Unbind (51 page)

“I don’t need you to pay.” He looked down at the floor, so saddened. He had to remind himself she was ill, she didn’t know what she was saying. It still hurt to think that was all she thought of him. He was a teenager with a need to screw, according to her. That was all. Not someone in desperate need of a love he was convinced just didn’t exist.

“Go to your room while I make these calls now,” she ordered.

He began to make his way there but then held back, deciding to listen for a minute. He stood in the hallway and heard her speak with Klaus, the man who still loved Jennifer but had been put in his place.

If only…
Cai thought, if only he could just have one more moment with his mother, just to tell her that everything would be okay, if she would just let Cai help her… he wanted just one more minute, an hour. Maybe a day.

He could search for a girlfriend and make Jennifer mad, make Claudia come back again. He could do that!
Then again, Claudia might be a worse scenario to deal with
.

Cai heard her phone the family attorney, Wally, and arrange proceedings for an annulment. Then he heard her ask at the last minute, “Wally, I have this hunch about something else, too. My sister’s death… I want it looked into again. No… cost is not an issue. Go deeper this time. There is something about it. I don’t know what but if he’s this desperate for the money, don’t you think it could be possible… no, I know… I know,” Wally said something on the line, “but a doubt is a doubt. At least if he is innocent, then he’s innocent, okay…? I want it looked into some more… I don’t care how much it costs, it’s not as if I need the money, after all I have all these politicians in my pockets. Silly men.”

“How often have I said to you

that when you have eliminated the

impossible, whatever remains,
however

improbable
, must be the truth?”

Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four

CAI TOLD ME in his own words what he knew… He contacted Jennifer over email and put the idea in her head that Claudia was missing her. So then Jennifer came over to the US after Philippe’s possible death/disappearance, proclaiming they could be close again. She was getting a job in New York. However, by this point Claudia was already intent on killing herself and nothing Jennifer could do would change that—Cai described how his mother sounded sure of her intent to finally end it all. When he was describing how he felt beneath that window seat, I was crying my eyes out.

He told me that he never understood why Jennifer chased the truth of his mother’s death… because she was actually there at the scene! Until he got married and she blew up—and showed her true self. All that I was struggling with… multiple personality? I wasn’t quite onboard with that, yet. I knew I’d have to see it for myself. Perhaps I was disbelieving but it was the middle of the night by the time he told me about that part of the story.

He only briefly mentioned Klaus… only that Jennifer and Klaus were in cahoots in keeping certain headlines out of the news.

“You lied to me,” I told him.

“I wasn’t a virgin, I know… but Jackie’s the only other, I swear. I was just so ashamed. I hurt her, I know I did… I was embarrassed, too. This is where it gets complicated,” he said, opening his hands with a look on his face I didn’t like.

“Complicated?”

“Yeah,” he said, his face wrinkling with some memory.

It was a guess… “You had to lie about not having sex with her, to get the annulment rushed through… to keep
her
appeased?”

Just the thought of that woman—Jennifer—made me feel thunderous.

“Yeah I had to lie and do what she wanted me to. That’s not what I’m saying though.”

I didn’t want to know, suddenly, I didn’t want to know any more! He stood and left my side, walking to the window to tell me the rest.

“Chloe, if Jennifer is actually my mother… she could be violent. Homicidal. I have kept so much bound tight inside me to protect you from hurt. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know that keeping this all from you was wrong. I did know. I just—”

“Yes?”

“Claire has a friend who has a friend in pharmaceuticals and they sell her the stuff under the table. They’re improving the drugs all the time and Claire gets the best, always the best. No questions asked. She’s been dipping her hand in the household budget to pay for the damn stuff which isn’t cheap.”

“I imagine not.”

“Jennifer seems balanced, most of the time. Doesn’t she? Yet this drives me mad. The lies. Underhanded tactics to keep her stable. Those other people involved in this do not understand what it is like to be me. She won’t let me be happy, she won’t.”

“What do you mean, Cai?”

“The marriage was the start… it got worse after that. She had me followed everywhere I went. She had my mother’s death looked into again and even though nothing new came to light, she was intolerable. She sat me down night after night, going through the whole case again and again, testing me to see if I would cave, asking me the same questions to see if I would give her the same answers.”

“She’s paranoid, then?” Some part of Claudia’s subconscious was aware.

“Yeah. Totally. She went bat-shit crazy when I met you.”

“Oh.” I wondered what was next, because across the room, Cai’s head bowed.

“When I told Jackie I was unable to love, I really was. In fact, I didn’t realise I was capable of love, not until this week.”

Blood drained from my face. Except my heart was thumping in my ears.

“Sometimes, before… when we were making love, I was telling myself I was in love. I thought I was. I wondered though, deep down, whether I was deficient.”

No!!!!
My insides screamed but I couldn’t move a muscle… shocked, stunned, my mind racing but my limbs useless.

