Pandora's Box (40 page)

Nathalie was Gabriela’s age when she had died.

And that thought undid her arduous resolution not to cry.

She embraced him over the little tomb.

Forehead upon forehead, they cried over the most unfathomable mystery which cut deep and ruthlessly into everyone’s soul; thorns set deep in their hearts; thorns that would forever change their feelings and would bond their hurt together to make it more bearable.

His vivid-red blood, which stained the once pristine white marble, flowed watery in rivulets as their many tears drop over and mingled with it.

After a long time had passed, he calmed himself and his tired arms dropped to caress the flat small tomb again.
Let me be, please.
“I need a few more minutes.”

Oh, no, my love.
“Did you pray?” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “
Do
you pray?”

I forgot how to.
He shook his head.

“Can I say a few words? For Nathalie?” she requested, and he nodded.
Oh, Gabriel, help me.
In a whisper, she said, “Almighty God, I give and trust you this little baby angel, turned my daughter of heart, our Nathalie, to guard and love. Please, keep her warm and safe in your arms. Sweet angels in Heaven, lull and watch over our Nathalie in her eternal sleep, protecting her from harm and cold, as if she were your own. Amen.”

“Amen,” he croaked.

“She is in Heaven, my love. She is in peace,” Sophia softly breathed, passing her fingers through his hair, smoothing it back, and rose. She picked up the candle, signaling to him that they had to go.

Alistair pressed his hands down hard on the little tomb, making it even more bloodied. Privately, he breathed to the marble tile, “I’ll be back soon, Nathalie.”

Sophia stretched out her hand, as if offering her own heart in it. Ungainly, he tucked her under his coat in the crook of his arm and she passed her arm around his waist.

He blew out the candle. In the total dark, he whispered, “Sleep well, Nathalie, my love.”

Sophia stumbled slightly. If she weren’t firmly enlaced by Alistair’s arm, she would have never made it out of the tall, lengthy haunted chamber.

However, a piece of her heart turned around and laid there to sleep by the small grave.

1.59 a.m.

Erskine opened the door when Sophia and Alistair appeared on the path; one so close to the other that there was just one shadow on the ground. He looked to the sky and saw the clouds had disappeared and the stars were shining. He wondered if Alistair’s torment was coming to an end.

“Thank you,” Erskine whispered to Sophia, who mouthed the same words to him.

She saw the sadness in his old eyes when he looked at Alistair’s face, marred with sorrow, blood and tears and fought her emotions back inside herself. This was a time for Alistair. She would cry for them afterward.

Alistair sat on the edge of the bathtub and let them do their work.

Sophia blanched when she saw that the lacerations on his hands would need stitches. She let out a relieved sigh when she saw how skilled Erskine was with tissue adhesives.

As Sophia cleaned his face and hair and Erskine washed and bandaged his hands, no one said a word or looked directly at him, even though he flinched once in while.

Alistair knew this time he had gone too far, and that he should explain, but he didn’t have the strength to talk about it.

As she opened their coverlet and arranged the pillows for him to sleep, Sophia could feel his gaze on her. She didn’t pretend she understood what had happened, nor did she want to.

She wanted him to tell and tell her about it until there was nothing more inside to hurt him that way.

Before he closed their bedroom door, Erskine told her not to worry. The grave would be cleaned so they could go there again in the morning. He also told her Alistair’s hands had never been like this before, but they would be healed in a week or so without leaving deep scars and that the doctor would be there early in the morning.

She understood it had become a ritual for Alistair. For all of them. Why the family had allowed it, she didn’t understand.

However, Erskine saw the question in her eyes. “No one knows. Only the doctor and I. Now, you do too.”

Chapter 23

Alistair fell asleep with his head on her breasts, his bandaged hands resting over her stomach. When Sophia’s fingers left his hair to better adjust herself, he moaned as if he missed her touch. She enveloped him with her arms, and her fingers dipped again into his hair.

After Alistair was sleeping profoundly, bitter tears filled the space where Sophia’s heart had been cut, alleviating, but never entirely making up for the part of it she had given Nathalie. Sophia wondered how long she could survive without so many pieces of her heart.

