It was almost a familiar sensation, the stopping of time. The hollow vacuum opening in the pit of my stomach. That sense that I floated in some horrid, unforgiving void of emptiness. One vertex of focus. Only one convergence available to the senses, sucking in everything else in my world like a black hole. Once, the lone vision had been the blond curls of my son disappearing beneath the water. My terror for my child. Now the terror was all for myself. – Felicity’s Journal, March 26.
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stol'n out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. – William Shakespeare, Richard III
March 19
Her first clue had been the familiar face. Not really a clue, she guessed, because she hadn’t exactly recognized the person. More an impression that she was having déjà vu, or that maybe she’d inadvertently passed some character actor she had seen in several movies but who had never played a starring role. Very disconcerting.
First thing in the morning of day four, Brendon had informed Felicity that he had to go into town to utilize an online meeting room, one with whiteboards and other collaborative, interactive tools. Typical, she rolled her eyes. “How long, do you think?” she wondered aloud.
“Maybe two hours,” he shrugged. At least he hadn’t snapped at Felicity for being so inconsiderate as to ask the question. He didn’t like to be micromanaged.
Two hours Brendon time meant anywhere from two to eight hours, perfectly justified by some reason or other. It had already happened three times since their arrival, at random hours that made no sense to Felicity. She tried to suppress her simmering bitterness.
Well, it was Felicity’s vacation, and she would not sit around waiting for Brendon like she did at home, where she at least had her children to distract her, and like she had the previous two days. She pulled out her phone and checked for a signal. It was weak but functional. Opening a map, she found her location and search the area around her. Pretty much nothing but nature in the immediate area, but Canmore lay a couple of miles south, and Banff lay twenty minutes north.
After searching each location, she decided that she would rather walk around and window shop, or find a bookstore or coffee shop. Canmore was nice enough, but she thought Banff seemed farther in the mountains with better hikes, and since it was more for tourists, the options seemed more consolidated and easier to access without too much planning. Plus, Brendon no doubt had found his technology in the closer, larger city, and Felicity didn’t really want to run the risk of running in to him in her current state of mind.
She had noticed two envelopes on the dresser, one labeled “Canmore” and the other labeled “Banff.” She grabbed Banff and headed to the garage. She wasn’t even sure she had a vehicle, but when she opened the garage door, a grey sedan sat inside. Felicity walked over to it and saw the keys in the cupholder.
No need to hide them inside the garage, she imagined. Seated behind the wheel, she opened the envelope and considered all the flyers. In typical fashion, she didn’t find anything exciting about the tourist traps. A hike would be nice. Followed by coffee. After perusing several options, she decided to make her way through the town and to a nice hike of about an hour.
With the drive and the walk, she would be home in three hours, probably in time to meet back up with Brendon. And if he comes home earlier, he can just wait for once. Her nonchalance made her wonder at herself; did she only keep the peace at home to protect the kids?
Rather than waste time analyzing herself, she set to work. In the envelope, she had found several day passes into Banff, and she pulled one out and put it in her cupholder. Pushing the button, she opened the garage door and pulled out into the beautiful mountain lane, surrounded by aspen and fir trees, with a mountain view peeking from between the trunks and through the leaves.
Once she reached the main highway, the view broadened into an amazing expanse, snowcapped mountains on every side, but a clear straight path ahead. The whole vision exhilarated her, erasing any nerves she felt at not consulting Brendon with her plans.
Heading north, she made it to the city of Banff in under twenty minutes, and then through to the far side where she had seen the trail she wanted to hike. Her excitement built as she got closer. In the town lay rows of quaint buildings and shops, picturesque as a fairy tale. A little too picturesque for Felicity, but she could see the clear, natural view that lay at the far end of the town – her destination.
Her destination was a very interesting, self-contained area with several attractions that appealed to Felicity. Even better that every walk between buildings came with a breathtaking view of nature. First, she would pass through the little art gallery on the way to the hiking trail. Then her twenty-minute jaunt out to see the “castle” across the river, which was really just a hotel but gave an epic view and a good option for pictures. After that, she would grab a quick lunch at the bistro before heading back to the cabin.
Until the familiar profile of Jenna Whitfield entered the large glass and wood building thirty feet in front of Felicity, she had grown increasingly enthusiastic about the day. The unexpected sighting sucked away all of Felicity’s strength. It was surreal, like the Twilight Zone, something known but out of place. Then suddenly, the past few days made so much more sense.
The two-hour wait for a nonexistent breakfast.
The many trips into town without her, insisting that she stay and enjoy the beautiful cabin. For hours at a time. Since they had arrived, Felicity had spent more time alone than with Brendon. Kind of like at home, she simmered.
And then Jenna. It was like a slap in the face with a branding iron.
The truth will out, Felicity mused bitterly as she covered the distance to the glass building in less than a minute. Of course, not just Jenna. Peering through the huge glass panels, Felicity saw what she had suspected as soon as she had seen the woman, a veritable ProtoComm convention. An actual convention, she realized. A few higher-level employees she had encountered at parties or corporate events each stood in the middle of several circles of filled chairs, holding miniature conferences. Everything in Felicity boiled.
