I dozed, rousing occasionally to register Bansi shifting against me or to kick a leg out from beneath the blankets, and woke to a room that smelled like sex and glowed with the light of late afternoon.
Bansi still slept, sprawled on his back with all four limbs splayed haphazardly across the mattress. I climbed out gingerly, hoping not to disturb him, but he just snored loudly and rolled over to bury his face in the pillow.
I picked my way across the room, gathering my scattered clothing and donning it all again. When I went out to the sitting room in search of my boots, I found the dishes from our meal still scattered about, forgotten, and I gathered them up.
I carried the dishes to Bansi's kitchens and left them there to be washed by Bansi or, more likely, whatever staff he hired to handle the cooking and cleaning for him. When I returned, I found Bansi up despite my care to be quiet and circumspect, leaning naked against the doorjamb and scratching a hand through his hair. He looked muzzy, still half-asleep, but his gaze sharpened when he spied me. "You were going to leave without waking me?" His words were soft and wounded.
"No. I was going to come and kiss you good-bye," I said, and did so now, sliding into his arms and leaning in to press my lips to his.
"I can't." I pried his fingers off my arms gingerly. "I've told you I can't." I turned away and took up my coat, the last piece of clothing I needed before I could leave.
"Just one night, Renad. Please."
I shook my head and wondered if perhaps I should have tried to sneak out without him any the wiser, after all. I'd grown lax with good will, and let my guard down, and forgotten to take precautions against this sort of wheedling. "I told you--"
"You've told me you won't." He came toward me, arms crossed over his chest and eyes dark. "You won't tell me why you don't want to."
"Oh, devils take it, Ban. I said can't, not won't, not don't want to." I slid my arms into the sleeves of the coat. "I do want to," I said, pushing the words past the stickiness in my throat. "I just can't."
"I've never known you to fail at anything you wanted enough to make an effort for. If you wanted to, you'd figure out a way to make it possible, instead of putting me off every time I ask."
I froze, halfway into my coat, and stared at him. There were so many ways that statement was wrong that it left me dumbfounded, so many obvious counterexamples of things I craved but could never have that they all crowded on my tongue, and I couldn't speak a single one of them.
Before I was able to find my voice, Bansi abruptly slumped as though all the air had gone out of him, his shoulders dropping. His eyes went soft, but infinitely sad. "I'm sorry," he said, and all at once he sounded like a broken man. I stared at him, taken aback. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't-- Go. It's fine. Go."
It seemed as though there ought to be something for me to say to him to make this better, or at least easier, but I hadn't a clue what it was. Instead, I just sighed unhappily and finished shrugging on my coat. "I have to go, Ban. I am sorry. I hope you know I mean it."
I returned to him for one final kiss. His mouth was bent in such an unhappy expression that I wondered for a moment if perhaps he wouldn't kiss me at all, and I'd have to leave denied.
He softened at the last moment, relented and pressed his lips against mine, a little harder than I expected. I looked into his eyes and sighed at my helplessness. I wished I could have left him in a better state, but night would be coming soon enough, and I still had a ways to walk back home.
"Good bye, Ban," I told him sadly, and turned away. His gaze sat like a weight upon my shoulders as I made my way through the house to the front entrance. He and his disappointment followed after me, and stood in the doorway while I made my way down the street, and it was as disquieting an escort as I'd ever had.
I shook my head as the street curved and he passed from my view, trying to shake off the mood, and hunched my shoulders against the cooling breeze that blew through the streets.
Perhaps he was right, I thought, as I followed the familiar path back to Corine's. If staying with Bansi had been the thing I most wanted, perhaps I could have found a way to do so. Corine had made no secret of her willingness to watch Elodie for me beyond my shop's hours, should I want it.
But I didn't. There wasn't anything in this world that I wanted more than I wanted to do what was best for Elodie. And what she needed, what she wanted, was her father. She was already breaking my heart with how much time she wanted to spend with me and how little I had for her. How could I deny her anything that was in my power to give? How could I call myself a father, if I put my own desires ahead of her?
