Failings of the Fathers: 10

"I just called Aiden," he said, climbing into the bed beside her.  She was propped on a pillow, and her baby belly was poking out quite a bit.  She rested her magazine on it.

"How is he?"

"He's fine.  He's made friends, some guys around the clinic.  He's getting ready to make some real decisions."

"What about Timothy?  Did he have anything to tell you?"

"He said that he sees where I opened an account, but it was when I first got my inheritance.  Or it seems like around that time.  Then I opened a blind trust. . . sort of near the time of the stables.  When he told me the date, I realized what was familiar about it.  Not long after that, I asked you to be my wife again, and you told me about Starr."

He seemed distracted, almost confused.  She asked, "What's the matter?"

"I don't remember doing it.  At all.  The blind trust, I mean."

"That's all right.  So much has happened.  You were . . . very ill.  You were so hurt.  In Ireland.  It's easy to forget things when you're trying to forget that kind of painful experience."

"I . . . just don't understand.  I . . . think it makes sense that I would open a trust for her.  But, I don't get why I can't recall it."

"Okay, but maybe that will come to you later."

"Yeah, sure."

"Where was the account?"

"Off the account I made in Switzerland.  Remember when we were divorcing?  You went out there, I did transactions there.  We were at each others' throats.  I've had that account since we first got the money.  Way back."

"I do remember that.  I brought Swiss chocolates back and offered you one.  How could we have hated each other that way?"

"There's a thin line between love and hate, Babe."

"We were disappointed in each other."

"I tried to hurt you."

"You stopped yourself."

"Because I loved you."

"I know that.  I didn't even want to leave you at first.  Certain people talked me into it."

Dorian came immediately to mind.  "Figures."

It was quiet for a moment.  Jewel kicked, to make her presence known.  Blair adjusted herself in the bed, and said, "Gosh, she kicks so hard."

"She's a fighter, like her Mom."

"And her Dad.  This money thing isn't bothering you, is it?"

"Yep, a little.  Not that it means much, but Dad found a discrepancy.  Seems the account was tampered with somehow, with the blind trust I supposedly set up.  Of course, no one is sure whether or not it was me, since I . . ."  he went silent.

She touched his head.  "It's all right.  I'm telling you, you will remember.  You've always remembered eventually."

"I guess."  He folded his arms over his chest.  "I just always have a clear head about finances."

"You do," she said.

"And why not now?"

"Todd, stop a minute.  Okay, please?  This has been so much, from the first bit of your return and uncovering piles and piles of memories, it's just expected that you might forget something like this."

"Well, if so, the trust siphoned money off my estate since late 94."

She put her magazine down.  Siphoned money, since 94.  Since 94.. . what if . . .

"Hey.  Earth to Blair?"

"Yeah, sorry, I was thinking.  You opened an account in a Swiss bank when you got the inheritance.  You don't remember opening a blind trust for Starr when I was pregnant with her.  Money was siphoned off it since 94.  Right?"

"Yep."

"Okay, well, Timothy can get to the bottom of it, can't he?"

"He'll try."

"Let's leave it to him."

"All right.  I just . . . I feel strange, Blair.  Like there's something poking out of the water, and if I grab it and pull, a huge monster is going to be under there."

She didn't answer.  

What if there IS a monster?  

She decided to say something.  "Well, then Ray.  Talk to him."

"I will.  I know, maybe he can help."

"Maybe."  She fingered the corner of the page in her magazine.  "Maybe we should stop talking about this?"

"Maybe.  You have to admit, where Ireland is concerned, the line between memory and forgetting is pretty thin."

"Yeah," she said, and pictured Todd yanking Peter Manning, covered in slime and moss, from the water.  She pushed it away from her mind.

He said, "I mean, some of the things I did remember, they were so real.  The stuff on the phone.  The clinic.  Today it sent me into being breathless, literally."

"Umm hmm."

"Will you sing to me?"

"Now?"

"Yeah.  Will you?"

"If you want me to."

"Can you sing me what you sang when we got married, you know, the last time, when I just got back?"

"I think I can, sure."

He put his head into her lap, or what was left of it.  His face was right next to his daughter.  He closed his eyes.  "I'm ready."

The very thought of you
Makes my heart sing
Like an April breeze
On the wings of Spring
And you appear in all your splendor
My One and Only Love

The shadows fall and spread their
Mystic Charms
In the hush of night
While you're in my arms
I feel your lips so warm and tender
My One and Only Love

The touch of your hand
is like Heaven
A Heaven that I've never known
The blush on your cheek
Whenever I speak
Tells me that you are my own

You fill my eager heart with such desire
Every kiss you give sets my soul on fire
I give myself in sweet surrender
My One and Only Love
My One and Only Love

He was asleep, and she hated to wake him.  Instead, she shifted the pillows and slid down, so they could both rest, after shutting the light.  His feet were slightly off his end of the king bed, but she knew he'd adjust himself if he needed to.  His breathing was shallow and peaceful, and his chest rose and fell in a way that spoke calm.  
Finally, she closed her eyes, and tried to embrace sleep.  Jewel was active.  She continued to ignore her daughter, and try and rest.  Her eyes were shut, and everything was quiet.  

