Chapter 33 SIOBHAN
Chapter 33
S IOBHAN
The first day, she didn’t even feel like leaving the sofa. She cried an ocean of tears, wolfed down the bag of Reese’s that she kept on hand for extreme crises, and binge-watched the first season of This Is Us , which turned out to be a terrible idea as it only worsened her dark mood. Between episodes, she checked her phone, but the sign she was waiting for never came. At night, she tried to silence her demons by writing. They say that melancholy is a writer’s best friend and that inspiration flows easily from states of deficiency. All she achieved, however, was to end up curled on the sofa with a glass of cheap wine that reflected the unbearable glow of her computer screen. She knew perfectly well what she had to write, but she didn’t know how. All the words sounded hollow, and the details rang untrue. Nor did she get much rest, her sleep eroded by the same undefined anxiety that oppressed her during waking hours.
Her mind moved in zigzags. Marcel. New Orleans. The kiss in the kitchen. The sheets tangled around their naked bodies. The echoes of pleasure. The plans. The day after. The goodbye. Their Two Ways.
On the second day, she made a titanic effort to get on top of things. She peered through her tiny kitchen window and noticed hints of fall looming. She thought about calling Paige and Lena but wasn’t ready to talk about her feelings. Besides, talking about it wouldn’t change anything. And the prospect of hearing phrases like All cis-hetero men are the same: it’s all promises, promises until they get it, and once they’ve got it, they’re gone (that would be Lena), You can’t trust a man who sleeps in the same bed as you and doesn’t lay a finger on you. For god’s sake, it’s unnatural (that would be Paige), or You have to forget about him and broaden your horizons (that could be either of them) just seemed too discouraging right now. She didn’t want to forget him. What had happened between them, although brief, had been intense, strong, and unforgettable. Marcel had helped her get to know herself better. With his help, she had learned to write looking outward, toward the world and other people’s stories. Yes, she was thirty years old, and her heart was in tatters. She was sad and furious because she loved a broken man who didn’t want to mend himself. But life and literature had to continue.
Of course, her dream—that meteoric literary career that had launched as if by chance—would only come true if she continued writing the novel.
Or the part she was writing, at any rate.
On the third day, she showered, forbade herself from having ice cream for breakfast, grabbed her laptop, and left her apartment with its worryingly noisy air-conditioning unit and stench of desperation. After such a crushing blow, it was hard to imagine ever feeling better. But little by little, so slowly she hardly noticed it happening, she reconnected with her purpose. Siobhan found it again in Café Grumpy on Twentieth Street, on the quiet and pleasant patio. She returned on the fourth day and again on the fifth and the sixth. Because, eventually, her rage dissolved and transformed into the courage she needed to put herself in the shoes of Felicity Bloom. Not the sadness—that was still there—but she took refuge in her writing.
On the seventh day, her phone started to vibrate on the café table while she was working. When she saw Marcel’s name on the screen, she stifled a cry with her hand. One week. It had been exactly one week since they had said goodbye. Writing without him was complicated, lonely, and less stimulating. But it was also true that a small part of her had started to become accustomed to his absence. What if answering the phone set her back to the emotional precarity of the first day? Her equilibrium was hanging by a very fragile thread because, after all, she was human and in love. What did he want? Why was he calling her? She looked at the phone, debating whether to ignore the call. But then, she wasn’t made of steel, particularly not when it came to Marcel.
She summoned all her courage.
“Hi.”
“Hi, Siobhan.” Hearing his voice was like someone beating her and tending to her bruises at the same time. “I was going to leave you a message. I didn’t think you would answer.”
“Me neither.”
“I understand. How are you?”
“I’ve been better.” It just slipped out. Perhaps she should have made an effort to sound less pathetic, to give the impression she had barely thought about him over the last few days. She swallowed and added: “And you?”
“I don’t even know what day it is.”
There seemed to be an insurmountable distance between them, and neither one could reach the other.