That was the problem, or at least the crux of it. Bansi was right. I would have liked to be able to stay with him, to not have to rush off and away. But I didn't want it, not enough. If the choice came down to giving that time to Elodie, or giving it to Bansi, then there was no choice at all.
I was sure I would see him again, soon enough. It was a rare day that passed without him turning up somewhere. I would make him understand, then, and we would find some way to live with it. But for now, I had a daughter to get, and a whole evening stretching before us in which to spend time with one another, and I didn't want to waste a minute of it with my mind turned elsewhere.
#
I checked the front porch before Elodie woke out of habit, the way one might feel at a wound just to be sure that it was still there and still sore, already expecting the outcome. It took me by surprise to find my front porch empty, barren of gifts or packages or other trinkets. It squeezed my heart some, a little spasm of pain, to think that Bansi had been so upset by my leaving as to put him off his gift-giving. I hadn't thought there was a force in the world that could have done that, and he'd certainly been completely impervious to my rejections up until now.
There was no time to dwell on it, though. I roused Elodie and helped her dress and bustled her off to Corine's, and then I headed off to my shop, shivering in my coat and wondering if my customers from the days before would return and expect me to make good on Bansi's promised generosity.
The day passed well enough. The sun warmed the air when it rose, turning the weather pleasant enough to lure people out of their homes and into our shops. Business wasn't so brisk as to make me miss Bansi's assistance, but if it kept up, I'd have been able to go home with a tidy sum in my pocket, and perhaps a small bit of excess that I could put to Elodie's tuition.
The shop emptied around lunch, as it was wont to do, while customers busied themselves buying food rather than my goods, so I took the opportunity to sit down a minute with my account books and run some tallies. I glanced up out of reflex at the sound of the shop's door creaking open and banging shut, then startled and looked again when I realized that it was Bansi, standing just inside the door with his hands in his pockets, rocking back onto his heels and glancing around the shop as though he were unsure of himself, as though he hadn't spent uncountable hours here over the past months.
"Hello." I set my pen down and held myself in restraint, wary of what mood I might find him in. He didn't look much like he'd appreciate a broad smile and a welcoming embrace, just at the moment. I tried for a light tease, though, just to test the waters. "You haven't come to drag me off again, have you? You're going to make my customers think I've no work ethic at all."
It didn't make him smile in the least. His gaze flicked around the little shop again almost as though I hadn't spoken, and the corners of his mouth pulled down.
So. It was to be that sort of mood, then. I sighed and took my pen up again. I may as well get something accomplished, while he was here brooding. I'd barely scratched a single digit, though, when he gave a sharp sigh. "Ren, put that down, please. I've come to talk to you."
I finished the number I was writing, but then did as he asked, and laid the pen down on my worktop again. I watched him mildly across the space he maintained between us. "About something in particular, or just to while the time away?"
He drew a breath and pulled his shoulders back, and I had my answer. Something particular, then. Something unpleasant. His hands opened and closed into slow fists at his side.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Hadn't it been bad enough, the way we'd left things the night before? It would have been nice to get through at least one day before something else came up. But he was here, and he clearly had something on his mind, so I straightened and spread both hands upon the counter and said, "Very well. Come over here, and we'll talk."
He came towards me, but stopped on the other side of the counter, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. I offered him the other stool beside me to sit on while we had our conversation, but he shook his head. "No, I don't need-- I just want to say that I, I'm done. I won't bother you any more, I won't give you any more gifts you obviously don't want, I just--" His mouth pulled into an off-centered grimace. "I thought we could make this work. I thought I could, if I just persisted long enough. But it hasn't ever really worked between us this time, and I don't know why I thought that might change."
I ran my hands over my accounting book, staring down at the coarse, cheap paper pages, because I feared if I moved too swiftly or too abruptly, something in me would snap and I'd fly apart. I kept my words careful, my voice measured. "You haven't said as much, not plainly, but I assume that what you mean when you say done is that you're done with me." I glanced up at him. "With this relationship."
