Blackbird (16 page)

Somehow I manage to say all of that without realizing I’m sobbing.

Her hand rests on my back.

“Oh honey, that’s not true at all.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been married for fifteen years,” she sighs. “I’m not going to lie to you. It does hurt. A lot. Maybe even most of the time. But when it doesn’t , those times are worth it. You told me about going to that park and all the time you spent with him and you were happy. Would you give that back to get rid of the pain? Erase it all so you don’t have to feel this anymore?

I shake my head.

“I didn’t think so. Did you ever give him a chance to explain himself?”

“What is there to explain? My father was right. All he cared about was fucking me. He probably thought it was funny, or it excited him to break some silly rule about sleeping with me because our parents are married. It has to be true. It has to.”

“Why?”

My hands shake in front of me and my jaw trembles. I can barely choke the words out.

“If I’m wrong, all this time he’s been in prison and if he didn’t do anything wrong… what if I hated him all this time and he didn’t do it? What then? All that time is gone. Ripped away, and I… I never…”

“What?”

I can’t take it. I pound my fists on her dashboard.

“His mom made me promise,” I cry out, sobbing. “She was dying and she was in the hospital and she made me promise to tell him, to give him a chance but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t go and I never told him what she said. I never told him.”

I curl up for a bit, just breathe. Try to keep my food down.

“She got sick when he got in trouble,” I rasp. “It was like it just broke something in her. The evidence was too damning. If it was just my father she might not have believed,
I
might not have believed, but when they came to arrest him, when they had the trial. It has to be true. He was embezzling from the company, stealing money. He was tied up in all these awful illegal things, they had proof. That had his signature on things, pictures of him coming and going, all the witnesses. I
hate
him. He ruined me. He ruined everything.”

“Doesn’t matter how many times you keep saying you hate him, honey. It’s not any more true now than it was before.”

I flinch.

“I saw how you two looked at each other in that office. Neither of you hates the other one.”

“I have to know the truth.”

“Yeah. I think you do. What should we do?”

“Get me out of here. Drive, I don’t care where.”

She nods and starts driving while I slump in the seat. I pull up the hood of my sweatshirt and fold my arms around myself, and stare through the streaked windows. It hurts so much. I just want to disappear.

“You still have a chance, you know,” she says.

I don’t answer her.

“How old are you? Twenty-eight? Honey, you’re not even thirty. Your life isn’t over.”

“Sometimes I wish it was. How many people have I hurt?”

“Not every company you take over gets shut down. Lots of people kept their jobs because of-“

“I haven’t run a single takeover that didn’t end up cutting jobs.” The traffic lights become baleful glows in the mist.
 
I lean on my hand. “I order staff reductions…” I trail off. “I fired people to improve bottom lines.”

“Right. If you tried to keep everybody, they’d go under and they’d all lose their jobs.”

“I read those tweets, Alicia. “How many people’s Christmases have I ruined? How many divorces have I caused? I never even thought about it before. All I saw was numbers in a spreadsheet, charts and projects and equations. It’s like I forgot people existed.”

“How many Christmas presents did you ever get?”

I look over at her. She’s still not looking at me. “What?”

“How many?”

“It’s not like I counted them.”

“Fine. How many from your father?”

“None. We didn’t celebrate holidays at my house. Father said it was frivolous and I could buy what I wanted with my allowance. If I needed something there was no reason to wait until December twenty-fifth to buy it for me.”

“What about Victor and his mother?”

“They had huge Christmases. Father hated it. I could tell. He accepted gifts and bought things for Victor’s mother, anyway. She and Victor gave me things. He gave me jewelry and…” I feel myself blush.

Alicia’s eyebrow quirks up. “And?”

“Other things. Sexy underwear.”

“People call it ‘lingerie’, Eve.”

“Whatever,” I say, sullenly. “What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What would you do?”

“I’d hear what Victor had to say.”

“He hates me now.”

“No, he does not. You sound like a twelve year old. Didn’t you hear what I told you? That man was not looking at someone he hated. He wanted to take you with him. He wasn’t there to hurt you, Eve. He was there to rescue you, even if he doesn’t know it.”

