Next To You (37 page)

She nodded. ‘You were right. We do need to talk. We need to finish this and … there are some things that belonged to Drew. I think he would have wanted you to have them.’

A few minutes later they were in her living room with fresh cups of coffee. Batman, closed in the bedroom, barked intermittently, just to let Alex know whose house this was.

Alex sat on the couch, where William usually did, one arm tossed casually over the back. There’d been a brief, awkward silence when they got to the house. Neither one of them quite knew where to start. Then he opened the box of cinnamon twists he’d brought and started telling her how prune Danish were suddenly all the rage.

He said, ‘Jonesing can barely make enough to keep up with the demand.’

She took a pastry. ‘Your hair looks better short, and now you don’t have to worry about long hairs straying into prune and cinnamon twists.’

‘My hair never got into the pastries.’

She had a bite of pastry, but then dropped it back in the box.

‘What, did you find a hair?’ he said.

She chuckled lightly. ‘No. I’m just not hungry.’ The truth of it was she didn’t know how to begin to say what she wanted to, so she just let it tumble out over the top of her coffee cup. ‘Alex, I know I hurt you and I’ve done a few things recently that might not be very … kind. I haven’t been very willing to—’

‘I’ve wanted to tell you,’ Alex cut in. ‘I’ve been seeing someone. I’ve been getting some help from this psychologist. He’s good. It’s good. I understand a few things now. I’ve been obsessed, compulsive. Angry. Irrationally angry.’ He put his cup on the end table.

‘You have a right to be angry.’

Caroline put her coffee on the coffee table and watched Alex climb to his feet to stare at her. Then he began turning in a circle. ‘Oh, Jesus, Caroline …’ Alex clawed at his hair. ‘Oh,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
…’

She grabbed his hand. ‘Don’t, Alex. Don’t do that. I’ve had to learn to live with myself, and the decisions I made.
I
had to choose.
I
did what I thought was going to be best for Drew.
I
did what he asked me to, what you refused to believe he asked me to.
I’m
responsible. Maybe this will help you. Maybe it won’t do a damn thing. I don’t know, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t the person you thought I was. I’m sorry I caused you such grief. I’m sorry I killed your brother. I’m sorry Alex, truly, deeply sorry.’

With an anguished cry, Alex sagged to the couch beside her, still clawing at his short, red hair. ‘Oh, my God, what we put you through on top of everything else. You loved him more than any of us did. You loved him. That’s why you wanted to help him die. I know that. That’s why you wanted to help him. I’m so sorry Caroline. I know it doesn’t do much to hear that now, but I am so, so very sorry.’

Caroline blinked and half laughed in astonishment. ‘Why are you apologizing for what I did?’

Dropping his hands, Alex glanced up at her, sobbing. ‘You wouldn’t see me. I pretended I hated you. I told myself I was glad you were in the nuthouse, and all this time I’ve been trying to find a way through this, trying to get back to us. We had each other for a while. We could have come through it together. I could have held on to understanding how much you loved him, but I went wild. I’ve nearly burned up in my self-loathing cowardice and I wanted to take you with me.’ He dropped his forehead against the front of her shoulder. ‘I tried to make it easy. I thought it would work, but it’s destroyed us. I need you to forgive me for that, Caroline. I need you to forgive me for putting you in that position.’

Crying. She was
crying
, and that was a surprise. So was what she did next. Tears dribbling, nose running, Caroline soothed him. Her fingers smoothed over his hair and she soothed him because as hateful as things became, she had never lost sight of his humanity. That was why he was here now. That’s what it was she felt for him. His humanity. He was human.

So was she.

‘It’s over now, Alex. It can finally finish and we can get on with life like Drew wanted us to.’

His head snapped up. Alex reached up and touched the wetness, locking his eyes on hers. ‘Forgive me.’

She whispered, ‘We have to forgive each other.’

Reaching out, Alex wiped away the teardrops on her face and embraced her.

They held each other, and Caroline continued to stroke his hair until his wracking sobs petered out. After a few quite moments, Alex lifted his head. He touched her face again and kissed her cheek. Caroline offered him a melancholy smile

And all at once they were kissing, clutching at each other, falling back onto the striped couch.

