After Forever Ends (38 page)

“Oh, my,” There was a great amount of relief in her voice, “I’m shocked, but that was thoughtful of him since I couldn’t be there! I do wish I could have seen one of my sons married!”

“Oh, she’s beautiful, Mum. She looks like a Barbie doll. And very nice, too, I think. It’s hard to tell, though. She might be a toad.”

“She’s having a baby?”

“Full on baking, she is! But they just found out, quite a shock. Must have happened on their wedding night, yeah?” I leaned forward and pretended to vomit into my sack.

“Oh, how sweet!”

It was all I could do to hold back my disdain, but I had done it! Alex was still ringing me, “Oh, Mum, that’s Alex on the line. I should pick it up and tell him I’ve ruined his surprise!”

“Oh, tell him to ring me straight away!” She was terribly excited.

“I will. Speak soon, Mum. Cheers!” I clicked the line over, “Alex?”

“DAMN IT, SILVIA! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! YOU DIDN’T JUST RING MY MUM!”

“OH, SHUT YOUR NOISE BEFORE I COME OVER AND KNOCK YOUR ROCKS, BOYO!” I yelled back, “YOUR MOTHER IS SO HAPPY SHE’S ABOUT TO POP!”

There was silence again. “What?”

“I told her you’ve been married a month and didn’t want to break her heart by telling her when she couldn’t be there to see her last remaining single son married! You just loved Melissa so fucking much you couldn’t wait to get her to the church! I almost threw up, Alexander! I even told her you felt terrible for hurting her like Oliver and I had. I told her that you only just found out that Melissa is baking a muffin and that Melissa is beautiful and wonderful and you’re both so happy you’re blowing bubbles out your bums! She got banged up the night you got married, I said! Can you believe your mother believed that rubbish?”

“You told her all of that?”

“I did! And do you know why?”

“Why?”

“I did it for you! Because you’re my brother and I love you and you’re so incredibly fucking stupid! Your bloody wife is pregnant! That’s why I did it! Because I treated her like the road the other night and I would never, never do anything to upset her again and have anything happen to that baby!” I was so angry I was drooling. Literally, slobber was flying all over. It was disgusting, which made me even more upset, “You are a thoughtless moron, Alexander Martin Dickinson! As if Melissa needed to go to that house and have your father scream at you two like he did when Oliver and I got married! And she DOES have a muffin! She was freaked out meeting the two of us! Do you want her to get so upset that she loses that baby like I lost mine?”

“I didn’t think about it like that.”

“You didn’t think at all, did you?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“You should be, Fuckhead!”

“Fuckhead? Jeez, Silvia, are you feeling all right?”

“No! You are an arsehole, Alexander! You fuckhead!”

He ignored me, “So Mum’s… she’s happy?”

“Oh, yes! She wants you to phone straight away. When you do you better remember you just found out! You were married more than a month ago and you’re regretful that she wasn’t here! Tell her if it’s a girl you’ll put Ana in the name! Just make her happy!”

“Right! Brilliant, you are!”

“Tell me something I don’t already know! I’ve got to go! I’m so angry at you I have to go walk until I calm down or I’ll crash off the road!”

“Don’t do that, Sil.”

“I won’t, no thanks to you! It’s my good sense, not yours!”

“Thank you for calling Mum.” He was dripping with gratitude. I'm serious. I could feel it coming across the line. It was like a pulse and it weakened the resolve I had to hate him.

“Piss off.” My voice sounded soft, even to me.

“You’re a daisy, you know that? I love you, Silvia!”

“Shut up. I hate you. Ring your mum.” I hung up on him and stomped to my car.

I tossed my groceries into the back seat and walked around the village. I didn’t know if I was upset because I was angry at Alexander for not thinking about the wellbeing of his wife and child or if it was simply because Alexander had a wife that I didn’t approve of and a child I couldn’t have.

After a while I knew it was only because of the child.

It wasn’t fair! I kicked some rubbish on the side of the road and told a stranger to piss off for looking at me like I’d done something wrong. It was not fair that Alex and Melissa should accidentally become pregnant and I couldn’t carry the one child I’d conceived. Eight years! Almost eight years we’d been married and they’d only known each other a couple of months. Already they had a child together and me and Oliver…we were hopelessly barren. I felt that hot bubble of envy swell up and pop in my gut. It burned across every inch of my body.

