CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - ALEC
Watching my hand grip the rim of the tumbler and rotate the base like a gyroscope on the side table, I make a small ‘O’ with my lips and puff out several small expulsions of air. I nod. I chew the inside of my mouth, involuntarily. There is a massive world outside this room, spinning in disorder.
My brother is alive. My child can speak and walk and spill tea. My child’s mother and I have had eyes on each other again. Something that I thought would never again happen. Hearing the word “diamond,” I think of the diamond—the diamond—that started our journey, and it causes me to realize that I don’t know where it is. It may still be back in that destroyed house of glass in the woods. And on and on and on and on the list of untended items goes. The dangling threads that, once pulled, could unravel whatever fabric we have managed to stitch together.
And I don’t care.
I don’t have one moment’s worth of concern for any of it.
And that is the most compelling evidence I have that I love them both. For someone who is obsessed with control, as I am, to allow so much probable bedlam to build and swirl without forcing my way out into the world to manacle it all down, in favor of sitting here with these two people discussing my undying commitment to them… that is the most profound declaration of love I can make.
But I will not say that out loud. Because, in this moment, I relish the quiet. I relish the love in this place. And I don’t want to risk compromising it by giving voice to the jumble of thoughts in my head. Ach, man. I don’t know when I stopped being a cynic. This vulnerability makes it hard to not care about anything.
“I think I may have a shower,” I say. I’d like to reach out and touch them both. Seeing them sitting there so close, I just want my hands on them. But I can’t. I don’t have control, and everyone here knows it. So I can’t just do as I like. I’m hoping a shower and a shave will restore some sense of myself to myself.
“OK,” Danny says, stroking Christine’s hair. Something happened while I’ve been away. Danny and Christine have become each other’s. For lo these many years, I had believed that Christine and I were the duet who would survive if everything otherwise fell totally apart. How naïve.
I am not the anchoring force in our love. They are.
Christine and Danny are the alpha and the omega. Not me.
I push myself out of my seat and watch them watch me. This sudden break in our action to profess our feelings for each other had been intended to bring us closer. I know this. And while it’s no one’s fault, somehow, I’m left feeling more unsure. Hayibo, man. How it’s possible that talking about my love for them both aloud, with no posturing or arrogance, would cause me to feel less secure about my standing than being shot off the side of a fokken mountain, I don’t know. But here we are.
I nod to them and excuse myself to the loo. It’s gotten quite dark out. A sudden, quilted blackness has fallen over this part of the earth. I’ve never understood why nighttime in London feels so much more night-like to me than other places, but it does. I flip on the light in the toilet and, squinting, say aloud, “Ach, man. Fokken strive for ambience, you naaiers.” I don’t know who I’m talking to. I suppose whoever designed the lights. They’re far too bright. I don’t need to see everything quite so vividly now. It would be preferable for things to remain a bit hidden just yet.
Turning off the switch, I make my way to the sink and find the toggle for the small vanity lights around the mirror. I flip it on. Much better. It creates an almost halo-like effect. Which is laughable, but I don’t laugh.
Opening a drawer or two, I discover razor, shaving soap, and brush. As I swirl the badger hair into the bowl, watching it lather, I think about the recurring dream. The one I’ve been having these last… however long it’s been. Finding out Eliza was pregnant and Christine arriving at the house. Discovering us. Confronting us both.
That’s not at all how it happened.
It’s all very dramatic and romanticized, but it sure as fok ain’t reality.
I apply the brush to my jaw and start lathering my stubbled chin.
I remember it now as Christine just reminded me. Coming back to us, Christine and me, after my time away with Eliza. After recovering from the scrape I had been in. After finding out that Eliza was pregnant and that she wanted me to have nothing to do with her or the yet unknown and unnamed Alexandria.
Not being shocked or sad, but somehow relieved in an odd way, knowing that she could see what I knew in my heart as well… I’m no parent. No parent anyone would want anyway. There are plenty of examples of terrible parents. One only need look around this suite to observe that. But I don’t think I’d want to add my name to a list as ignominious as that. I’m on enough ignominious lists already.
I lift the razor and draw it down my cheek. Watching myself return, millimeter by millimeter.
So I came back to Christine and I chose not to say anything. Nothing about Eliza or pregnancies, or anything. And I dropped back into something resembling normalcy.
I shift sides with the razor and begin to expose the other cheek.
And the night that Christine just mentioned—the night I drew her into the bed, and I held her close—I felt it. I felt her love for me. I felt a connection and felt that everything would be as it used to be.
And then I woke up the next morning and told her that Eliza was going to have our child. And then I felt her love flee. I knew it was gone again.
The razor glides down my throat.
These last couple of years I have believed that I did that because I simply can’t let things be. I must disrupt that which is placid. It’s the only way I know how to exist. Occasionally, if I thought back on it at all, I considered that I told her because I wanted to test the strength of our bond. That sounds very much like something I might do. Oh so very ‘Alec,’ if you will.
But those were not the real reasons. The real reason I told her was because I didn’t want to lie to her.
I didn’t want to withhold a truth. I didn’t want her to find out some other way. Lies and deception had already driven Danny away. Greed of spirit had already fractured our lines. And I thought… Ach, man, I’ve lived my life telling untruths and manipulating reality. Let’s see what happens if I just, as they say, ‘come clean.’
I watch the soapy water wash the hair from my face down the drain.
And now I allow the comically undersized clothing to fall from my body onto the bathroom floor and I stare at my naked form in the mirror. I touch gently at my ribs. Not bad. Sensitive, but not impossibly so. There is no more bruising of note on my flesh. Not really. No damage that one can see on the surface. But underneath, the pain still lingers.
I step into the elaborately tiled glass enclosure behind me and turn on the rainfall showerhead. I step back and remain standing on the outside until it reaches peak temperature. I want to feel the water scalding when it touches my skin.
You know, back when I told her the truth, I wish Christine had made her anger known to me rather than plotting with Lars to try to murder me and take over my entire world…
But then again… eh. I can’t really blame her. I helped mold her into who she is.
‘Water under the bridge,’ as they also say.
Such an odd expression. I suppose it implies that once something is washed away, it’s gone and should be let go. But now, here, the expression causes me to think of Misty going over the side of that railing and that being the moment I knew my love for these two people was real.
The glass inside the shower begins to fog with steam.
It also causes me to think of what Danny said. That my going over the side of the falls was the moment he decided he truly loves me. Spawned of Christine’s hurt, and lost love, came new love. From Danny.
Water under the bridge. Water over the falls. Water, water everywhere, I allow the words of Coleridge to play along in my thoughts as I step into the steaming, scorching rainfall. Perhaps, if I’m very lucky indeed, it will wash away everything now.
That is a lot to expect from a shower in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, but then again it is a very nice hotel, so—
A tap on the glass snaps me back to the present. I wipe at the steam-frosted window to find both of them there. They look… I don’t know. Mischievous, maybe.
Also… naked. Or, at least... she is.
“Hey,” Christine says.
“Hi,” I respond.
“Hey, dude,” Danny says. “Better.” He indicates my shaved face by placing his hand along his own jawline and pointing at me.
“Thanks.” I say.
Then no one says anything for a moment. We all just stare at each other. I have to wipe clean the glass once more so that I can continue to see them. Finally, after I wipe it a third time, Christine is the one who asks…
“Can we come in?”