After a while, she reopened them.  She couldn't sleep, or keep her eyes closed.  She could see the outline of her husband's peaceful face.  She could not get the image of the monster in the water out of her mind.

***

Blair had finally fallen asleep after quite a long period staring at the ceiling.  In the midst of slumber, she heard some noise, and light was strangely peeping into her vision.  She turned onto her side, and then, remembering, realized Todd was no longer with his head in her lap.

She got up, and walked over to him.  He was sitting staring into the fire he had just made, and in his hand - was the lighter.

She didn't want to startle him, or make him feel as though he scared her.  She whispered, "I thought you weren't sure you had that anymore," she said, as matter-of-factly as she could.

"I wasn't.  But it was there."

She hugged him from the back.  "Why do you have it?" she carefully whispered.

He flicked the top.  "I . . . just went and looked for it.  I  . . . I had a dream, it was pretty real.  It just made me go and look, I guess."

She stared over his shoulder at the instrument of torment in his hand.  "That was a long time ago, My Love."

"It was."  He tossed it onto the coffee table, and then she noticed him looking at the scar in question.

"Try and forget about it . . ."

He suddenly pulled away from her.  "I can't," he said, clearly agitated.  He got up and began pacing in the sitting area.  The light of the fire cast a warm glow over his skin, and accentuated his physical beauty.  "I can't, don't you get it?  I have to get it straight in my head, somehow.  Or maybe I should just face facts.  I'm crazy, just like we thought before, just like I've feared.  Just like . . . he'd want."

"Todd, no, you're not.  I don't think you're crazy."

"You don't want me to be.  You don't want to lose me.  Can you honestly say you think I'm sane?"

"Yes.  Yes I do.  Because . . . well,"  Careful.  " . . . just because I do."

"Because you want me to be.  You can't face losing me.  You'll have all these kids to raise, without me around."

"Todd.  Stop, that's not . . .I raised them before without you.  How would this be any different?"

"You think I'm sane because you want me to be.  And that's not enough."

"No, you're wrong.  That's not it," she tried to calm him.

"No?  Then what?  These crazy dreams, memories, all this terrible shit that happened to me.  How can I be sane?  How can we be 'normal,' even Manning normal?"

"We just can be, that's all."  She waited.  "I believe you."

He stopped, and ran his fingers through his hair.  "What did you say?"

"I said I believe you."

"What do you mean?" he said, and she saw it on his face.  Her man - who fought so hard to get back to them and could face anything - was afraid.

"I believe whatever you do.  Whatever is it you're really thinking?  Instead of going off this way, why don't you just tell me?"

He sat down next to her, in the firelight, and looked deflated.  He said, "I think . . . I think he was there, Blair.  I think he was there by my bed, and that he burned me.  That makes me crazy."

"What if someone did burn you?  What if it wasn't him, but someone did?  Why can't that be?"

"Why would someone burn me?  He was the only one . . ."  He suddenly stopped and the silence, however short, was like a door slamming.  "I guess he was not the only one, was he?"

"No, because later, those men did that very thing to you.  You could be right.  It might not be him, but it could have happened."  She was treading carefully, and then said, "I . . . get confused too, Todd.  You're not the only one.  In fact, sometimes I feel like I know that burn, and it isn't from your latest return to me."

His face changed.  He seemed blank, but something in his posture became hopeful.  "You remember it?"

"I'm not positive, but I thought so.  When you first said it.  Of course, there are so many now, I just can't be sure.  We weren't intimate really, or near each other much when you got back from Ireland.  It wasn't until a few years later, after Tea, that we ever made love again.  But I feel like I saw it.  Around the time . . . when things weren't so good."

He didn't speak.  "So, maybe I'm not making this up.  Someone could have burned me, I don't know why I never thought of that.  And someone could have called me."

"Yes, someone could have.  Why not?  All these other things happened?  Carlo's men knew how to get to you."

He looked at her, and finally smiled.  "I'm trying to imagine myself without you right now, and I just can't."

She raised an eyebrow.  "If you're imagining yourself without me, why are you smiling?" her hand was circling her belly.

"Because you're here."

She waited.  "I don't know what all this means, but give yourself some credit.  Maybe it is real."

"He can't be alive, Blair," he said, looking away from her into the fire.  Both his hands became tight fists.

"No, he can't be alive, My Love."  She gulped, hoping he didn't hear her.  "But all those men.  The Men of 21.  They don't care whether this confuses you or not."

"They don't and Peter, he can't be alive," he said,  "It could be in my mind. . ."

"It could be.  But it also may not be.  Todd, let's go to bed.  You can have the pleasure of rubbing my back."

"That sounds like a fair exchange for being married to you," he said, standing first.  He put out his hand, and she took it.

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