After Forever Ends (47 page)

“Hard when I have to hear that sort of rubbish,” Ana muttered.

“Well, then you might like to know that your son, Oliver, just put a dead mouse into her coat pocket,” Edmond’s face was red with mirth as he suppressed his laughter.

“He did not!” I gasped.

“Oh, he did!” Edmond snorted with the effort of not bursting into a fit.

Ana didn’t even try to keep it in. She let loose a loud, silly giggle and cheered, “Hooray! I love that boy!”

“Yes, yes! We did a good job with him! Now, come on! Come on!”

Alexander brought Nigel over one morning early about three weeks later. He showed me the plans he had been drawing for expanding the cabin, “You’ll have three more rooms that can be used for bedrooms if needed. Oliver wants an office, too. We’re putting one room on the back, but the three we’re going to build on top of the additions we’ve already made. I’m leaving the front alone. It’s very old and I’m not dealing with the roof. I wanted to build two rooms on to the rear, but we can’t go back much more without clearing several trees. Oliver won’t have that, so we’ll go up instead. I have a new door here on the side,” He pointed at the plans with a pencil, “The stairs going up will actually be built outside, but we’ll enclose them. That way no one will have to walk through either bedroom to get upstairs.”

“I thought we were OK.” I looked at the plans, “It’s just Oliver, Caro, Duncan and me.”

He chewed his gum slowly. “You’ll have more children one day, yeah?”

“If nature allows. But why does Oliver want this done now?” I asked. Alex didn’t look at me. He scratched his head with the pencil. “OK, Alexander. What are you two planning that you’ve failed to tell me?”

He sighed, “Nothing. Oliver just wants it done. You know how he is when he gets something in his head. It’s got to be done right now, rush, rush. Linger and he’ll kill you. As for me, I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Do you want to talk? You seem more bothered than usual.”

“Yes, actually, I am,” He sighed again, “And I would like to talk. “

“Talk. “

“Melissa wants to go back.”

“Oh aye? What’s keeping her?”

“For the moment it’s pregnancy.” He paused. “And then nothing.”

“You’re building a room for Nigel, aren’t you?”

“Silvia, no, I told you…”

“Stop right there! I’ve no problem with Nigel having a room here or anywhere else, but I have a problem with your wife. I have from the moment I met her. I said it then and I’ll say it now. She’s not for you, Alexander. And she’s not fit to be a mother, either. She can go through the motions, but she can’t care for that boy like he needs to be cared for.”

Alexander looked up at the ceiling, “I agree.”

“You married her too soon,” I told him, “You could’ve waited. You could have not married her at all!”

“Oh, aye! But you weren’t there, were you?” He turned and looked straight at me, “And I had a big decision to make right quick-like, too. I could’ve left her, yeah? She might have chased me down for some support money or she might have let me go. Or she could have had an abortion and been done with it all. But there I was and at the time I saw something in her that’s not there now. She was sweet. Maybe not so clever, but she was warm and kind. So when I married her I was mad about her and inside her belly was a wee Dickinson. My child, Silvia! No Dickinson has ever left behind another Dickinson! I married her quick because my legal stay in the US was almost done. She’s my wife then so she didn’t argue about coming to Wales. She came out of obligation and something she thought was love. She had the baby and my son was born Welsh. In Wales. Do you get my meaning?”

“You made it so! You planned it!”

“Damned straight I did! Had I allowed my son to be born an American Citizen, do you think that when his dad and mum had enough of each other and I wanted to leave off for Wales they would let me take my son from the nation of his birth?”

“You knew it even then?”

“I knew we weren’t you and Ollie. You and Ollie, now, that’s a rare thing indeed. Melissa and I hadn’t been together long enough for me to know. I knew she had problems. She told me there were issues and I saw warning signs, but I didn’t think at first she and I could never see it through. I knew a couple of weeks after we got here that she wasn’t all right. I tried to make it better, but I only made it worse and it was obvious that something was seriously wrong after Nigel was born. She doesn’t want much to do with him, does she?”

“She’s a cow.”

“No, she isn’t. Don’t say that. I never told you and I should have. She’s ill. She has bi polar disorder. She’s been on medicine since she was nineteen only when she got pregnant she quit taking it. She didn’t want to hurt the baby. She’d only started to get back on it when she got pregnant again and she went right off.”

