As soon as his car crunched into the back of ours, he was sent flying through the windscreen. He landed twenty feet away from his car before being brutally hit by an oncoming mini driven by a terrified old lady on her way to visit her husband in hospital. Needless to say, he didn’t survive.
I didn’t know what to think about it. On one hand he was my husband and there was some place deep down where I cared for him. We’d shared a life together and were legally bonded. I slept next to him every night and cleaned his clothes, cooked for him, and tended to him when he was sick. I may not have liked him, may have at times thought he was insufferable but he was my other half, whether I wanted that or not. It confused me. Part of me was somewhat relieved that I’d never have to endure his company again, but that only made me guilty, gave me a black rotten feeling that spread to my core. Not to mention, yes, he was annoying, yes, he was a creep and yes, I often found him repulsive but he wasn’t a bad man. If anything, he was a startlingly good man who was just bad at expressing it. He had an unwavering devotion to me no matter how cruel I was to him. I guess you could say I was mourning him, but as I stood at his graveside, it could only be felt as a tumultuous medley of a thousand conflicted feelings.
Obviously, Sean wasn’t here. There was no way he could be although he did ask to be my side. I couldn’t bear the thought of Arthur’s family making judgments about us. They hated me already, probably blamed me for his death. But was it my fault? A part of me believed it was.
The closed casket was lowered into the ground with the priest saying his magic words and his family sniveling all around me. His mother began to wail as his coffin sunk into the earth, her knees digging into the mud as she collapsed sobbing. Her husband struggled to raise her and attempted to yank her up by her arms but she remained on her knees.
“Barbara, come on, get up.”
I sensed he wasn’t trying to comfort her but was instead embarrassed at the spectacle. At last, he gave up and let her cry. One by one, the family skirted around her, said a few words of respect and tossed a handful of dirt onto the coffin. In single file, they traipsed back over to the church where the cars waited to take them back to his parents’ house.
I let them all walk away until only the priest and I remained at the graveside. He seemed to be waiting for me to leave and I was doing the same with him.
“Would you like some time alone?” he asked.
I nodded and he departed with a solemn bow. A moment later, it was just me and Arthur. Crouching down, I teetered on the edge of the grave, my shoes slipping on the wet ground as I tried to not fall in.
“Arthur, I don’t know what the hell happened these last few weeks but for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”
I half expected him to reply but of course, I’d never hear his voice again. I’d never hear the way he talked about Gerald from his work who I’d never met but somehow knew everything about. I’d never hear about all the meetings that made no sense to me or how he closed a sale he was so proud of. I’d never hear a single thing from him again, not even a trifling comment or a passage from the Bible. I’d never hear him say he loved me, although I seldom returned the phrase. I’m a bad person, I thought. What have I done?
For a long while, I stared down into the grave waiting for something I couldn’t articulate. Maybe it was resolution. Maybe it was just to discover that he was playing a cruel joke. I wanted to see him spring out from his coffin like a jack in the box and tell me it was all a crazy joke. Maybe I was still in a coma from the crash and was imagining all of this. Although, the fine rain misting over my face and the chill of the cold breeze told me it was all real. I was a widow now.
“Arthur, come on. Jump out of there. I know you’re pulling a prank. You liked those, didn’t you? You always enjoyed them at work.”
I started to whistle pop goes the weasel in the hope that it would spur him to jump up and reveal himself but of course, once I reached the end of the tune nothing happened. It suddenly seemed so real.
Over at the church, I could hear the crackle of the cars driving down the graveled path. It was time I made a move and headed over to his parents but in the moment, I felt as though I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to have to explain to his sobbing mother why he was following us or why I was in a car with another man. I didn’t want to suffer all the looks and derisive remarks. I just wanted to go to bed and sleep the rest of my life away.
~
Arthur’s childhood home stood proud yet modest in the center of a working class neighborhood. The first time I’d been there I thought it was the pinnacle of modern, minimalist design. Soon I discovered it was just that his father was a clean freak. If you left anything sitting for longer than two minutes he’d scrub it and secrete it away in one of the many cupboards which held an array of perfectly filed away trinkets.
As I stepped into the busy hallway, the atmosphere felt charged, but that was no surprise. People were mourning, drinking away their sorrows and shedding a tear for the sudden death of the perfect man. The house seemed to be swollen with real estate agents. They introduced themselves and gave their obligatory apologies for my loss. They said all the right things and hummed and nodded when I spoke but I forgot them the moment I stepped away.
Walking into the living room, I was struck by the sound of weeping. In the corner I saw his mother, a lace handkerchief pressed to her cheek with her family all around her. You’d be forgiven for thinking the entire service was being held for her and her great wallowing sadness. She sobbed and heaved, wailed and beat her fists off her chest. When she heard my heels click across the wooden floor, she looked up, her eyes becoming steely.
“Paige… You have a nerve…”
The room fell silence. All eyes were on the two of us. For a moment I considered turning on my heel but changed my mind, it would only make me look guiltier than I felt.
“So the ice queen decided to turn up,” she said, clapping her hands together.
