Denouement

by Kenyan, M. O.

  “Why are you telling me my wedding vows?” Tobias’ voice cracked with emotion as he stared at her with heavily lidded eyes.

  Her voice almost as low as his she said, “You promised and now you broke that promise. And I hate you for that. I told you the one thing I cannot forgive is betrayal. I trusted you.”

  “Mattie, you need to remember what the doctor said,” Jessie said once more.

  A twist of fear wrenched through her as her hand dropped to her belly. Her heart closed at the very thought of going through that terrible ordeal one more time. She took a couple of deep breaths and tried to settle the nerves raging through her. Marietta looked up at him and studied the hard planes of his face. They were supposed to be celebrating and not fighting, but the fates seemed to be having a laugh at her expense once again. Words of anger sat on her tongue, making her throat thicken, but she had to prioritize.

  ****

  “What’s wrong with you? What did the doctor say?” Tobias knew Marietta to be a very passionate person, even in her anger. Nothing could stop her from her path of fury, so seeing her calm herself in a second was strange. He had been thinking of how he was going to explain his betrayal but he came up empty. ‘I was drinking and it happened’ didn’t seem like the appropriate explanation, even though it was the truth. But now knowing that there was something wrong with her made his insides chill from fear.

  “Will someone please answer me?” Tobias barked out in anticipation.

  He watched as Marietta tiptoed and moved her head forward, her face close to him. Her hand seemed to caress his neck then her palm rested on his chest. She brushed her lips against his, and a strange eddy of fear, pain, excitement and desperation fizzled inside his chest when he heard her say, “I’m pregnant.”

  As she tried to move away from him, he grabbed her arms and pulled her body against his. “Don’t play with me. How far along are you?”

  “Four months.

  “How long have you known?”

  “Twelve hours. For three years we have been praying and waiting for this baby. You didn’t care that all those doctors’ appointments, hormone treatments and the fact that I was a pin cushion bothered me.” Her voice remained calm although the emotion behind it made him cringe.

  “I did, I did care. But we wanted a baby.” For years he had wanted to fill the void the loss of their first baby had left in his heart. He thought it had been his duty to both of them to make sure that they didn’t give up. So he pushed a little too hard but he always managed to convince himself that they would celebrate the effort once the baby was here. His hand brushed hers aside and he laid it on her belly. The baby was there, he could feel his heart leap in celebration. But he had screwed everything up. His depression had led him to the bottle and the bottle to Sarah. But he had a baby, he finally had a baby.

  “Now we have a baby. You knocked me up and out of your life.” Marietta clapped sarcastically. “Congratulations.”

  “We are pregnant.” He couldn’t restrain the hope in his voice. But that was soon crushed by the steel in her voice.

  “No, I’m pregnant. You just happen to be the guy who knocked me up.” Marietta chuckled and the sound of it was like an icy tip piercing through his heart. A horrible dread tugged at his gut and lower, dragging him down. “I told you I always lose the people I love, my mother, brother, the baby and now you. But I won’t lose this baby it’s the only thing that is keeping me sane right now.”

  “We need to fix our relationship before the baby comes,” he pleaded.

  “I have nothing to fix.” Marietta pulled out of his embrace. How could she fix this? He had cursed her the first time he touched her. She hadn’t thought about him for three years, but her life was unraveling and it was his fault. How could she expect anyone to love her?

  Tobias let her go, afraid that restraining her or aggravating her further would have an impact on the baby. “You can’t keep me away from my child.”

  “I would never do that. I know how it feels to grow up without a father and I wouldn’t do that to our baby. You are going to be a great father but I should have listened when you said you weren’t a relationship person.” He listened to the tremble in her voice and he loathed himself for being the cause of her pain. “We can’t be together. When I’m close to my due date, I’ll come back.”

  “Come back, what do you mean come back?” Tobias followed her into their bedroom. “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t stay here. This isn’t my home anymore. I don’t have a place here.” Marietta fussed with the safe, groaning each time she came up with a wrong combination. She steadied her hand and paused before having a go at it again. When the safe door opened she sighed, grabbed her passport, and headed for the door.

  “Please don’t leave.” She froze when he stood before her, the picture of a broken man.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “Five months from now. I cannot go that long without seeing you.”

  “This is how it has to be for now.” She knew she was supposed to hate him but she couldn’t. It hurt her more that she was hurting him. The fault was on his part but al she wanted to do was to wrap her arms around him and tell him everything was going to be okay. But she couldn’t. She didn’t know where they could go from here. She needed to leave if not to save their marriage then to save their friendship. Staying around the scene of his infidelity would only make her loathe him even more. “I can’t stay here. I don’t have a place here anymore. Besides, we have been fighting for so long.”

  “That was only because we couldn’t get pregnant, but now…” Tobias said.

  She shivered when he touched her belly. She took a step back to clear her head from the mixed emotions running through her.

