Chapter 10
Dorian
“ Y ou’ve got everyone worried about you, you know.”
Katherine’s body jolts at the sound of my voice, but when she lifts her head to me, she smiles. The fact that she can recognize me is a good sign. If she were back-sliding into some sort of delirium, I’m not sure she’d be this calm.
“Sorry,” is the only thing she can say before scooting across the seat to make room for me. She pats the wood. “I was just about to head home once I got my bearings. I always feel like a walk clears my head.”
I sit, surveying her. For a second, I wonder if she did intentionally wander off and cause her mother to fall into hysterics, even if that doesn’t sound like her.
“Felt like some fresh air?” I try to keep the atmosphere lighthearted, even though my heart thunders in my chest. I expect her to feel some sort of danger, a gut reaction to get away from me.
When she continues to smile at me, it’s strained, but not for the reason I expect. “I…don’t know what I’m doing here.”
This confession is enough to concern me and drop any amusement from my face. Her doctor mentioned before that we wouldn’t know if she had any cognitive impairments until they presented themselves.
“Is everything alright, Kittie?”
As if seeing the panic on my face, she waves her hands at me. “Oh, yes! I just mean that I walked all the way out here for some air, but I don’t know why. I guess I’m just overwhelmed with everything.”
I slide ever so slightly closer to her. My movements are reflexive; even my consciousness doesn’t have control over them. Yet when I lift a hand to her face, she doesn’t regard me with shock or discomfort.
Instead, her eyelids droop, and she leans into my touch. Like that, we’ve fallen together like two pieces. It’s so natural that I question how long she’s been in my life.
Surely, it’s been a lifetime, hasn’t it? I’ve never felt anything as strong as my tether to her.
And I know I can’t let anything happen to her, no matter the consequences.
“Talk to me, then,” I tell her. “We’ll figure it out.”
Katherine doesn’t hesitate. She simply breathes out her response, “I missed you.”
Those are the only words I need to hear so my mind can finally click back into its planning.
“Come with me, Kittie,” I say, running my thumb across the hollow of her cheek. “I’ve been wanting to show you my home. Let me take you there, I’ll make you some tea, and we can decompress. How does that sound?”
There’s a beat of silence. Her gaze sweeps the sidewalk in front of us before she tentatively nods. “I feel like there’s something I should do before we go; I just can’t remember. It’s about something or someone, I think, that I left behind. It’s fuzzy.”
I get to my feet, taking my hand from her face to offer it to her. “We’ll discuss it on the drive. Maybe I can jog your memory?”
No doubt, getting the pain medication out of her system once she’s fully healed will clear her head. If she can recognize me and hold conversations, I can only assume that my worries about her injuries are unfounded.
I’m too afraid she’ll wilt like a flower and fall apart in my hands.
Katherine continues to favor me with her smile as I guide her to the passenger side of my car. Slipping an arm around her back to help her walk brings the sweetest blush across her face that she tries to hide from me. However, I’m too keyed up and antsy to fully enjoy it.
It’s not too late, t he angel on my shoulder begs. Take her to her mother. Let her go while you still have her affection.
But Katherine can hate me. She can hate me for the rest of her long, healthy life at my side.
We’re silent as we drive. It’s not a loaded silence, even if I’m sure that the strain seizing my body is putting palpable anxiety into the air around us. I glance at Katherine occasionally, but she never takes her eyes from the window or the blurring darkness beyond. I sense something else entirely is on her mind.
I wish I could peek into her head and gauge her thinking.
The little angel on my shoulder tells me how cruel all this is. Unforgivable. God will wash His hands of me. And somehow, I don’t care. I’m at ease for the first time in years—or the first time I can even recall. I’m content, not happy, but finally edging away from misery.
The closer we get to the estate, the more vindicated I feel; this has to be the right decision. Maybe she won’t see that now…but I prefer her to hate me while she’s safe than love me before vanishing from my life.
