Hello. Happy Easter, or Passover, or Happy Sunday of the others don't suit you. Waiting sucks, doesn't it. Waiting without an occupation sucks even harder. Church seems to think so. Good thing he has Paul to keep him company. Let's see what the guys get into.
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
13
Starting to Wait
Paul and I made our leisurely way up the stairs, across the entryway, and up the private set of stairs to the apartment. It hadn't been quite twenty-four hours since he and I had been there before, but the situation was completely different. The last time, Shawn had merely been away, seeing to his practice and going about his everyday routine while I hosted our guest. Since then, my role hadn't changed much, but my husband's role had gone from that of professional, to that of victim.
I tried not to think too much about it, because dwelling on it wasn't productive. I remembered the words to the Serenity Prayer. `God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.' That particular platitude rang hollower than it usually did. I shoved those thoughts away as I opened the door and entered the apartment.
I knew that I was in trouble as soon as I stepped over the threshold because everything reminded me of Shawn. From the furnishings, to the photos, to the knickknacks and keepsakes, he was everywhere I looked. The very size and shape of the apartment was exactly like the fourth-floor place he'd had in Epistylium, the first private dwelling I was ever in on Solum. I'd spent my entire married life calling a place that looked like that apartment `home.' I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through the swirling thoughts and fears that threatened to overwhelm me.
That strategy was a mistake. I thought that shutting out the sights would help me get control, but every breath of air brought traces of Shawn with it. Being in the apartment was as close as I could get to experiencing him, short of having him in my arms. OK...OK,' I thought, we can do this. Just focus on the steps. Get clothes, get in the shower, get dressed, and get the hell out of here.' I opened my eyes and led Paul to the kitchen island. I offered him coffee, or anything else that he wanted.
"I think I've had enough coffee for one morning. Do you have tea? I'll have a cup of green tea if you have it."
I went to the culinarian to program a cup for him. When I selected the tea' icon under the beverages' menu, the first option that came up was Shawn's favorite blend. A flash of terror, like the stabbing anxiety that comes when you remember that one day you're going to die, seized my mind. I found myself wondering what it would be like to never select that icon again. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, until the horror passed. When it faded into the background, I opened my eyes and chose a plain cup of green tea.
I handed the cup across the island and waited to see if Paul found it acceptable. He took a sip and hummed his approval. I tried to tell him what I was going to do, but that didn't work out well. "I'll uh...I need to...oh shit...twenty minutes, or a little more. I'll make it quick and then we can...you know." I stumbled and stammered as I tried to keep my emotions in check.
Paul didn't say anything. His face showed concern, but he didn't speak. I shut my eyes again and tried to collect myself enough to do the next thing I needed to do. A couple breaths later, I opened them up and went to the closet to shed my clothes, pick fresh ones, and get into my robe.
When I opened the closet and walked inside, I noticed Shawn's neatly organized side of the closet. Seeing that was a bit difficult, but not overly so. I'd seen his clothes just like that every morning for years. If I kept my imagination in check, and focused on my task, I could pretend it was just a regular morning and I was getting ready for the day the same as I always did.
I told myself to follow the steps. Step one, I took my clothes off and dropped them in a pile. Step two, I slipped my robe on. Step three, I picked out what I was going to wear that day. Step four, I gathered my dirty clothes into my left hand and opened the hamper to shove them in.
On top of the rest of the discarded clothes in the hamper was Shawn's outfit from the previous night's dinner. His second-skin white pants were balled up with his orange and black shirt. The outfit that had made me burn for him just a few hours before, was cast off and sitting there in a crumpled heap.
I reached my hand into the hamper to gather the clothes out, but I could barely control the hand that did the reaching. It shook so badly, that I almost couldn't close my fingers on the fabric. I felt the stretchy softness of the cloth and pulled the garments to my chest, like they were a baby that needed protection against the harsh world. I dropped my stuff in the hamper and closed the lid.
I pressed Shawn's clothes to my face and breathed in his scent like I had the day before. It was a different day though, and the circumstances had changed. My husband wasn't taking a nap in the other room while I fantasized about his body against mine. He was...he was God knows where, enduring God knows what, at the hands of God knows who.
Shawn was at the mercy of people who thought that money was important enough to separate people who love each other as much as Shawn and I did...do. He was somewhere else, where I couldn't touch him or hold him or comfort him. He was somewhere where my emotions wouldn't reach him and his couldn't reach me. We were separated and my terror was my own to deal with and his was his own to deal with...alone. He was alone and I was alone and...and...I hated being alone.
The weight of it, of being alone, was too much. It was too much for my fragile confidence in the reassuring words of my friend, Bem. It was too much for the fragile conviction I had that I would get him back and everything would be fine in the end. It was too much even for the wall of anger I'd built around the fear. All of it shattered like a fine crystal champagne flute struck with a ball bat. The pieces came crashing down around me while I held the essence of my husband to my face and breathed him in.
My legs failed me, and I sank to the ground. I sat next to the hamper and drew my knees to my chest. I leaned forward with the only thing I had of my husband pressed to my face. I breathed him in and wept into his clothes. I wept and howled my grief into the clothes I'd lusted after just hours earlier. I sobbed, and I wailed like everything that ever meant anything to me had been ripped away...because it had. My worst fear, in my heart of hearts, my deepest nightmare was finding myself alone...and in that moment, I was alone.
