Page 106 of Honey Cut
“Dinah,” warns Mark, and his voice is tight. The kind of voice that’s forced between bloodless lips. “We are not going to talk about this anymore.”
“If that’s what you want.” That’s what she says, but what she clearly means is,Who am I to stop you from ruining your own life?
And then I hear nothing else, as if she’s left. As if Mark is now alone.
I should go back inside. I should finish this beer and lie down and not think about the misery in Mark’s voice. About how Dinah had gotten it right even though she barely knew Isolde and me.If you throw their love away, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.
He must know. He must see that we love him so much that our bones have splintered with it. Hairline fractures, infections taking root deep in the marrow.
Does he not know?
I’m moving before I can think the better of it, before I can remind myself that the betrayer has no right to demand attention from the betrayed.
I just—I just need him to know. That’s all.
I go upstairs and through his office, grazing my fingertips over the apartment door as I pass it by, wishing I could get Isolde and bring her with me for this but not wanting to slow down, not wanting to introduce any more reasons why this is a terrible idea. I take the stairs, emerging onto the cool, fog-caressed roof, and search for Mark.
It only takes me a minute to find him, his elbows braced on the railing, his head hanging down. A glass of something amber and neat dangles from his fingertips. Fog dances over the pool and clings to his ankles, and I have the sudden memory of approaching him in the library at Morois House. Intruding on his violent, bitter grief, only to be subsumed by it myself.
He lifts his head and regards me over his shoulder as I draw near. He says nothing, and his face gives nothing away, save for a dangerous flush on his cheeks. The lights set around the rooftop terrace glitter in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I stop a few feet away from him and take a breath. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see.”
He watches me a minute and then takes a drink. “No,” he says finally. “Not the last.”
It depresses me that the actual last person might be his wife, who wouldn’t be sleeping alone right now if it weren’t for me.
I decide to do it, to break cover, to charge the hill.
“Sir, Isolde loves you. I know neither of you might have planned on it, given how your marriage started, but?—”
“I’d tell you that my marriage is none of your business, Tristan, except that clearly it is.”
The guilt is like a spear through the chest, and I have to gather myself. “Sir, I didn’t mean for?—”
He scoffs over his glass before he takes a drink. “Mean for what? To eat my wife’s cunt? To put your cock inside her? It’s hard for that to happen without meaning for it to, don’t you think, with the layers of clothes and all.”
I nearly concede defeat just then. I’m barefoot and in pajamas, and he’s drinking and mean. He’s pushing me away, and he’ll push Isolde away, and maybe he has every right to, but I can’t let it happen without a fight. When I first came to Lyonesse, I never wanted to fight again. I never wanted tothinkagain. I just wanted to be a toy soldier, wound up with a key and told where to march. I wanted to be Mark’s shadow and nothing more.
But I do want to fight now. I want to fightfor him. I want to be a toy, but his toy, and I want to be closer than a shadow, and I want Isolde to be there with me too.
I have lost so much in my life, and I have given everything to my family and my country. Why can’t I have this? This one thing?
I step closer, and then I do something I almost never do without permission. I touch him.
He goes still, looking down at where I’m grabbing his arm.
“No,” I say.
He looks back to me, and his eyebrows lift. “No?”
“I’m not letting you do this, sir. You can’t give us nothing and then be angry when we find something with each other. You can’t keep yourself locked away and then be hurt when we don’t have the key.”
“I give you nothing,” he echoes. There’s a sharp twist to his mouth. And then: “I give you nothing? You and Isolde don’t share hours of my day? You and Isolde don’t receive my attention or concern or respect?”
“You know that’s not what I mean.” I step close enough that my foot is behind his, and I tighten my hold on his upper arm. I’m trapping him, and it feels strange and a little wrong to be the one in control but also thrilling in a sick way. Transgressive. “You know everything about us, and we know nothing about you. We don’t know any details about your childhood or what you did in the war or what you did for the CIA. We don’t know what the early years of Lyonesse were like, we don’t know what you want its future to be like, and we don’t know how you feel about us beyond…I don’t know. Possessiveness, I guess. For fuck’s sake, Mark, you didn’t even tell us that you were married before.”
He startles a little, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve used his Christian name or because I know about his first marriage.
