Robert
The piano, folded up on itself like an accordion, is hunkered in a corner of what used to be my living room. I lay my hand on the buckled wood, warm from the sun streaming in through the open ceiling, and a sigh slips free.
My mother taught me to play on this instrument. I close my eyes and hear her voice, gentle and loving, as she guides me through the scales.
Pressure behind my eyes pulses. I rest my head in my hands but do not cry.
“Robert?”
My head snaps up at her voice. Sydney Rye stands at the top of the steps leading down into the living room, Blue by her side. She wears rubber boots and jeans—the uniform of those filtering through the rubble of their lives.
But Sydney left nothing here. She came to my house with just her dogs and she took them away, too. Her memories are not crushed, waterlogged, or destroyed. She owns nothing so has nothing to lose…except for the ones she loves.
I owned many objects and loved no one for so long. And for good reason.
Love crushes you as easily as a storm surge crumples a piano. I learned that lesson in the jungle, and I held onto it for the decades that followed, but somehow Sydney Rye pried it from my grip, leaving me exposed and in danger.
“Are you okay?” She steps down into the room, picking her way through the piles of debris.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I wanted to see it…and you.” She pauses in her trek to me and surveys the damage. “I’m so sorry.”
“Just objects,” I say dismissively. “Easily replaced.” She returns her attention to me. She knows I’m lying. “I see you extracted yourself from the basement of the hospital.”
“Yes, with the help of some witches.” She smiles.
“And you’re in Miami now to gawk at the ruination.”
“That’s not the only reason.” She frowns at my unkind words. She’s forgotten how cruel I am. How strong. Because she makes me weak.
“The shooting,” I suggest.
“You know it had nothing to do with Joyful Justice. We wouldn’t just hand a powerful weapon over to a distressed woman.”
“I know,” I say, looking back at the piano.
My mother died before I truly became a man. She passed while I was stuck in the jungle—a prisoner in love with his captor. A cliché.
Sydney’s hand touches my arm, and I jump, not realizing she’d come so close. “You sure you’re all right?” she asks.
“You care?” I sneer.
Her mouth firms into a line of discontent. “Of course I do. We’re friends.”
I bark out a laugh. “We most certainly are not.”
Her hand drops from me, and I miss its warmth. I step away, creating more distance between us. “It’s not safe for Blue here.” I gesture to the destruction. “There are all sorts of things that could cut his paws.”
“I know.” Sydney is watching me, her silver eyes glinting in the sunlight. “That’s why he’s wearing booties.” Blue stands next to her—his paws covered in rubber slippers that tighten at his ankles. “You’re acting really weird,” Sydney says.
I take a deep breath and look out to the bay, calm and sparkling but thick with debris. “I’m a father,” I confess.
“What?”
“That’s who was trying to kill us…me. My son.”
I blink against the glare coming off the water and see spots in my vision.
“You have a son?”
I nod, once. It doesn’t feel real. Nothing that happened on that ship feels real. But there is no denying the resemblance, the age…he is mine.
“Who’s the mother?” Sydney asks.
“A woman I loved…” I turn to Sydney. She is standing next to the ruined piano, a fading bruise around her left eye and a healing cut on her cheekbone. “I thought she died.” Clearing my throat, I go on. “I believed her death was my fault.”
“But she’s not dead?” Sydney says. I nod. “And she is the mother of your…son?” I nod again. “Who has been trying to kill you.”
“That sums it up.”
“But why?”
“Ah.” I look down at the floor. There is a doll, one eye missing, the other open wide. Where did it come from? “He is angry—his mother recently told him about me. And he, understandably, is upset that I abandoned her to die.”
“You met him?” I nod, the movement mechanical. “And is he still trying to kill you?”
I shake my head. “I promised to fight for him and his mother. To help destroy Joyful Justice, which is trying to change their way of doing…business.”
“Fatherhood has apparently made you more honest.”
I look over at her, at the only other woman I’ve ever loved. I’m a fool. It’s a shocking realization. To go so long believing that I could control myself, my environment, and those around me. It was all a lie. A lie I told myself—a comfort, just as the ruined doll at my feet must have been to some child. My will protected me as well as the doll protected its charge: not at all.
Sydney approaches, her eyes sympathetic. She places a hand on my bicep then steps closer and gives me a hug. I stand there like a statue, arms tight to my sides, her warmth pressed against me. “It’s going to be okay,” she says.
I don’t respond. She feels like a comfort. Like if I did wrap my arms around her and confess all—that I love her, that I want her and her baby, that I’d die for her. If I told her all that and more—if I let the truth out into the air—it would save me. More lies.
I’ve given her the power to destroy me, just like this storm ruined my home. If I tell her the truth and she does not feel the same…I know she does not feel the same. I don’t have to tell her anything to know that she does not love me. Not like I love her.
In time, I may change her mind. With patience and perseverance, I once believed that she would be mine, as I am hers.
But now it feels as if time has taken a distorted turn and that there isn’t any left.
My son gave me an ultimatum: help destroy Joyful Justice, protect him and his mother, or die.
He is arrogant and young—foolish with youth and pride. As I was before they took me into the jungle and showed me how vulnerable, how human, I am. The real ultimatum was to help him or kill him.
I will not murder my own flesh and blood.
“Robert?” Sydney’s voice interrupts my thoughts and brings me back to the present.
“Yes?” I look down at her, my arms still by my sides even as she continues to hold me around the waist. She is chewing on her lip. It makes me want to kiss her. I must rebuild my defenses. Brick by brick, Sydney Rye has exposed me. Exposed the soft, tender part of me.
She will suffer for it.
Did I not warn her? For all that she has accomplished and suffered, is she so foolish not to recognize what happens when you play with a man like me?
Sydney is strong. But I am stronger. She has weakened me. But I will come back.
And she will pay.
Yes. She will.