A Breath of Scandal, page 17
All that Adele felt was pain, but in a blur she saw the flames covering all of the Lamborghini and she knew at that moment that Margot was dead. She was trapped in her seat, and she began to have a hard time breathing. She tried moving once more and she felt so much pain that it felt overwhelming. She gulped for air as the smoke from her own vehicle overtook her and oblivion took her to unconsciousness.
The distant sounds of the carabinieri filled the area and the road was closed as vehicles began to arrive to attempt to rescue anyone that might have survived such a crash.
Chapter Sixteen
A year later and after long periods of time, she began to breathe again. Her injuries had kept her in hospital for months on end. She had suffered multiple internal injuries from the crash and, in one of the early interventions to save her life from a punctured lung, she almost died on the surgeon’s table. Her body was broken, and her mind was in an also broken place. As she came in and out of consciousness, she remembered saying she did not want Gillian to know. The reality of what had become their lives was just too much to bear and Adele didn’t want to add the burden. She had no idea what life held or meant anymore. She wasn’t even sure why breathing was something she wanted to do. The horrors of what she had learned came back to her in moments like photographs and her body reacted with violent retching.
Early on between being in and out of consciousness, she had heard that Margot had died in the crash, and she smiled. She had memories of her childhood come and go and remembered when she had loved her. When Margot was her beautiful older sister who gave her treats and spoiled her.
In those moments of clarity what kept her alive was her rage. She had chased Margot to her death and a part of her deep inside had still felt some kind of love for her older sister. She remembered when they had been young and Margot was her clever, kind older sister and she had loved her. She shook her head and violently became ill over and over again.
She was filled with a sense of uncaring as well. Her mother would be locked away until her last breath as her punishment. No one would ever know or care when she was no longer seen or heard from. This made her question whether she was still human. In the midst of all the horror that they had lived through this was also a choice. She felt no remorse and no pity. She had taken care of her family and now they would be safe, Gillian and her children, she kept telling herself. No one would ever hurt them. That thought alone made her open her eyes.
And as the time passed and her body began to heal slowly, she realized that Adele had died too on that day, not only Margot. Yes, they had done such horrible things to her, but she was no better. There were some truths, like about her mother, that no one would ever know about. What did that make her? Did she want to be close to Gillian or their children? What type of monster would be near them if she was. After all, she had done murder too. And she was not sorry. But, seeing them was all she longed for. She closed her eyes and tears ran to the side of them freely. All she had known for as long as she could remember now were tears. So many tears and so much pain. Her body began to mend slowly but her soul, however with all the horror was not fit to touch those she loved.
†
Time passed and the healing began. With proper medical care, Gillian had slowly almost returned to her old self. Candice still hung on and just watched from the sidelines, waiting for an opportunity she knew would eventually come. The children seemed happy, and they flourished near Gillian. Carlo had begun to visit his mother since she had come back to New York. He and Catty began to visit her regularly after her absence for the last two years. Communication between Gillian and Adele had been through lawyers. Gillian had tried to communicate directly with Adele to discuss the children, but Adele simply did not respond, and an attorney would reach out to address her concerns. Gillian would drop off Catty as in the years past and pick her up after the allotted agreed upon time. This continued with no contact with Adele.
Chapter Seventeen
Gillian walked into the dark room where Catty was. She was told when she arrived to pick up Catty that the child had fallen asleep, and would be in her old bedroom. When Gillian went up the staircase to get her daughter, she had no apprehension as she had done this many times in the past year. She knew that Adele would not be present nor hinder her picking up their daughter. So, when she opened the door and walked in, she immediately went to pick up her little girl and take her home. So as not to frighten Catty, Gillian did not turn on the light and so it was in the darkness that she heard a voice from the past pulling her back into a time that she did not want to remember.
“Hello, Gillian.” The oddly somber voice called out to her from another time, a happier time that was no longer in her present.
“Hello, Adele,” was her simple response as she turned around slowly. Gillian was surprised that, as she turned to face her, Adele switched off the hallway light and they were both embraced in a darkness of intimacy.
“Why?” Gillian voiced both out of curiosity and fear. She had not quite gotten over the fear even after their status quo agreement. Adele had kept her promise and given her full custody of Catty, and Giancarlo had also taken to living with her. Adele had insisted on a regular visitation schedule with both children and to also never be present at their pickup and drop off. She remembered Adele saying over the telephone that it seemed very civilized to do it this way and very American. Gillian had not known quite whether she had said this in mockery or as coming from something deeper, like the aristocratic disdain she had always displayed for most people.
Since Adele had sent the children back three years before, she had demanded nothing, asked for nothing but her desire to see the children on a regular basis. The only thing she had not budged on was the financial maintenance, that she did not move an inch from, and the desire for constant security she wanted for not only their two children but for Gillian as well. After all that had occurred it was something that Gillian just had not had the strength to fight her on. This arrangement of dropping off and picking up the children had been one that had gone on for quite some time, and not once had Adele broken her word about not being present but tonight. So, it was with surprise that Gillian now stared at the dark figure standing before her, blocking her way to the doorway.