‘We weren’t wrong before,’ Alex murmured against her lips as they sank into the cushions. ‘We happened for a reason. We had to go through that hell to get to here.’

If he hadn’t said a word, Caroline would have remained slipped within the envelope of the bizarre moment, but his voice wasn’t right. It wasn’t deep enough. It wasn’t soft enough. It wasn’t William’s. And she wanted it to be. What a time for the confusion, for the forty-feelings-at-once to be over, but with Alex pressing himself to her, she knew.

She
knew
she loved William Murphy.

Ashamed, sickened, she wrenched away. ‘Stop, Alex, stop. Oh, God, please stop!’

‘I don’t want to. Not yet.’ He began to unbutton her blouse. ‘I haven’t been with anyone. There’s been no one else. Just you, only you.’

Caroline slapped his hands. ‘Stop it and get off me! Go home. Take the boxes in the dining room and go home.’

‘You feel so good. I forgot how good you felt.’ His fingers trailed a pathway over her breasts, circling over the cups of her bra. ‘I want to feel all of you again.’

‘
Stop
!’

‘Caroline …’ He grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut. ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ He opened his eyes, slipped off her, and got to his feet. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Look, I’m here sincerely. I’m tying to make a moral inventory. I’m trying to make amends for what I’ve done.’

‘Amends. You’re a immoral, insincere bastard who just wants to get laid!’ Frightened, livid, she rose and smacked him hard.

‘I deserve that,’ Alex said rubbing his stinging cheek.

Caroline dragged her palms down her face. ‘How dense am I? It’s the same thing you did before.
I love you, Caroline. I’ll take care of you and the baby, Caroline
.
I want you to marry me, Caroline
. You’ve never been able to admit you were glad I killed Alex because it cleared the way for you, didn’t it? That’s what you’re sorry for. It made it all okay for you to be caring and sympathetic and fuck your brother’s wife.’

‘I only wanted you to be my wife.
My
wife. You should have been my wife, not his! And I saw a way.’

‘What way was that?’

Alex began to claw at his hair again. He moaned, took a breath, and let it out with a shudder. ‘I heard him,’ he said, going very still. ‘I heard him say
please
. I knew what he wanted. So I did it. And let you take the blame because I knew they’d never send you to jail. I just didn’t think you’d wind up in a mental institution.’

Alex thought she looked like she was about to make some kind of smart-assed crack, but then her face went blank, her mouth opened, and she said, ‘What?’

He swallowed. ‘I heard him. And then the baby died. The doctor said you had severe postpartum depression. You know some women have delusions, auditory hallucinations, and sleep issues with that depression. Some have psychosis with that depression. You were prescribed sleeping tablets, but you only took those pills three times. You were manic, dazed, awake all the time. No one could look after Drew but you. You heard him say
please
, and I told you you’d imagined that, I said it was a hallucination, but I heard him. I heard him before you did.’ Alex pulled at his hair and a clump of it came out between his fingers as he whispered, ‘So I did what Drew wanted and let you think that you had because, depressed or manic, you didn’t know the difference. Nobody did.’

Caroline’s knees buckled. Her palms slapped on the top of the end table, where he’d set his coffee cup. She panted liked she’d just finished a marathon. ‘You gaslighted me?’

‘I what?’

She yelled, ‘You fucking
gaslighted
me?’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘
Gaslight
, It’s that movie with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. He convinces her she’s going mad by telling her she did or didn’t do something. I didn’t try to kill myself, did I? I didn’t give Drew my sleeping … you, did. You di—’

‘Jesus Christ, Caroline, you and your goddamn movies. This is real life. This was
our
life,
not a fucking movie
! I love you, I did it for us I did it so we could be together! Don’t you see?’

‘Get out!’ she screamed. ‘Get out! Get the fuck out!’ She flew at him, shrieking, shrieking, shrieking.

The dog barked and clawed at the bedroom door, his scratching like a zigzag stitch on an old sewing machine, and Alex pounced, clamping a hand over her mouth, twisting her, driving her facedown onto the sofa cushions as he pitched himself on top of her. ‘Stop! Stop! Stop screaming,
please
!’

Furious, but no match for his size or weight forcing her down, Caroline struggled beneath him. Legs kicking, she struck back at his head, her elbow gouged into his side. Squirming, she tried to bite into the hand he’d fastened over her mouth.