  “We need the separation. What you did here—” Marietta shrugged, “—just gave us the opportunity.”

  She forced herself to be more brazen, stopping only to place a kiss on his throat before walking out. Marietta picked up her suitcase and half ran half walked out of the apartment. She turned a deaf ear to Jessie and Toby as they called out for her. She needed to deal with this and she needed to do it alone.

  Tobias watched helplessly as the love of his life and his child disappeared from his sight.

  ****

  Marietta looked around as she felt as if a millions eyes were on her. No doubt some of them would recognize her. Before Tobias she was just another mind behind a script. Now she was Mattie Harden on the cover of magazines, standing at the side of one of Hollywood’s best. Marietta missed her somewhat quiet life, especially when she didn’t have Tobias at her side to help her through the flash bulbs. She was in no mood to interact with anyone, not even her loyal fans. She pulled her hair out of its tight bun and the thickness of it framed her face, and her shades did the rest.

  She stood in front of the departure board. She could go anywhere she wanted in the world. Marietta stared at the passport in her hand, but wondered how far she was willing to go to get away from her husband. ‘Not too far’ a small voice said inside her. She still wanted to be able to get to Tobias just in case anything happened. The memory of losing her first baby haunted her and the fear almost crippled her. She was going to need to be close just in case.

  Marietta fished her phone from her purse, all the while keeping her head low. “Where are you?

  ****

  Marietta sighed with relief when she caught sight of Chris waiting for her at the airport. At first she just marched straight at him, trying to concentrate on not breaking down. But little did she know that tears had already started rolling down her cheeks. The emotion that was surrounding her was too much. She felt her body drop into Chris’ hands and her heart into her stomach. She was back in Minnesota, where all the nightmares had begun and where they were apparently going to go on.

  She felt Chris hold her tightly against his frame as he marched her to a waiting SUV. Marietta was relieved, there were no paparazzi there to document her arrival, and she didn’t want Toby to
know where she was. Although she was grateful he was giving her time to think, a little part of her was disappointed that he didn’t bother to chase after her. He did say he couldn’t go five months without seeing her and yet he just watched her as she walked out of their home.

  Marietta stared out the window, seemingly counting the trees as they zoomed past. She lost count a couple of times when her thoughts went back to Toby, but she started all over again in the hopes of distracting herself.

  “Jessie called me.” Chris said, breaking into her soothing mantra.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She bit on her lip as she mused over a thought. “Does he know where I am?”

  “Jessie promised not to tell.”

  “I just need a few weeks,” she whispered.

  “Are you actually going to deal with this or are you going to deal with it?” Chris asked as the car pulled into his driveway.

  “There is no use weeping over spilled milk.” Marietta forced a smile to her lips but it was obvious that Chris wasn’t buying her façade.

  This was how Marietta operated. With Tobias the question of her distant emotions and how she dealt with things was never asked. She always seemed to be able to preoccupy him with sex. But in Chris’ case there was no chance of that. Fortunately he understood her need for privacy.He was the only one left alive who understood her need to withdraw from her emotions. Chris and her father, that is.

  Her eyes roamed around the small neighborhood as a chill ran through her. Usually thoughts of her father didn’t affect her, but she was usually thousands of miles away. Being here a few blocks from where all the nightmares started, she felt terrified.

  * * * *

  Chris noticed the faraway look in Marietta’s eyes. There was something else he could see in her eyes, terror. The last time he saw such fear in her eyes they were still kids chasing each other down the block .Even then he knew there was something odd about Marietta. He followed her gaze but he couldn’t see anyone who stood out, or anyone who seemed to be staring back at her.

  “Mattie!” he called out. Her head snapped towards him and there was that smile plastered on her face.

  He hadn’t been around her for a while so he wondered how Tobias handled all of this. Her past and how she ‘dealt’ with her emotions.Chris smiled back at her, his heart aching, “Let’s go inside, my mother is waiting.”

  “I can smell her peach cobbler from here.” Marietta followed Chris into the house and once she was in the familiar scents of old spice and homemade cooking enveloped her.

  Chris watched as she seemed to have been transported to a different place. Her eyes were closed but he could tell the smile was genuine. Now if only he could get her to be the same way with everything else. He laughed as he watched her leap into his mother’s arms and attack the cobbler settled in front of her.

  Chris thought back to when they were children. He would walk to Marietta’s house to see her brother David. More times than not he found them sitting on their front porch. It was obvious they were sad but he was too young to understand why. He usually brought both of them to his house and his mother would feed them peach cobbler and all of a sudden they were kids once again. He sat at the table across from her and watched as Marietta used the cobbler as a bandage. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, that he hadn’t since the time they were back in touch. Part of him had felt like he had abandoned her, but he knew that she needed her solitude to deal with everything.

  He didn’t know if rehashing the past was a good idea, but he needed to know how she was handling the Tobias thing. Chris watched as she jelled with her environment. Getting comfortable in one of his T-shirts and settling on the couch, with popcorn drowned in melted cheese and a movie. It wasn’t until it was over that he started the conversation, hoping to ease her into the actual topic.