She gazed at her scarred arm.

Those scars had been a great shame to Sophia until recently, not because of their ugliness, but because they reminded her of her cowardice and inability to save Gabriel.

Maybe this is what he’s doing. Scarring himself so one day, his hands would show the ugly scars of his shame. How many scars are still bleeding in his soul? And how many more is he going to carve?

Just before sunrise Sophia fell in a fitful and brief slumber. She woke up startled  from a dream almost an hour after, with a frantic idea in her mind. As the forms took shape, she knew there would be no more sleep for her that night.

Soundlessly, she moved to the window seat. After what seemed hours, she saw a shadow passing by the chapel. A normally tall and straight Erskine was hunched, dragging his feet, carrying a bucket and a mop.

Sophia got away from the window seat, by a thin slit of the draped curtains, not letting in too much light. As she wrapped her arms around Alistair again, her gaze roamed over his large hands, almost totally wrapped in gauze.

She didn’t want to see all that blood again. Never again.

A tear fell from her eyes and he moaned.

In a daze, she turned to look at him, taking in his handsome face and glorious hair, still matted with blood.

Alistair was awake and gazing at her, mortified. A low rumble vibrated in his chest and he closed his eyes.

The demon is still inside him.
She didn’t know exactly how to proceed, but she did what she knew best. She kissed him lightly and whispered soothingly, “Morning. How are you feeling?”

Afraid.
“Sophia,” he breathed. He took her mouth, bruising her lips with a fine edge of violence, his eyes still closed.

“It’s okay, Alistair Connor,” she spoke on his lips. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going away. I’m your Sophia.”

His silence was telling. He was ashamed and frightened. He knew she had never seen a scene like the one of the night before and he wasn’t sure how she was going to behave.

“Let me help you wash. Your doctor must be arriving any minute now.” Trying to reassure him, she said, “I’m not scared of you and I’m not going away. Open your eyes and see for yourself.”

Exactly what I don’t want to do. Your face is looking so haggard, unhappy and sad, it hurts.
But he complied.

“I have a terrible headache.” Pinching the bridge of her nose, as the pounding just worsened, Sophia wondered if the devil knew what had kept her awake and sought to dissuade her with the unrelenting headache.
Let him try.
“Let’s take a shower and eat something light.”

“Sophia, I— I told you I was darkness personified. I’m—”

“Alistair Connor, you of all people should know that we are not always good or bad, black or white, unless we are talking of evil psychos. We, human beings, are somewhere in between angels and demons. That is what makes us imperfectly lovely.”
A grim savagery she hadn’t felt since she learned of Gabriel’s death had possessed her. She would do everything to save Alistair’s soul. “You are more on the angel side, you just have to let go of this evil inside you.”

Always forgiving.
He brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek and murmured, “You look so tired. I’m sorry.”

I know, I know. I’m sorry too. For Nathalie, you, us, everything.
“It’s okay. We can take a nap later.” She refused to bow to the vicious desire to just pretend nothing happened and she knew that it would only worsen his state if she pitied him. She got out of the bed and went to the window, flinging the black and gold velvet curtains open.
Let the light come in. Let it chase the darkness away.

She stretched, cracking her neck from one side to the other, and shut her eyes, breathing in deeply, empowering herself with a fierce determination to fight all his demons.

Relief washed through Alistair as he watched his wife get ready to do battle. With her by his side, he could too. He stepped behind her and gingerly embraced her, pulling her onto him and looking at the trees under which his daughter was buried. Biting pain needled his heart, but he knew he was not alone anymore. His dark mood lightened as her warmth seeped into him like sunrays. He bent his head and said in a gravelly voice, “Thank you for being here for me.”

You haven’t seen anything.
She angled her head to fix him with a gaze bursting with so much life and love that he blinked, astonished.

“I’ll always be by your side, Alistair Connor Davenport MacCraig. If it were a thousand to your one, I would be at your side. Because you deserve, because you are mine. Because I love you.”

