16: Dealings

Brig­it kept her­self busy for a week, ig­nor­ing the pass­ing of the end of the year and the be­gin­ning of the New Year. John was more than will­ing to pass her a pile of port­fo­lios up­on her re­turn to the of­fice. Their as­sign­ment piles were be­gin­ning to shrink thanks to her at­ten­tion to the job. Brig­it made no ob­jec­tion to the work load. It was a wel­comed dis­trac­tion from the thoughts that would pass through her mind dur­ing the min­utes be­tween. It al­so kept her from di­rect­ly deal­ing with Sea­mus Flan­nery.

She had kept from imag­in­ing the go­ing-​on of Mag­gie’s ev­ery day ex­is­tence. Brig­it couldn’t al­low her­self to imag­ine the in­ti­mate mo­ments Mag­gie was spend­ing with Lore­na Rubens. She couldn’t al­low those pic­tures to en­ter her mind. If she did, she felt a spark of anger that she des­per­ate­ly want­ed to avoid. Brig­it had al­ways hat­ed to be an­gry. She had al­ways felt the emo­tion to be such a drain on her en­er­gy.

It was there, though. The lit­tle spark glowed in the dark­ness that she con­tin­ual­ly tried to avoid look­ing in­to. When she would glimpse it, Brig­it would quick­ly di­vert her at­ten­tion. She couldn’t feed it, not now. She hadn’t made a de­ci­sion yet.

Sea­mus Flan­nery was tak­ing to his train­ing like a fish to wa­ter. John ex­pressed his hap­pi­ness with his choice more than once and Brig­it found she was more and more un­com­fort­able with it. Sea­mus had made a few re­marks in her di­rec­tion, re­marks she chose to ig­nore for the time be­ing. His cock­iness wore on her nerves as he would re­count his field train­ing un­der John’s tute­lage. As he would tell the tale of scuf­fles dur­ing some of the more mi­nor as­sign­ments un­der his de­part­ment as if they were great feats of dar­ing brav­ery and Brig­it found it in­creas­ing­ly hard to con­trol the urge to roll her eyes in bore­dom with the sto­ry. In­stead, she suf­fered the de­tails un­til John would pass her an­oth­er pile and ex­cuse her for the day.

To­ward the mid­dle of the sec­ond week of not go­ing home, Brig­it took a mo­ment to pon­der it all. She missed Mag­gie. She missed the fa­mil­iar sur­round­ings of the home they had built to­geth­er. She want­ed to feel Mag­gie’s warmth against her body. She want­ed to wrap her arms around her lover and hear the gen­tle breath­ing that came when Mag­gie was deep in a peace­ful sleep.

Up­on re­turn­ing to the of­fice, she was not sur­prised when John slid more work to­ward her. He, how­ev­er, was sur­prised when she shook her head in de­cline.

“I’m go­ing home tonight,” she an­nounced qui­et­ly.

“So you’ve made a de­ci­sion in re­gard to Mag­gie?” he asked.

“Who’s Mag­gie?” Sea­mus piped up from the cor­ner where he was go­ing through a box he had been as­signed to sort out.

“My wife,” Brig­it replied au­to­mat­ical­ly. She bit her tongue as soon as the words were out. She had not meant to ex­pose any­thing per­son­al to Sea­mus. Es­pe­cial­ly any­thing about Mag­gie.

“Go then,” John said quick­ly. “We’ll see you in the morn­ing.”

Brig­it on­ly nod­ded and ex­it­ed the of­fice. She had made her de­ci­sion. She would keep her promise. She would learn to deal with Mag­gie’s course through the rest of her life. Brig­it would be there when that life end­ed and the next one would be­gin.

“She’s a bleed­in’ les­bo?” she heard Sea­mus ask in a harsh whis­per. “That’s too bad. I was hop­ing to have a go…”

“Keep dream­ing, lad.” Brig­it heard John warn with an amused tone in his voice.

The apart­ment was emp­ty when Brig­it en­tered. It was af­ter five, by the clock on the wall. By the look of things, Mag­gie had spent lit­tle time at home late­ly. News­pa­pers were piled on the end of the so­fa; the rub­ber band hold­ing them in a roll had not been re­moved. The flow­ers Lore­na had brought Mag­gie that first night had since been re­placed in the vase on the kitchen ta­ble and dish­es lay in the sink, half filled with wa­ter to pre­vent stains. Brig­it made her way to the bed­room with a slight sense of fore­bod­ing. She was hes­itant to view more ev­idence of Mag­gie’s ab­sence from their home.

The bed was per­fect­ly made. The dec­ora­tive pil­lows had been lined against the head­board and the com­forter smoothed to near pho­to-​fin­ish per­fec­tion. Brig­it’s at­ten­tion went to the small ta­ble on Mag­gie’s side and felt her heart sink. The small pho­to­graph Mag­gie had kept there for years was gone. She won­dered, as she sank on­to the bed and sighed heav­ily, if the pho­to­graph had joined the oth­er me­men­tos of their life in the box that now lived in the hall clos­et.