Oh, damn it! Damn it! Damn it! I wanted a baby so badly I ached all over. Stupid, worthless womb! I hit myself twice in the belly and immediately regretted it.

I hadn’t realised how late it was getting. It was almost dark by the time I got back to the car. I knew Oliver was home by then. He wouldn’t be worried, but he’d be wondering where I was. I turned the ignition and hurried home.

Oliver was sitting on the porch with the dog when I came up the hill. “Hello, Love!” He met me for a kiss at the edge of the yard and took the groceries. Duncan kept jumping as high as my waist, his little tail wagging frantically, “What were you up to? Concocting more alibis for Alexander?”

“He told you?” I lifted Duncan in my arms and rubbed his ears. He licked me wickedly.

“He caught me just before I left school. Bloody clever of you! You make me so proud!”

I had to smile, “Yes, it was rather sly, wasn’t it?”

“Brilliant!” He put his arm around me as we entered the house, ignoring Duncan as he tried to press between our feet, “I made toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner. They’re probably even still warm.”

“Excellent. I’ll make the salad then.” I began to take the vegetables out of the sack.

Oliver stood beside me and watched me chop. He moved the hair from my neck and put his face into my shoulder, “It was a big thing you did, Love,” He said quietly, “I know you don’t like Melissa. It must have been hard for you to say nice things. You protected her.”

“She’s married to your brother. I have to do what I can.”

Oliver nodded, but said nothing. He just stood straight, looked down at me and grinned.

Three weeks later my mobile rang while I was on my way home from school. It was Melissa. “Lucky thing you caught me!” I told her, “I’m almost out of range.”

“Can we get together?” She asked, “Just you and me?”

“Sure. Everything all right?”

“Yes. I just need to talk to another woman.”

“I’ll have to get turned around,” I really would have rather gone home, but I decided that to uphold peace in the family, I needed to make an effort to find something tolerable about her.

“Can we go somewhere? I’d like to get out for a while.”

“Like where?”

“I don’t know. Is there a restaurant we can sit and talk at?”

“Not around here. There are a couple of pubs, but they’re not intimate. Where is Alex?”

“He’s at an interview for a job.” She sounded odd, like this bothered her.

I disregarded the twisted feeling I was getting in my stomach. I got it every time her name was brought up. It was a thousand times as bad when I was confronted with direct contact, “Well, how about you come out to my house then? Leave Alex a note and wait on the garden path. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“OK, Silvia. Thanks. Bye.”

“Cheers!” I clicked the phone closed and turned around in the road, already dreading what I had just done.

She was standing at the edge of the garden when I came up. Goodness she was pretty. She looked like a clip from a film scene you'd see on a poster at a theatre, perfectly still with the setting sun illuminating her corn silk hair. I gave her a wave and she smiled. She closed the gate when I stopped and was in the car in two steps. “Hi,” She said brightly. “Thanks for coming!”

“Hello! No problem!” I began to drive.

We were both quiet for a minute. “So you and Oliver have been married for a long time?”

“Almost eight years.”

“Wow! You did marry young!”

“I have no regrets,” I smiled as I drove.

“They’re identical.” Melissa shifted her weight in the seat. With the belt pulled across her I could see the bump of her belly. “Those two, I can’t tell them apart. It’s like…it’s incredible.”

“They’re actually not identical. They’re mono-zygotic twins, yeah, but if you look, Oliver is a bit taller than Alexander and his shoulders are broader, too. He has larger feet. Alex’s eyes are a little bigger. He has a scar here,” I pointed to my ear. “Oh, and if you never noticed, Alex is left handed and Oliver is right, which only matters if they’re not trying to fool you, because they always remember to switch hands if they’re up to something.”

“Wow. You’ve done your research. I hadn’t noticed any of that.”

