8. Chapter Eight #2
“You have,” Stephen agrees. “But this one looks like it hurts.”
“You going to fix me up?”
“So good it’ll be like it never happened.”
“You’re that good at fixing cuts?”
“I’m good at a lot of things.” There’s the faintest quirk to his lips.
“I remember,” I whisper, inching closer.
“Got it!” Landon says, holding a red bag over his head as he tears back into the kitchen.
Reluctantly, I step back from Stephen as Landon squeezes between us. Stephen chuckles as he holds onto my hand with the paper towel covering it.
“I’ll help,” Landon says.
“You want to play doctor?” Stephen asks, setting my hand on the island while he digs through the bag.
“Are you a doctor too?” he asks.
“No, but I had to learn a lot of emergency first aid for this job.”
“Why?” Landon asks.
“My job is to stop people from getting hurt, and I’m very good at that. But if something does happen, my job is to help.”
“I’m a good helper,” Landon says.
The look Stephen gives him is filled with fondness, and then he walks Landon through cleaning, sealing, and bandaging my two cuts.
His patience with Landon’s questions and enthusiasm for helping cause that earlier warmth to return.
Even though my fingers hurt, my soul feels settled, like it’s finally landed back where it belongs.
When Landon runs the first aid kit back to the front foyer, Stephen cleans the counter and then slices the bread for me.
“Did you do a lot of first aid work while you were gone off the island?”
He glances at me, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he tidies up the breadcrumbs, butters four pieces of bread with the garlic spread, turns on the second oven to toast them, and then puts everything away.
“Why are you like this?” I say when it’s clear he won’t answer. “One minute, you’re open, and the next, you’re so closed off.”
When he doesn’t answer again, I say, “Raul told me you’d been in an accident. A bad one.”
“Your husband shouldn’t be gossiping about his employees,” Stephen says, his jaw tight. “I’ll be at the front entrance if you need me.”
“Stephen!” I call to him, but he ignores me.
A few seconds later, the quiet conversation between him and Landon filters to me, and I let out a sigh of frustration.
Landon and I eat dinner together, watch a bit of TV, and then I take him to bed. When I come back down, Stephen and Datu are still there.
“I thought you’d be gone,” I say.
“How’s your hand?” Stephen asks.
“Almost like it never happened,” I say, showing him my bandages.
His lips tip up slightly, as though he’s suppressing his amusement at my callback to his claim.
“Why are you still here?” I ask more directly.
“Your husband is off the island with some of our security staff, so we’ve had to adjust schedules and coverages,” Stephen says. “Datu got your mail. It’s on the kitchen island.”
I wander over and start ripping open various bills. When I get to one that doesn’t have a return address, I hesitate. Probably junk mail or some charity trying to get our attention.
I rip the envelope and then I tug out the card, flipping it open. Inside is a cut-out message—such a cliché—telling Raul to back off the union organizers or else he’ll be “sorry.” Nice and vague.
“Well, isn’t that sweet?” I say, holding the card up toward Stephen.
“What’s that?” he asks, coming closer.
“A threat, I guess,” I say with a shrug. “Whoever it is, they’re not very good at it. People still buy physical newspapers and magazines?”
Stephen takes the card from my hand and skims it before setting it down. He seems lost in thought.
The incident with my car, Jenny trying to talk to me, the protesters outside the gate, and now this anonymous mail make me realize The Nile employees are desperate, but I don’t really understand why. And I’m not sure I should even be asking myself that question. Raul won’t listen to me.
“What do you think about The Nile trying to unionize?” I ask.
“What I think doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. Your opinion has always mattered to me.”
“Take off the rose-colored glasses,” he snaps, startling me. “My opinion has never mattered to you. You’ve always done whatever the fuck you wanted, consequences be damned. Let’s not rewrite history now.”
“I did care what you thought, even if I didn’t show it.”
“Nah,” Stephen says with a sharp shake of his head. “You’re looking back and assuming you must have cared. We’re not rewriting the past because it makes you feel better.”
“Fuck you,” I say. “I’m not the one rewriting the past to make myself feel better. You left me, and if you have to admit I actually cared, that makes you the bad guy.”
“I’m the bad guy?” he sputters in disbelief before he holds up a hand to me. “We’re not doing this.”
“At some point, we are doing this,” I say, invading his space. “You don’t get to leave the country, almost die, and turn up as though we didn’t spend eight years tearing each other’s clothes off.”
He glances over his shoulder toward the front entrance, where Datu is presumably stationed since Stephen is in here with me.
“We made our choices,” he says in a low voice. “I’m not looking back at anything with fondness, and neither should you.”
His words sting more than the actual slice of a knife earlier. I’m staring at him, dumbfounded that he’d say that, that he could possibly believe that, when the front door opens with the arrival of the night crew.
“You can’t mean that,” I whisper.
“I do,” he says, and then he leaves me to stride toward the front foyer.
I stare after him, and I wonder if it’s possible that I’m the one who has it wrong because the only way I look back is with fondness for what we once had.
Maybe I’ve allowed that time to take on a golden glow, but we shared so much for so long that I can’t believe none of it was meaningful to him.
One of us is lying to himself. Or herself.