The thought brought her up from the bed. Quick­ly, she went to the hall clos­et and opened the door. Not just the spir­it of the door, but the ac­tu­al door. The shock of it missed her as she knelt and ripped the lid off the box Mag­gie had been stor­ing all their mem­ories in. She found the pho­to rest­ing on top of the pile that had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed there. She snatched it up and quick­ly re­turned to the bed­room. As she placed it back on Mag­gie’s bed­side ta­ble, the sud­den re­al­iza­tion that she had moved some­thing phys­ical fi­nal­ly struck her. She turned and looked at the clos­et door. It was still stand­ing wide open in the hall. Her heart sud­den­ly leapt with joy. She had moved a phys­ical ob­ject!

But what did it mean? Was it a new pow­er that she could har­ness to alert Mag­gie that she was still present? Was it a new way to re­mind her lover to stay true to their love and ev­ery­thing they had once had? It would def­inite­ly be more no­tice­able than the killing of fresh flow­ers in a cut bou­quet…

Brig­it’s mind raced with the pos­si­bil­ities as she looked around the room. A small vel­vet box on the bu­reau caught her eye. Tak­ing a deep breath, she picked it up and opened it. In­side, she found a pair of di­amond ear­rings. A wicked smile came to her lips as she eyed them. They had to be a gift from Lore­na. The wicked­ness of Brig­it’s smile was based on the knowl­edge that Mag­gie had no use for di­amonds. She had nev­er pos­sessed a fond­ness or a de­sire for the gems. Any­one who tru­ly knew Mag­gie knew that she was the least like­ly per­son to wear di­amonds. Brig­it snapped the lid shut on the small box and looked to her left. A small waste­bas­ket still sat nes­tled in the cor­ner. With a tinge of de­light, she dropped the jew­el­ry box in the small bin.

She turned her at­ten­tion back to the bu­reau and be­gan to scan for oth­er items that could have come from Lore­na when she heard the front door open. She could hear Mag­gie chat­ter­ing and an­oth­er voice – Lore­na Rubens’ – adding to the con­ver­sa­tion. Brig­it re­sumed her seat on the edge of the bed and lis­tened to the com­mo­tion in the front room. She could on­ly smile when she heard Mag­gie’s ver­bal won­der­ment about the door to the hall clos­et be­ing opened.

“Are you sure you closed it this morn­ing?” Lore­na was heard to ask.

“I didn’t even go in­to it,” Mag­gie replied. The pause that fol­lowed the re­ply told Brig­it that Mag­gie had no­ticed the lid to the box she kept there be­ing re­moved. Brig­it could feel the en­er­gy of the un­easi­ness at the sight make its way down the hall as Mag­gie closed the door.

“Maybe it’s a loose bolt,” Lore­na sug­gest­ed.

“Maybe. Let me change re­al quick and I’ll be ready for din­ner,”

Mag­gie ap­peared at the bed­room door a few sec­onds lat­er. Brig­it watched as her part­ner stopped, im­me­di­ate­ly scan­ning the room for any­thing amiss. As if by in­stinct, she watched as Mag­gie’s eyes set­tled on the small pho­to­graph Brig­it had re­placed to her bed­side ta­ble. The au­di­ble gasp that es­caped Mag­gie brought Lore­na rush­ing to the room.

“What’s the mat­ter?” Lore­na de­mand­ed.

“I, um,” Mag­gie was hav­ing trou­ble find­ing the ex­act words to ex­plain what she had found. “I thought I saw a mouse,” she fi­nal­ly said.

“What?” Lore­na asked. “Where?” She stepped fur­ther in­to the bed­room.

“Over there, by the bu­reau,” Mag­gie point­ed. Brig­it watched as Lore­na walked to Mag­gie’s side of the room and be­gan to search for the non-​ex­is­tent mouse. To Brig­it’s de­light, the search led the oth­er wom­an to the waste­bas­ket – and to the jew­el­ry box rest­ing light­ly on top of the rub­bish Mag­gie had been ac­cu­mu­lat­ing there for months.

“What is this? You threw the ear­rings away?” Lore­na asked, lift­ing the box out of the small bin.

“What? No, they were on the bu­reau…I must have ac­ci­den­tal­ly knocked them in­to the bin,” Mag­gie of­fered as an ex­cuse. Brig­it bit her bot­tom lip to keep from chuck­ling at the sud­den dis­com­fort of the sit­ua­tion.

“If you didn’t like them, you should have just re­turned them to me. You have no idea how much I paid for these,” Lore­na snapped at Mag­gie.

“Lore­na, I didn’t throw them away,” Mag­gie ar­gued.

“You have no ap­pre­ci­ation for how much I care for you, that much is ob­vi­ous, Mar­garet,” Lore­na snapped. Brig­it stiff­ened at the use of Mag­gie’s giv­en name. No one called Mag­gie by her birth name. To Mag­gie, it was an in­sult – as much of one as the idea that Lore­na had been try­ing to buy her love with the di­amonds.

“Don’t call me ‘Mar­garet’,” Mag­gie said through clenched teeth.