“I never get tired of looking at our daughter when she sleeps,” Adele said with melancholy as she took a step closer to the bed where the sleeping child lay. “She reminds me that there is still innocence and beauty in this black and twisted world.”
Gillian stood, unable to move, trying to see a face that clearly wanted to remain in the shadows.
“You gave me that,” Adele said softly as she turned to face Gillian, still in the darkness, and only visible from light coming in from a curtain that allowed some light to filter into the room. Adele had her back to the light, making it impossible for Gillian to see her clearly.
“Which am I, how do you see me?” Gillian asked softly, afraid of the response to come.
“Don’t ask me that, I am trying so hard to be noble…” Adele trailed off with frustration. “And noble I am having a hard time being,” she voiced almost in a growl. She took a few steps closer, holding to the bedpost. “I am not the same. I have become something I don’t recognize, and I am trying…I am trying so hard right now.” Her breathing was audible and menacing.
“Why would you want to hurt me, Dell?”
“Hurt you?” Adele turned brusquely and walked slowly toward the window as Gillian never lost sight of her. She knew Adele was not the woman she had met and loved years before, neither of them were those people anymore. There had been too much pain to ever forget or forgive. But this Adele she didn’t know and still feared. So, when Adele turned quickly back and walked toward her, Gillian took a step back in fear.
“We had an agreement…” The words died in Gillian’s mouth as she felt Adele close the distance until only inches were between them. “I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t have the strength.”
“I don’t know what I want…I don’t know what or who I am anymore.”
Adele spoke in a voice that Gillian did not recognize. Gillian felt her travel from emotion to emotion, unable to stabilize herself as she went from softness to barely manageable anger.
“I don’t understand…”
“I hate her so much that I can taste the bile in my mouth with the mere thought of her.” Adele’s anger appeared barely controlled as she said the words out loud. “It’s done. It’s finished.”
“What are you talking about?” Gillian began to lose her patience. “I just want to collect Catty and go. Let me go.”
“I don’t want…” Adele whispered as she took a few steps and pulled Gillian roughly to her.
“No,” was all that Gillian said.
Adele was barely a breath away and Gillian was unable to move with fear of the monster in front of her.
“You promised to never hurt me again.”
“I have done many things, even some that I will go to hell for. But hurting you…no, I don’t want to hurt you,” she said seductively. “I have watched you every time you come and take my children to live with you and that woman.” Adele growled. “I have watched you and I sit here waiting till the time that you come back, again and again. Do you fathom the enormity of that?”
“You said you would let me go, Dell,” Gillian reminded her.
“I am not asking for permission; you are my wife!” Adele seemed to surprise herself with her own anger and despair. She took a step back and took in a deep breath before speaking again. “I want to be noble, Gillian. I know the horrors that I have committed and the pain that I have caused. But it doesn’t take away the wanting,” she finished saying in a whisper of sadness.
Adele was so close that Gillian could feel her breath on her face as Adele once again got closer to her. Gillian felt the fire that emanated from Adele as their bodies were separate but still so close. “Let me go,” Gillian whispered in a plea.
“I am trying. What I have learned these last years is that I have not changed. I am still angry and getting angrier. I want to tear things apart and…I am trying to be noble with you but the darkness in me is stronger than all else I feel. You are the only thing that keeps me sane and drives me to madness!” Adele’s arms felt like iron grips around her.
“Let me go!” Gillian demanded.
“I can’t…” Adele whispered close to her ear. “It is stronger than I am…it always has been.” Adele’s lips brushed the side of her face, and a groan of pleasure escaped her.
“Let me go!”
“No!” And Adele found her mouth and kissed her as if every fiber of her being needed the kiss to exist.
Gillian pushed her away hard and took a few steps away from her, and as she turned so did Adele. The light of the window illuminated her features and Adele realized what had happened and what it meant with Gillian’s intake of breath.
The space between them suddenly became an ocean as Adele turned her face away. The silence between them became a new wall that shot up to the heavens and was just as unbreachable.
“Go! Take her but bring her back as agreed.”
“Dell…” Gillian took a few steps closer and pulled at Adele’s arm to turn her towards her.
When Adele turned, the scars on her face were suddenly visible with the dim light coming into the room. Gillian reached out to touch her face and for a moment Adele had stood still, but then suddenly pulled her arm away and turned to face Gillian head on.
“This is the monster that lay with you, that almost killed you. The one capable of all the horrors you can imagine and the one who killed our child. Because it was me. It has always been me. This thing inside me that destroys and yet all that I feel is lust…lust is what I feel.” Adele grabbed her hard and pulled her against it. “Look at me! This is who I am. This is the thing that wants you, that wants to touch you, taste you, and that needs to be inside you more than it needs air to breathe. I am filled with nightmares Gillian. They don’t let me breathe…I am so lost. I need you, amore.”
For a moment all that could be heard was ragged breathing as Gillian felt herself being pulled closer towards Adele’s body. And Gillian’s body began to shake as she felt Adele’s lips brush her skin.
