A love story has a series of requirements, an equation for success. Love + Loyalty = Happily Ever After. I’ve written and read enough in this life to understand that an equation for success rarely produces it, but that breaking the rules typically guarantees failure. I think marriage is the same way.
Can you love a monster? I did. I loved him, and I hated him, both for the entirely wrong reasons.
Did we have loyalty? No. I was more loyal to my books, to my words, to my characters, than I was to him. He was more loyal to his secrets, his crimes, his perversions, than to me.
Was there a Happily Ever After? I told you, early on in this book, the chances of that.
I wake up on Bethany’s floor, my neck sore, a page sticking to my palm when I lift it. I assemble the loose papers, turn to the last chapter, and write the book’s final scene. I have written a lot of The Ends in my lifetime. This one is both the hardest, and the easiest, I have ever written. I print the letters in a neat script, then slide the page off my lap, letting it flutter to the floor with the others.
Done. My story, start to finish. I’ve spent the last six weeks thinking that I wouldn’t be able to tell it, wouldn’t be able to walk back through that day, through those terrible moments. Now that I have, I feel lighter, as if I’ve physically stripped the moments from my heart and transferred them to the page. They say confession cleans the soul. I should have confessed a long time ago.
I close my eyes and sit back against the wall, stretching out my legs and flexing my fingers. Now that I am finished, there is only one thing I want to do.
I move slowly to my feet, my back protesting, my chest tight from the hours of constriction. I crack the wrists of each hand as I move quietly out to the hall, passing the office, Mark’s snores coming quietly through the open door, and continue to my old bedroom. Going inside, I use the restroom, then stand at the sink, meeting my eyes in the reflection as I wash my hands.
Am I ready?
I turn off the water and lean forward, examining myself. I look like death. I feel even worse. At the moment, the only thing that doesn’t hurt is my mind. I reach down and open the center drawer of the vanity, pulling out the only thing in there, a small white vial of liquid. Four ounces of peace. Four ounces of surrender.
Am I ready?
I pull it out and set it on the table.
MARK
The hand is soft but insistent, pushing against his shoulder, and he jerks awake, his back wrenching painfully as he sits up.
“Shit.” Helena’s voice moves, and there is the stumble of feet across the rug. “You scared me.”
He blinks, trying to see in the dark. “What time is it?”
“Late. I finished. Can you read it?”
He moves a foot onto the floor, pressing on his lower back as he sits fully upright. “Now?”
“No, Steinbeck. In the morning. I just woke you up to ask you the question.”
He can see more now. The hang of her dark hair, the outline of her glasses. She stands in the middle of the room, clutching a stack of pages. A ghost, that’s what she looks like, the pajamas hanging off her frame, her long fingers skeleton-like in their clutch. “You’re being sarcastic.”
“God, you’re dense when you first wake up. Yes. I’d like you to read them now.”
He rubs at his eyes, the fuzz of sleep dropping off. “Fine. Let me get some coffee.”
He stands up and stretches, something in his neck popping.
She assembles a fire, her hands moving quickly and without hesitation, kindling crackling, the amber glow smoldering, then expanding, the hearth soon full of flames. “Impressive,” he remarks, carrying in two mugs and passing her one.
“Thanks.” She cups the ceramic with both hands, bringing it to her face and inhaling the scent deeply, her hair auburn in the fire’s glow. She doesn’t look ghost-like in this light. She doesn’t even look sick. She looks beautiful. Beautiful and healthy, the fire working magic across her features. He settles into the couch and reaches for the stack of pages. She sits back, and lifts the mug, taking a long sip. She hums out a small sound of satisfaction, but it’s already lost in the room, his eyes on the page, her voice clear in the words, as if she is reading them aloud. He settles in, the coffee forgotten, and reads.
When he finishes, Helena’s eyes are closed, her head resting on the leather, the coffee cup gone, a blanket now wrapped around her. The fire is low, gentle light coming from it, a pop coming as a log shifts. Her eyes open and she looks at him. “Are you done?”
He nods. For the first time in a long time, words escape him. “I’m sorry,” he manages.
She lifts one shoulder in a half shrug, her hands smoothing over the front of the blanket. “How was the writing?”
He looks down at the final page, trying to sort through his feelings, to separate his emotions from the content. “Very strong. Better than I ever could have done.”
“Oh God, don’t get humble on me now.” One corner of her mouth lifts, and it’s almost like a different person, a new Helena, one free of the burdens that lay in these pages.
“No, really.” He looks at her. “It’s…” he tries to find the right word, a way to discuss the way the words had gripped him, gutted him. “It’s difficult to read, it’s so vivid. It’s painful. I can’t imagine going through that. Discovering that. Reacting to it. It’s heartbreaking, Helena.”
She smiles thinly, her lips pressed together tightly, and looks towards the fire, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She takes a deep breath, and he can see the containment of emotion, the moment that she regains control. She wipes a hand across her cheek and glances back at him. “Did you speak to Charlotte Blanton? Did you find out if she is from Virginia?”
“She is.” He nods, remembering the stiff phone call, his mind suddenly connecting the dots between this manuscript and their conversation. “She’d like to speak with you. She’s writing an article. Probably about Simon.”
Helena twists her mouth in a gesture he knows well, one somewhere between a grimace and a frown, the same expression she gives when he asks if she needed to rest. “I don’t want to speak to her. I know I should…” she kicks one foot out from underneath the blanket, stretching towards the fire.
A minute stretches into two, and when she opens her eyes, her expression has changed. “The book doesn’t have much of a resolution.” She looks at him, and the Charlotte Blanton conversation appears to be over. “Will you write an epilogue?”
He picks up the coffee cup, then sets it down, the ceramic cool. “An epilogue?” He considers the idea. “What would you want it to say?”
“I’m not sure.” She picks at her bottom lip. “I guess whatever you think, you feel.”
“That’s a little ambiguous.” He sets the pages down beside him. “It’s the final note of your book. It’s not something I can take lightly.”
“It’s not going to be authentic if I tell you what to write. Just wait, until after all of the edits and proofs are completed, and then just see what’s in your heart.” She drops her hand from her lips and looks up at him.
“You mean, after you’ve passed away.”
She doesn’t flinch. “Yes. You can tell them who you are, or what your job in the book was. I don’t mind if they know I’ve had help.”
They. The gods in their world, the eyes on which the axis rotated. The readers. The critics. What would they think? Was his reading of the content skewed by his relationship with her? Would they vilify or martyr her?
“Please do it. It would mean a lot to me.”
She watches him with eyes too wise for such a young woman. Eyes that know his inability to say no. Six weeks ago, those eyes begged him to accept her job proposal. Too much has happened since then. A lifetime worth, literally her lifetime worth. Each chapter he wrote had felt like experiences lived. Watching her now, seeing her struggle… he’s surprised she’s made it this far. “Of course I’ll do it.”
Her shoulders relax. “Thank you.”
Silence falls, and he thinks through the chapters he just read, through everything that happened in this house. He glances at her, at the thin pallor of her face, the hollows under her eyes. “What you did—it was to protect your child. Any mother would have done the same thing.”