by Hanna Peach
Back home I’d sometimes hear the wives giggling to each other about their husbands. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I saw what all the fuss was about. I understood the first time could be painful. Maybe I should reserve my judgement until Drake and I had sex a few more times.
When Drake exited the bathroom he was fully dressed. I sat up in my bed, clutching the sheets around me. He walked to the bedside and placed a kiss on my forehead. “Goodnight, Riko.”
He wasn’t staying? What did I do wrong?
I watched him exit my bedroom, leaving me alone, with only a tender spot between my legs and a girlhood lost to remind me he had ever been here.
7
The next morning, a dull soreness reminded me of the loss of my virginity. I got out of bed and opened up my curtains. Through the thick branches of the tree at my window, the day was bright with a few scattered clouds. I was about to turn around when a white fluttering square at the corner of my window caught my eye.
It looked like a piece of folded paper. I slid open the window and retrieved it before it was blown to the wind. It was a note, my name written across the front. From who?
I opened it.
If it is secrets
That you want to know, then in
The garden, find me.
K
K. It must be from Keir. My pulse skipped a beat. The format of his note was strange. And yet…familiar. Almost like a poem.
It was a poem. It was a haiku, a form of Japanese poem made up of only three lines with a certain number of syllables in each line, namely five-seven-five.
Keir wrote me a haiku. It wasn’t a very good haiku, but still.
He asked me to find him. He promised to reveal Drake’s family history. Did this mean he wanted to be friends now?
What would he tell me? What was the secret?
I dressed quickly and left my room, pausing at the top of the stairs to stare at the darkened west wing. I repressed a shiver and quickly made my way down the stairs.
* * *
I couldn’t find Keir anyway. He wasn’t in the gardens; not in the lily garden, not in the Japanese garden, nor the shed, not anywhere. I had wandered around for hours. My palms were itchy, and frustration soiled my mood. Maybe he wasn’t in the garden.
Or maybe I missed him? Maybe I should look again?
Or maybe I just needed a cold shower and a good distraction. I headed back inside the mansion to my room.
On my way back I spotted Celeste dusting one of the main living areas as I passed, the only other soul I had seen all day. I had this odd feeling that the staff was avoiding me. I was probably just being silly.
I paused in the hallway. Celeste might know where Keir was.
I walked back to the doorway. “Celeste?”
She spun towards me with a start. “Sorry. You startled me. I didn’t expect…” She straightened and cleared her throat. “Can I help you, miss?”
“I was just going to ask… Never mind.”
“Are you sure?”
I lingered at the doorway. “It’s not important. I don’t want to bother you.”
“It wouldn’t be a bother.” Celeste smiled at me. It was shy yet friendly.
“It was nothing really. I just wanted to ask one of the gardeners to show me the gardens but I couldn’t find any of them.”
“Fernando should be out there somewhere.”
“I did look but I couldn’t find him.”
“Oh. Maybe he’s out on an errand.”
“What about…the other gardener? The younger one?”
“Keir’s not working today.”
“Oh.” I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “I guess he’s off the grounds, is he?”
“He’s where he always is on his days off.”
“Where’s that?”
“The gym in the west wing of the mansion.”
“If it’s his day off I shouldn’t bother him though. It’s not important. I can wait until tomorrow.” I thanked her before slipping back into the hallway.
I made my way straight to the gym. I had to hold myself back from running. What was it about Keir that made me feel like I was pulled towards him by some kind of magnet? I paused for a moment before I pushed open the double doors.
Inside was a proper gymnasium, a large double-storied room with suspension flooring and thick blue mats tiled across it. There were complicated-looking weight machines and racks of dumbbells in one corner, a set of rings dropping from the ceiling, and other gymnastic equipment stationed about, but most of it was a wide open space.
Keir was here. He was swinging around and around on a set of parallel bars. As I watched him, it seemed my body became connected to him. Every time he leapt from bar to bar my heart leapt too. Every time he flipped so did my stomach.
He moved like a sonata, floating and wistful yet aggressive and powerful at times. Or like a golden bird soaring in the wind, every movement fluid and glossy like silk.
He took one final leap and spun several times in the air, the insides of my body twisting with him. Then he landed both feet on the mat.
He was shirtless. Every golden muscle shone under the gym lights − wide chest, thick torso, perfect six-pack − and there wasn’t an inch of fat on him. He was all hardness and coiled power and savage angles. I’d never seen anything like him.
He saw me, his gaze catching mine. He faced me, slowly, his chest slightly heaving as he brushed his hands off.
I stared mutely at him. I knew I was staring. I knew that he knew I was staring and that I had been staring for some time now. But I just couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away. I should explain my presence, give some excuse…
“Keir…just…wow…” I trailed off. Words, sentences, they jumbled around in my head, my usual fluent grasp of English failing me.
His look turned to stone as he walked across the room towards me. “What are you doing here?” he said as he passed me, his voice chilly.
