How long will all this last?
How many days, months, years, will he stay by my side?
And what will happen when it’s all over?
I could see everything, but it was too late to do anything about it.
CHAPTER 3. The Beginning of the New
*** ‘Walls’ by Kings of Leon ***
It’s midday by the time we arrive at Alex’s coastal mansion, where we are greeted by Estela, who has prepared lunch for us.
Estela is a fifty-something Mexican woman who used to clean the house once or twice a week when Alex was ill and is now to live with us permanently. Estela is plump, kind, smiley, warm-hearted. She greets me with a hug and says she has been praying all this time to the Virgin Mary for my return because he needs me so much...Yet it seems that Estela is more pleased to see me than he is.
Alex is odd. Very odd. And he’s acting as if we’re strangers. I’m sure it’s because I lashed out at him – he can’t forgive me for his damaged face. But it turns out that’s not the reason, and it takes me a while to discover what is. Apparently, my broken family came at a price for Alex: he had to ride roughshod over his principles and his conscience. He thought I should have made the right choice myself (chosen him, in other words) and just lived with him. But since he knew that I would never do it, he had to sacrifice his honor and do it all for me. That is why he is angry. Well, and maybe a tiny bit because of his face as well. He tells me all this later, but for now he is ignoring me.
As soon as we walk into the house, Alex tells the children: ‘Choose your bedrooms! I believe it’s probably best if we’re all on the same floor. What do you think, Lera?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I mumble.
‘Wow! This house is huge! Is it all yours, Alex?’ asks my eldest child, shocked rather than excited.
‘It’s ours. Mine, yours, Sonia’s and your mummy’s.’ For the first time this week, I see a hint of a smile on my new husband’s face.
‘What, all of it?’
‘All of it.’
‘And the swimming pool?’
‘The swimming pool, the terraces, even the beach. But you can only go there with an adult.’
‘I’m an adult! How many floors are there, Alex?’
‘How many did you count from the outside?’
‘Three.’
‘Yes, there are three on the road side, but four facing the bay.’
‘Co-o-ol!’exclaims Danny.
‘Lera?’
‘Yes?’ I say with a start.
‘You already know where our bedroom is. Choose whichever side you want – the right, the left –it really doesn’t matter to me. I just need to pop into work for a bit. I’ll try to be back by dinner time,’ he tells me, with the briefest of glances.
I don’t expect him to hug or kiss me goodbye, but his coldness is freezing. He couldn’t tear his eyes away before, and now this – a brief, meaningless glance.
Alex doesn’t come home until after ten in the evening. He has missed dinner, along with anything else that may have come after it. When he gets back, he doesn’t come up to our bedroom, but continues working downstairs, sitting in an armchair in the living room. Danny and Sonya had been waiting up for him the entire evening, but eventually fell asleep with exhaustion and disappointment. A magnet to virtually everyone, Alex has already managed to charm them into a state of almost blind adoration, and it won’t be long before they idolize him. He talks to my children as equals, as if they’re his peers, always finding time for them and listening attentively, and they open up to him much more than they do with me. And then there are the toys, of course: expensive, sophisticated game consoles for my son, and dollhouses, outfits, and all kinds of other fancy things for my daughter. He sweet-talked them while we were on the plane, and his house became their home from day one. It never ceased to amaze me how easily he managed to work things out. If only life was so easy for me.
In the bedroom that was once ‘his’ and is now suddenly ‘ours’, I don’t feel at home. But I am not a guest either, since we spent almost three months living in this house together. The left or the right isn’t about which side of the bed I’d prefer, but which dressing room and en suite bathroom, since the master bedroom has two of each – one for the man and one for the woman. Which side I have really doesn’t matter to me either, but wouldn’t a shared underwear drawer bring us closer together?
Crawling under ‘our quilt’ and stretching out on ‘our sheets’ feels strange and unfamiliar when, not so long ago, this was all someone else’s – his and Hannah’s. But tiredness after the long flight quickly takes its toll.
*** ‘Music To Watch Boys To’ by Lana Del Rey ***
When I wake up, it’s the middle of the night. Moonlight floods the white bedroom, and the strips of steel dividing up the stained-glass window cast long shadows, making the room look like a space station orbiting some distant planet. The room is so light that you could read a book in it.
Alex is asleep next to me; he must have come in after I’d already dropped off. He has his back to me, and I notice a rather large tattoo stretching across his back from his shoulder blade to his stomach. It is too intricate to make out properly in the moonlight, but the delicate pattern looks Celtic. I guess its purpose – to cover his scars – and it hurts me to see them; they are a reminder of what it took to keep him here.
My God, he is so beautiful…manly! There’s a real vital energy flowing over the curves of his muscles clad in velvet-smooth skin. Alex was physically well-developed before, but there was still a hint of femininity in the lines and contours of his waist, hips, neck, hands. Now, his muscles are bigger, more rough-hewn. He has grown up, matured, got macho tattoos. His body has grown so strong in the past few months that his weakness and helplessness of last autumn now seem like a bad dream.
I desperately want to run my hands over his shoulder, the curves of his arm muscles, his waist, but the bed is so big that there is no chance of us accidentally touching. Gently, I pull the silk sheet that is barely covering his hips. There is no explicable reason, but I need to see his naked body. Urgently. My eyes greedily drink in his curves but see little more before Alex suddenly rolls onto his back, pulling the sheet back over himself.
Now his face is visible, and the sight is truly hypnotic... It is difficult to tear my eyes away, but I don’t need to right now while he’s asleep. I can admire him at my leisure, openly and unashamedly. At this moment, I can’t believe I’m actually here, that this is really happening, and the most foolish thought pops into my head: ‘This is all well and good – he’s my husband now, and I’ll be able to feast my eyes on him every night in this bed – but how unfair that only I will get to enjoy such beauty! There is only me to see and appreciate it, since he’s hardly likely to walk down the street naked!’ I can’t help laughing to myself at the kind of nonsense my brain comes up with, and I go back to sleep with a smile on my face.