The Ward estate, a French-provincial-style property on twenty acres of land, was handed to me in my father’s will, as his grandfather had passed it down to him. Nearly one hundred and seventy years old, despite the orange and brown-tinted stone walls and the white beam and board shutters, it has more ghosts in it than a house twice its age. It has at least ten or so bedrooms, although many of the spare, closet-free rooms could be utilized as such. The estate houses too much space for the shortage of people that live inside. It practically sighs when the wind blows, longing to be filled.
I drive down the long gravel dirt road that cuts through the property, past several manicured hedges and short redbud trees. The drive leads to a roundabout in front of the two-story house, with an oak tree in the center, surrounded by lilac bushes and a moss-covered stone bench. The double garage attached on the east side of the house is a newer construction, evidenced by the stone veneer being a slightly lighter shade than the rest of the house.
A sensor on the exterior of the roundabout triggers the garage doors to roll open.
Finally, Katherine’s head turns. She stares through the windshield as the headlights fill the garage with a glaring light. “Holy cannoli. I was picturing…like, a modest mansion, not something out of Downton Abbey .”
“It used to hold several generations of my family, especially during the forties,” I manage, shocked at how natural and conversational my voice comes across.
“Oh. You’re not alone, are you?” she asks, and there’s sympathy in the question.
Under normal circumstances, I might’ve smiled at that. “No. I live with two of my cousins.”
“Only two?” By now, the garage doors have shut behind us, and I’ve turned off the engine. “Three people could probably get lost in here.”
“I’m sure we’ve gotten lost a time or two.”
I get to Katherine’s door and help her to her feet again. This time, she leans heavily on me as if some weariness is weighing her down. I savor the natural scent of her hair that tickles my nose.
I help her step up into the kitchen through the garage door and reluctantly let go of her to shut it and flip open the lid for the security panel beneath the light switch.
The system hasn’t been used in years. I’m shocked that I even remember the code. It glows a faint yellow before the top light flashes green to indicate it’s armed.
“Oh, this place is beautiful!” Katherine’s cry nearly startles me.
When I turn, I find her taking in the kitchen. Maybe it’s because I’ve stared at it all my life, but the French-country style interior doesn’t impress me. The kitchen is extensive with countless pale wooden cabinets, one of those inconvenient porcelain basin sinks, a pitched, exposed wood ceiling, and far too many bay windows.
When I lead her through the connecting dining room and the adjoining hallway, she stares at the tall ceilings. The space is too open, and the off-white paint and minimalistic, sparse artwork don’t do it any favors. Some walls, especially those in the dining room, are broken up with oak and redwood Queen Anne-style furniture, making the entire place look like a tacky bed and breakfast.
But I’m not interested in giving her a tour right now. My pulse thrums as we approach the main staircase, a sweeping, curved set leading to the second-floor balcony. Beyond it, there are several rooms that had once been a part of a boarding house run by the first Wards that constructed the place.
Beneath the staircase, the first door leads to a bedroom without windows but a small, attached bathroom. Like many of the old boarding rooms, it had been a little dusty, but when I open the door, I see that Raney’s taken to cleaning the place. The bed in the center of the room is freshly made with a rose- patterned comforter and pillows on top. The antique dresser in the corner of the room has all of its drawers open.
Right now, it’s barren, but that will change.
Katherine sticks her head through the doorway just as I flip on the light. Her eyes circle the room as I guide her inward.
“This isn’t your bedroom, is it?” There’s an awkward note in her laughter.
“No,” I tell her. “This is yours.”
Time slows. Katherine’s smile falls from her face, and she searches mine for a hint of a joke.
Before she or I can speak, a presence fills the doorway. My cousin, a tall, scruffy-haired, middle-aged man, looks over both of us with an emotionless expression. He’s got an electric drill in one hand and a latch bolt in the other. Age marks his face in lines across his forehead, beneath his eyes, and around his mouth, forming a near-permanent frown.
“W–Who—” she stammers.
“This is Cory,” I tell her. “He’s a cousin of mine, sort of…one of the two I mentioned living here. Raney is around somewhere. You’ll meet her soon, no doubt.”
With no introduction or greeting on his part, Cory nods once and lifts the latch bolt to the door jamb, and begins to screw the piece in place with a loud whirling.