I noticed one of her eyebrows had smudged slightly and I desperately wanted to wipe it free from her face. Instead, I looked down to the floor and pretended the pattern in the wood was spectacularly interesting.
“Are you not going to say anything?” she asked. “Are you not going to even look at me?”
“I’m sorry, Barbara, about Arthur. I miss him too.”
Her lips curled back and she bore the tops of her false teeth.
“You’re probably glad he’s dead,” she spat. “We always knew what you were like, always knew you were marrying him for an easy life.”
A tremendous feeling of dread washed over me.
“I loved Arthur,” I said, my eyes still fixed on my feet.
Even to me, it sounded forced.
Someone at the back of the room cleared their throat to signal their presence. If the day wasn’t terrible enough already there was now an added layer of tension.
“I just wanted to…”
My voice trailed off. There was nothing else to say.
“Goodbye, Barbara,” I choked out.
She stared right through me as I walked away, the back of my head burning with the heat of a dozen pairs of eyes.
Chapter Two
Sean
Dad was sipping a cup of green tea, his face pulled into a grimace as he tasted it. It had been a long time since I saw him. Although we’d kept in touch after I moved away, there was always a reason, or rather an excuse, not to come home for the holidays. There was always another place to be instead of in his critical company. Still, I hadn’t expected him to change so much in my absence. There were lines around his eyes that crept down onto the tops of his cheeks and the cleft in his chin had gotten deeper. Sensing he was being watched, he turned to me and slicked back his black hair.
“Something troubling you, son?”
It was like staring into a mirror that revealed my future. I looked so much like him it was frightening. The shape of his hands, the structure of his face and the color of his eyes,
the thick hair and the attitude, we were like twins who were born thirty years apart.
“Since when did you drink green tea?” I asked with a suspicious smile.
“Since that wife of mine told me to. Said it’s something to do with blood pressure.”
He rolled his eyes and shrugged, clearly unamused at being told to consume something healthy. As he placed his cup down his sleeve rode up his arm and I saw the scar that ran the length of his forearm. It shocked me for a second and I glanced away as the pink, keloid line came into view.
“Still freak you out?” he laughed, jangling his watch and bracelet in my face. “You always were squeamish.”
The injury came from an accident in the steel works when I was six. He’d come home that day with his arm bandaged up and crusted blood hanging from his clothes. It always scared me but he seemed to like it, the scar becoming a badge of honor among his friends. He seemed to think it made him a real man, a guy with a tough job who sacrificed himself for his paycheck. But I never wanted that kind of job for myself, always fancied myself as more of an academic despite me growing into the physique of my father.
“You should try out for sports,” he’d encourage, prodding my muscles as he saw them coming along nicely.
But sports weren’t my thing, books were and as I graduated college and became a psychiatrist, dad acted as though he was grieving the loss of a real son. I was clearly not was he wanted.
“So, son, how you feeling?”
He pointed to my nose. Every time I smiled, sniffed, sneezed or spoke it ached like a motherfucker and with every jolt of pain came the memory of the crash. There wasn’t much to remember, it had happened so fast, but there were imprints in my mind; the smell of spilled petrol on the tarmac, blood running down the back of my throat and the shrill desperation of Paige’s voice.
“It hurts,” I said.
Catching my reflection in the copper shine of the tea kettle, I saw how swollen it still was and how varying shades of purple had leaked beneath my eyes.
Dad stood up to throw the remnants of his tea down the sink before washing out his cup. He sighed and rested against the sideboard, his arms crossed and his old Navy tattoos visible through the thicket of tangled arm hair.
“So you going to tell me what the hell was going on? I don’t hear from you in months, don’t see you in years. The last thing I knew, you and Paige hadn’t seen each other since you were kids and now you’re telling me the two of you were involved in some car crash while you were both fleeing town! I didn’t even know the two of you still knew each other let alone lived in the same city.”
“Paige and I…”
The front door burst open. She was standing in the doorway dressed in black, her widow’s veil pulled low over her eyes. She looked into the kitchen and appeared shocked when she noticed us. Despite the veil and the dim light, I could still see the smudges from where her tears had cut through her makeup.
“You want a drink?” dad asked.
He flicked on the kettle as she settled in beside us.
“Actually, I’m going to need something stronger than that,” she said.
“Okay then.”
Dad reached for the bottle of rum he always kept by the toaster. He poured us all a glass and raised his own.
“Cheers, guys.”
“Cheers,” we replied in unison, Paige and I sharing a glance or apprehension.
“So Sean here was just about to give us the grand reveal, tell me why the two of you were sharing a car when your husband decided to drive into the back and try to kill you.”
She shot back her rum and slammed down the empty glass before reaching for the bottle. Dad stood in the way and placed his hand on her arm.
“Maybe you should tell me what’s going on.”
She removed her veil, peeling it away from her face along with the black headband that secured it in place.
“Where’s my mom?” she asked, avoiding his question.
“How should I know? She’ll be in her room upstairs sewing a cake or baking a nice dress or something.”
She edged around him to reach the bottle and poured herself another drink before swallowing it in a single gulp and heading upstairs. Dad waited until she was out of earshot before waving his hairy hand up the stairs.
