Losing Control(92)

Before bed, Ian draws me into the bathroom.

“Let’s take a steam shower,” he suggests. “You can make it smell good. There’s a little thing down here where you pour something in and then the heat makes it aromatic.”

“Aromatherapy.”

“Right.” He rummages around looking for something in the vanity. Triumphantly, he holds up a small brown bottle that looks about five years old. The letters on the label have started to rub off. “Eucalyptus.”

He pours a few drops onto a tiny metal dish only about two feet off the floor and then taps the LCD screen inside the shower. A low humming noise starts and steam pours into the shower space. Soon, the entire bathroom is redolent with eucalyptus. He sits me on the vanity and leans between my legs as we wait for the shower to fill up with steam.

“What do you think?”

“I can’t believe you still have that bottle. It looks like it was sold during the Stone Age.”

“I’m a big collector of things.”

“Am I a thing?”

“No, you’re my heart.”

Right there in the steam filled bathroom, we made love. Not “he made love to me”—that would suggest I wasn’t an active participant, just a receptacle. I kissed, stroked, and licked with every available body part. In his embrace, I tried to show through each touch the truth of my love and that he held my heart, too, although it was bruised. The words I couldn’t say just yet, I tried to express through my touch. Those words were weighted with too much sorrow.

As he carries me, damp and worn out, to the bed, I whisper, “Yes, I’ll marry you and be your wife.”

“Oh, Tiny.” He kisses me again. “You’ll never regret it.”

When I get up, the bed is empty. I hear music downstairs, a woman singing in Italian. Opera. Shrugging on a blue silk robe from the bottom of the bed, I float out. There’s a leather box with a big silver clasp on the table. Ian is leaning against the unlit fireplace with a drink in his hand.

I settle onto the sofa, tucking my legs underneath me, and stare at the box.

“My mother’s things are in there. Her wedding rings, a few pieces of jewelry she hadn’t sold. The clothes and other things I walked away from, but I packed this all up and haven’t ever looked at it again.”

“Do you want me to open it?”

“Would you? Or is it too painful?”

“No.” Even if it is painful, I’d take this for him. After all he’s done for me.

The box is lined in a beautiful white silk with a classic chain pattern. There are a few cards—anniversary mementos—and an envelope labeled “Ian.”

“It’s for you,” The envelope is yellowed and the ink is faded but still visible. The letters aren’t perfectly formed, as if the hand that drew them out wasn’t stable.

“I can’t read it.” He shakes his head and pushes away from the fireplace. There is only one sheet of notebook paper in the envelope; it’s soft in my grip. Because he’s not ready, I read it to myself. It takes me awhile to decipher all the letters. It might be the most reading I’ve done since high school.

Dear Ian,

I’m so sorry. For everything. I failed you time and again because I’m weak. Already at fifteen, you are the man your father and I had hoped you would become. No, you are something else. Something better. And if I remain with you, tainted and tarnished, it would only diminish you.

I bite my lip to prevent my scoff. Selfish is what this is. I don’t want Ian reading it, but I must finish.

I tried to redeem us. I tried so hard, but he laughed. He laughed at your father. He laughed at me. He said that your father shouldn’t have been so soft. That he did him a favor by taking him out as early as he did before someone else ate him up.

When I asked him to help us, even after he turned your father down, I hadn’t realized what I was giving up. One night was all. One night. But the help never arrived and the one night was for naught and it has haunted me ever since.

I saw him then at the Casino Grand. Flush and ruddy faced. He apologized. Said that he had been young and brash. He offered to make amends. All I needed to do was give him one more night. This time he did pay me. But he laughed again, and I hear him still every time I close my eyes.

You will be alone, but it is better this way. Better for both of us. I am no longer an anchor but a heavy weight dragging you into the dark depths. Be free. Live for all of us.

Your loving mother,

Joanna

Carefully, I fold the letter and place it back into the envelope. My hands are shaking with the effort not to rip it into a million shreds so that Ian will never be able to piece it together. Across the room he is grim-faced. His glass is full once more. He must have filled it while I was reading. He tosses back half of it, his face marked by utter despair.