Pandora's Box (42 page)

Alistair’s chilly voice cut her, “You sent this to your siblings?”

What?
Sophia’s eyes widened. “No. Of course, not. How could you think that about me? I promised you—”

“You promised me you wouldn’t tell him about the cuts.”

Damn.
“Touché…” She framed his face and looked over her shoulder at Dr. Volk, who was observing the scene, amazed by her ideas. “But he needed to know. He is your therapist.”

Aye, you are right. It’s just that I wasn’t ready. Or so I thought.
Alistair’s mood was mollified, however he was still was not completely convinced. “How did you draw that, Sophia?”

She shrugged. “With some crayons I found in the children’s room and a few hours.”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “You’re too smart for your own good, Marchioness.”

“So, we can do it?”
Please, say yes.

“Whatever you wish, Sophia,” he whispered, marveling at the paper over the iPad. “In fact, it should have always been like this.”

Sophia picked up her things and moved back to the sofa.

“That will be a wonderful initiative, Alistair. So on your birthday, you and Gabriela will visit Nathalie as a family. When the baby is of age, take the baby. It will be easier to deal with it with so much love around you, Alistair.”

“And what else can I do?” Sophia asked.

More?
Alistair shook his head astonished. “Sophia. You do more than enough.”

Dr. Volk smiled. “It seems you do, but don’t forget, Sophia: don’t press if he doesn’t feel like talking; be willing to sit in silence. Comfort and support can be offered by mere presence, caressing his hand, his hair. When he decides to talk, be prepared to listen, he may need to tell the story over and over again, sometimes in minute detail. Repeating the story is a way of processing and accepting the death. With each retelling, the pain lessens. So, the key here is: Be patient.”

“I can be,” she nodded.

“Now, let me tell you the hard part. Nathalie was as alive as Ariadne is. Although you cannot scare Gabriela, she has to understand that Nathalie will never play with her. You don’t want to see Gabriela playing with a ghost.” Dr. Volk saw Sophia pale and Alistair’s arm wind around her. “The new family you are both creating has too many important losses. Loved people, who are not living anymore, but are integrant part of your history. This baby will never make up for the loss of Nathalie. So, although I know none of you has the intention of forgetting your loved ones, let’s focus on the living ones, on Gabriela, and on the new baby.”

“I… After I realized I was forgetting things, because of the drugs, I started a journal and an album about Gabriel to give to Gabriela one day.”

“That’s a creative way to deal with your loss. You can also make an album with Nathalie’s birthday photos or other happy celebrations. Do it all together with Sophia and Gabriela. Show it to the baby. You have told me Gabriela misses her father, you can show her you miss your daughter too. You will always love her and you will always miss her. There is nothing wrong with that, but to cut yourself is dangerous. Not only for you, but for your loved ones.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. It was absurd. We’ll redo Nathalie’s place. And I won’t go there anymore alone at night.”

“You won’t need to,” Sophia complemented.

He nodded and whispered, “I’m not forgetting Nathalie. I’m just reformatting my family.”

“
Great. Now, this is a medical order: I want both of you go on a trip for four, five days. Take Gabriela with you. Go visit your twin sisters.” Alistair huffed. “They will create enough havoc to distract Alistair and also you, Sophia. I want to receive daily calls from you, Alistair. Sophia, if something abnormal happens,” he gave her his card, “call me. At any time.” As always their time was long finished. “Now. The homework.”

Alistair’s lips curled. Dr. Volk always left him with something to do.

“Not another sexist film, please!” Sophia complained with a smile.

“That was never my intention.” Dr. Volk smiled back at her and then looked at Alistair. “You, Alistair, you’ve always said Sophia is your private ray of sun. That is a move from outside in. Not bad at all. However, I want you to think about a quote by Alberto Camus: ‘
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.’
Where is your invincible summer, Alistair?”

Chapter 25

The Blue Dot.

Sunday, February 6
^th
, 2011.

1.03 p.m.

