re behind me.
Handing me Camila, who immediately pats my face with both hands, hard, laughing. “Mama!”
“Hi, baby girl.” I kiss her cheek, splutter, making her laugh.
And then she’s babbling at me, pointing, wriggling to get down. I set her on her feet, let her take my finger in her little hand, and let her pull me across the street, through the crowd, toward a stand set up by a nearby bakery. There are muffins, donuts, croissants, loaves of bread, other assorted goodies.
And my sweet little Camila, she’s just like her mother. She has a bit of a sweet tooth. She’s hopping up and down, a little unsteadily, jabbing her whole fist at a banana muffin behind the glass, shouting something that sounds not entirely like “banana muffin.” There’s both too many syllables and not quite enough, but when I ask the kid behind the counter for the muffin, Camila goes haywire, reaching for it, trying to climb up my leg for it, shouting and laughing.
While Jakob sits on his Daddy’s hip, waiting. He doesn’t say a word when I hand him a piece, just shoves it into his mouth. But his smile, the look of contentment, the joy, it’s thanks enough.
And it’s still all you, Caleb.
He looks so much like you, more so every day. It’s an eerie resemblance, honestly. Anyone who knew you would instantly recognize you in Jakob.
But in his mannerisms, in the way he’s so laid back, w
illing to go with the flow, easy to please, he’s very much his daddy’s little boy. So You were right, my love. He is all ours, Yours and mine. Completely, utterly, ours, even if I do see you, Caleb, in him, and even if it does cause the tiniest, vaguest, most distant little pang of something sharp, way down deep inside me. A little something, a pinch. A reminder, is how I think of it.
A reminder of where I’ve been, what I’ve gone through to reach this place. What has occurred to provide me with this happiness, the daily joy.
To be able to wake up next to You, every single morning. To lie down beside You every night, to feel You, to taste You, to have the privilege of loving you, it is a joy.
To kiss Camila and Jakob, to bathe them, change them, chase them, discipline them when they have tantrums, to love them, to be their mother, it is pure joy.
Even at three in the morning.
Even when You and I are in the middle of loving each other, and the monitor crackles with the howl of an unhappy baby.
It is still joy.
And that ache, down deep inside, it is a reminder that, perhaps if you hadn’t taken the time to mold me, to feed me, even to lie to me about who I was, perhaps I wouldn’t be here. You could have left me alone in the hospital. But you didn’t. So for that, I am thankful.
For giving me a chance at life, even if it was, for a long time, on your terms, I am thankful.
For life,
for love,
for family,
I am thankful.
INDIGO
I watch you, Isabel.
You’ll never see me.
You’ll never even smell me; I am invisible. I am no one.
I am a ghost; I am the past.
I am not your future, not your present; I am nothing.
I am a shadow in the alley as you move from the now-darkened MiN center to your car—a gorgeous little Mercedes-AMG GLE63 S Coupe. I am the prickling on the back of your neck as you push the ignition. The shudder down your spine as you drive home, back to him, back to them.
Back to Jakob, my son that is not mine. My son that will never know my name, never know my face.
I watch him too. I watch him sleep. He sleeps soundly, without tossing and turning. Camila is the opposite, restless, frenetic, kicking blankets away, twisting in her crib like an alligator with jaws clamped around an antelope.
I am free, is what I am.
Death has freed me.
I am not really dead, of course; that was all an elaborate hoax to convince you and the world that I do not exist any longer. An elaborate and necessary hoax. I couldn’t let you go. I couldn’t.
I tried.
Again and again, I tried.
I fought it.
I would walk away from you, I would let you go, and I would find myself outside your door in the dim gray of not-quite-dawn, fingers curled into claws, a pistol in hand, lock pick in the other. Ready and able to jimmy those flimsy locks in no time flat, sneak into your home, and put a slug into Logan’s head, end him for good, and take you away.
I had it all planned out.
A little needle in your neck, and you’d be out. When you came to, we’d be in Antigua, a little place I have there, bought off the books with a tidy sum of very well-laundered cash. You’d be naked on the beach, blindfolded, and I’d wake you up slowly.
With my tongue.
I dream of it, even still.
Ghosts can dream.
Especially since I am a ghost in spirit only, still a very real and alive creature of flesh and blood.
But I am a ghost, and so I dream of you.
Getting you alone.
Appearing in front of you, whispering your name, breathing in your scent.
I stood in an alley one night, slunk back in the shadows waiting for you to pass. And you glided right past me, flats patting softly on the sidewalk. You passed by me, and of course, of course you had no reason to even look up from your phone, no reason to look my way, to my little patch of darkness near the Dumpster, with its rotting garbage and scurrying rats and scuttling roaches.
But I caught your scent.