“There were other chicks. None of them as kind as Jackie. Jackie tried, you know? She understood. She gave me a chance. When I met you, all the physical stuff was there, sure… but inside it was still pretty cold in here. I played my part. I tried to reassure you. Maybe I thought you deserved better and I knew you wanted more than just fucking. I admit… it crossed my mind to marry you and finally get the money. You know, it has never been the house,
Sub Rosa
. That is inconsequential. My mother’s uncle put some investments in Silicon Valley into a trust fund for the next male Matthews to inherit. It’s worth more than 50 million dollars. Payable on marriage or my 25th birthday. Except… Jennifer is the executor and pulled up some small print… so I don’t own a god damn thing. Except my Brooklyn gallery.”

It weighed on me like a sinking ship.

“Oh. My. God.” I could hardly breathe.

He was rolling with this sick confession and continued, “That rose. It was like whoever sent it was warning you… warning me… nothing good can come of all that, you know? Romance is for fools. I ran… I ran at the sight of that rose. Then you came to New York, so desperate. I thought it was kinder to just do you and it was so goddamned nice to have you. I wanted more.

“I got Jennifer to give you a job, arguing you satisfied my sexual needs. She understands that, you know? She approves bodily needs, just none of the rest. We signed a contract, too. I promised to calm down and stop brawling all over Manhattan, if she gave you a job. She seemed pleased when I started behaving and stopped showing her up. My aim wasn’t just to piss her off and screw you over, however. I saw to it that two birds could be killed with one stone. I knew your propensity for truth seeking and hoped while working at
Frame
you might find something, anything, suspicious about Jennifer. Yet now I know, she’s too lost in playing the part and she will never give herself away. I know that she’s got herself bound so tight.”

I was utterly devastated. Our love was a lie.

“I’m lost, I’m so lost,” I said in a numb voice.

He turned to me, fear in his eyes, tears blotting his beautiful face.

“You don’t know what it was like growing up like that, Chloe. At least you had a mother’s love. I had nothing but two old cronies who couldn’t protect me from what I knew to be the truth.”

“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”

He came over and suggested, “Put your head between your legs. Please. C’mon. Breathe.”

I started hyperventilating but when I was calm, he started kissing my face all over.

“I love you… I love you like I never thought I could. I want to explain. I want to tell you everything and I want to be with you, I don’t care what it takes.”

I cried through bitter tears, willing myself to believe what he was saying. He pressed his plump lips to mine and kissed me through tears of his own, and mine. He held me tight, relieved to know I would still let him kiss me.

He walked over to the entranceway sideboard and picked up his phone.

“Here, check my messages. See for yourself.”

With shaky fingers I scrolled through his messages and they were all from Jennifer/Claudia:

You want to marry the fat bitch? Don’t make me laugh!

She actually believes you love her?

You deluded prick. You’ll never have happiness.

We’re trapped in this nightmare together… no escape for either of us.

I know what you did.

She’s so wrapped up in your beauty, she cannot see the fakery.

I hope your cock drops off, you little shit. You don’t deserve happiness.

You took my sister away from me.

You will not marry her. I will be dead before that happens.

So, she was still pretty ill then. These were all recent, all sent since we left
Sub Rosa
and came back home. Since I’d told her Cai and I planned on marriage and babies, she’d gone assfuck crazy as Cai often coined it.

“Is this the way she treats you? The way she talks to you when I’m not there?” I wiped my nose, but it was a never-ending stream.

“Yeah, this is the way she’s always talked to me. Like to keep me close, she has to treat me so badly I won’t leave. Won’t go.”

I burst out crying, crying so hard it hurt. “Oh… my… god. That’s why… that’s why… that’s…”

“…why your father did that to you, too.”

He kissed me and my tears away. For once, his kiss wasn’t exacting. I felt his lingering need to show me how he really felt and I don’t know why, but I just wanted my mum.

WE WENT TO bed but neither of us could sleep. It’d all been a lie… all this time. I didn’t know how to feel, or what to do.

“I love you, I do. I just didn’t want to let myself. I want to try and help you understand, if you’ll listen?” he asked, laid behind me, his arm around my waist.

We wore our nightwear, which was a first. Normally we always slept naked.

“You can tell me, if it helps.” Though how long I could continue to negate my own needs for everyone else’s, was another thing entirely…

“Before I met you, I walked down the street angry. At everything. Nothing made me happy. Nothing at all. I was just so wound tight. Couldn’t see past the fog of need to use my fists. I went drinking and it didn’t exactly get me any brownie points with the ladies. I’m not a drunk or an addict but I can drink.”

“I know. I’ve never seen you drunk.”

“Yeah, because if I were, I might have given myself away and anyway, it takes a lot to get me hammered.”

“Go on.”

“Being me was like not feeling like a person, it was like not feeling like I deserved anything good. I can’t explain it in words but I just felt like… a nothing. You know?”

“I know. I know what it’s like, but it didn’t make me so cold, Cai.”

He wrapped me tighter in his arms. “I know. Because you’re better than me. Yet, at the end of the day, you had a loving mother. You still do. I never did, Chlo. I know from talking to Claire that my mother couldn’t even bottle-feed me. Even my dad helped out with that. You know… the docs always said it was post-natal depression but they obviously didn’t dig deep enough.”