Unbroken Love

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Northumberland County

Ells Hall

Saturday, January 29, 2011

1:50 p.m.

She was glad Gabriela hadn’t insisted on coming with them when Sophia told her they had to go Ells Hall for the weekend to solve a few problems at the resort. The little girl had preferred to stay in London with Ariadne under Alice’s supervision.

What Sophia didn’t tell her was they were going to visit Nathalie’s grave and that it was her death anniversary.

She knew that it was going to be a difficult weekend and it had seemed too much for her little daughter to understand.

Impotently, she watched as Alistair’s eyes glazed.

“Snow is coming,” he said, apathetic, staring out the window.

She looked up at the gray sky. Trying to cheer him, she said, “Looks like it’s going to clear.”

“It’s deceptive. I can tell.” He opened the window and the wind billowed the curtains. “I can smell it in the air. The cold, its freezing cold…” his voice waned, his eyes glazing again.

She enlaced his waist under his leather jacket and mechanically he returned the embrace, putting an arm over her shoulders.

Sophia sighed inwardly. Her husband was so tall that he towered over her, so broad she felt engulfed by his body; his hands were so large that they encompassed her waist easily; but in that moment, his heart was small and his soul was threadbare.

She ached to protect and soothe him. But she knew that only time would tame the pain.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” she said gently and stepped in front of the window as if she could shelter him from the blowing wind, laying her head on his chest. “I’ll be here with you. You’ll not be alone.”

But she is alone. He put his chin on top of her head. Staring at the horizon, he repeated, “The snow is coming.”

For the rest of the day they moved like ghosts through the house. It had been closed for tourism for the whole week and all the staff had been sent home. Only Erskine had refused to go.

Sophia felt awkward, even ashamed, at how much she wanted to see him running on the treadmill, lifting weights or punching the bag, venting his pain and frustration like the fierce Alistair she knew. The one who was never depressed, who had rarely showed insecurity, and nothing close to despair like that. She was controlling herself not to bury his face in the hollow of her neck and lull him, until he felt whole once more.

When the snow had started to fall and darkness descended over the manor, his state worsened degree by degree as if he were freezing from inside out.

It seemed he wanted to shrink into nothing and disappear in the smoke that left their Alec Bradley’s Prensado cigars. Absently, she puffed while he drew great pulls.

The abundant sweet smell of the cigar was utterly lost under the heavy dust of sorrow.

Alistair refused to eat dinner, saying he was not hungry. He stopped in front of the beautiful double wooden doors that lead to the whisky cellar and without looking back at her, threw them open, climbing down. He returned as she was finishing her clam chowder, with the exuberant Lalique crystal decanter of the sixty-four year old Macallan whisky.

Serving himself a tall glass, he sipped while she pushed her honey lamb around her plate until she decided she couldn’t eat anymore. She accepted a strong coffee from Erskine, bidding him good night.

Silently, they retired to the library where he sat in its darkest corner all alone in his big armchair, nursing his whisky.

Sophia climbed the stairs to the mezzanine, trying to give him some space and marveling at all the books she could choose from.

Within the utter silence of an unvoiced existence, serving as an unexciting renewal zone for dust motes and impressive Highland claymores, a rare edition of Fernando Pessoa, in Portuguese, called her. Sophia reached for Book of Disquiet, about the absurdity of living and the inability of man to understand his own existence.

She held it to her chest as she made her way downstairs to read it to someone who was questioning his own new life and now disconnected guilt.

Sophia didn’t notice but as she randomly read the four-hundred-and-eighty-one passages with its unarticulated speech, Alistair’s plucked strings resonated within the momentarily empty and withdrawn chambers of his soul.

“And this is so dispassionate and so perfectly matched to the title. Listen. ‘In these random impressions, and with no desire to be other than random, I indifferently narrate my factless autobiography, my lifeless history. These are my Confessions, and if in them I say nothing, it’s because I have nothing to say.’ I have nothing to say…” she parroted the last phrase, waiting for a word of his or a sound of recognition as he had been doing.

Even though he was gazing at her, he could not see her.

In fact, only his body was there. His soul was in a painful universe of its own, closeted to any gentle gesture that could bring him comfort.

Alistair was in a world of unlived memories, unshed tears, unfelt kisses, untouched caresses, untold stories, untraveled journeys, and so many unloved days.

Sophia closed the book and put it on the table between them. She knelt beside him, the back of her hand touching his cheek lightly. “Meu amor. Let’s go upstairs. You’re tired. You’re not even listening.”

He shook his head slowly to one side and the other. “I was. ‘Each of us is a speck of dust that the wind lifts up and then drops.’ Dust. That’s where we all are bound to return to.”

I picked up the wrong book. Sophia eyed the nineteenth-century Joshua Wilder tall-case clock. “Come on, Alistair Connor. It’s past eleven.”

“Go.” He chose another cheroot and lit it. “I’ll just finish this and follow you.”

I won’t get through to him tonight. Sophia stood up, and resignedly left him alone with his untouched whisky. Maybe it’s all that he needs. Space to brood in peace.

But she knew that wasn’t true.

Alistair was not brooding.

He was mourning.

Sophia sighed, looking at Gabriel’s Daytona Rolex. Five to midnight.

Deciding she didn’t want to sit quietly waiting for Alistair, she shed her wrap and put on her warm clothes again.

In the unlit castle, she climbed down the large dark stairs seeking him.

In the library, hisses and a few cracks indicated the fire was dying. A spark in the ashes reflected on the Lalique bottle of the Macallan whisky. The caramel liquid seemed to sway. Next to it, a glass showed Alistair had only half drunk it.

A loud sound made Sophia jump.

She put a hand over her rapidly beating heart. And the sound repeated itself.

Stupid, Sophia. She chuckled nervously at her foolishness. It’s just the tall-clock indicating midnight has arrived.

When a male hand fell over her shoulder, only a whizzing breath left her mouth.