Ethan felt sad.

He leaned his head on the headrest of his Rolls-Royce, appalled by his whole life. He had started intense therapy the week after he had the talk with Sophia and since then he had been seeing things more clearly.

The car stopped slowly in front of the gallery and he realized he could have gained not only Sophia’s love, but Barbara’s or even Paola’s, if he had been more confident not in them, but in himself.

I should never have looked for Sophia in Barbara. It solved none of my problems.

He had behaved badly with all the three women and it was not his parents’ fault. He was a grown man and responsible for his own actions. He could hide forever behind the excuse that he had been abused but he didn’t want it anymore.

You need to take responsibility for your actions if you want to be happy. The only person you control is yourself, Ashford.
He climbed the three steps of the imposing building and stepped into the wide and tall center hall.
You are old enough to do something about your feelings and to start it all again. A new start. A fresh one.

Guinevere, one of the beautiful and intelligent receptionists of the gallery, approached Ethan as soon as he entered the gallery gazing around leisurely. She knew she had a potential buyer in her hands as she recognized him.

Ethan assessed the beautiful, tall, brunette that approached him with a smile on her face.
Sell me something. Anything.

“Mr. Ashford, welcome to The Blue Dot.” She stretched out her manicured hand. “I’m Guinevere Lockheed. May I help you?”

Of course she would know who I am. My money reeks.
He almost snorted but a smile opened on his face.

“Guinevere.” He savored her name on his tongue and fixed her with his electric azure gaze.
Beautiful woman, aren’t you?
“Please, call me Ethan. I’m looking for a new piece for my penthouse, which is being refurbished. I want something… different.”

He paused for a moment, trying to explain what he was looking for but he didn’t quite know himself.
I want something that can make sense out of the nonsense that has become my life.

“So, Ethan, a painting perhaps?”

“No. I want something that… reminds me of the past but makes me yearn for the future. A sculpture, perhaps. Or an object. Not a painting, nothing figurative. I have a wide open space.”
That needs to be filled.

“I have the perfect thing for you.” She motioned him inside. “It has just arrived from Brazil. It’s going to be the main piece in the exposition of the two young artists who were recently discovered by Mr. Tavish MacCraig.”

Explaining the concepts of the artists’ work, she took him to the storage room on the third floor, where she pointed to a wide, round, wrapped object and asked two young staff members to set it in the next room.

Ethan observed as she easily made her way around the storage, offering him tea or champagne, all the while talking about art and pointing to other objects on display, without being pushy. He accepted a cup of tea and closely inspected the things she showed him.

One after another, the objects were discarded and Ethan’s eagerness deflated as it had at his visit to the White Cube gallery. “I don’t think I’m lucky today.”
As always, when I deal with my past.

“I don’t give up so easily, Ethan,” she informed him, pulling forward another trellis on which objects were hanging.

Before she could explain them, one of the staff members called her, saying they had finished. “Shall we?”

They moved to a minimalist spacious room with a sofa and two armchairs on one side, and on the other side, a glass table and Cerzan Studio acrylic chairs with apple-green seats. The whole room was made for this kind of sale.

In the middle of it, hanging from the ceiling by two twisted irons was a round mirror.

So obvious.
Ethan grimaced, as he approached the mirror.
I thought she was more intelligent than this.
“No. I don’t think so.”

“You are looking superficially,” she explained. “You asked for a sculpture, but you are looking at only one side. Look deeper.”

I’m not in a good mood anymore. Stop playing games
. He raised an eyebrow at her.

“A mirror does not exist by itself. A mirror is a half. Half is done by the piece. The other half has to be done by the beholder. You need to be the half to see what you’re looking for, so the mirror can exist. As you should do with other persons.”

Beautiful words, but I don’t want to be the spectator anymore so others can exist. I want to exist.

She moved her hand in the air. “Walk around it.”

He needed to escape from the dark, loathsome rooms full of half-despair and half-hope, the unconscious opened graves where he had buried all the stillborn and murdered Ethans, where he almost buried himself alive.