"I--" His mouth pulled sideways, wavered a moment before he steeled himself. "Yes."
Anger slipped free of my grip. I slammed the account book shut and stared at Bansi across the counter. "All because I couldn't stay the night?"
"No, I--" He sucked air through his teeth and looked away, staring blindly at my shelves. I waited, trembling with fury like a sail caught under a tempest's wind, until he faced me and spoke again. "Devils, Ren, did you even hear yourself yesterday? Do you remember what you said?"
I shook my head slowly, baffled. "About leaving?"
"No. Gods." He brought a hand up to his brow and leaned his head into his palm as though he were weary beyond imagining. "You said that I wore you down. That I was-- Gods. That I was making you crumble."
He looked like that was the worst thing in the world I could have said, and I couldn't understand why. "Isn't that what you've been trying to do all along?"
"No. I wanted-- I wanted to woo you. I wanted to make up for hurting you so badly before. I never wanted to... to break you."
I wanted to throw my ledger at him. I wanted to push and shove and kick at him until he'd left my store, and then I wanted to slam the door behind him and bar it until I knew for certain that he'd never come back here looking to uproot my life again. I wanted to scream, but I breathed through the urge, and said only, "Don't you think the time to talk to me about this was before you made your mind up about it?"
Bansi just shook his head, a grim set to his mouth. "I should have done this months ago. Before I left for the winter, even. But I didn't see, I didn't realize..." He took a deep breath, arms wrapped across his stomach, fingers digging furrows into his forearms. When he spoke again, his voice cracked. "I'm so bad for you, Ren." He looked immeasurably sad. "The way you've been with me... I thought it was hurt, from before. I thought I could show you I'd changed, and it would be better. But I was wrong. All this time, I was changing you, not the other way around. I've turned you into someone you're not, and I can't bear to watch what being with me is doing to you any longer."
He finished speaking, and then just stood there looking at me. I didn't know what he was waiting for, what he expected. Did he think I would cry over the loss? He was wrong. There weren't any tears in me. My throat was hot and dry.
"Go, then," I said roughly. I flipped open my account book and feigned paging through it. "Leaving's what you're good at, after all."
He sucked air through his teeth a though my words had wounded him. I kept flipping pages and jotting notes, waiting, though I wasn't sure what for. For him to speak, perhaps. To say that was unkind. To protest. Anything.
He didn't speak a word, though. The only sound I heard was the scrape and thud of his boots against the floorboards as he turned and walked away. The sound of my shop's door banging shut behind him made me jump, last month's page of accounts crinkling beneath my hand.
I stayed and finished my accounts out of sheer doggedness, but when the sounds of passersby outside warned that the lunchtime lull was over and I might find myself obliged to interact with other people, my nerve threw up its hands and fled. I packed my things away and closed up the shop, and headed off to Corine's early, trying not to think too hard of the questions she'd surely have for me when I got there.
She was spinning yarn in the sunshine when I got there, watching Elodie and Yvas play from the front stoop. Elodie shrieked as soon as I was near enough to be seen and took off running down the street toward me.
I knelt down when she neared me, and threw my arms open wide for her to fling herself into. She rammed into me with enough force to nearly knock me over onto my back and locked her arms tight around my neck. "Papa, Papa, Papa!" She squealed in my ear and writhed against me, too overjoyed for it to be contained. "You're early!"
"I suppose I am." I kissed her cheek noisily and rose with her in my arms, to continue the rest of the way to Corine's. "It's a shame you didn't miss me."
She pressed her face against my throat and giggled as though I'd told the funniest joke in the world.
Corine had come away from the stoop to the edge of the street by the time we reached her, her spindle stilled in her hand. "Hello, Corine." I kissed her cheek, too. "I'm sorry to have interrupted your afternoon."
She dismissed my apology with a shrug, but when she turned to follow Elodie and me inside, her gaze lingered on me, and her brow was creased.
