CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - ALEC
As I sit here, watching Danny hold Christine, a few things occur to me.
I should be pissed. She tried to kill me. She took up with my little brother, and for God knows how long plotted to bring my universe to an end.
Not only that, she did all this while still professing her love for me and standing by my side, and working with me, and doing terrible, violent things on my behalf even though I could have had anyone else do them instead. Because she said she wanted to. She is a very, very good liar, indeed. I have taught her exceedingly well.
Also, in the process of doing all those things to plot her revenge on me, something went horribly wrong and she was very nearly killed. But my girl is hard to kill and so instead, her fall just killed the parts of her memory that reminded her she hated me. Or so it would seem.
I continue to have many unanswered questions, but all roads lead back to my baby brother, who must be held to account for upending all of our lives so. And as soon as I can get a shave and some proper clothes, I’m going to visit with him and see to it that he is properly reprimanded. For what will be the last time.
But… I also consider that Christine came looking for me. Christine did. Not Danny. Not anyone else. Christine. And in so seeking, she conscripted the service of the one person on the planet I know she would least wish to ask help of. And she succeeded. She got me free.
And then I met my daughter for the first time. A tiny, female, 3-D printing of myself. Well, not only myself, of course. But in the brief moment I had with the child, there could be no mistake that she is a van den Berg. There is something resolute in her even now and even on just a brief glance.
Eish. It’s been a fokken day, man.
And all those tumbling, rumbling thoughts lead me to one logical realization:
It’s my fault.
It’s not Lars’. Or Christine’s. Or Eliza’s. Or Danny’s. Or anyone else’s culpability that has created this mess. It is my own set of defects that has caused this to be. It is my passel of imperfections that has resulted in the woman I love sitting in the back of a car, being held by the man I love, and mourning the loss of something so much greater than the sum of its parts.
I am responsible.
Responsibility is the burden of power. I have worked hard to possess power my whole life, and it is fitting that I must now bear the burden. Pride and ego are not in short supply for me, but neither is the tug I feel in my heart when I look at them. And that tug is strong enough to rip the pride and ego that would otherwise prevent me from speaking, right out of my chest.
“Christine…”
She buries her face into Danny and shakes her head. A muffled, “Leave me alone,” makes its way to my ear. Danny looks at me with a be fucking careful look. I will be, Danny. I am.
“I will. I will leave you alone, if that’s what you want. But as long as we’re in this car together, I feel like I should say a couple of things. And then, when we get where we’re headed, I can disappear and be gone for good. If that’s what you want.”
“I don’t know if that’s what I want,” she mumbles out. “I don’t fucking know.”
“I understand. I very much understand not knowing what you want. You know… when I woke up this last time—in that place—I actually did think I was dead. You know how I feel about death—”
“Like you can’t be killed because you are death or some stupid bullshit.” Her head remains buried in Danny’s chest.
I smile. I can’t help it. “That’s right. It is stupid bullshit. But I know that. You know I know that, right?” She pulls her face up just enough to regard me. I raise my brows and nod. “I do. I know it’s something I tell myself so that I won’t have to feel… whatever it is people feel. Because, believe it or not, I am also aware that I am a person.”
“I don’t believe it. People don’t act like you do.”
“No, good people don’t act like I do. But that’s not the point. The point is that I know that a lot of what I do and say is affect. But it serves a purpose. And for most of the last decade, that purpose has been to make sure that you… that both of you… are protected.”
That seems to have gathered their attention. I hope I can keep it.
I go on.
“And the simple truth is that I failed in that. I failed you. Not only did I not protect you, I am responsible for just about the worst thing a person can do to another person in their time of need… I thought about myself instead.”
They don’t look shocked or anything as common as that. But they certainly appear perplexed. I can only imagine what this must sound like to them, coming out of my mouth. Eish, man. I can barely understand it and I’m the one speaking.
I go on.
“I don’t know if you can recall, but after… what happened, I started doing more work without you.”
“Of course, I remember.”
“Yes, well… at the time, I sort of told myself that what I was doing was giving you time to rest. Allowing you time to grieve. And continuing on with life as usual because that would be the best way to help you move past.”
“That’s fucking bullshit.”