He wanted to live, and leave behind the pain of years of solitude.

He needed to move on; walk away in his new found, still unsteady legs, even if on a dubious path, still feeling hopeless, to wash away all the dirt of his half-requited loves and half-satisfied desires.

Ethan moved to one side and saw that there was a concave mirror covering a large space, reflecting him distortedly.
Not so imaginative, either.
He looked back at her to see that she was by his side, as if urging him to continue. He walked to the other side of the object, pausing right in the middle of it.

Guinevere’s smile grew as she saw Ethan become hypnotized. She remained silent giving him time to work it out.

“This is…”
Amazing.

He was expecting the back silver surface of a normal mirror.

Instead, he was looking at multiple Ethans. He stepped toward it, mesmerized.

It was not a simple mirror. In a round box, with a shimmering silver light around the inside extremities, it reflected Ethan’s image
continuously
, making him wish to dive inside and swim until he could reach each new one, until he met the last eternal Ethan.

“The future—” she started to describe the concept of the object when he whipped his head to face her. The ferocious look in his eyes made her parted lips suck in air.

“Apparently rational justifications will never explain all sorts of the different feelings and raw emotions art invoke in people.”

“You’re right,” she said huskily, impressed with the passion in him.

“Today is my birthday.” The words left his mouth unhindered. “Would you like to go out with me?”

Italy, Tuscany, Florence, Grand Hôtel Villa Cora.

3.39 p.m.

“How you allow this, I don’t know. It’s too cold to be in the pool.” Alistair huffed, looking away from the twins playing in the heated pool with Gabriela to glance at Sophia, who was smiling at the scene.

The two of them had left Gabriela with the twins while they went to the marble factory to pick up their urgent order of the little angels and blooming camellias.

Sophia had showed her ideas to Valentina, without revealing exactly what they were for. A skilled artist, Valentina had redrawn Sophia’s idea into a lovingly opening camellia and four exquisite angels. Sophia had left the plaster replicas of the pointed spikes in the factory and asked for urgency. It had been easier than she had thought.

Of course, the spitfires would do something wrong while we were away.
“Gabriela will catch a cold. They are really crazy in the head.”
But adorable.

“Alistair Connor. The water is heated, it’s a beautiful day and… they are young. Let them enjoy life. A shower, warm clothes and a hot chocolate afterwards will do the trick.”

She looked away, her gaze hovering over the magnificent grounds of the hotel. She had just remembered it was Ethan’s birthday.

Is Alistair going to be upset?
Sophia chewed her bottom lip, wondering if she should call him or not. It disturbed the peace and tranquility she had been feeling since she had arrived in that haven on Tuesday night.
Will it keep Ethan thinking of me in the wrong way?

Alistair frowned at her fidgeting.

His almost healed hand gripped her chin and turned it in his direction. His eyes searched for hers, but they were hooded. His thumb pulled her lip away from her teeth. He softy said, “Ah-ah. What’s bothering you?”

“I remembered it’s Ethan birthday. I— I don’t know if I should call him, text him— If you are going to be upset. I’d never upset—”

Mo grádh, you’ll never upset me.
His thumb caressed her mouth, stopping her words.

She looked up, meeting his stare.

“Nae,” he said hoarsely, “I don’t think you should call him. But text him. And, aye, I confess, I won’t like it very much but you’re his friend, his business partner, and you know what?”

Oh, Alistair Connor…
Her heart blossomed and love sparkled in her eyes. Her lips moved under the gentle pressure of his thumb. “What?”

“Why should I be jealous of Ashford?” he asked, smirking. “You, Wife, are here with me; worried if I would be upset if you talk or text a male friend of yours on his birthday. You, I have no doubt, are mine. And I, I’m sure, am the love of your life.”
You are the love of mine.

“Ah!” Sophia smacked his bicep. “Lord Convinced! I take it back. I’m calling Ethan on Skype and having a long conversation with him.”