“Oh, Alexander! I’m sorry!” That suddenly made things loads more clear.

“She’s not right. She leans heavily toward the depressed, but the mania’s even worse. She doesn’t want anything to do with Nigel, but it’s not that she doesn’t love him. She just can’t love him correctly,” Alexander looked like he was a hundred years old, “All she does is cry and get angry at him or she gets excited and forgets about him. She hates herself for it, but she really can't help it. She’s afraid she’ll hurt him. She hates you because you do what she can’t. She’s got this ridiculous notion that you and I are lovers or at least we want to be. And we should not have gotten pregnant so soon, but we got arseholed one night and weren’t careful and…” He trailed off, “You know how it goes,” He shook his head, “She’s unstable. I’m afraid to leave for work because she’s tried to kill herself. I never know what I’m coming home to. Most nights she’s happy to see me and then ten minutes later she’s swinging at my head. She punches me closed fists. Not that it hurts mostly, but her hitting me like that in front of our son? Or she locks herself in the loo and sobs for hours. She’s impossible to live with.”

“How horrible.” I had been so caught up in the thought of Nigel not being safe that I'd forgotten what Alexander must have been going through emotionally. He was so unhappy standing there talking to me that day, so drained of the energy that he'd always exuded. Alexander, mouthy and rebellious his whole life, was now a man heavy laden with burden and responsibility, trapped in a situation he had no idea of how to successfully escape.

“She doesn’t want the baby,” He continued, “She’s not at all excited about it. She refused her ultrasound. I have to force her to appointments. She doesn’t even want to discuss names. All she talks about is going to the US after she has it and being with her friends and her family.”

“She’s having the baby and then taking holiday?”

Alexander didn’t look at me. “She’s divorcing me, Sil.”

“What?”

“After what I just told you you’re surprised?”

“Well, with two wee babies that’s the last thing I expected to hear!”

He nodded. “Bit sick, yeah? But so is she. She’s sick, not evil. She thinks it’s the right thing to do. I tried to tell her that I’d stick with her. All she has to do is have the baby and get back on medicine and we’d work together until we had it right, but she says no. She’s going back state side as soon as the baby’s born.”

I was not quite sure what to say, “Are you contesting the divorce?”

“I can’t stop her from leaving. If she leaves, and she will, what’s the point? No, I think Melissa and I are divorcing straight away.”

“Before she has the baby?”

“Yes, she wants the marriage ended as soon as possible. I don’t want to, but I’m not going to fight her. I’ve tried to help her and I’ve accepted that there’s nothing I can do. I told her I’d give her the divorce without any argument, but I’m keeping both of the children.”

“What did she say about that?”

“She cried for about an hour and then she went to bed. I do know that I can keep my children in Wales, at least. She can’t leave and take my children, too. Not without my saying so.”

“She’s far gone then. I’ll tell you for nothing that you’d have to pry Carolena out of my cold stiff arms. I’d fight until I was dead before I’d leave her for a day.”

“Yes, and you love your child. She does hers, too, in a way that I can’t understand.” There was a sadness I’d never seen in Alexander before, “There won’t be a fight if she goes home without them. If she doesn’t come back I won’t bother her ever again. If she comes back it’s just as well for everyone. I still want custody. She’s too unpredictable to keep the children.”

“You’re a good dad.”

“I am! And Melissa…I just don’t understand why she won’t stay and get help. I can raise the children, I know I can. But a child needs a mother!”

“I’ll do it then.” I said a little too quickly, “I want them. I mean, I know that they’re your children, but with a couple more rooms on top they could just stay here. You could stay as well. And all the children could be raised right and proper here in the wood.”

I looked down at Nigel and Carolena who were sleeping together on a blanket. Duncan lie about a foot away, opening one eye from time to time to check on them. They were angels. Little bundles of magic, they both were. Funny how a fifteen pound runt of a litter meant to keep them safe and close while Nigel’s own mother was walking away. What a fool she was.