“Why are you calling?”
“Something’s happened, Siobhan, something big, and I’m ... I don’t know ... in shock. I need to talk. Do you think we could see each other?” he asked. “I’ll go to Brooklyn or wherever.”
“I’m in Manhattan right now. I can meet you at your apartment if you like.”
“Yes. Yes, please. That would be ... I just ... I know I don’t deserve it, but I need you. Just come, please,” he said, tripping over his words.
“I’ll be right there,” she said, reaching out to close her laptop. She heard his anguished sigh at the other end of the line, and she shuddered. “Can you at least tell me what happened?”
“It’s my mother, Siobhan. She’s back. And she’s here, in New York.”
Marcel had dark bags under his eyes, his stubble was getting unruly, and his expression said he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Thanks for coming,” he said in a tense voice as he opened the door. “It means a lot to me.”
Siobhan nodded timidly. Merely being in his presence again divested her of all the layers of protection she had made for herself over the last few days. She plunged her hands into her jeans pockets and followed him into the living room, feeling like she was coming apart at the seams. But she was there because he needed her, so she took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself. She didn’t understand why Marcel crouched on the floor at the foot of the sofa, nor did she ask. She sat down, pulled her knees up, and hugged them to her.
An intense quiet stretched out between them. A couple of interminable seconds passed before Siobhan dared to turn to meet the fragile depths of his gaze. Marcel sighed and ran his hand over his face. The rough sound of his stubble gave her goose bumps.
“What I told you on the phone is true. Claudette is in New York. And she wants us to meet.”
“But wh—? How did she find you? Wait. Don’t tell me she saw that photo of us on the internet and recognized you.”
Marcel laughed bitterly. His expression hardened.
“I wish. But no. It’s because she’s been in touch with my sister ever since Katrina.”
“What?” Siobhan’s eyes widened in perplexity. “You mean your mother ...?”
“Has known all along who Marcel Black is.”
“I don’t get it,” she said, rubbing her temples in an effort to assimilate the information.
“And I don’t get why Chaz betrayed me like this. She even gave her my number! Can you believe it?”
“Have you spoken to her?” she asked, hesitantly.
“Not yet. I’m too pissed. Pissed, shocked, hurt ... I don’t even know how I feel. I wasn’t expecting this from my own sister. After all we’ve been through! It feels like I’ve been living a lie for the last twelve years.”
“I meant, have you spoken to your mother.”
“Oh, yes. Two hours ago. I don’t usually answer calls from unknown numbers, and I wish I hadn’t. As soon as I heard her, I just shattered, Siobhan. She said, ‘Marcel, it’s me. Mama.’” His voice broke. And it can’t have been the only thing breaking inside him, judging by his expression and his body language. “How can she call herself that when she abandoned us the way she did? God, it’s ridiculous.”
Siobhan put a hand on his knee, hoping the physical contact would somehow console him.
“Did she say why she wants to see you?”
“I hung up before she had the chance. And I hope she never calls again. I just don’t have it in me to see her.” He gesticulated vehemently. “Why did she have to appear right now? What the hell does that woman want from me? To be a mother to a thirty-six-year-old man? It’s too late for that. I can look after myself.”
A shadow of doubt loomed over her. Whatever the reasons that had impelled Claudette to do what she did, Marcel needed to know what they were. He needed to hear the truth from his mother’s lips, not the version twisted by resentment that he had formed in his mind.
“If I’ve learned anything in the time I’ve been writing with you, it’s that a story unresolved in the past always turns up again in the present,” said Siobhan delicately. “It’s like ...” She wiggled her fingers in search of the right phrase and snapped them when she found it. “Like Chekhov’s gun. Well, something like that.” He gave a weak smile. “What I mean to say is that maybe, just maybe,” she clarified, “you should consider the possibility of seeing her.”
Marcel looked at her as though she had plunged a dagger into his back. A tense fury spread across his face, from his forehead to the dimple on his chin. He shook his head.
