Santiago doesn’t return home that night or the next, and he doesn’t call either. Or if he does, it’s not to talk to me.
And all the while, all I can do is make up scenarios to try to understand why he would take over my father’s care. What it means. And why he hasn’t told me. I feel isolated and alone, and when I ask if I can at least call my sister, Antonia only gives me a pitying look and tells me I must ask Santiago.
It’s an infuriating circle because I can’t ask him if I don’t have any way to talk to him.
I want to trust him. I know it will take time for us to trust each other, but what Colette told me and then this, his absence, combined with my isolation from my family, from anyone outside these walls, it makes it hard.
By the third night, I’m worked up and feeling more angry than anything else. At least anger is better. Anger means I’ll fight, not roll over and let him plow over me.
When the staff have all gone to bed, I make my way down to his office. It’s locked again. I guess Antonia has a key. But I know another way in, and I go through the library to that secret entrance. I’m not even really hiding anymore. Or at least I tell myself that. I need to know what’s going on with my dad. How could Abel have approved Santiago taking over his care? And why hasn’t Santiago told me? Why hide it from me?
His office is dark apart from the monitors, and it’s been cleaned since I was last here. I set the notebook with the sketches on his desk and sit in his chair. If I concentrate, when I inhale, I swear I can smell his aftershave.
I take a deep breath in and tell myself I have no choice but to do what I’m about to do. Even though just a few nights ago the thought of looking through his things felt so wrong, tonight feels different. But a part of me wishes he’d tell me, too. Wishes he’d just be honest with me.
I pull open the top drawer at the center of the desk, but this one has some pens in it and a few sheets of heavy paper embossed with his crest at the top center with envelopes to match. I close it and try the next one. It slides out easily, but it, too, like the first one, is neat and almost empty. Not even a paperclip out of place. I lean down to peer at the far back, but there’s nothing there.
The third drawer is locked as are all three on the other side. If there’s anything here, I won’t find it unless I break into them.
Standing, I go to the antique armoire against the far wall and open it. I don’t expect to find files, and I don’t. Instead, I see two unopened bottles of the scotch he likes to drink, some crystal tumblers, and, on the shelf beside those, a glass box that looks a lot like the one he keeps that mask in in my room. The one he hasn’t made me wear since the night I passed out.
My heart races, and my brain tries to tell me that what I’m seeing can’t be. Because it would be too humiliating. Too horrible.
I open the lid. It’s not locked. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear I smell the coppery scent of blood as I take out the neatly folded, unwashed sheets. The bloody sheets from our wedding night.
I try to make sense of this. Why would he have this? Why would he keep it? But then I remember. After he’d taken me and I’d had that awful mask on my head, I remember what he’d muttered that my mind hadn’t quite processed, not then.
“I wonder if Eli will be pleased to see how I bled his daughter.”
Is he planning on giving this to my father if or when he wakes? Still? After everything?
I drop the sheet and push my hands into my hair. God. I am a fool! I wonder if he’s laughing at me now wherever he is. This fool that is his wife.
“Fuck you, Santiago!” I pull the sheet out of the glass box so violently that the box drops to the floor when a corner of the cloth catches. I’m glad for the carpet, or it would have shattered, I’m sure, but as I bend to pull the sheet free, I see a single long crack across the bottom of the box.
I don’t care. I’m not hiding from him. I’ll tell him I burned the damned thing. Because that is exactly what I plan to do with it.
So, I leave the glass box where it is and make my way back through the dark house. I’m fully aware as I head to the back door that he has cameras everywhere and will see what I’ve done, but again, I remind myself that I don’t care because he obviously doesn’t. Colette was wrong. What she thinks she saw in the way he looks at me isn’t anything but ownership. Possession. Hate.
I slip on the pair of shoes I’d left at the door earlier when I’d gone for a walk, unlock and open the back door, pausing when I do, wincing as I wait for an alarm. But nothing comes. I’m not actually sure if the house has an alarm, but if so, it’s not on.
The night is black, moonless, and cloudless, and it’s cold. My sweater will have to be enough, though, and before I know it, I find myself at the doors of the small chapel. When I push one open, I see the red of the Tabernacle lamp and step inside.
The door closes behind me, and I’m alone inside the old stone church. The place has an eerie feel to it now, and it’s no less cold than it was outside.
I walk to the front of the church and drop the sheet on the stone altar. I pick up the box of matches to light more of the altar candles feeling less sure of what I’m about to do now than I had just a few minutes ago.
Once more candles are lit, I see the photographs on the altar, and although Leandro is an adult in the framed photo, I can still see the child he was in that photo in Santiago’s book. I shift my gaze to his father and meet his cold eyes. They stare at me from inside the frame, accusing me from beyond the grave.
It’s his fault Santiago is the way he is.
And I wonder if we do have a baby together, what kind of father will Santiago be if the only role model he had was this cold, brutal man?
What kind of father could he be if he can do to the mother of his child what he plans to do with this soiled sheet?
“You are a fool,” I tell myself and light one more match. I set it to the bloody sheet and watch the flame take and spread.