  “How can you watch movies, knowing that you wrote most of them?” He started to reach for her popcorn but the slimy way they slid off each other changed his mind.

  “I don’t watch my own, and I love knowing someone else’s story.” She shrugged.

  “What’s yours?” This time Chris had turned his body toward her, not willing to let her out of his sight until he saw some emotional reaction.

  “Tobias and I just need this time apart.”

  “You’re not angry?”

  “I am, but not at him though.” She popped another corn in her mouth. “I always expected him to do something like this. It’s a wonder it’s taken this long.” Chris knew she had seen the shock on his face. She stared at him long and flat then went on, “You are the only one I can trust for the long haul.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “I love him. I just want to give him some space.” She sat up as if she was sharing a bit of gossip with her best friend. “I never understood how he could love me. Maybe he’s finally come to his senses.”

  “Don’t say that.” Chris noted that Marietta’s expression had closed. The instant smile that appeared on her face was misleading but her eyes weren’t. Maybe that was the reason she always kept that part of herself hidden. “Does he know about…Robert?”

  It pained him to have to bring up those memories but he needed to understand her. When they were younger they were in tune, but now it was like he had to learn how to read her all over again. He doubted that Tobias knew he was living with a woman as close to a machine as his DVD. Marietta pulled away from him, not physically but he could feel her absence. He could understand her not wanting to share the information with just everyone but her husband for three years, he should know by now. “You are starting a family with him, he should know these things.”

  “If I had told him, he would never have been his true self with me.” She shrugged again, “Now I know I can’t trust him.”

  “At the airport I saw you cry. I saw the pain in your eyes. But now it seems like you are trying to hide from it.” He held her chin in his hand and stared right through her, but all he saw was a wall that seemed to have come up in the past few seconds.

  “My love story is over.” She smiled. “I cry at the end of every sad movie.”

  “This isn’t a movie, but you are in control of how it ends.” He wished that was true. Marietta was much more complacent with her life than she was with one of her stories. She never expected anything from people but thought that people expected everything from her. Chris was convinced a long time ago that she lived vicariously through the characters she created in her head. The women were strong and there was always a happily ever after for them, even though their men counterparts died.

  “No one ever is.” She kissed his cheek and jumped to her feet, “See you in the morning.”

  Chapter Eight

  Chris watched as Marietta interacted with his ‘special friend from work.’ It had been two months and all Marietta did was write, watch movies and act like someone who didn’t have a husband waiting for her thousands of miles away. He knew that it was very odd that she was ignoring her marriage.This wasn’t the woman he had walked down the aisle. That was when he decided to hire a secret therapist, it helped that Jessie and Tobias backed him up.

  Although he never told the two what the problem really was, he knew he could easily convince them it was what was good for her. Jessie only wanted the best for her friend, and Tobias just wanted his wife back. Though he had neglected to tell Tobias where they were, he sent him pictures of Marietta’s growing belly. Chris did want to put his fist squarely in Tobias’ face, but there would be time for that later.

  The suggestion of contacting professional help soon turned into a necessity when the nightmares began. David had told him about the nightmares when they were children. Chris was seven, Marietta was six and David five. David didn’t understand the nightmares at first until he saw the reality. He had been too young to do anything at that point, but when he turned nine he became the real man of the house. Chris wondered why Marietta hadn’t even attempted to visit her mother’s and brother’s grav
e. She had been there for two months, writing mostly but the rest of her time was filled with sleeping, going to the doctor and reading baby books. Most of these activities were done in his bed.

  He leaned on the wall his arms crossed as he watched the seemingly harmless conversation. Chris’ friend, Tasha, was a behavioural analyst in the police force. She had agreed to do him a favor. It beat seeing a therapist who wouldn’t break doctor patient privilege Marietta seemed responsive and Tasha nodded her head and listened. This was going better than he expected. Usually Marietta was allergic to therapists,they were like a bad itch to her. Sharing her miseries wasn’t something she thought was necessary. ‘People have enough problems of their own. Besides no one is strong enough carry mine.’ Chris thought that would be Tobias. He had managed the miscarriage so well, but it seemed that he too had been deceived by the façade Marietta put up.

  Chris stood up straight when Tasha rose and walked toward him. He smiled expectantly but that soon fizzled out when he saw the confused frown on the woman’s face. “She has more locks, keys and secret trunks in her than I have seen in ten people with her case. She has built a world for herself. She should be unraveling considering that her world seems to have come apart, but she is building one in its place. I’m not the one she wants to talk to. You should get her husband here. Part of her needs him to be that one person but part of her is terrified that he won’t be able to handle it. With the infidelity, she could have just written him off completely.”

  Out of context, Chris found himself laughing at the woman’s choice of words, ‘Written him off.’