I caught his scent of musky sweat and a hint of his woody aftershave. The combination was strangely alluring, making me want to draw nearer to him.
“What am I doing here? I…” I turned, following him with my eyes, watching as his back muscles rippled as he walked. I couldn’t believe that his body was real.
He walked to a side bench near the doors, picked up a towel and began to wipe himself down. My eyes followed the towel across his shoulders, down his arms and his strong thighs and calves.
“Were you going to finish that sentence?” he said over his shoulder.
My cheeks burned. What was it about him that made me stupid? “I, um…Celeste told me you’d be here.”
“Obviously someone must have told you I was here, but…why are you here? What do you want?”
“Didn’t you write me a haiku?” Who else could it had been?
“Did you read it?”
“I read it.”
He finished with his towel and turned to face me. “Because it said for you to find me in the gardens. Not to go looking for me in here on my day off.”
My fists flew to my hips. “Well excuse me if your little haiku didn’t exactly come with explicit instructions on how to reach you. What does it matter if I found you in the gardens or here?”
“We shouldn’t be seen in this house together.”
“What? Why?”
His eyes narrowed. “There are cameras everywhere in the house.”
“So?”
“Your husband…he’s a jealous man. He has this rule for us…”
“What rule?”
“Forget I said anything.”
“Keir, what rule?”
“I said forget it, okay?”
“Are you going to tell me about−?”
“I need a shower.” He grabbed his shirt from the bench and yanked it on, his back to me.
I was stupid enough to believe that because Keir took the time to write me a haiku that he actually wanted to be nice to me for a change. “Great idea,” I snapped, “I c
an smell you from here.”
“I don’t stink.”
“Like a pig in shit. That died. Last week.”
He looked slightly offended for a second, then he laughed, throwing his towel over his shoulder as he walked towards the door.
The roots of my hair grew hot. That was the last damn time I fell for his stupid games. He was getting nothing more from me, even if he wrote me a thousand apology haikus and folded them into a thousand paper cranes.
He paused at the exit. “Meet me in the lily garden in half an hour,” he called over his shoulder. Then he was gone.
* * *
I should just let him stand out in the damn garden until he realizes I stood him up. It would serve him right. I should just go to my room and pretend he didn’t exist. Arrogant, frustrating boy. Who does he think he is?
I cursed him as I stomped my way through the gardens. I cursed him for being such an ass. I cursed myself for not heeding my own advice and staying the hell away. I just couldn’t resist. He was like a riddle; a confusingly beautiful trap, an intricate Sudoku puzzle that I was desperate to figure out.
I wasn’t on time. I refused to be on time. I was already eight minutes later than the half an hour that he told me to be. I walked slowly, deliberately taking my time even as my muscles twitched for me to go faster and my eyes darted around the garden, trying to look around corners so they could catch their next glimpse of him. I hated that he had this effect on me.
I rounded the bushes to the lily garden. Keir was standing there waiting, his arms crossed over his chest. Our eyes met and my mind short-circuited, everything settling to a silence inside me.
“You’re late,” he said.
“And you’re an usagiuma, but you don’t hear me complaining.”
He snorted. “I’m not a donkey.”
I felt like I’d been slapped. “How did you know that?”
He shrugged like it was no big deal, but I could see the smugness on his face. “I learned some Japanese at school,” he admitted. “Although I only seem to remember the bad words and insults.”
“You know some Japanese. And you know what a haiku is.”
“Just because I tend plants for a living doesn’t make me completely uneducated.”
“I never said you were. It was just a surprise, that’s all. I got the impression that you Americans don’t care much about other cultures.”
“And I got the impression that you Japanese girls were all quiet little things.”
“I…” I blinked as if all of a sudden it had gotten too bright. With that seemingly little sentence he had turned on a light that shone on a part of myself that I couldn’t see before. It turned out I bought into stereotypes just as much as anyone else.
“Touché,” I said, humbled. “You said in your note you’d tell me−”
“Not here,” he said, looking over my shoulder. He spun and strode down one of the paths. I looked back to see Keir’s father standing by a row of bushes, watching us, a severe look on his face.
I had to jog to keep up with Keir.
“How did you even get the note up to my window?” I asked as we walked deeper into the gardens.
“I climbed up.”
“You climbed up! My bedroom is three stories high.”
“It’s nothing.”
“If you fell you could have killed yourself.”
“I don’t fall. Ever.”
“So you’re Spiderman.”
He shot me a grin. “Mild mannered gardener by day…”
I snorted. “Mild mannered, my ass.”
His grin just widened.
The path led to a huge glass building several stories high, tall enough that I saw trees growing inside. He swung open a door and let me in first. I walked through a small entryway and pushed through a series of plastic strips that shielded the interior.
I gasped when I stepped through. This wasn’t just a greenhouse as I first thought it was. It was a huge birdhouse, the call of birds cutting through the balmy air, trees and bushes rustling with colored movement.