Alexander was staring at me with a look that I could not place.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Melissa’s not so off base,” He said softly, “I love you so much, Sil. I always have. You’re my brother’s wife. You were Oliver’s wife long before you married him, but I love you, too. It’s like this ache right here,” He rubbed his sternum, “Every now and again when I look at you or I think of you, it actually hurts. It’s been a bit disturbing the way I’ve felt sometimes,” He smiled, “Don‘t look sickened! The truth is that I’m jealous because Oliver has you through and through. I’ve never seen anybody love anybody the way you love him. I used to wonder if the hurt was because I was in love with you, too-like… like, really, really in love with you. Now I wonder if it’s not just jealousy because no one’s ever loved me like you love him. Or maybe I’m just a man who’s not used to being ignored and recognizes a woman that has always been out of his reach. Maybe deep down from time to time I’m tempted by the challenge? No matter. I’d never try. The thought of being romantic with you is just too weird,” He shuddered, “Plus I’d never do that to my brother and you’d just crush me anyway. But whatever it is, I know that I love you and it‘s obvious to Melissa as well. She takes it to a different place than we do, she makes it a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. You’re my sister, yeah? What she thinks is all wrong. Still, I’d be honoured to call you mother to my children.”

“It would be an honour to mother them, Alexander. And I love you, too.” I looked at him carefully for a second, digesting all he had said. We‘d been friends for so long that I had been aware of his affection without him telling me about it. Nothing he had said took me by any surprise. “Only it’s not confusing for me how I feel about you. It never has been.”

“I know!” He grinned, “And that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Could you imagine the mess we’d be in if it ever had been?”

It would turn out that this divorce was something that Melissa had been mulling over for nearly as long as Nigel had been alive. The plans to change the house, however, had been something Oliver had mentioned before the idea of having Alexander and the children move in had come up. Xander, however, thought it better that he and the children still keep their own home, which I thought was a bit silly.

It was only two days after Melissa gave Alexander the divorce proposal that she moved out. She left her son with his father and she rarely checked in. It was the hospital that called Alex on a Sunday afternoon five weeks later to tell him that he had a new baby daughter who was born the morning before.

Oliver and I raced to the hospital to see her. We peered at her through the nursery window. It wasn’t a good view, but there she was, our little niece, sleeping peacefully.

Oliver held a fussy Carolena. “Shush, Caro,” He tried to put the pacifier into her mouth and she spat it out, “She’s getting teeth, Love,” He told me as he peered into her mouth, “About three of them all at once from how it appears. Two on the bottom and one on top.”

“I know. She’s drooling and chewing on everything.” I wiped dirt off of Nigel’s nose, “Look at your new niece in there! Poor little baby all alone! She’s not even named!”

“Alexander won’t allow her to go anonymous for long,” Oliver peered through the glass, “Maybe she’s named and we just don’t know it.”

It was just then that Alexander rounded the corner, “Well, it’s done.”

“What’s done?” Ollie turned to his brother and asked.

“She’s signed the final papers. She’s going,” He looked down at Nigel, “And that’s that. My attorney’s faxing them over to the US tomorrow. I’ve filled out the birth certificate as well. Melissa’s agreed to leave the children with me. She didn’t really have a choice, not if she wanted to go home.” We watched a nurse enter the nursery and lift the baby into her arms. She walked out of the room with her. “And now I get to meet my daughter.”

“What name did you give her?” I lifted Nigel, who was reaching for Alex.

“I’m calling her Natalie,” Alexander looked older than his father as he stroked Nigel’s hair, “Hey, Buddy! You’ve got yourself a little sister! Natalie Christine! Want to meet her?”

He was about to say something else when the nurse came around with the baby. “Here you go, Dad!” She stopped in her step, “Doctor Dickinson!”

Alexander took a step forward and relieved her of her burden, “That’s Doctor Dickinson,” He motioned to Oliver with his head, “I’m his twin. The good looking one. Hello, Natalie, my love,” He pulled the blankets away from her chin and peered into her little face, “Hello, Muffin! It’s me, your dad! And this is Nigel! He’s your big brother! Oh, hello! You’re beautiful, aren’t you? You look just like your Mummy! So beautiful, aren’t you?” He kissed her gently and wandered off for a private moment, speaking to her in Welsh whispers.

The nurse laughed nervously, “Oh!” She said to Oliver, “I didn’t know you were a twin! Identical, too!”