“I don’t know how to reach him.”

Alicia sighs. “I can find out. It is my job. Where’s there a place where you could meet him?”

“Far away from here. If I do this, Father will find out.”

“Find out, and hit you again, you mean.”

I flinch.

“It’s a ways from here. It’s a drive. We should go get one of the cars.”

“No, we’ll take mine,” Alicia says.

I’m not used to being contradicted. It’s a long drive. First, we stop at the house. Alicia goes inside and comes back with a bag of my clothes, puts them in the back of her van. I listen while she talks to her husband, who is displeased that she isn’t coming home tonight, at the very least. Their conversation is so
domestic
. I curl up in the seat and hug myself and Alicia drives, and drives, and drives. It’s almost a three hour trip, all in silence. City gives way to suburbs, suburbs give way to open fields and the swampy hinterlands of the Delmarva peninsula. By the time we arrive I’ve been asleep for an hour and it’s
 
almost dark. One of the advantages of my wealth is I don’t have to worry about the cost of booking a room, but in November all the fine waterfront hotels are closed. Alicia takes the company card and books two rooms, one for each of us.

I sprawl out on the bed of a Motel 8 and stare at the popcorn ceiling as if the tiny little swirls and bumps could give me some kind of answers. Alicia is in the other room, making phone calls.

Just past midnight, there’s a knock at the door. Wearily, I get up and trudge over, and pull it open. I expect Alicia.

Victor stands in the door, soaked to the bone from the driving rain that kicked up while I was lying on the bed in half-sleep. Water has glued his thick black hair to his head and drips from the tip of his nose, but he holds his head high like it’s nothing and stares at me with his clear, piercing eyes.

“Hello,” I say, softly. “Come in.”

I step back. He walks into the room and sloughs off a rain soaked jacket onto the floor, takes a towel from the bathroom and dries his face. The rain slashes the windows, drums on the heater built into the wall beside the door. I bolt the door and slide the chain lock into place and stand there, trying to make my hands
 
stop shaking, but I can’t.

“Your assistant called me,” he says, dully. “She says you want to talk. Said to meet you here.”

“Yes. I want to talk.”

I sit down on the edge of the bed, facing him, but I can’t look at him. Just seeing him stirs up
 
all these emotions, like a storm brewing inside me.

“What did you want to talk about?”

I swallow. “Victor.”

He’s still silent. His eyes are hard.

“Do you hate me?”

He doesn’t answer.

I pull my legs up under me and fold them, and hug myself. I still can’t look at him. “When your mother was in the hospital, she made me promise to pass a message to you, but I never did.” I’m surprised how even my voice is. “She told me to tell you she was wrong, and you were right, about everything. She told me to tell you she believed you were innocent.”

“Is that all she said?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t make her any less dead, Eve. She died while I was in prison. I wasn’t allowed to see her.”

I swallow. “She asked me something else.”

“What?”

“She asked me to give you a chance.
 
To hear you out.”
 

“What makes you think I should hear you out?”

My eyes snap up to look at him. The words are like a dagger in my chest.

“I thought…”

“I gave you everything, Eve, and the first time we were tested, you believed the worst about me and wouldn’t let me defend myself.”

“Your reputation preceded you.”

His teeth pull back in a sneer and his fists clench. “That ended with you, Eve. I never touched another girl since I met you.”

“She said-“

“She
lied,”
he snaps, and pounds his fist on his thigh.

I flinch and his expression softens.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, but God damn it, Eve. It makes me mad. I’m angry with you.”

“Do you hate me?”

“No. Not you. Never you.”

“I’ll hear you out, if you want to talk to me.”

He gets up and walks to the window. “Why’d you come here?”

“We were always happy here.”

“We never stayed at this motel.”

I roll my eyes. “I don’t mean here, here. I mean at the beach. I still remember that first trip. I was like a little kid. Nobody ever did anything like that for me before, ever.”

“It was always fascinating to watch,” he says, watching the rain streak the window. “Everything was new to you. Little things brought you such joy. Cotton candy and stuffed animals and the silly little rides at that park.”

