“She came by the house several evenings, worried that he might be seeing someone. I wasn’t the best friend to her, Clay. I was too ashamed to tell her that everything she said made sense. And he was, too—he was seeing someone from work. One of the women in the office e-mailed her and asked to talk to her. She told her everything.”
The night she returned my text message from a friend’s house. The “have to see you” e-mail on her computer. Lucian had alluded to her affair without saying it, and once I believed it, he had not dissuaded me.
I took it down, not sure when I would call or what I would say.
“Aubrey?” I said, at the end of the call. “What was it that was never enough for you? Was it money? What I did for a living?”
“Don’t.” I heard a tremor in her voice. “Don’t do that. You did everything right.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Yes, you did. You’re a good man.”
I hated those words. I hated hearing them. Being a good man had won me nothing. Lucian’s words echoed somewhere between my brain and the phone line.
And I knew the answer: not good enough.
But I thanked her anyway, knowing she meant well, and asked her again if she was well.
“I am. I’m pregnant.”
And with those words, I felt her fall irrevocably away from me. All the hope I had harbored, but had been afraid to admit even to myself, slipped away like coins through a grate.
“That’s wonderful, Aubrey. That’s really something.” My voice was hollow. I wished her well again and we hung up.
It seemed so unfair. She would have the house, the children, the life I had wanted with her. She would never endure what I had, would never know what those months had been for me.
It was unfair, but it had tethered me too long. And despite our reasons and expectations—realistic or not—I had surely let her down as much as she had betrayed and abandoned me. I was a good man, but I was no better than she.
I forgave her.
I HAD NOT BEEN to Esad’s since that first night. The strap of bells against the glass sounded sharp and metallic, too loud. The smell of the grill, the chicken and burgers and gyros, flooded my nostrils and I was there again, that night in October.
But tonight I was a different man.
The Mediterranean stranger was there, sitting at the same table. This time I did not wait for him to summon me but walked directly to his table and sat down.
“You let me believe lies.”
His hair curled over his forehead as it had before, though this time I did not find his looks enviable. His wool trousers did not summon to mind cognac, yachts, or Cohibas.
His watch, stainless, heavy, and surely expensive, did not interest me.
He studied me, his eyes darting across my face as though he were reading a book. He smiled slightly. “But I never lied.” He picked at his slacks, at the cuff of his cashmere sweater. It reminded me of Richard, struck me as fastidious and affected.
“And Mrs. Russo?”
“What business is it to you?”
He was right. I supposed that was between her and her God. I did not expect to get a straight answer from Lucian now, anyway. Besides, asking would not return her to me, grant me retribution, or help me now.
The demon looked away, deflecting my gaze.
“The story isn’t finished,” I said.
“Ah, the story,” he said coldly. He tapped his chin in a mockery of thinking and sat back, regarding me over his slightly hooked nose. “How about this. I had a dream—if demons truly dream—the other night. I dreamed I stood before a great mirror—one that distorted all the things I once thought beautiful, recasting them in ghoulish images, casting me into an ugly mold I have known only in my own mind. And it threw Lucifer into such grotesque state that I barely recognized him except by his eyes and that presence I know to be his. And when I shook free of it, my strange waking dream, it occurred to me that I was not looking at a mirror at all but into the reflection of all things as they are, for all things must be seen in their true light when held up to the mirror of Truth.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” My anger, my grief, my outrage bubbled up all at once.
His mouth formed a tight line. “I saw Lucifer the other day. Still brilliant, my Prince. Still beautiful. Perhaps not quite as stunning as before—it may be that the millennia are finally working their wear upon him, as the shining cloth wears at last upon the finish of an antique, as even kisses wear down the gold leaf of an icon. But he’s lovely yet.” His eyes shone with terrible light. “It’s almost more than I can stand, remembering him in the long idyll of first Eden, before, though I have long since come to terms with all that has happened since. To look upon him now is still amazing, though he is not—will never again be—the perfect creature he once was. But then, none of us are what we were. Even you, Clay.” He looked at me, clearly expectant.
“Do you feel better saying that? Ruminating about your life, though your future is set and there’s nothing you can do about it—living in the past, as we say? I don’t care that you saw Lucifer! How does it finish? The story isn’t finished!”