"Run along now and play," I told Elodie when we'd got inside, setting her down. "Yvas will never forgive me if I don't let him have his share of you."
Elodie protested at first and leaned her whole weight against the side of my leg, but then Yvas came tumbling in after us and stepped on the hem of Elodie's skirt. She hollered and ran after, threatening to wallop him if he'd torn it, and Corine and I were left forgotten in the kitchen together.
"I'll make tea," she said abruptly, though it was rather early for that. "You sit down there and start thinking up words, because I sure will be expecting to hear the reason for this."
I didn't have the strength of will to protest, or even to engage in our usual banter. I sat where she pointed me to and leaned my head in my hands and did as she'd bid me. I tried to think of how on earth I was going to explain any of this to her.
The water boiled and the tea steeped and when Corine brought twin cups of it over to the table and set mine before me, I still hadn't found a way. There was so much that I hadn't been telling her, all this while. So much that I hadn't told anyone.
"All right," she said, settling back and regarding me over the rim of her cup as though she could see the words tangling in my throat. "What is this about?"
That, at least, was easy, but I was a coward, and had to shut my eyes to tell her. "Bansi."
There was a sharp rattle, her cup set down on the table quickly, in surprise or shock. I could imagine the expression on her face, startled at first and then narrowing on me with suspicion, with condemnation. I deserved it. I should have known better. I had known better, and I'd let it happen anyway.
But when Corine spoke, what she said was, "Are you all right?" And then, too quick on the heels of that question for me to give an answer, "What the devil is he doing bothering you after all this time?"
I opened my eyes. Corine's hand had closed into a fist around the handle of her cup, white-knuckled and tight. She stared at me, her expression washed with concern and irate anger, but not condemnation.
Of course not. I hadn't given her the true answer, had I? I hadn't told her all of it, and so of course she'd assumed that my upset was over his return, over our painful past and the audacity of him coming to me now and expecting anything.
A year ago, when he'd first grabbed me in the streets near Regent's Walk, she'd have been right. Now, I had to shake my head and wet my lips and try to grasp onto those words that flitted by me, elusive. "It's not what you think."
She hmphed and sat back hard in her chair. "What did he have to say for himself, then?"
I turned my cup between my hands, around and around, watching the dark surface ripple and shimmer. "Oh, he's said a number of things," I said faintly, and hoped it was enough for her to catch on. I wished we could start this conversation over, because I'd clearly steered us the wrong direction, and now trying to get it back on course seemed even more torturous than simply being plain to start with.
Corine's eyes went wide. "Has he been bothering you?" She leaned forward, suddenly intent. "How long has he been back?"
I scrubbed a hand across my brow. I shouldn't have come. I should have found something else to occupy my afternoon, and come for Elodie at the usual time. If I'd just pretended everything was as it should have been, time would have passed and eventually the shockwaves he'd made in my life would have spent themselves and I could have moved on without ever having to admit to what I'd done. What I'd allowed to happen. "Last summer," I said, muffled against the heel of my hand, and hated myself.
Corine's swift breath killed any hope I might have had of her not catching the admission. She swore, swift and fierce, then cast a mother's instinctive glance over her shoulder to be sure the children hadn't been around to overhear.
"That long? Devils, Renad, why didn't you say something? We could have helped you."
I shook my head slowly, letting it hang forward between my shoulders. "No, Corine--"
"You know there are people here who care about you. I do, and Elin, and your neighbors at the shop. We could have kept an eye out for you, and warned him away any time we saw him around. We could have helped you. You didn't have to bear this alone."
She was gesturing, angry but on my behalf. I reached across the table and caught her hands to still them. "No. Listen." It was suddenly much harder to allow her to keep making these false assumptions about me and the role I'd played in this than it was to find the words to set her straight.
And so I told her, staring down at the grain of the table the whole time. But I still held her hands in mine, and I could feel her reaction through them, the way her fingers spasmed or clenched, the way they went stiff or how she tried to pull back from me, as though to retreat from the enormity of what I'd done.