“That girl’s always been trouble,” he said. “What have I always told you about her?”
Chapter Three
Paige
Mom’s craft room was located in the spare bedroom. Once upon a time I’d wanted it be my music room and had drawn up some rather childish blueprints of a princess’s paradise. But once Alex moved in with Sean it wasn’t meant to be. It was taken up with bits of man junk and used as a storage area for Alex’s random assortment of tools. Now, mom had created the feminine space I always wished I had and it was kitted out with a chaise longue, a sewing machine, and a dressing table.
The drilling of the sewing machine echoed down the hall and when I opened the door she didn’t hear me. For a second, I watched the back of her head as she fed the fabric through the machine. There were a few more grays peppering the crown of her head but her hair was still lustrous and thick.
“Mom?”
The drilling continued.
“Mom?”
I tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped.
“Jesus! When did you come in here?”
She eyed up my outfit and saw the veil hanging from my fingers.
“I mean I’m sorry, honey. Are you okay? “
“Not really.”
“Your father and I thought about coming to say goodbye to Arthur but…”
“It’s okay…. You don’t have to make your excuses. Anyway, Alex isn’t my father.”
Mom slumped in her seat and looked back to her sewing. From the mess of cloth I couldn’t figure out what she was making. Probably one of her horrendous sets of curtains. I looked up to the window and saw the ones that were hanging there already, turquoise monstrosities with red sequins.
“How are your ribs?” she asked.
Before I had the chance to ask she had unbuttoned my dress and was poking around my plaster cast.
“Yeah, they’re still there,” I said and took a step back. “Really, I’m fine. The doctor gave me some great painkillers.”
“You be careful with those, sweetheart.”
I rolled my eyes. Why were mothers so invasive at all the wrong times? Mine ignored me for weeks on end then poked and prodded around my body when I just wanted to be left alone. Maybe I’d be like that if I was a mother. I wondered if Evangeline’s mother was like that.
Mom was still staring at me expectantly, her eyes wide and her eyebrows raised. I know what she wanted to know but I wasn’t going to talk yet. There was a knot in my stomach that was growing, a gnawing feeling that wouldn’t let me sleep.
“I’m having a real rough day,” I said and reached for the door handle. “I need to lie down.”
“Okay, sweetheart. Would you like me to wake you up in a few hours with some tea?”
“That would be nice.”
Chapter Four
Paige
Sleep wouldn’t come to me, I moved from side to side, hoping that my sore and tired body would give out and my mind would sink into the dark abyss of dreams, but it never came. Instead I was locked inside a waking nightmare as I saw Arthur’s grave. Every time I closed my eyes it was there, the handfuls of dirt lying on the white wood, the single rose that was placed on top by his mother.
The tears came again along with the conflicted feelings. Looking out the window, I saw the sun was setting. Downstairs, Sean and his dad were laughing. There was the clink of their glasses as they drank and the sound of the cupboards opening and closing as they made dinner. After a while, the smell of bacon and cheese began wafting up the stairs. Not long after, mom ventured down, her squeaky voice permeating the floor beneath me. How could they be so happy? Couldn’t they see I was in agony up here? My body ached and my mind hurt. I strug
gled to roll over and reached inside the top drawer beside the bed. Pulling out the orange vial of pills, I took three, although the doctor insisted I never take more than two within four hours. Soon enough, sleep gripped me and the silence came.
~
When I opened my eyes it was dark outside but the crescent moon was high in the sky, casting a thin splinter of white light along the end of the bed. My head felt foggy and I shook it slightly as I pulled myself up onto my elbows. "
"Fuck..."
The noise from downstairs had stopped. There weren't even the gentle dulcet tones of the television. Down the hall, Alex's snoring could be heard like soft, rumbling thunder rolling down the hallway. What time is it? I'd assumed the painkillers would have knocked me out for at least twelve hours but I had obviously built up a tolerance and they weren't working their usual magic. Instead, they left with me with a hangover, a subtle throbbing at the front of my skull and a dry mouth. With my cast stopping me from jumping up, I hobbled to the light switch and flicked it on, the bright light drenching the room and burning my eyes.
"Jesus. It's not like I needed corneas or anything."
The headache intensified, as did the aching in my ribs. I needed water, then something much stronger. Meandering down the hall, my hand steadying myself along the wall as I walked, I ran a dehydrated tongue over my teeth. Urgh... I felt disgusting.
With my hands curling around the banister, I took one step at a time, a shard of pain running through me with every footfall. When I reached the bottom, I felt as though I'd descended Everest. Now all I had to do was reach the kitchen with the promise of the contents of the refrigerator spurring me on. At last, I was slumped at the table, beer in one hand and bottle of water in the other. The clock on the wall said it was 3am. Upstairs, the snoring grew louder. It was going to be a long night. I sipped my beer and watched the dials on the clock. If you watched them long enough it looked as though they were barely moving. For a moment, I thought they had stopped.
Best Friends To Lovers Romance Series: Complete Series Boxed Set Romance Page 11