“I’ll call you what­ev­er I want. I can’t be­lieve you would be so reck­less,” Lore­na spat. “You know, I don’t think we should go to din­ner tonight. I think we need some time apart.”

“I agree,” Brig­it grum­bled as Lore­na forced the dis­card­ed jew­el­ry box in­to her coat pock­et and made to ex­it the room. On a whim, Brig­it stuck her foot out and caught the de­part­ing wom­an at the an­kle. The fall that en­sued caused Brig­it to fi­nal­ly gig­gle as Mag­gie jumped out of the way.

“Are you okay? What hap­pened?” Mag­gie asked as she knelt to Lore­na’s side. Lore­na pushed the wom­an away force­ful­ly.

“Get off me,” she snarled.

By now, Brig­it was on her feet. She had felt the force Lore­na had used to push Mag­gie away. The spark of anger she had been try­ing so hard to ig­nore for the last week sud­den­ly roared to life as a full on bon­fire.

“Don’t ev­er touch her again,” Brig­it growled as she reached out. She yanked Lore­na Rubens to her feet by the lapels of her suit coat. The sud­den fear she saw in the fall­en wom­an’s eyes fu­eled her rage. She could tell Lore­na Rubens was scared. Mag­gie was still sit­ting on the floor where Lore­na had pushed her. Brig­it could see the ques­tions dance through Lore­na’s eyes as to who -- or what -- had a hold of her.

“What the fuck is go­ing on?” Lore­na stam­mered, try­ing to sound fu­ri­ous. Her sud­den fear, though, pre­vailed.

“I don’t know,” Mag­gie an­swered meek­ly. She had watched Lore­na spring from the floor as if she had been yanked up. She had felt the rush of the air around her and she thought she had heard the faint com­mand to Lore­na to nev­er touch her again. She shook her head. She had been hear­ing things, that was all. She was sure the sud­den stress of the scene was caus­ing her to imag­ine voic­es that were not there.

“Leave,” Brig­it snarled as she pushed Lore­na to­ward the door. From the cor­ner of her eye, she saw Mag­gie stand be­hind her. She had no in­ten­tion of let­ting Lore­na come near Mag­gie though. Lore­na stum­bled as she felt the force of the shove Brig­it de­liv­ered. Her fear dis­ap­peared and was re­placed again by the anger she had been search­ing for.

“Keep your hands off me!”

“I didn’t touch you, Lore­na,” Mag­gie point­ed out. She was well out­side arms reach of the oth­er wom­an. “You need to leave now,” Mag­gie said.

“I’ll leave when I damn well feel like it,” Lore­na snapped, tak­ing a step to­ward Mag­gie in the at­tempt to show who was the more dom­inant. Brig­it dug deep in­to the bon­fire of her anger and pushed Lore­na again. This time, the force sent her fly­ing across the room. Lore­na land­ed on her back and lay still for a sec­ond, the wind hav­ing been knocked out of her. When she fi­nal­ly scram­bled to her feet, she made a rush for Mag­gie. Again, she was blocked by the in­vis­ible wall that Brig­it had be­come.

By now, Mag­gie was cry­ing au­di­bly. She couldn’t see the force that was keep­ing Lore­na from reach­ing her. All she could see was the fury in her new lover’s eyes and the harm that lay with­in that fury. It scared the hell out of her; yet, some­thing in­vis­ible was pre­vent­ing her from suf­fer­ing Lore­na’s wrath. Mag­gie had the fleet­ing idea as to what it was, but she was not ready to wrap her mind around that idea – that Brig­it was still around to watch over her. Right now, all Mag­gie want­ed was for Lore­na Rubens to leave.

Mag­gie watched as Lore­na was pushed from the room by the in­vis­ible force again. She heard the scuf­fle as it pro­gressed down the hall. Slow­ly, Mag­gie fol­lowed the sound, watch­ing as Lore­na fell and picked her­self up on­ly to hit the floor again. What­ev­er was pro­pelling Lore­na out was de­ter­mined to car­ry out that wish. Mag­gie slow­ly turned and looked at the pho­to­graph that had reap­peared on her bed­side ta­ble. It was Brig­it. It had to be.

Brig­it slammed the door and quick­ly turned the bolts once Lore­na had been tossed out of the apart­ment. She felt her heart rac­ing with the en­er­gy the scuf­fle had fed. She was about to go to the win­dow to watch the oth­er wom­an make her es­cape when she heard the snif­fle come from the bed­room. Mag­gie was cry­ing – a sound that had been rare dur­ing their time to­geth­er. It was a sound that al­ways broke Brig­it’s heart. When she re­turned to the bed­room, she found Mag­gie sit­ting on the bed hold­ing her pic­ture.

“What was I think­ing?” Mag­gie snif­fled as she held the small pic­ture frame in her hands. “I should have known it was too soon.”

Brig­it on­ly watched as Mag­gie stared at the pho­to­graph. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t think Mag­gie would have heard her any­way. In­stead, she leaned against the door­frame and watched as Mag­gie lay down, press­ing the pho­to­graph to her cheek and let­ting her tears flow.