“No. There’s just no way. I’m not doing it. That woman destroyed my life. Mine and my sister’s, even though she seems to have forgotten that. Which I suppose is only to be expected of her.”
Although his tone was firm, Siobhan noticed a touch of confusion in his eyes, so she decided to go all in.
“Aren’t you tired of hiding, Marcel?” She squeezed his knee. “Go and see her.”
“And say what?” he muttered, unable to contain the pain dominating his voice.
“Maybe you don’t have to say anything. Maybe it will be enough to listen to what she has to tell you. Whatever it is, I know you can face it. If Charmaine could, you can too.”
“No, no I can’t!” he shouted. “She’ll destroy me again! I know she will! She abandoned me, Siobhan! My own mother abandoned me!”
The deep cry that rose from his guts startled her. But there was worse to come, when Marcel started beating his head with his palms as though his brain was about to explode. That really frightened her. Shaken, she rushed to him and tried to contain him with all her strength, begging him to stop. His eyes, black as onyx, flooded, and his tears fell without restraint, gut-wrenching sobs contorting his face. All the things he had taken such pains to bury so long ago rose to the surface. His outburst eventually ran its course. Exhausted, he buried his face in her chest, holding on to her as though he was on the edge of a precipice. Siobhan said nothing. She simply let him cry as she stroked his back gently. After a while, a contained calm, punctuated by erratic sighs and the odd hiccup, replaced the crying.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You don’t have to apologize for crying, Marcel. It doesn’t make you weak; it just makes you human.”
Marcel raised his head, and they looked at each other. Then he kissed her. It was a passionate, urgent, and heartrending kiss. A free fall.
Agitated, she placed her palm against his chest and gently pushed him away.
“We can’t, Marcel. Neither of us needs this right now. It will only complicate things.”
Although he seemed disconcerted, he nodded.
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m really sorry, honestly,” he said, moving away from her and leaning back against the sofa. “I don’t know what came over me. I suppose it was just a moment of weakness. Another one.”
That just pierced Siobhan’s heart like an arrow.
That just made it clear that there was nothing complicated between them.
She sighed and rummaged in her purse. She found a pack of tissues, pulled one out, and handed it to Marcel.
“Do you feel a bit better?”
“Yes, thanks.” He blew his nose and stuck the tissue in his pocket. “Why are you so good to me, Siobhan? You should hate me, and instead you’re here, putting up with my pathetic crying.”
“It isn’t pathetic to cry. And I could never hate you. I’ll be here whenever you need me.”
The look Marcel gave her contained so many emotions that Siobhan couldn’t identify them all.
“I lied before. I said I was sorry for kissing you, but the truth is I’m not sorry at all. I would do it again. I would kiss you again right now without thinking twice, if I wasn’t sure it would hurt you. I ... I’m a mess. I don’t know how to stay here. And I don’t know how to leave,” he confessed.
Siobhan felt her eyes narrow. Her throat. Her veins. Her heart.
“I’m not a musical instrument you can play to console yourself whenever you’re feeling down. I’m a woman. And I have feelings for you, Marcel. Very intense feelings that I can’t express in words because I can’t bear you rejecting me again. You’re confused, and I get that, but please, don’t keep confusing me.”
Marcel tensed his jaw.
“You deserve someone better than me. And I’m sure you’ll find him eventually.”
I don’t want anyone better than you. I love you, with all your cracks, your fears, your tears. I want each and every one of your imperfections. I want to be by your side to catch you when you fall. Is that so difficult for you to understand? she thought.
Why bother saying all that when she already knew the answer?
“I think I should go.”
“Wait. Can I ask you one last favor?” She nodded. “I’d like you to write the end of Two Ways . I know you’ll give our story the ending it deserves.”
“And what about your story? How does it end?”
“I ... I don’t know,” he muttered. “Maybe mine will have an open ending.”