The tale was long in telling, and when I'd finished, I opened my hands to allow Corine her freedom. She drew them back haltingly, and tucked them in her lap, and I kept my head bent, waiting for her castigation to roll over me.
"You should have said something," she said at last, hushed and more distant now than she'd been before. But it was not the scornful lecture I had braced myself to endure.
I risked a glance up. She looked shocked, yes, and not the least bit happy about the news. But she still looked concerned, too, as though this weren't something that I'd led myself straight into.
"Renad..." She sighed and shook her head. "Why didn't you?"
"Tell you? That I was spending time with the man who broke my heart five years ago? That I allowed it? Gods, Corine, how could I? I knew I shouldn't. I knew it would end this way." My hands curled to fists on the tabletop. "I was a fool, and I knew it, and I knew you'd tell me so if you had any idea what was going on."
"Is that what you think?" she asked me softly. "Truly?"
"Wouldn't you have?" I gave a harsh laugh and shook my head. "It's what I've been telling myself all this while. And it's the truth."
She was quiet a moment. A slight frown creased the skin of her brow. "No, Renad," she said slowly. "What I'd have said, if you'd given me the chance, was that I feared for your heart, if you let him in again. I'd have asked you to be cautious, and careful, and sure." The corner of her mouth kicked up into a hint of a teasing smile. "And I'd have told you to make him sweat, and make him work for it, before you gave him anything." The smile faded, leaving her thoughtfully swirling a spoon through her tea. "But I wouldn't have told you you were a fool. We can't help who we love. Sometimes, despite our best efforts."
I sighed and scratched my thumbnail across a bit of rough, raised grain on the table. "I didn't try not to love him before. I hadn't that foresight."
"And now?"
I froze, my thumb biting hard into the wood. "I don't love him, Corine." The words were harsh as they passed through my throat, painful. My chest felt as though someone had stepped on it.
"Oh. My mistake." She pursed her lips and sipped her tea, and I knew she didn't mean any of it. That was her judgmental face, her I-know-better-than-you-do-but-I'm-holding-my-tongue expression.
"Corine." I frowned at her. "I don't. I've done any number of foolish things the past year and a half, but I'm not that stupid."
She heaved a great sigh and shook her head. "Some day, I will cease being surprised by how dense you can be, Renad. But I suppose today is not that day." She took a long sip from her cup of tea, then set it down and got up from the table. "Elodie," she called into the back rooms of the house. "Come give me a hug before you leave."
Elodie's muffled shout was quickly followed by the pounding of her feet on the floorboards as she came running out. "I thought we were going to play!" she cried, dismayed. "Papa! Can't we stay?"
"I thought you were going to stay, too," Corine murmured as she crouched and swept Elodie into her arms. "But your papa doesn't feel like talking to me tonight, it seems." She gave me a pointed look over the crown of Elodie's head as she spoke, as though to say, This is all your doing.
"Papa..." Elodie whined, wriggling out of Corine's grasp and running over to me. Her eyes had gone huge, imploring me. "You talk to her all the time. Why won't you talk now so I can finish playing with Yvas?"
I hugged her against me and sighed. In that moment, I could have said that I hated Corine and almost meant it. I was already struggling, she'd seen that well enough before I'd even walked through her door. Why did she have to make it harder?
"I'm sorry he's hurt you again," she told me as Elodie donned her coat sullenly. "I'm sorry you felt you couldn't tell me the truth from the start. If you do want to talk, you know I'm always here to listen."
I managed to thank her, but I sounded as sullen as Elodie. I ushered her out of Corine's before she could make any other sweeping decrees about the state of my own heart, and made it up to Elodie by taking her to a little nearby cafe where we had griddle cakes for supper, and licked the sauce from our fingers as we finished the walk home. And later, when Elodie had fallen asleep draped across my lap and I'd carried her to her bed and tucked her in, I sat at the table in the guttering flame of the lamp, and lay my head on my arms, and wallowed in the wretchedness that chewed at my heart.
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