I caught a glimpse of you, a shred of you. You had on a dark coat, leather, slim, cut to fit you perfectly, and beneath that a knee-length skirt of white cotton. And Isabel, that skirt, it is gorgeous on you. Motherhood and happiness have made you more lush and lovely than ever. Your ass in that skirt was a delectable sight, a mouth-watering temptation. God, Isabel.
Isabel.
If only you knew.
If only you had any clue how much I love you.
How much I have always loved you.
If only you knew how I followed you, all those years ago, as you sneaked out of your parents’ house to go get in trouble with that girl from your history class, to smoke cheap weed and watch movies too old for you. What would you say if you knew how many times you’d have been kidnapped and raped and killed, had I not been there, following you, a naïve, innocent, careless little girl. But I was there. And when you finally bumped into me in that fucking stupid café, it was my nightmare, my downfall, and my wildest dream come true, all at once.
If you only knew, Isabel.
How I held so much in check, to keep you innocent.
How I paid your father’s gambling debt, and erased any evidence of it.
How I made sure the handsy and harassing manager at the hotel your mother worked at—my hotel, which I owned—was fired, and taken care of, so your mother wouldn’t have to endure the embarrassing and fruitless and potentially job-hazardous process of reporting harassment in the workplace.
If you only knew about all the times I saved you, and you didn’t even know.
You were nearly run over by a taxi, once. And I literally knocked you out of the way, made it look like an accident. Took the impact of the taxi’s bumper to my own leg. Limped for a month. And you never even looked up at me, or if you did, you didn’t really see me.
And when you did, finally, see me in that café, Isabel, you became obsessed. More so than I, I thought.
You would have run away with me, if I’d asked.
You would have let me fuck you in the alleyway.
You would have gone to your knees and choked on my cock, anywhere, anytime.
But I refused to speak, refused to lift a hand, because if I spoke too much, I would demand all of you. If I stood up, if I touched you, if I so much as caught a hint of your scent, I would have taken you for my own, sixteen or not, innocence be damned.
I hated myself for that, Isabel. Another truth you will never know. How I loathed and despised myself for being so addicted, so obsessed, so infatuated with a mere slip of a girl.
But, fortunately for you, I did possess enough control to keep you out of my clutches. Because you deserved better. I hated myself for wanting to sully you with my filth.
Do you know, Isabel, how I punished myself for that evil desire?
Hours upon hours spent alone, walking the sidewalks, hungry, tired, alone, so that I would not go home and into my bathroom to jerk myself off thinking about you. About your sweet, silky, dusky skin. About wrapping your long thick ink-black hair around my fist and fucking your mouth, over and over and over. About bending you over my bed and fucking you from behind.
About all the ways I could fuck you, own you.
Those hours on foot, I hated you for them. I hated you for making me want you so badly.
A mere slip of a girl.
An innocent little thing.
So unaware of the beast lurking just behind her.
And here I am, Isabel, become that monster in the shadows once more.
You know what I find surprising, Isabel?
How blind you are to my constant presence in your life. I am always there, somewhere. You could see me, if you were looking. But you think me dead, s
o you do not.
I follow you.
I watch you.
I am possessed of infinitely more power and control than when I was an ignorant twenty-five-year-old. So you’ll never see me. Never smell me.
I’ve had a taste of you now. I’ve sampled you, licked you, devoured you . . . owned you. Now I know what it’s like to have you, and I want you all the more for it.
I’ll never emerge from the shadows to haunt you and taunt you.
But I’ll dream of it.
I’ll hide in the darkness and watch your perfect round ass sway and bounce in that fucking white skirt and dream of when I owned that ass, when I could hold it and slap it and spank it and fuck it to my heart’s content.
And I’ll dream of you having the slightest clue how much I love you.
How much I need you.
How I died to give you up.
How I gave you my fortune, the fruits of my blood and sweat, the product of twenty years of work. I gave it to you.
I died for you.
And still I cannot truly walk away.
You once said, Isabel, that I was a drug and you were an addict. But you had it backward. I am the addict.
I was a coke fiend, once. Back when I was a whore. I snorted coke and smoked meth and injected heroin, anything to numb the biting fangs of horror, anything to numb the slice of the claws of hell. I hinted at it, there at the end, and you shied away. Turned away.
I was screaming, Isabel, and you didn’t see, didn’t hear. I was begging. Pleading. I was mad with need for you, ripping myself apart for you. And you turned a blind eye.
Walked away.
Went back to Logan.
Left me to fall to pieces, alone.
You were my undoing, Isabel.
You could have saved me. Salvaged me, a piece of me, at least.
Your love could have patched the many holes in my soul. Perhaps your touch could have lit a candle to banish some of the darkness within me.
Exiled (A Madame X Novel) Page 25