A big male voice sounded over my grief. I didn't hear everything it said, but I heard some of it. "My...oh...oh my," it said, and it came into the closet to be with me. The voice seemed to have a body that struggled to the floor to sit next to mine, and an arm that found its way around me, and good intentioned words of comfort. I loved the voice for being there and for trying to make my pain easier to bear, and I hated the voice for not being able to give me what I wanted...what I needed the most...Shawn.
I cried and I screamed out my fear and my dread until I couldn't cry anymore. When I finally ran out of tears, the fear was still there and the sadness was just as desperate, but I didn't have the...the means to express any more than I already had. I was exhausted and I'd achieved...nothing; nothing at all. I'd cried and I'd screamed, and everything was the same. I lowered the sopping-wet clothes from my face and saw that the voice that I'd heard and the arm that was around me had a face. It was the tear-streaked face of my friend, Paul.
His expressive face wore the saddest frown I'd ever seen; the saddest that wasn't my own. He cried with me, and for me. I moved the clothes that were clenched in my fists toward him a fraction to show him...to make him see. "Shawn." I sobbed.
"I know." Paul agreed. "I know how hard it is."
I didn't believe him. I didn't think he could know. I knew that he couldn't know. No one had ever loved anyone the way I loved Shawn. No one, ever, in the entire history of history, had ever loved someone...needed someone, like I needed my husband. Never. Paul couldn't know. I didn't challenge him. It wasn't his fault if he thought he knew. He should be so lucky to know.' I thought. But he won't...can't, because Shawn belongs to me. He's mine.'
I tried to take a deep breath and choked on it. I tried again and choked less. I reached toward the lid of the hamper with the clothes, with my husband's clothes, and tried to spread them to dry from my tears and my grief. They wouldn't spread. My hands shook too badly to make them spread without balling them up in a knotted mess.
Paul tried to help me, but I snatched the clothes away before he could touch them. They weren't his to touch. They were mine and he couldn't have them. He took his hands away and let me see them resting in his lap. When I was sure he wouldn't reach out again, I spread the clothes to dry, and I wiped my face on the sleeve of my robe. "I miss my husband." I whispered to my friend.
"I know you do." He whispered back.
I wiped my face again and thought I'd probably cried enough. "I'm gonna get cleaned up."
"OK." Paul replied.
I struggled to my feet and looked down at my friend. He held his hands up for help. I pulled him off the floor with my magic and wrapped him in a hug. "I'm glad you're here."
He hugged me back with the strength of a tame bear. "Me too." He said into my shoulder.
I leaned away from him and broke our embrace. "I'm going to get a shower."
"I'll be in the other room."
Paul left the closet ahead of me and I went into the bathroom. I felt numb as I showered and dressed. When I was done, I left the bathroom with my robe over my arm and stopped at the door to my closet. I had a passing thought that I should hang the robe where it normally hung, on its hook inside the door. I reconsidered because the idea of opening that closet door after what had just transpired inside it, seemed like a bad one. Instead, I draped my robe over the back of the bathroom door and went to collect my guest from the kitchen island.
Paul closed the book he'd been reading and didn't say anything as I escorted him from the apartment and down the stairs to the entryway. He didn't say anything as we crossed the entryway to the residential wing. He didn't say anything while we strolled the corridor and stopped at Lenis' apartment. I knocked on the door and Andy opened it to me. He and Comet were on their way out of the apartment to go do whatever it was that they normally did when Shawn wasn't kidnapped.
I didn't go in. Lenis came to the door. We had a silent moment of understanding in our mutual grief and worry. Lenis held up a tablet of glass with the transaction initiation on it for the ransom payment. I signed it and used my thumbprint to authorize the funds. She took the tablet and signed it and used her thumbprint to complete the transaction. The tablet flashed and a receipt appeared to show the transfer was complete. "I'm working to establish a figure for your liquid holdings." She said without verbally acknowledging the completion of the other transaction.
"Do you need anything from me?" I asked.
"No." She turned away to see to her task.
I shut the apartment door and left with Paul.
We returned to my kitchen for lack of another destination and drifted to the counter where we stood next to each other and stared into the polished surface of the glass top. We lingered in silence for a few minutes; me with nothing to say and Paul probably wondering what he could say.
"Would you..." Paul started to ask a question and trailed off. He seemed to reframe the question in his mind and asked it from a different angle. "I suppose we have some time. If that's the case, would you take me to the statue? Does that count as leaving the estate? Would Bem object to that? I would like to see the statue again."
I took out my phone to text Bem to ask permission to go. I was surprised to see that it wasn't even noon yet. So much had happened, and so little time had passed. Bem texted that we could go to the statue, but no farther. He added that the first of the others wouldn't arrive until three o'clock at the earliest and he wouldn't need me until after five. He also said that he'd asked Cellarius to turn the airfield lights on to leave them on indefinitely.
I had no objection to that. The lights could burn forever for all I cared in that moment. I pocketed my phone and pushed away from the counter to go to the garage. I took Paul and his book with me to get the car, to go to the statue.