The Glimpsing (25 page)

Jack sat on the edge of the bed, anticipating the event, allowing the joy bubbling in his gut to take hold of him.
 
He began to laugh,
then
clapped his hands together in sheer excitement.

Then another thought quickly moved him back toward sobriety.
 
It was the thought of Portia.
 
As good as it felt to be in love with Gabrielle, and as good as it felt to be loved by her, it was Portia who stood to lose in all of this.
 
At some point, whether that was near or far—he’d let Gabrielle decide that—Portia would have to be told about their affair.
 
They’d both have to sit down and confess what they’d done.

That was a day destined to be full of pain and heartbreak for both women.
 
Their near lifelong friendship would be severely tested, if not completely destroyed.
 
But Gabrielle would have someone to lean on, someone to get her through the pain.
 
She’d have him.
 
Portia, however, would have no one.
 
She’d be forced to bear her grief all alone.

Jack then felt something for Portia that he never thought possible.
 
Pity.
 
His desire for revenge had completely subsided.
 
In fact, the very thought that he had seduced Gabrielle in order to harm Portia now made him sick to his stomach.
 
Portia didn’t deserve any of what he had done to her.
 
Nor did she deserve the pain of what was soon
to take place, the confession he and Gabrielle were going to make.
 
Of the three of them, only Portia was innocent.
 
She had done nothing wrong; betrayed no one.
 
Her hands were completely free of blood.

Jack stood, exited the bedroom, and went down the hall to the bathroom.
 
There he disrobed, turned on the shower and stepped inside.

As he began to bathe, he stepped through the events of the coming day: his drive in to work, the 9:00am meeting with Mark and Noelle, the thirty-five or so new applicant portfolio’s that awaited him every Monday morning—not to mention those he’d put off reviewing last week.
 
It felt like a bit much given the events of the past few days.
 
Perhaps it wasn’t a bad time to take a vacation.
 
Perhaps he and Gabrielle needed to get away.

Just then, he thought he heard a soft jolt of some kind.
 
Curious, he turned off the shower, listening intently.
 
When the sound did not repeat itself, he reached forward to turn the shower back on.
 
But in doing so he noticed that two of his fingers were smeared with blood.

A chill shot through him, but he quickly settled, realizing that he’d touched the paint of Rose’s dress the prior night and had gotten some of the liquid on his fingers.
 
He chuckled at his own overblown reaction, and then finished turning on the shower.

He stuck his hand under the water stream and began to massage the stain away.
 
It came off, turning the water a faded rust color and swirling into the drain.
 
He then finished bathing, turned off the water, and exited the shower, now feeling—
both inside
and out—like a new man.

After toweling off, Jack spent the next ten minutes brushing his teeth and shaving.
 
He then departed for his bedroom.

Darkness still prevailed, but the night sky was slowly bluing.
 
The house was starkly silent, except for the rhythmic tweeting of the early birds in the distance.

In his bedroom, Jack slipped into a pair of black boxers, and then pulled a shirt and a pair of slacks from the closet.
 
He dressed, putting on the pants and pulling the shirt over his shoulders.
 
He left it unbuttoned, then returned to the bathroom.

He gazed at himself in the mirror, examining his face, first turning it left and then right.
 
The new man, he had to admit, looked great.

His stomach fluttered as the thought of Gabrielle passed into his mind.
 
It felt like a thousand butterflies had been liberated therein.
 
He immediately identified the sensation as the one young
lovers
often spoke of when they thought of one another, something he’d always regarded as the product of a fickle mind.
 
However, now he had fallen victim to it himself, and could appreciate the well of ecstasy from which it sprang.

He began to button his shirt.
 
He did so absently, his mind jammed in autopilot, lost in a dreamy world where there was only
himself
and Gabrielle.
 
But he was jarred from this daydream when, as he completed the shirt, he noticed the angry red splotches on his fingers.
 
The bloody stain had returned.

He stared at them in sour bewilderment, the moment becoming strangely surreal.
 
He held his hand high in front of him, searching for a wound of some sort, but he saw nothing.
 
He hurriedly reached down and yanked on the faucet.
 
He thrust his hand under the water but quickly snatched it out, cursing loudly as the too-hot stream scalded him.
 
Adjusting the water, he carefully eased it back in.

Again he began to massage the stain, trying to work the color out.
 
This time, however, it was far more resilient.
 
It remained a bright, almost mocking shade of red.

He kept working at it for almost a full minute, his frustration growing to franticness as the perverse blemish continued to glare from his fingers.
 
He glanced up, intending to
reach for a bar of soap, when he suddenly tensed.
 
In the bathroom mirror, in the distance behind him, he could see a bright red blur.

He intentionally had not focused on it, letting it remain merely a scarlet ghost.
 
He breathed in
deeply,
trying to calm himself, trying to tell himself it could not be what he thought it was.
 
Yet he knew what it was; he knew who it was.
 
And knowing now made him acutely weak, not the physical exhaustion he had been experiencing over the last several days, but a mental one that drained him so severe he felt like he might break down.

He stood erect, and finally did let his eyes focus on the thing.
 
And just as he suspected, it was her. Rose came into view.

He blinked away from the mirror and peered over his shoulder, hoping foolishly that what he saw in the mirror would have no basis in reality.
 
But she was real.
 
Her dress bore bold testimony to this truth, it being a very violent shade of red in the warm light of the bathroom.
 
Rose’s face now looked even less like Portia’s than at any other time he’d seen her.
 
Had it not been for the dress, he would not have recognized her at all.

They stood there without speaking, each seemingly spellbound by the other’s presence.
 
Finally, Jack said, “This isn’t going to end, is it?”

“No,” the woman replied in a breathy whisper.
 
“Why would you want it to?”

That was a question worthy of some thought.
 
