Vanished

“That's a stupid thing to say. You don't even know who I am now. Or maybe even who I was then. Maybe it would have all died a normal death anyway, if things had been different.” She looked down at Teddy then, and smiled at him, and pulled him close beside her. “Teddy, this is an old friend. His name is Charles, and sometimes he acts a little crazy, but he's a nice man. Would you like to say hello?” Teddy shook his head firmly and hid in the folds of her fur coat. They had spoken much too freely, but at four, a lot of it had missed him. The tone hadn't, the anger, the passion, but the history was too complicated for him to follow.

“I'm sorry if I frightened him.” He looked briefly remorseful, but still like a madman. He hadn't shaved since the day before, and everything about him looked wild and woolly.

“You should be. And for what? Can you really hold this against me?” He looked at her and then at the boy long and hard, and when he looked back at her, the look in his eyes hadn't mellowed. Instead he frightened her more, and he seemed even drunker. For the first time in a long time, she knew real terror. It reminded her of the bad times when Charles had become a stranger.

“He should be mine. By all rights … he should be.” He was staring hard at Teddy, hidden in her coat, and Marielle looked at Charles firmly.

“But he isn't yours, Charles.”

“What right did you have to move on … to do this … to have a child without me?” As he said the words, his fury seemed to be growing.

“You agreed to the divorce, I had every right.” She refused to be bullied.

“You said that if I didn't, it would kill you.”

“It nearly did.” And they both knew she meant it.

“I'd rather you were dead than have this child without me.” His eyes were like daggers into her heart as he said it, and she shrunk back from him, frightened and disgusted, wondering how she had ever loved him, reminded of how irrational he could be, and why she had left him.

“Charles, stop it.” He reached out and grabbed her arm then, and Teddy let out a small shriek and jumped behind her. “You're frightening the child. It's not fair. Stop it!”

“I don't give a damn. He's mine … by all rights, he should be.”

“Stop!” She spat the word at him, no longer afraid of him or anyone as she wrenched her arm free. She was not going to watch her life fall around her. “He's not yours, and neither am I …and Andre wasn't ours either. No one belongs to anyone else in this world. We all belong to God, and we're here on loan to each other …and when the loan is up, it's over …and it's terrible …and it hurts like hell …and sometimes it comes much too soon …but we didn't own him …you didn't own me, or I you …and I don't own Teddy.”

“You love him, don't you?”

“Of course I do.”

“And he loves you?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you have that, and I have nothing?”

“Maybe because I'm lucky. Or maybe because Malcolm felt sorry for me … or maybe just because that's the way it is, or I'm willing to pay a price you aren't.”

“And what price is that? What price did you pay to marry him?” She had married a man she didn't love and who didn't love her and she knew it. It was not as easy as one might have thought. But it was also something Charles would never even have considered doing for a moment. “What exactly did you give up when you married him?”

Hope …love …tenderness …the kind of love and passion they had once shared …the kind of love that she knew existed. “Everybody gives up something when they get married.” Out of loyalty to Malcolm, she would never have told Charles the truth. “Perhaps I gave up the past.”

“I'm deeply impressed by your sacrifice,” he said scornfully, glaring at her through the booze.

“I'm deeply impressed by your behavior. You're as bad as ever.” He had upset Teddy and her, and they had resolved nothing. There was nothing to resolve anymore. It was over. “There's no reason to do this to me, or yourself. What do you think you're going to accomplish?” But he was staring at Teddy again, and the way he looked at him made her nervous. He was like that when he drank. It had happened in the old days too, he would drink too much and stay drunk all night and the next morning, and finally go more than a little crazy. He had destroyed an entire hotel room once, and a bar, and a restaurant, and nearly killed two men … and her, but only once. Only once …but she knew what he was capable of. It was hard to forget it.