“Therapy sessions are for this, Alistair Connor. You’re just beginning to process.”
And it’s going to take longer if you lie or omit.
Sophia thinned her lips, before she said something she regretted
.
She had been trying to convince him to tell Dr. Volk about what happened since the doctor who had redone the curatives left half an hour ago.

He walked to the window, looking at the forest outside.
Nae. There’s no way I’m discussing this. I’m not prepared.

She tried again. “And why was yesterday - this night - so different?”
What made you more uncontrolled?

A muscle tickled in his jaw. “You don’t understand, Sophia!”
It’s too much to risk. I can’t bear to think of hurting you because of a whim of mine.

“You’re right. I don’t.”
I don’t know the pain of losing a child.
Sophia closed her hands tightly, her nails digging into her palms not to cry. “But I know that if you keep cutting yourself, this is not going to end well. You have to discuss this.”
In therapy and with me.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Aren’t you a stubborn woman?
“I was— I am—”
I can’t tell you.

“Past or present?”

Uh?
He glanced back at her, unwilling to answer her question. “What?”

“You were, or you are?”
Is it Gabriela?!

What’s the difference?
“Don’t be cryptic. Fire away,” he snapped.

Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “If I have to explain it to you, then you’re more damaged than I thought.”
Stop hiding.

Damaged, aye. You nailed it.
An anger against himself swirled in his veins. He turned his head and squinted at her. “Let’s agree then that I am damaged. Why did you marry me, I wonder. A fucking damaged, rotten man.”

Oh, my God. It’s the baby.
Sophia felt lightheaded when she realized what the problem was. She blanched and swayed on her feet. She didn’t fall but only because she sat heavily on the bed and dropped on the pillows.

In a second Alistair was beside her.
Fuck, Alistair Connor. The woman gives you everything and more, and you can’t even treat her with politeness?!
“Sophia! What are you feeling?”

Now I know how you feel.
She opened her lids to look at him, miserably. “I’m just tired. And hungry. Why don’t we grab a light lunch and take a nap?”

He wondered if she was lying; what she had seen in him that made that strong woman suddenly so fragile and put such despondency in her eyes. “Sure?”

“Yes,” she said, sitting on the bed, as if sedated. She looked up to him with a plea in her eyes. “So, are we agreed? We only go back on Tuesday morning? Directly to Dr. Volk’s office, together?”

He’d had enough of discussions and sorrows for a whole year. He didn’t want to fight with her. He wanted to lie down with her body in his arms and sleep away the rest of the weekend, until Tuesday morning. “Aye, we are agreed.”

As they made their way through the dramatic black and gold corridor, Sophia mourned a double loss of children she never knew but already loved: Nathalie and any future children Alistair would never be able to have.

Dr. Andrew Volk’s Office.

Thursday, February 3
^rd
, 2011.

9.10 a.m.

“Good morning. You must be the famous Sophia.” Dr. Volk’s charming smile welcomed Sophia. “Morning, Alistair.” He then pointed to the sofa angled toward his armchair and the two armchairs in front of his desk. “I can arrange an armchair for you, Sophia—”

“You don’t mind us sitting side by side, do you? I prefer it, unless, of course, you are against it.”

“Not at all. Make yourself comfortable.” The doctor was amused at her bossy way, as she hung her overcoat and helped Alistair with his.

Easy. Calm down, Sophia.
“Great.” Sophia sat at the sofa in front of the doctor’s armchair and pulled Alistair by the wrist to sit beside her, looking at him with a plea in her eyes.

Alistair briskly shook his head.

At that moment, Dr. Volk was sure something very serious was going on. He leaned back casually in his armchair, studying her profile in the dimness of the room. Sophia was a delicate woman, with a silent, strong and imposing presence. She was dressed quite differently from how Alistair usually described her. She was wearing a long wool navy dress, so dark it was almost black, not a hint of make-up, her braid weaved tightly on her skull, without any jewelry, but the famous engagement ring. The overcoat hanging behind the door was of the darkest navy too.