Why would he not want Rose to appear when she was offering him the thing he wanted most?
 
That answer was all too obvious now.
 
He was no longer Jack Parke, a man guided by pleasure, by his lusts and obsessions.
 
He was a new man, a man now guided by a near omniscient force.
 
By love.

His eyes narrowed.
 
“You were watching, weren’t you?”

Rose turned her head slightly.
 
“Watching?”

“Yes, when Thomas McCain was strangling me.
 
You wanted it to happen.”

“Thomas McCain?”
 
Her eyes searched,
then
came back to him.
 
She appeared confused—genuinely.
 
“I don’t understand.
 
Who is Thomas McCain?”

“I saw you.
 
You were…”
 
He paused.
 
A bitterness
was springing up inside him as he recalled the violence of Thomas’s act.
 
Then he finished, “enjoying it.”

The woman began shaking her head concernedly.
 
“No.
 
I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You sent him, didn’t you?
 
You said he didn’t like me, and then you sent him.
 
Let him out of the painting.
 
He’s a demon, isn’t that right?
 
Just like you.”

“Jack, I wouldn’t ever—”

“Then why did he come?”

The woman took a step forward.
 
“Jack, listen.
 
I—”

“Don’t come near me!”

She stopped dead.
 
She pleaded, “Jack please.
 
Can’t we talk about this?
 
You must have been dreaming, having a nightmare of some sort.
 
You’re mistaken.”

Jack tilted his head at her, eyeing her harshly.
 
“What’s the real reason you’re here?
 
Back to finish off what Thomas couldn’t do?”

“Jack, you’re not making any sense.
 
I wasn’t sent to harm you.
 
Only to help you.
 
I’m your gift.”

“You think I don’t know what this is all about?
 
You really think I’m so foolish?
 
You’re trying to seduce me.”

Rose looked hurt.
 
“Is that what you think?”

Jack said nothing.

“Then tell me, Jack, what was supposed to happen once I did seduce you?”

He remained mute.

“I wasn’t sent to seduce you,” she said solemnly.
 
“I’m only here to give you what you need.”

Jack gazed at her spitefully.
 
“That’s just it.
 
I don’t need you any longer.”

The woman blinked up at him.
 
“What do you mean?”

“I don’t need you.”

“That’s not true, Jack.”

“It is true,” Jack said calmly.
 
“Things are different now.
 
I’ve changed.”

“Changed?” the woman said with clear concern.
 
“How?”

“I’m in love,” Jack said.
 
“With Gabrielle.”

“That’s… not possible.”

Jack smiled.
 
“I thought so as well… at one time.
 
But now I see different.”

The woman began shaking her head again.
 
“No.
 
That can’t be.”

Jack began toward her.
 
That seemed to cause her some alarm.
 
She reared slightly.
 
“Surely, you know this,” he said.
 
“You know I’m in love.”

“How would I know?”

“Don’t you remember?
 
Unlike Portia, you can always tell when I’m lying.”
 
He reached out and grabbed her by her arms.
 
He sneered, “Now, I want you to look me in the eye, right now… and tell me I’m lying.”

“You’ll lose her, Jack,” the woman said calmly.
 
“You’ll lose Portia, forever.”

Jack’s grip tightened.
 
“Tell me.”

Rose’s lips thinned and she turned away, unwilling to face him.
 
She tried to struggle out of his grip, but he held her firm.

“Tell me,” he hissed.

Rose continued to struggle,
then
seemed to fade.
 
Her head dropped momentarily, but she eventually looked up and gazed at him intently.
 
Again her head fell, this time in obvious shame.

“You see it, don’t you?” Jack said.

The woman would not meet his gaze.

“Don’t you!” Jack said, shaking her.

Her eyes came up.
 
They were tearful.
 
“Yes,” she said weakly.

Jack reared, and smiled.
 
He then relinquished her arms, which showed some signs of bruising.

“What are you going to do?” Rose asked.

“What I should have done last night, what I should have done all along.”

Rose’s face seemed to empty of life.
 
She spoke meekly, without force, as if already aware that it would do no good.
 
“You don’t have to do that, Jack.
 
You can take me back to Portia.”

“So she can use you again?
 
Unfurl you and Thomas, and whoever else inhabits that painting on someone else?
 
No.
 
You’re all going to burn.”

“Please,” she said, standing close to him and placing her hands on his chest.
 
“Let me show you.”

“That won’t work this time.
 
I told you I have Gabrielle.
 
I don’t need you anymore.”

“Yes, you do,” she whispered, looking up at him.

Jack smiled.
 
“Why continue to make a fool of yourself?”

“Because when I looked in your eyes, your love for Gabrielle wasn’t all I saw.”

She then began to back away, very slowly, very carefully.
 
When she had passed through the doorway, she briefly held his gaze, looked to her right, and then disappeared in the direction of the bedroom.
 
He watched the doorway, feeling flatfooted and suddenly confused.
 
Some vague impulse instructed him to follow her, to pursue her and discover precisely what she meant.
 
But something else, another feeling, equally vague but no less demanding, insisted he simply ignore her and proceed with the rest of his
day.
 
Whatever she meant, it didn’t matter.
 
He was a new man, about to embark on a new life.

After another moment’s contemplation, however, he did move forward.
 
Cautiously, he leaned his head into the bathroom doorway and peered down the hall.
 
Rose had entered the bedroom and closed the door.

He stepped into the hall, and slowly made his way to the door.
 
There he hesitated, once more not seeing the need to proceed.
 
But his hand came up anyway.

As he reached for the doorknob, a glancing sense of familiarity caught hold of him.
 
He paused, frowned, his hand hanging in midair.
 
And then he remembered.
 
His hand had hung there the same way, just above the doorknob, on that night, that night he entered Portia’s bedroom.