“Funland,” I correct.

“Funland.”

“I know now why Father wouldn’t let me see you.”

“Wouldn’t let you?”

“He kept me away at first. After a while he didn’t have to. I stayed away on my own. When I saw you what, yesterday? It was…”

“You said you’d hear me out.”

“Yes.”

“So stop talking, and hear me.”

I slide back up the bed to sit against the wall. Victor continues to stare out the window.

“I was never happier than when I was with you. You know, I became a real son of a bitch after I lost my father. The way only a twelve year old can be. I was a little shit to my mother. I hurt a lot of girls. Emotionally, I mean. Not physically. Then when you were around it didn’t
hurt
anymore. Not like it used to. It wasn’t so bad, and the more you were around the better I felt. I started to think I could have a future with you. The other shit never really mattered to me. I guess I didn’t know how well off I had it. The money and the house and all didn’t matter to me. It was just there.”

I look at his reflection. His eyes are distant, locked on nothing.

“Five years,” he said. “Five years with nothing but time. I could have survived that, if I thought you’d be waiting for me. I thought I’d lost you permanently. I thought you’d been poisoned against me. I thought he
won
. Nothing was worse than that.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, dully.

“If you’d believed me,” he sighs. “No, it doesn’t matter. I was going down no matter what. I was so stupid. He set me up. Your father. It was a trap and I fell for it, hard. Completely. He beat me.”

“Tell me what happened. The truth. All of it.”

He turns from the window and falls into a side chair. His hair is still wet when he slides his hand through it. In short sleeves, the feathery tattoos on his arms shiver. I remember being wrapped in those arms, tracing my fingernails over those designs. My touch excited him. Would it excite him now, or disgust him? When he sees me biting my lip his nostrils flare and his whole posture changes. A little quiver of fear flutters through me, flavored with excitement. He looks away, his jaw set.

“You want the truth?” he says, and his voice never wavers. “I love you. That’s the truth.”

“What about the girl?”

Brittany. Her name is Brittany. I won’t say it, I won’t give it voice.

“She was lying.”

“About the sex, or all of it?”

“All of it. I should have seen it coming. I was set up.”

“You said. Set up how?”

“Your father played me,” he says, coldly. “Played on my one weakness, too. He was very smart about it.”

“What weakness?” I’m about to say
redheads
but I bite my tongue.

“The possibility of freeing you from him forever. I thought I had a shot at taking him down. This is what happened.”

Chapter Fourteen

Victor

I never knew what happiness was until I woke up with Evelyn in my arms. When she slept she would curl up in a ball and press against me, the tip of her nose pressed into my chest, the soft feathery touch of her breath on my skin. She always tucked her arms under mine and half the time she’d throw a leg over me, too, like she was trying to wrap me up so I couldn’t get away. It was our third year together. Soon I would be graduating from college. She had another year if she chose to continue her studies. I was pushing her to declare a new major. She could do whatever she wanted and I’d pay for it. She didn’t need her father’s approval, and she didn’t need
him
. I had her, I would take care of her. This was the best day of my life. The school year would end soon. We’d decided that after sneaking around for the last two summers we’d be open this year. Eve was ready to confront her father.

Once I graduated, everything would be mine. All of it. The company, the house, the estate, the fortune.

The first thing I was going to do was accept Martin Ross’ resignation from the position my mother had secured for him. I’d make sure Mom was well taken care of. If she wanted to take care of her husband in turn, that was her business. I hadn’t spoken with her about it yet, but I think she knew. She refused to believe me about the abuse, and I couldn’t very well tell her I’d spent hours with Eve with both of us in the nude, tracing the ridged scars on her back. I never imagined he’d left
permanent marks
on her until she disrobed for me in the light for the first time. I wasn’t sure what the marks were that first night when it was dark in the room and she wouldn’t come out from under the covers. When I saw, I knew. Scars. From the edge of a belt biting into her skin. They were old and faded, just lines in the way old scars are, but that’s what they were. He’d whipped her until she bled.