After Forever Ends - Ramone Melodie - Страница 83
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I didn’t say much more after that. I waited and I worried instead. I kept Nigel five days a week and was shocked when Alexander rang my phone one day to tell me it would be Melissa who was going to collect him from my house.
“Why don’t I just bring him home then?” I asked, the bubbles rising in my stomach.
“Sil,” There was an element of desperation in his voice, “She’s doing better. Please. Just have him ready.”
“I'll have him ready,” I conceded.
“Thank you,” He breathed.
“Alexander?”
“Yes?”
I sighed, “Nothing. I just miss you. I wish you'd come round more often.”
“I miss you, too, Sil. I will come round. We'll speak soon, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I have to get back to work. Cheers, Bach.”
“Soon, Xander. Cheers.”
Melissa showed up at my door not an hour later. “I’m here to get my son,” She stressed the word ‘my’.
“He’s got a bit of a temperature,” I told her as I reluctantly handed him over.
“I’m sure I can handle it,” She snapped. Nigel fussed in her arms.
“I am sure you can,” I snapped back. I could feel my temperature rise, “However, being short in conversation and long in self-importance isn’t going to change the fact that he’s got explosive diarrhoea, too, is it?” She glowered at me. I glowered back, “Oliver brought him some medicine. It’s--” I stopped speaking. Melissa’s mouth was twisted and her eyes were narrow. Who the bloody hell did she think she was? Coming to my home after I’d cared for her son all day and disrespecting me with a look like that? I swear if she had not been holding that baby I’d have knocked her right in the chin. “Never mind,” I clipped the words off through my teeth, “I’ll ring Alex. He’s the one who does ninety-nine percent of the parenting.”
“Speaking of Alex,” She jerked the medicine from my hand, “Don’t call him. Ever. He’s got better things to do than talk to you.”
“What the hell is your problem today, Melissa? Wake up with your knickers drenched?”
“I don’t like the way you are with my husband!”
“I don’t like the way you are with your husband, either!”
“Mind your own business, Silvia!”
“Your husband is my business!”
She shifted Nigel in her arms. “You’ve got your own man!” Her voice was threatening, “Leave mine alone!”
“What are you going to do about it? Claw me with your false talons? I’d smear you from one end of the garden to the next!” It was all I could do not to poke her hard in the shoulder, but I resisted again for Nigel’s sake, “You go piss on yourself, Melissa! I won’t leave him alone! Alexander is family! What are you playing at?”
“I’m not playing at anything! I am telling you that Alexander is mine and you need to leave him alone! You can’t have them both!”
I was stunned for a second that she would say such an incredibly stupid thing, but it was only a second longer before I became angrier than I already was. She led with her chin that time, “Oh, aye! You’re a right eiri, aren’t you? Well, let me tell you something about the twins!” I leaned in and lifted myself on to my toes a bit so I was more even with her eyes. I dropped my voice, “If I wanted them both, I could have yours as well as mine in a heartbeat!” I was saying it to be cruel, no other reason, “So watch your step or I might have a go at your man and then you’ll know the true meaning of twincest!”
Melissa opened her mouth to say something, but shut it before she did. I knew she didn’t know what an eiri was and that I’d I'd lost her with my accent, but it was obvious that she'd gotten the meaning of my threat by the look on her face. I wished I could be there when she asked Alexander later and he told her I called her a snobbish, conceited whore. I wondered if she could figure out twincest on her own. I doubted it. Still, what I had said had stung her. I was quite pleased with that.
She tried her best to intimidate me with a glare, but it truly had no effect. I was so angry I would have slapped her in the face for it, but she was still holding Nigel. I could imagine not striking her full on and bouncing my palm off his little head. Lucky for all of us, I was clinging to self-control with everything I had. “Get out of my sight,” My voice was low even in my own ears, “Before I hurt you.”
Without another word she took her son and stomped off the porch and to her car. Duncan scrambled out behind her, barking at her heels all the way. I could hear Nigel screaming after I slammed the door. I felt bad about scaring him.
I do not think Melissa really had any idea of how badly she was messing things up with Alexander. I know she was that far gone. Or maybe she honestly didn’t care, but I find that hard to believe. If she would have listened to anything people were trying to tell her, the end result may have been different. Alexander really did try to make it a point to be romantic and loving, but Melissa, among her other issues, just did not understand the ways of the Welsh. Instead of relaxing her way into her new life in Wales and trying to figure out its rhythm, she tried to force her old ways on to her husband. It conflicted with his sensibilities and confused him, which left her frustrated and angry. She just couldn’t figure out how to get her balance, but to my knowledge she really never had any to begin with.
Part of me still wanted to help her for Alexander’s sake. He was trying desperately to hang on to a marriage that was rapidly dissolving into disaster. If she would have spoken to me civilly I would have tried to explain the dynamics of the Dickinson family. Although they didn’t always agree, the family was a united structure. Each member was respected and appreciated for their individually, encouraged to achieve their goals, and all were praised and loved equally. There were no favourites, there were no black sheep. Everyone had an important role and certain responsibilities, the first being that family was number one. And Melissa by her apparent disinterest and disregard for her new family’s culture, as well as her open dislike for me, was quickly landing herself on the outside of the inner circle.
“If she says one more bad thing to our Silvia,” Ana told Edmond on Christmas Eve as the three of us were getting trays, “I’m going to put her out in the snow!”
“Can I please beat her up in your front room, Dad?” I asked him sincerely, “Please? I promise I won’t break any furniture!”
“Settle down, Ladies!” Edmond took a tray of tarts from Ana, “It’s Christmas! Let’s try to enjoy ourselves!”
“Hard when I have to hear that sort of rubbish,” Ana muttered.
“Well, then you might like to know that your son, Oliver, just put a dead mouse into her coat pocket,” Edmond’s face was red with mirth as he suppressed his laughter.
“He did not!” I gasped.
“Oh, he did!” Edmond snorted with the effort of not bursting into a fit.
Ana didn’t even try to keep it in. She let loose a loud, silly giggle and cheered, “Hooray! I love that boy!”
“Yes, yes! We did a good job with him! Now, come on! Come on!”
Alexander brought Nigel over one morning early about three weeks later. He showed me the plans he had been drawing for expanding the cabin, “You’ll have three more rooms that can be used for bedrooms if needed. Oliver wants an office, too. We’re putting one room on the back, but the three we’re going to build on top of the additions we’ve already made. I’m leaving the front alone. It’s very old and I’m not dealing with the roof. I wanted to build two rooms on to the rear, but we can’t go back much more without clearing several trees. Oliver won’t have that, so we’ll go up instead. I have a new door here on the side,” He pointed at the plans with a pencil, “The stairs going up will actually be built outside, but we’ll enclose them. That way no one will have to walk through either bedroom to get upstairs.”
“I thought we were OK.” I looked at the plans, “It’s just Oliver, Caro, Duncan and me.”
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