Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
It’s that word “if” that’s stopping me from thinking too much beyond that. “If” nothing goes wrong. That’s a great big motherfucking “if.” I’m not usually a worrier. And, if I’m being honest, I’m not all that worried now. What will be will be. If this last bit of time has taught me to stop resisting anything, it’s the reality that at least that much about life is true even if so much else they tell you about life isn’t. But, still and all, as I wake to see Alec watching us, a brief flicker of anxiousness floats through me.
And then it’s gone again.
“Is it morning?” I ask, reaching across Danny to lift the shade and find the answer to my question reflected through the windowpane. It’s not morning. It looks more like mid-afternoon. “Did you sleep?” I follow up.
“Not really. I may have dozed off for a moment or two,” Alec answers.
“Why didn’t you come to bed?”
He shrugs. “I’m fine.” He stands, steps over to the bed, and sits down on one side of me. Danny sits up on the other side as he and I slide ourselves down the length of the mattress so we can all just… be. Together. Side by side by side.
“What time is it?” Danny asks.
“Now, man,” Alec answers. “It’s now o’clock.”
We all turn our heads almost simultaneously to look out the window at what must be the Austrian countryside passing by.
“Has anyone—” I start to ask, but before I can finish the sentence, there is another knock at the door.
“Yeah, Nigel,” Danny half-says, half-asks.
“It’s Eliza,” comes her voice from the other side.
Without waiting, I stand. I don’t know why her voice causes me to hop to my feet, but it does. It feels uniquely important that I be the one to open the door and invite her in. I have no concept of what that’s about, but it doesn’t really matter because I’m already at the door, opening it, before I can psychoanalyze myself.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi,” she responds.
There’s a beat before I pull on the knob and open us up slightly wider to her in invitation. She steps in, looking around at the suite. She nods, acknowledging silently that it’s pretty fucking nice. Or at least that’s how I interpret the nod. She walks over to the club chair Alec was sitting in and places herself down. I start to head back to the bed where Alec and Danny are still sitting, but instead opt for the chaise and place myself there.
I can’t help but notice that if you drew a line connecting the four of us together it would resemble some kind of fucked-up, misshapen square. That’s funny. I suppose.
“Has anyone reached out yet?” asks Eliza. Which is, in fact, the very question I was about to ask when she knocked.
“Not yet,” Alec tells her. “I assume we’ll get more details when we arrive in Vienna.”
Vienna. A castle. A meeting. A man with a scar.
Fuck you, brain. If you’re not going to give me more workable information, stop showing me the same useless flashes of nothing that only serve to frustrate me.
Eliza turns to look out of the living room window. She raises her chin, doing her utmost to present as someone who is strong in the face of catastrophe. I know that look. I’ve expressed it myself hundreds of times. But I can see the invisible tear tracks on her cheeks. Because they’re not invisible. At least not to me.
I was pregnant. I lost the pregnancy. Now I’m pregnant again. Eliza had a child. She set that child up with a life free from… all this. And now all this is here anyway.
Whatever will be will be, indeed.
I catch Danny staring at me. He points at his nose, indicating something along the lines of, Is your face okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I? You’re all right? I wave at him to let him know I’m fine. I like this deeply-concerned-for-my-well-being Danny, but at the same time I hope that guy knows when it’s time to disappear and let the take-no-prisoners Danny Fortnight have the steering wheel back. The last thing I want is for Danny to become “careful” just because we both know what we know about the current state of my womb. Ironically, it has always seemed to me that being careful is the quickest way to wind up in the very situation your careful approach was intended to avoid. What is it Alec says? Fortune favors the bold? I need Danny to stay bold. I need all of us to.
We continue to ride in silence. What the hell are we supposed to talk about? The weather? The fancy soap in the bathroom? How pretty the Austrian countryside is this time of year? We have no other information. We can’t make a plan. We are completely reactive at this point. Entirely on defense. It’s not a comfortable place to be.