“Gillian, don’t fear me anymore,” she pleaded as her lips sought Gillian’s lips with such tenderness that they felt like a flutter on Gillian’s lips.
“Mama?”
Upon hearing her daughter, Adele immediately released Gillian, slowly her head turned away once more into the shadows. Adele walked slowly towards the door, leaving the room, as if nothing had transpired between them.
†
Carlo was visiting from school and Gillian had made sure that his favourite chicken cacciatore was made for him. When they sat down for dinner, and he saw what was on the menu he smiled at her as he began to eat it with gusto.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Carlo?” she asked him.
Carlo turned towards her and stopped eating with his fork midway. He knew exactly what Gillian was asking him. His gaze suddenly got sad and as his eyes came up to meet Gillian’s she could see that he was debating telling her all. He put his fork down slowly onto his plate.
“Please?” she asked him softly as she sat next to him.
“I don’t really know everything; I just heard some things…” he trailed off.
“Please…”
“You saw her then?”
Gillian nodded.
“She doesn’t really let anyone see her. I asked her once…I think she is in pain most of the time. She suffered internal injuries and almost died on the operating table once. The scars on her face shocked her, I think, and then she just removed herself from people. She broke her arm and leg from the accident too.” Carlo looked up as he heard Gillian’s intake of breath, but he continued with a need to reveal all that he had been holding inside himself. “She’s angry all the time and yells at everyone at the house. Sometimes she really scares me. She won’t have any more surgeries, I heard them say, and I don’t know why.” He finished telling her sadly. “She is only ever patient with me and Catty. But I hear her with other people and it’s like she is two people. I don’t know all the details. She won’t tell me.”
“When did it happen, the accident, I mean?”
“After she sent us back here to you. I don’t know any more than that.”
Gillian shook her head trying to understand and to remember. She could remember the conversation she had had with Adele.
“Gillian? Gillian answer me!” Adele was desperately yelling on the other end of the phone. “Gillian, I need you to listen to me, amore mio, please tell me that you are listening, please.”
As if from a haze Gillian heard her. She had been getting weaker by the minute and she was barely able to function anymore. Adele’s voice was like a beacon that had always been able to reach her. “Dell…”
“Amore mio, listen to me. Don’t take any more of those medicines that Doctor de Lanpandusa has given you. I have sent an ambulance to take you to the hospital, amore.” Gillian could hear the sobs coming from Adele and in her confusion she replied.
“Don’t cry…”
“Listen to me, tesoro, I will make this right. I will make this right. The children are on a plane on their way to you and I will make this right; I promise you. Ti amo, ti amo amore.” And with those words the line went dead.
“I don’t understand, and I am not sure how to help her,” Carlo stated in frustration as he stood up. “I should be able to help her. I need to. She has no one else, Gillian, no one,” he said sadly then looked away quickly.
Gillian stood up and took him into her arms. At first, he stood firmly but after a moment he just allowed his arms to go up and clung to Gillian as he wept. “I don’t know how to help her. She won’t talk to me.”
Chapter Eighteen
After her conversation with Carlo, the next time Gillian went to pick up Catty, Gillian did not hear, never mind see, Adele again. Everything after that had gone through Adele’s attorneys once more. Every time she would pick up the children, Adele had not been present. And after that night she had begun to think about Adele and wonder how things had ever become this horrible or what had truly happened. Once in a while Carlo would come back visibly shaken after visiting his mother and many times Gillian had tried to talk to him about it, but he had become as secretive as Adele was, and this worried Gillian. Gillian had not been able to erase either the words or the sight of that night when she had last seen Adele after so long. Adele had begun yet again to seep into her thoughts. Candice was always there, always kind, present and patient with her.
When Adele had not called to speak to the children in over a month, Gillian began to worry.
“When are we finally going to be rid of her?” Candice asked, unable to control the ire behind the words.
“Why are you being this way?” Gillian asked in confusion.
“Because we are talking about her. Why can’t she just disappear?” Candice growled in frustration. “Gillian, she is getting back into our lives once more, even in her absence. Why are we still doing this?”
Gillian stared at her in shock and just walked away, but before she got to the door to leave the room, she turned around to face Candice.
“Because she is Catty’s and Carlo’s mother. That is why we will always have to talk about her.” After saying that, she left the room and left Candice standing alone staring at the door in disbelief.
Candice sat down on the sofa closest to her and began to accept the notion that Adele would always hold a place that she would never be able to replace. It had been over three years that their world had taken yet another turn after they had learned what Dr. de Lanpandusa had done and how the plot between him and Margot had been discovered. Gillian was healthier and getting stronger by the day. They, however, had not moved forward as a couple. Candice had tried many times to initiate an intimate relationship, but Gillian had asked her for more time. Adele, even now, after all that had transpired, was still standing between them. Candice began to understand that Adele would always hold a place that would separate them forever. She was surprised when she heard a door close to the side of her. When Candice looked up, she saw Carlo standing there, staring at her.