“It’s subtle, most people don’t. They sound just alike, though. I can’t even tell them apart if I’m not looking. They’ve fooled me more than once on the phone. They’re funny, those two. They’re so different, but then they’re so much alike at the same time. Their brains operate more or less the same way, but they behave singularly. Oliver is the more outgoing one. Alex is loads more quiet than Oliver, but both are quick witted and clever. Equally as dangerous, I’d say. Put them together and leave them to plot and anything can happen. They’ve proved that more than once,” I pulled off the main road and started on the many paths that led to our home. “Oh, and their tempers are something to mention as well. Alexander’s temper is far hotter than Oliver’s, but either of them can be a fiend if you get them angry enough. It’s best to know when to draw back with Alexander. Oliver will walk away from a fight, but Alex will take out his fork and knife and keep at it until he’s had his fill.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“Alexander?” I found that a curious request, “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“May I ask you something? How long have you known Alex?”

“Eight months,” She answered quietly.

“Do you love him?”

Melissa snapped her head toward me, “Yes!” She didn’t say it like it was a reflex. She said it more like she was insulted that I had asked her. I was impressed with her sincerity.

Neither of us said anything else until I drove up the path to the cabin. Duncan had come out of the house through the dog door and came bounding down the hill to greet me, running in circles beside the car. “This is it,” I told Melissa, grabbing my books from the back seat, “It’s not much, but it’s home to us!”

“Alexander told me about this place,” Melissa said as she got out of the car and closed the door. Duncan ran to her and sniffed her shoes. He growled softly, “He thinks this is the best place on earth.”

“I agree.” I paused, sizing her up. I had no idea what she was getting at, but that feeling of mistrust was still boiling in my gut, “Melissa, what do you want to know about Alexander that you can’t ask him yourself?”

Her lids fluttered. “I just,” She glanced down at the dog and then back at me, pulling her jumper tighter around her. Her mouth went rigid. “I want to know more.”

I wished Oliver was home. He was so much better than I was at knowing the right things to say and when to say them. He could read people as if he were inside their head listening to their thoughts, “Come in. I’ll make us some coffee.”

I took Melissa into the house. “You have a beautiful home," She told me as she sat on the sofa while I made coffee in the front room. Melissa could be so sincere at times. It was truly an endearing quality and it set me back from time to time from being convinced that she was pure evil. The fire cracked inside of the stove, giving off warmth that took the chill right out of the room. I watched her look around as if she were lost. She had an expression of deep wanting in her big blue eyes. There was something about her that resonated sadness. A deep, endless sadness that I recognised and knew I'd felt before myself. It was loneliness. Melissa was alone.

Part of me felt sorry for her and wanted to be her friend, but every time I thought of reaching out that sickening crunch would go through my stomach and I pulled back. That feeling had never failed me when there was something wrong. I had learned to trust it.

“Thanks. We’ve worked hard on it. I don’t have decaffeinated coffee, sorry,” I told her, handing her a mug, “But a little caffeine won’t hurt you in your condition.”

“No, a cup or two is OK.” She smiled and took sugar from our coffee table, “Thank you.”

“No worries," I sat in Oliver’s chair. Duncan jumped up on to my lap and sat looking curiously at Melissa, “So,” I began the conversation, “What do you want to know about Xan?”

Her eyes were huge. “Everything! Tell me about when he was a kid!”

“Well, I’ve known him since we were fifteen,” I began to tell her everything I knew or could remember. I told her stories about what went on at Bennington, minus his womanising, about how he had become so interested in architecture while helping us build on to the cabin, and about him and Oliver and how close they were. “Alexander is my best friend. He’s a bit on the crusty side, but he’s the only brother I’ve ever had and beside my husband, I think he is the most wonderful man alive. You’re very lucky to have him.”

“I know. He’s great.” She had that wanting look again.

“Are you troubled about something, Melissa? Can I help you?”

“It’s just I feel weird,” She pulled her long hair back with one hand, “I know I know you and everything,” I almost laughed out loud remembering Oliver’s imitation of her in the car, but I maintained myself, “And here I am at your house asking you to tell me all about the man I’m married to like I don’t know him at all or something!” She shook her head. “It’s weird.”

“You love him right?”

“Yes!” She set her cup down, “I’m so in love with him! He’s smart and he’s funny and,” She put her hands in the air, “He’s absolutely everything I ever imagined I’d want in a husband!”

“I believe you!” I said, but I wondered now if she was being sincere or trying to convince me, “If you love him that should be enough to put it right in the end. Whatever it is.”