Be a Doll(31)

“Little bi—‘’

“I’d weigh my words if I were you, Dad,’’ Mathis said grimly. The only sign belaying his impending explosion aside from his locked jaw and the hard look on his face was the way he threw his napkin on the table, not paying attention when it half fell in the remnants of his starter.

“Oscar, please!’’ Sylvie said again and grasped her husband’s tight fist on the table while Megan seemed to have shrunk in her chair.

“Are you threatening me, son?’’

We all turned to look at Mathis who smiled in such a cold way that I shivered. His whole face looked dangerous and his handsome features resembled those of an evil person rendered ugly from all the awful things they envisioned doing. Mathis wasn’t truly ugly even when smiling in that dangerous way, but he scared me. It made me wonder to what extent he could go just to get on top of a situation and if he would ever show me personally, I had no doubt that I wouldn’t be able to win.

“I’m just reminding you who holds most of your clients and who is the active major investor in most of your suppliers.’’ He stood up and helped me up by taking my hand in his and guiding me to my feet without rushing me. “Don’t ever think about insulting my wife again, Dad.’’

“Your wife? This is an arrangement with an expiration date,’’ the older man spewed as Mathis led me out without giving me the time to say goodbye to his mother and sister.

My husband’s steps didn’t falter and he didn’t release his grip on my hand as we walked through the apartment and left when Sylvie’s outburst rang through the quiet rooms while Megan didn’t peep a word.





MATHIS


With her hand clasped into mine, I led her farther down the street in the opposite direction of our car. I couldn’t sit still in a car right now or be encased in a small enclosed space. My need to burst, to explode and let out that anger only my father was able to cultivate made me want to go back in there, but he wasn’t the one really at fault anyway. Things were a lot more complicated than that.

I forced air through my lungs, ignoring the common pain in my chest and the shaking Lila must feel through our clasped hands. I focused on my feet pounding the concrete sidewalk, the sound barely audible of my dress shoes hitting the ground while cars whizzed past us in the early Sunday evening traffic. I also concentrated some of my attention on the warmth of my wife’s hand in mine, centering some of my volatile energy and calming the impending anxiety attack that would make the third one in the last day.

“I’m sorry,’’ Lila said, her voice so small I almost missed it. She sounded nothing like the woman I knew, nothing like the woman who stood up to my father — something almost no one ever did.

“Don’t,’’ I said through gritted teeth, tightening my grip on her hand to almost pain. She didn’t try to get me to release her. She didn’t slow down either.

“Mathis.’’ I didn’t look her away even if hearing my name coming from her mouth did something to me I couldn’t identify, something I couldn’t fathom when I was too far gone into the darkness ever present in my head, when the anger tried to poison everything inside me, when nothing but that damn pain took over my whole self until I was just a shell of a man, drowning and yet holding tightly onto a control that was barely present and rarely real. “Mathis, please I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—‘’

I stopped abruptly and turned to her. She stumbled on her heels, but she quickly found her footing in a gasp when her blue eyes, so intense, locked onto mine. One cursory look showed me that under her cream scarf hanging loosely around her neck, her pulse beat strong and fast, betraying her nerves and maybe fear at seeing a look I was sure screamed my impending explosion. Her light skin, smooth and perfect, was marred by goosebumps I was sure the fall weather had nothing to do with it.

“Don’t apologize. Just don’t, Lila.’’ I raked a hand through my hair and breathed deeply. All the while, there standing in the middle of the deserted sidewalk I kept on holding hands with my wife. Without looking at her I felt her eyes on me, taking stock of the signs of my breakdown. It shattered the image she had of me, an image I wanted her to have of me, an image I had perfected over the years, an image I had lost myself to on my own volition.

I stared around at the expensive buildings surrounding us, looming over and that feeling of being lost intensified. For a few very brief seconds, nothing made sense. The fact that I was married, the expensive suit I had on, the dress shoes on my feet, the overpriced watch on my wrist gleaming under the street lights, the sports car parked somewhere on the opposite side of the street behind us. Nothing made any sense.

But then, out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the polished window of a closed cupcake shop. I couldn’t make out much of my face in these conditions, but it was enough of a reminder.

The air stilled in my chest, my blood roared through my veins and my trembling subsided. But I didn’t release Lila’s hand.

“I made things worse,’’ she said after a while. The difference in her voice from the other times when she had talked to me was staggering. I glanced at her and saw her eyes lost looking farther up the street. “I let my temper get the better of me when he was right about calling me a prostitute.’’