As the days passed, the tragedy of Sévérine’s breakdown and the shock of her betrayal shifted from the foreground of my thoughts to the background. I thought about looking for someone else to replace her and then thought about taking a break. I considered for the first time what I would do if I didn’t have my chateau. I didn’t arrive at an answer, but at least the question itself no longer scared me.
Without Sévérine’s arms to push Cranwell into, my thoughts about him had no lightning rod. They crashed and blazed and thundered in my mind without anything to ground them. If he didn’t belong to Sévérine, then he was no longer off limits. But that didn’t mean that he was mine or anyone else’s.
I was like a person who plans to drink flat water and swallows a mouthful of sparkling water instead. It takes a while for the mind to process the difference, even while the taste buds are transmitting the new information.
So Cranwell was unattached. He was the person he’d proclaimed himself to be and not the lout I had assumed he was. But what difference did that make in our relationship? And what sort of difference did I want there to be? If I had met Cranwell under different circumstances, if there had been no actresses or models, no Alix or Sévérine… then he wouldn’t be the man he was. And he wouldn’t be staying in my chateau.
In spite of how hard I’d tried to keep my distance from him, I enjoyed everything about him. What’s not to like about a man who volunteers to do his own vacuuming? And mine too?
Lucy came down one afternoon to find me. I assumed it was because Cranwell was talking to her about the same amount he was talking to me: very little. He was absorbed in editing his manuscript. I considered asking her if Cranwell ever spoke to her of me; if he were looking forward to going home; if he played with the collar of his shirt when he thought of what to write next, or if he’d already decided. But those questions seemed too intimate. Too indiscreet. Like asking the Queen’s butler if she used a teaspoon or soup spoon to eat her cereal for breakfast. They were the sort of questions I wanted the answers to only if I could ask them of Cranwell myself. So I spared Lucy the indignity of having to answer them.
Cranwell offered no clues. No changes in the way he had always related to me.
As much as I longed to erase Sévérine from the equation, she had become a ghostly place marker between the knowns and the formulation of the unknown. And I had been unknown for too long. With Cranwell’s departure, there would be no one left who knew me.
But isn’t that how many people lived their lives? Why should I be any different? What right did I have to demand anything more than what I already had? I wasn’t true to Peter in life. Not really. But was there anything to be gained in trying to be true to him in death? Did the dead require such sacrifices of the living? Could they? Did it do anything at all to guard my heart for the ghost of unresolved guilt? Maybe that’s why I couldn’t ask for what I wanted. Maybe I didn’t think I deserved to be loved.
Did anyone?
What was I supposed to do? Was there anything to do? What would happen if I did nothing at all?
Then when Cranwell was finished, he’d go. He’d find another place and write another book. And another and another.
What would happen if I did something?
Then when Cranwell was finished, he’d… go write another book.
So if I did nothing, Cranwell would leave and if I did something, Cranwell would go, so what was the best use of my pride?
Do nothing.
Do something.
I passed those days in suspension between doing something and nothing. I had forgotten how to reach for the things I wanted, if I ever had known how in the first place.
If anything were to happen, it had to start with Cranwell.
But then what did I want Cranwell to do? What did I want him to do that wasn’t already tainted by memories of his past? What could I offer him that would be any different from what he’d already had? I had shared one man with a job. I didn’t want to share another with the past.
I wasn’t searching for love; I was searching to be known. But then love required knowing. And loving Cranwell required knowing him, and aren’t we all made up of pieces of the people we’ve had relationships with? How could I successfully grapple with the weight of all those casual affairs? Knowing there was a past hanging over him just wanting to be repeated? How could love bloom under such a rain cloud? And what would it matter if I never loved anyone again?
I tried to talk myself into looking forward to Cranwell’s departure. Tried to goad my thoughts to create reasons to look forward to his leaving. I couldn’t think of very many. And then one afternoon, Cranwell’s footsteps fell on the stairs. I heard him coming before I saw him. Being in the middle of a sauce béarnaise, I couldn’t-didn’t-lookup.
“Pop open the bottle of champagne. I’m finished.”
When I could glance up, I saw that he looked satisfied, relaxed. It seemed the burden of writing had lifted.
“You’re finished,” I echoed. So that was it. He’d pack his bags. He’d leave. I’d clean his room and rent it to someone else the next weekend. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“So who did your Alix turn out to be? A spy or an innocent girl?”