“This birdhouse belonged to Drake’s mother,” Keir said. “She loved birds, especially tropical birds, so Mr. Blackwell Senior had this made for her.”
“That sounds so romantic. He must have loved her very much.”
“He loved her too much.”
“What does that mean?”
Keir pointed to a painted green bench partially hidden behind a cluster of ferns. I took a seat at one end and he sat next to me. Not right next to me, but the space between us was less than I had imagined he would want. Maybe I was growing on him? Maybe I could actually have a friend here.
But the way the air between us seemed to crackle with electricity reminded me that friends with Keir would only lead to me wanting bad things.
“Drake’s mother was decades younger than Drake’s father,” Keir said. “She was very young and from what I hear, she was gorgeous. But his family didn’t approve. He had come from a long line of wealth, you see. And she hadn’t. So he cut off his whole family for her… He loved her and, apparently, she loved his money.”
I blanched as I remembered that this was what Keir thought of me.
He continued, “I heard that they were happy for a while. But she had a difficult pregnancy with Drake. I don’t think it helped that Mr. Blackwell moved to another bedroom during her pregnancy. He said that it was because she kept him up all night. Truth was, she became difficult to deal with, constantly needy and overly-emotional at everything, at least that’s what I’ve heard Loretta saying.”
“Loretta has been here a while?”
He nodded. “Since before Drake was born. She basically helped raise him. Soon after he was born Mrs. Blackwell began an affair…a torrid, passionate affair. One of his husband’s business associates. They met at a party of her husband’s. Ironic, really.”
“Ironic,” I repeated quietly. “Indeed.” I couldn’t help but feel like I’d heard this story before.
“They couldn’t stay away from each other even though they both tried. But their affair was inevitable. They say she even loved him.”
“Did Mr. Blackwell know?”
“Of course he did. Everyone knew. You couldn’t be in the same room as the two of them without knowing something was going on. Even my father, who usually refuses to talk about these kinds of things, said that he could feel the love between them when they were together. As if it filled the air whenever they were together. Mr. Blackwell couldn’t stop her. He never really could control her. And he still loved her, so he wouldn’t leave her.”
“Why didn’t she leave him?”
“Drake. She had a pre-nup. If she left him, she got nothing. And she lost her son. Mr. Blackwell would get full custody and Loretta heard him threaten her several times that if she left him, he would ruin her. Eventually Mrs. Blackwell and her lover ended things.”
“What happened to him? The lover, I mean.”
“He used to be a very wealthy man. Not as wealthy as Mr. Blackwell, but he still controlled a company and had a small fortune. After Mr. Blackwell found out about the affair he made sure that no one would ever hire the man or do business with him in this country again. He went bankrupt, had to sell everything. Business-wise, he was finished. Rumor has it that he moved to Australia to start over, got himself an Australian wife, eventually had children of his own.”
“How tragic.”
“The real tragedy is how it affected Drake. He was a young boy by then. Loretta said that after her affair ended, Mrs. Blackwell became more and more distant towards Drake. She refused to spend time with him, refused to play with him. Loretta thinks she blamed him for the loss of her lover and of the life she could have had. Although she loved him, he became just another shackle on her ankle.”
“And Mr. Blackwell?”
“After he found out about the affair he started drinking. He wouldn’t drink often, but when he did he really went for it. He would fly into the most furious rage. He’d st
art yelling at her, breaking furniture. Eventually, he hit her. And his drinking got worse. Then he started to beat her regularly.”
“Oh God.” My heart twisted.
“So her affair turned into affairs and packets of white powder…just to escape from him.”
“What a horrible, horrible man.”
“She became just as bad as he was. Drake was a young teen when their relationship became violent. Loretta said that she would bring Drake right into the middle of all their fights, trying to manipulate him against his father. Sometimes she would use Drake as a shield, try to hide behind him when Mr. Blackwell was violent. Mr. Blackwell would sometimes get so drunk he couldn’t tell who he was hitting.”
My heart ached. How could a mother do that to her son?
“They were a perfect and terrible example of a violent and destructive cycle,” Keir said quietly.
I began to understand a little more about the man I married. No wonder he felt that it was safer to “buy” a wife than to risk falling in love. Look at the examples his parents made of themselves. No wonder he was so guarded and distant with me. He thought marriage was a game of power.
“Their relationship continued like this for years, until Drake was seventeen. I remember the day even though I was only five at the time. The household was in an uproar. Police everywhere. I thought it was all so exciting, but I didn’t realize then what had really happened.”
“What happened?”
“Drake found his mother dead in her bedroom.”
“Oh my God. Mr. Blackwell beat her to death.”
“You would think that was the only way this could end, but no. It had been a drug overdose.”
“The poor woman.”
“For months afterwards, people speculated about her death. There was an investigation into Drake’s father. It was thought that he may have had something to do with it.”
“No.”
“Yes. He was cleared but…”
“But what?”
“They say that in this town, you can buy innocence.”
