Page 28 of Where Light Cannot Follow

The moment stretches for the longest time before my father chuckles and throws back his drink. “Yes, Michael, I’m aware. It’s been intelligent of you to keep things discreet. Not everyone needs to know every aspect of your private life. Think of this like a business transaction. Wealthy men don't actually spend time with their wives, anyway. You want this deal to go through, don't you?"

Some part of me wants to say no. But the cost has already been paid. I’ve already surrendered the only part of my life that wasn’t arranged around work or reputation. What’s one more thing, when the rest, the most important, is gone?

I glance at the girl once more—at the careless way she looks at me, the assumption of safety in her eyes. At least I wouldn’t hurt her. If she’s to be traded from one man to another for the sake of influence and appearances, at least I could offer her politeness and freedom from cruelty.

"Yes," I breathe.

Another shift in the genesis we stand caught in. One final shift of the room, one final memory, and I already know which one. My teeth clench hard. Virgil moves toward me, almost as though he wishes to place a steadying hand on my arm, but he doesn't touch me.

I open the door to my apartment. My wedding is in six months, and I've barely shared more than a handful of dinners with my fiancée. I need to gather the courage to tell her the truth and see if she's interested in an arrangement, so to speak. I have no interest in seeing others, not after M— Not after the choices I made. Never again. But she might like to.

When I step over the mid-century rug in the foyer, strange sounds greet me. My body registers them before my mind does. There’s a wrongness in the air, a rhythm that doesn't belong. Groaning. The slap of skin. A banging against the wall that shakes a picture frame askew.

My feet carry me forward against my will, through the apartment like a ghost drawn to its own death, until I stop in the doorway of the bedroom.

A man stands with his back to me, trousers around his thighs, a woman pinned against the wall beneath him. The dull thud of the headboard knocking the drywall stops abruptly.

A spill of pale hair slides down his shoulder. Familiar.

Then he turns.

My father.

My fiancée stiffens first and screams, shoving him away as she snatches a blanket to cover herself. “Oh—Michael. Oh…”

My father only chuckles as he pulls up his pants.

I'm frozen somewhere between fury as hot as lava and an ice cavern so cold I may never move again.

"All right, all right." My father throws up his hands, then closes the bedroom door behind him as he ushers me back into the living room. "You caught me."

"Are you— How could you?"

"Son, let's not act like you're actually interested in her."

"You’re fucking my fiancée,” I hear myself say.

He frowns at me as if I’m accusing him of taking my parking spot. “Well, you certainly haven't been."

I stare at this man, at the way he leans down to the coffee table and pours a glass of bourbon as though this is already a minor issue he'll have his assistant handle by morning.

"Oh, come on, son. If it bothers you so much, I won't do it again. You have my word. She came on to me and, well, look at her. How could I say no?”

He's offering me a glass, and I'm staring and staring, wishing the logic would coalesce in my brain. Finally, I breathe, "She’s twenty years old."

"And?"

"You're nearly sixty."

He chuckles and throws back another drink. "I've always been a ladies' man. Can't help it, really. You must take more after your mother in that respect."

Realization hits me. It crashes into me with the force of a car going off the Brooklyn Bridge, hitting the icy and unyielding waters below.

"How old was my mother when you were with her?"

He frowns. "She was eighteen when she had you."

"And how old was she when you met?" Math is running through my mind. My father was over thirty when I was born.