“Indeed it is. It is. One hundred percent bull kak. Yes. Because what I was doing was avoiding the fact that not only was I impotent to do anything to help you—because I couldn’t protect you from what happened—but that I had my own feelings about the matter. And I just couldn’t allow myself to feel them.”
“But—”
“Yes?”
“But you could have. You could have helped me. You could have been there for me. You could have done a million things. But instead you fucked someone else. And, honestly, I don’t really give a shit about that. Jealousy is for girls.” Again, I can’t suppress a tiny smile. “But you got someone else pregnant. Someone else got to carry your baby. The baby you made with them. The baby that should have been ours…” She spins her finger around to indicate all three of us. “And that only even happened because of what happened with me. Is that not true?”
She looks at me, imploringly. Danny stares a hole right through me.
“Perhaps. Probably. I mean, the arrangement I had with Eliza always had certain parameters. One of them involved seeing to it that nothing like a child could ever happen.”
“So why did it? Was it to…?”
She chokes off. Presses her lips together.
“What? Was it to what?”
She closes her eyes, shakes her head, and says, “To punish me somehow?”
I can’t stay seated any longer. I kneel forward and go to take her hand. She pulls away. Retreats into Danny. There is a greater volume of vulnerability currently in the back of this car than could be held inside Ellis Park Stadium, and the air is thick.
“Nunu… no. The last thing I would ever want—ever—would be to hurt you.”
“But you did.”
“I fokken know I did. I know. What I started to say is that when I woke up back there in that house, I assumed that I must be dead. I must be. Because I know that if there is a Hell, that’s where I’ll be spending my eternity. And for me, the truest definition of Hell would be to spend all of time in the one place where I most hurt the only person on the planet that I would never want to hurt.” Danny shoots me a look. “Fine,” I add. “One of only two people I would never want to hurt.”
She looks as though she remains unconvinced. I go on.
“Look. Christine. Christine Keene. My whole life, I never wanted a child. Never. I couldn’t even imagine it. I mean, my childhood, while having the appearance of being all one could want, was far from it, to say the least. You and Danny? Your childhoods? Well… I couldn’t even begin to think what a wretched cunt of a father I would be. But then… finding out you were pregnant. You. With our baby… All I wanted, all I wanted, in the blink of an eye, was to be that baby’s father. And to love it. And protect it. And give it a picture-book life. Even if that picture book was drawn using extraordinarily garish colors that spilled well outside the lines. But still. One thing that child would never have had to question is that it was loved.”
She is no longer sobbing, but a single tear does drop down her cheek.
“And,” I continue, “when that was unable to happen… When not only did I fail you, but I failed that baby that was to be ours—because I couldn’t protect it either—I could see no reason to go on. So I got into situations that I knew might very well kill me. I wanted, desperately, to test Death. To see why she comes for some but not for others. To see how far I could push the boundaries. And that extended to Eliza. I think… I think I wanted to see how far I could push the boundaries there before I broke everything into an irreparable deconstruction. And I think it’s very possible I found my answer. It didn’t come as swiftly as I might have thought. But it certainly seems to have arrived. So…”
I trail off. Because words are words are words and can only accomplish so much. Apologies are generally worthless. An apology is almost always for the one offering, not the recipient. People do not want apologies. They want penance. They want to know that the person who has wronged them is going to pay. Is going to suffer. At the least, they want to know that the person who has wronged them is going to change.
There is an argument to be made that I have paid my penance. What has happened between us would be, for most, enough. But the cost to her has been greater than any cost to me. She was robbed once. Then she was robbed again. Then she was robbed of her memories and fooled into believing that there was a happy ending to be had. And when her memories returned, she was robbed of that illusory happiness yet again.
No. Whatever I have suffered is a pittance compared to what Christine has endured. And so… I don’t bother to say, “I’m sorry.” I don’t ask for a forgiveness that I very likely do not deserve. I just let my explanation for my role in the whole, miserable failure of fortitude stand on its own and wait to see if there’s any chance that Humpty fokken Dumpty can be put back together again. Someday.
She tried to kill me. She took up with my little brother, and for God knows how long, plotted to bring my world to an end. I should be pissed.
No, Alec van den Berg. You shouldn’t be.
That sounds about fair.