Be a Doll(68)

I wasn’t the kind of man who would never admit his faults, but I wasn’t the kind to offer apologies either. I moved on. It’s been a sport for me; moving on.

I fucked and moved on to the next woman nearby.

I bought a company and moved on to the next one.

I fought with my father and moved on to the next one.

I pushed away my family and moved on in my lonely and sterile life.

I married, and I hadn’t moved on yet.

“I understand,’’ she said quietly and stared down at her plate now full after Lila served her. It pained me to see her like this. If there was someone in my life I didn’t want to hurt, it was my mother. I blamed my father for hurting her by being an asshole to his kids and mostly me because I knew how it pained my mother, but I was no better.

I had no idea how to make it better. Usually, I’d just brush it off even if I hated seeing her like this, but somehow here and now in my apartment sharing a dinner with her and my wife made everything harder to swallow. Back when I was a kid I always knew what to do or say to make people laugh or smile. I had lost that ability, and if I was honest, I rarely smiled myself.

I shared a look with Lila who seemed as distraught over my mother’s evident sadness, but where she sent a compassionate look my mother’s way, she only glared at me and then arched her eyebrows as if saying ‘do something’. I didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t the kind of man to often feel that way in my life. I was always, or almost always, in control.

Not so long ago this apartment was mine alone and I could let go of the front I never seemed to be able or willing to strip off outside of these walls. I could break down here, or at least I used to be able to do so if I needed to. Now, only my study was my sanctuary and even there, Lila invaded my space.

Lila had invaded so much of my life in so little time.

I cleared my throat and clenched the cutlery tightly between my hands as the first signs of an anxiety attack started to come. Not now.

“It’s fine. I know you like your own space when you’re finished with work. I shouldn’t have—‘’

“No,’’ Lila said, butting in and catching my mother’s eyes. Her gentle smile was truly breathtaking, quite literally. Her face was so different from when she looked at me. There, she was open, soft and gentle, but it didn’t make the fire, the life in her eyes shine any less bright. If anything, it shone brighter, only a different tint. “You’re always welcome here.’’

My mother’s smile for my wife was strained, but thankful all the same. That should be my cue to say something, but instead I shoveled food in my mouth to keep myself busy and stiffly nodded once. That was the best I could do when everything in me screamed that I should find a way to reclaim this apartment as mine, as my safe house, the place where I could be weak if I needed. Lila was taking everything from me — from my sanity, my independence, to my need for air and solitude.

Silence stretched as we ate until nothing was left on our plates or in our glasses. I poured us each another glass and tensed more and more as nothing was said. Silence when I was the one imposing it was fine, I even reveled in it as way of control over the other parties present, but silence like the one upon us was different.

“Would you help me with the plates and pot, Mathis?’’ Lila asked me with a voice that didn’t leave any room for anything but yes.

Without a word and with a frown deeply set, I stood up and grabbed the pot in the middle of the table as Lila piled up plates and cutlery under the distracted scrutiny of my mother nursing her new glass of wine.

As soon as we were in the kitchen my wife put down everything she had in her hands in the sink and put her hands on her hips, eyes sending daggers at me. She walked to me and poked my chest so hard I winced when her nail bit into my skin through the thick fabric of my button-down. Those should be registered as weapons.

“What the hell?’’ I cursed under my breath, glaring at my spitfire of a wife and rubbed at my chest.

“You’re an asshole!’’ she yelled at me in a whisper, her lips pursed in disgust. “How can you disrespect your mother like that? Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have a mother like her?’’

“Shut up, Lila.’’

I turned around, messing with the spoons and bowls and the fruit salad on the kitchen island, but she didn’t let me off the hook for long. She wasn’t the kind of person who gave up easily.

“You don’t turn away from me.’’ She grabbed my arm and tugged until I turned around quickly, making her stumble, but I didn’t make a move to stabilize her. I was too busy glaring at her in warning. I felt it, that darkness all encompassing. I felt it lurking, gaining terrain. I felt it spreading its ugly wings, chasing off the flutters of some other creature’s wings flapping in my stomach. Devastation, dark memories and so on were things I knew well and yet at that moment it could have put me on my knees as I stared deep into her cornflower blue eyes.

“What do you want from me, Lila? Money and my cock aren’t enough for you?’’

She took a step back, her eyes wide for a moment as if I slapped her. As soon as I said those words I regretted them, but why should I? Lila was a hired wife, temporary in my life.

“You make it so easy to want to hate you, Mathis.’’ Her voice wasn’t a whisper anymore, just distant and laced with something I couldn’t name.