He ground it a little harder against her lips and ground her into the cushions. ‘Stop screaming, Caroline, stop!
Please stop
!’ he whispered.

Batman barked, tearing at the door. The couch muffled all the noise Caroline made. As she strained against his weight bearing down, Alex closed his eyes to gather his charging thoughts. He composed himself. Breathing evenly, he relaxed, resting his weight upon her back. Her ferocious struggle increased, she kicked and flailed, but after a brief time her fighting slowed, and she began to relax as well.

‘Caroline,’ Alex exhaled. ‘I meant everything I said, every word. I’m sorry for it all. I’m sorry I let it go on for so long. I loved you then and I love you now.’ His head dropped next to her ear. ‘I told you I heard him, Caroline. I heard him. I knew what he wanted and I knew there was a way. I’m sorry that I wasn’t man enough to say I did it, but your illness was the best way out for all of us. I know it backfired. It backfired so badly. You weren’t
supposed
to go to away. I never thought you wouldn’t want to see me, that you’d ban me. Then I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to blame you for what I did, but I love you. Believe me Caroline, this is not about sex, it’s not about wanting to fuck you, or fuck you over. It’s about wanting to be with you. I want you in my life, right out in the open where everyone can see us. I know I have a lot to make up for and I have no right to expect anything from you, but I’m open to anything you want from me, even if you just want to be friends again. We were such good friends and I miss that. I know you’ve got something going on with that guy, Will. Maybe you think you love him and what I’m saying is scary. I think so too, but I believe you still feel something for me, don’t you?’

Caroline was silent.

Alex guessed she was crying again, like he was.

He shifted his weight and sat beside her, pulling his hand from her mouth, rolling her over. He looked into her pretty hazel eyes. ‘Even all those years ago when my brother and I were living with you, you loved me then too, didn’t you? You loved us both. You just chose Drew because he was a better man than you knew I’d be. But you do love me, don’t you, Caroline?’

***

Will pulled his mail from the brass postbox in the foyer and opened the internal staircase door. The sound of Batman’s muffled, excited
warfing
upstairs made him smile. Will liked to think the dog was trying to alert Caroline of his return.

He climbed the steps, suit bag over his shoulder, and reached the landing, Batman yipping. Will unlocked his apartment and thought about changing his clothes. He’d put on a pair of jeans and the purple shirt he bought, the one she said matched his eyes. Too impatient for that, he hung his suit bag on the U-bend of the light globe just inside his place and crossed the landing to Caroline’s.

The door was unlocked. He turned the knob and waited for Batman to come tearing down the hallway, but the dog was closed up somewhere, and his bark had a sharp pitch to it. There were other noises too, noises more distressing than Batman’s high-pitched yipping. Heavy breathing and moaning came from the living room, and made it clear Caroline wasn’t alone. Will froze in the threshold, listening.

‘Oh, God, Caroline. Oh, my God. Caroline … please … please …
please baby.
’

And all at once William Murphy was grazed, wounded like an angry, jealous, cuckolded husband. He shoved the door, propelling himself inside to the edge of the open living room.

Alex popped up from the yellow sofa and stared at him, a guilty expression on his flushed, clean-shaven mug, his hand raking back through his cropped hair. ‘She … she’s …’ he stammered, scrambling to his feet, coming around to the stand at the side of the sofa, pulling at his hair. ‘Oh, God.’

Bubbles of hot fury and pain rose inside his throat. Will took several steps into the living room. Rankling, lacerated, he stared at the striped pattern on the sofa. His words came out carefully modulated, ‘So you decided you had to check to see if what you told me was true. You didn’t hurt me this morning, but you sure as hell have now. It’s an amazing homecoming. But that’s right, you didn’t know I was coming back to surprise you, did you? My mistake. I guess we’ve turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy now, haven’t we Caroline? We’re just going to be neighbors who smile and make small talk about movies in the downstairs entry. Did my proposal scare you so much you had to run back to this piece of shit? Is that what happened? Tell me what happened.’

Alex swallowed, his hands still moving in his hair. ‘We were … She’s … I don’t know what happened.’

Will lifted his eyes to look at Alex. ‘Things just got a little carried away, is that it?’