“She was an innocent. And regarding her husband, she decided to claim what she had a right to.”
Recalling what I knew of Alix, Cranwell’s plot made sense. She was the one married to Awen. Anne was too close a blood relative for the church to have approved a marriage. Alix had a right to Awen and the power to send Anne away. In a time when marriage was sacred, that was very smart. “So it came down to rights.” It always did.
Taking the saucepan from the stove, I set it on the marble island. Then I opened the fridge and pulled out the bottle of champagne we had been saving.
Cranwell pulled a stool out, slouched onto it, and crossed his arms on the marble of the island. “Rights? Not at all. It came down to what she wanted. Her rights were what she used to get it.”
After setting the champagne on the countertop, I reached in the cupboard for two flutes. “What she wanted… A woman in fifteenth-century France had the guts and the ability to do what she had to in order to get what she wanted. And here I am in twenty-first-century France and…”
“And what?” He was there, right behind me. As I closed my eyes and let the tears fall, he turned me around and gathered me to his chest. “What do you want?”
“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Neither do I.”
“But you’ve had actresses and models and… anyone you’ve ever wanted.”
“No, I haven’t. I’ve wanted you.” He spoke to me softly, gently, as he covered my hands with his. “I can’t change my past, Freddie. I have been with a lot of women. I admit it. But mostly, they were just flings. That’s it.”
That was it! My mind rebelled as my heart shattered into a thousand tiny splinters. But it wasn’t just it; it was everything. I was not one of that group. I have never been one of the beautiful people; I have never been one who has only to want in order to make something happen, to make something mine. Only at the best of times have I ever seen a head turn to watch me walk down the street. I had no experience in casual sex. I didn’t even have experience in casual wine or coffee drinking. Cranwell might as well have been living in the deepest jungle in South America: that’s how far apart our worlds were.
“But I want all of you.” I just couldn’t stop myself from saying it. Not in part.
He still held me by the wrist. The only thing I wanted to do was get away, but he held onto me like a vise. Those brown eyes bored straight into mine.
Then I couldn’t take it anymore: the admission of what probably amounted, in his mind, to a crush. The humiliation, the pain. I cursed Alix and the chaos she’d wreaked on my solitude.
He wouldn’t let me go, so I slumped, like a child, to the floor. An unstoppable flow of tears made rivulets down my neck.
His grip tightened for a moment and then released. He was done with me.
Praying, I begged for the floor to swallow me whole.
But instead of leaving, he squatted in front of me, cupped gentle palms around my elbows, and pulled me toward himself.
Abandoning my body to his pull, I clung to him like a person in danger of drowning.
Cranwell enfolded me in his arms as if he too were afraid I would disappear. I breathed his soapy scent as he wound his fingers through my hair. He grabbed a handful and with one insistent tug, he drew my head back, baring my neck. With soft, reverent kisses, he traced the path of my tears. His lips grazed my ear. “You’re the only one I want.”
Trembling as he returned to my neck, I dared to ask the question, “But what about the others?”
He raised his head. “I didn’t know there was a person like you waiting for me. And I didn’t have God then to help me be strong. I wish I could change the past, but I can’t. If you can forgive me, then I’d like to change the future… starting with the present.”
“But-”
Taking my face between his hands, he looked into my eyes. There was no hint of a smile in his lips. I had never seen him look more serious. “I love you.”
He’d said it. He loved me. I wanted so much at that moment not to think. I wanted to throw myself at him. But the voice of reason would not be stilled. People rarely change. Even with God’s help it’s hard. If Cranwell had slept with people at whim in the past, whom else might he sleep with? How many other urges would he give in to? Could I trust him?
“Trust me, Freddie.”
Oh, how I wanted to.
“Freddie.” He was demanding an answer.
What could I do? What could I say? My eyes searched his. There was nothing hidden. Looking into them was like diving into the depths of his soul.
How could I trust him?
How did Alix trust Awen? Did she trust Awen?
Cranwell got up and drew me with him. He picked me up and set me on the counter.
“Freddie?”
We were at exactly the same level. Eye to eye. The only option left me was to meet his gaze.
I did it.
And then I closed my eyes, wrapped my arms around his neck, and found shelter in his embrace. It came to me then, as I allowed myself to accept the warmth of his love, that Alix might never have brought herself to trust Awen. But it didn’t matter; she gave from her wounded heart what she could. She gave him what God had given her. What God had given me.
She gave him a second chance.
The End