Katherine slowly pulls away from my support and my body. Her body warmth vanishing from me is almost painful, as is the knowledge that I’ll never ever feel it again after what I’m about to do. An angel looking at me for luring her to the precipice of Heaven’s outskirts.
But here, it’s safe.
“What’s going on?” she demands over the sound of the drill.
I regard her for a long second. I wait until Cory’s finished with one side of the door and begins working on the other before I dare to respond. I’m delaying the inevitable. If I must clip her wings, I know I must be swift, but it isn’t easy.
So, I channel my father.
My voice is cold and even. “You can’t leave, Katherine.”
For some reason, she still looks at me with trust. There’s no fear or anger yet. “Why can’t I leave?”
“This is your home now.”
Katherine blinks and looks around the bedroom a second time. She eyes Cory behind me, who’s clacking the metal back and forth to test the lock, then lifts her stare to me again. There’s still confusion there, but also a drop of fear. “It’s nice to know that you want to live with me, but I think we should really talk about it first, don’t you think?”
I shake my head. “I’ve made this decision for you. You will live here with me. It’s the only way to ensure that nothing happens to you.”
“Um,” she stammers, looking back and forth between Cory and me, perhaps waiting for the punchline. “Okay, but I think maybe I should have some say in this.”
“No, and that will be all.”
“All? Dorian, you can’t just make the choice for me,” she replies, disapproval coating her sweet voice.
I take a step further into the room, and she stiffens. My name on her nervous lips sends a small shock of delight and horror through me. “There is going to be no discussion. We will not weigh the pros and cons. You’ll live here from now on, and the sooner you accept this, the sooner we can move on.”
Katherine stares up at me in shock. “You can’t do this. What’s…what’s gotten into you? Did I do something wrong?”
It stuns me that her immediate reaction is to take fault. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. I realized that you are better off in my care than anyone else’s, and that means I won’t let you leave this house.”
She shakes her head, not understanding. “Can’t we talk about this?”
I gesture over my shoulder. “All the doors are connected to a security system. Should you try to open any of them at any point, we’ll be alerted by an alarm.”
Katherine’s shoulders drop, face blanching. Slowly, she begins to grasp her situation. “Wait…I can’t leave…ever?”
“No,” I say in an exhale, “you can’t.”
Horror and recognition ignite across her face, and the words burst from her. “But my mom! She needs—”
“You won’t be seeing your mother again.”
Katherine recoils as if I struck her. “What?”
I want to tell her she’s in danger. But what good would that do other than cause her to live in fear? And the point of this is for her to be the happiest she can be…under the circumstances.
Katherine turns frantic. “You don’t understand! I…think I left her back at the hospital, and I’m sure she’s so worried about me. I can’t just disappear into thin air!”
“It’s for your own good.”
“How can you say that? You don’t get to determine what’s good for me.” She shakes her head again, sending her auburn hair falling across her face. “This can’t be happening.”
“You’ll quickly find that I am the only one capable of determining what’s good for you, Katherine. You have been convinced you’re a burden to others; here I am, relieving others of that so-called burden.”
Katherine stares up at me, tears brimming in her eyes. Somehow, in all the time it took me to come to grips with her hating me, I haven’t prepared myself for her tears.
I rip my eyes from her, gesturing out into the hall for Cory to leave. When he does, I place my hand against the door and glance over my shoulder at her.
“I will allow you some time to reflect and come to terms with your new living arrangement,” I explain, my voice coming out harder than I intended. In truth, I’m suddenly faced with a barb of uncertainty, looking into her horrified eyes, which hold more betrayal than hatred.
“Get some rest,” I instruct.
Swaying on her feet, she braces the headboard for balance, knuckles turning white in her grip. “Don’t do this! This isn’t you, Dorian. Please, let me help you.”
I’m not sure what she means by help, but I don’t try to implore further. “Goodnight, Katherine,” I say, and then close the door behind me, not willing to steal a second glance at her glistening eyes. I quickly engage the new bolt outside her door and am met with silence.
Guilt comes like a gut punch, but I brace against it. No matter my doubt, I know I’m making the right decision.