Why had he not just told her? Honestly. Was he afraid she would refuse to come to Canada with him?
Well, maybe she would have. Maybe she wouldn’t have. But the utter disrespect of not giving her the choice! I mean, should I be surprised he doesn’t respect me? she recognized with a sick pit of resentment in her stomach. The lie, the pretense of giving her something special, when he had actually just let her be a tagalong. The presumption!
Felicity wasn’t the type to make a scene – she had no intention of confronting anyone, but she wanted to find Brendon. Would he try to convince, as she always let him, that she had misunderstood That he had told her about the conference? That the conference is a figment of my imagination? Cluster after cluster of ProtoComm employees and admin dotted the large atrium, and Felicity found herself growing more furious. Even with her distaste for spectacle, she found herself wanting to make one. Badly enough that she fled. She ran out a side door and sought a safer location, one she knew would offer her comfort – the library she had seen on the map.
Once among the books, Felicity let herself breathe. Breathe the familiar scent of books, soak up the artistic and colorful spines, search out her favorite authors. Her heart finally calmed, settling into a normal rhythm and ceasing to hammer the inside of her chest. Across the large room, she noticed a collection of art books. She hadn’t made it to the gallery, so she decided she would peruse the impressionists and Fauvists. Usually she let music rage away her anger, but she actually didn’t trust herself to drive just yet, and her phone was a poor stereo.
As she crossed the expanse toward the wall of art books, her mind tacitly processed the
row of computer cubbies that lined the windowed wall at the edge of the room. She reached for a book on Renoir but was arrested by a sound – a laugh. It was a low sound, almost undetectable, but it was like breathing for Felicity. As familiar as herself. It was Brendon.
Brendon, his lower legs just visible under the cubby wall. Shoes off. Crossed casually with the bare feet of a woman. A woman who followed his laugh with her own feminine giggle. Drawn like a moth toward a flame, Felicity drifted across the space as if pulled by a current, to the convergence of the temporary walls and the crack where they joined the neighboring cubby. The red hair of the woman obscured Brendon’s face as she leaned toward him in an intimate whisper. Within a moment, though, the veil slid away to reveal Brendon’s profile.
For the past half hour, rage had oscillated inside of Felicity, ebbing and flowing as her mind flipped through the images of all the ProtoComm employees she had just seen.
All of the rage evaporated in an instant.
One could not feel rage when the immaculately crafted human mind cut itself off from all feeling in order to protect itself.
Brendon sat in a very sensual position with his assistant, Amy. Her red hair lay against his cheek. His hand rubbed down one of her thighs. No, they weren’t about to throw down in the library. But the entire scene was the comfortable intimacy of lovers.
Momentarily, Felicity realized that she could feel the spinning of the earth through space and time. She couldn’t breathe, though. Glancing around, she looked for the cameras, the friends or acquaintances who would approach her and explain the joke, that it had been a setup, a game. She imagined all sorts of ridiculous possibilities, like that her husband was a spy on a mission, and he had to pretend to be a couple with the young woman. Or that ProtoComm was shooting a commercial, and they had chosen to use Brendon as the face. Brendon hadn’t told her because he thought it would upset her. The woman was blackmailing Brendon to get ahead in the company.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
And then her mind stopped.
She stopped it.
None of those was true.
He had lied.
Lying was his native language.
Anything he said to her from this point forward would be a lie until proven otherwise.
He lied to her.
She would not lie to herself.
Not stupid, delusional lies. Not practical, realistic lies.
Brendon was having an affair.
In fact, Brendon had taken steps to replace Felicity in his own life. He had hired a nanny, he had made a list of tasks that Felicity did for the kids, and he had even sent Aimée to the book club that Felicity always shunned. Because she didn’t compress herself into his vision of his narrative, he replaced her. He is well paid to notice nothing and forget everything. Felicity had to wonder what Brendon had spoken of, what he had paid the driver to forget.
When she finally processed the blackness in her vision, she realized that she had held her breath so long she was close to fainting. To breathe, though, she had to look away. To look away, she had to run away.
So, she ran. She ran down the stairs because standing still in an elevator would have given her time to think. Something she could not do. She ran toward the lot where she had parked her car, unsure if she planned to drive away or sit inside and cry or blast music to drown her thoughts. Before she made it past the next building, though, her body rebelled. If she did not pause, she would collapse. She would not collapse. She refused. Instead, she ran up to a long unbroken wall of stone and leaned against it, her face in her arms, just breathing.
Maybe she should have cried, but tears weren’t available yet. She didn’t feel sadness. She didn’t feel anything. She felt the opposite of anything, stronger than feeling nothing. Only the weakness and disconnect in her body gave her any sense of the effect the discovery had on her.
“Felicity?” the familiar voice intoned gently.
“No, no, no,” she managed, willing the voice away.
“Felicity, you don’t look well.”
Against her will, her shock-addled mind twisted toward the voice, robotically compelling her, beyond her cognitive function.
Inexplicably, Jase stepped across the few feet between them and pressed his hand against her cheek, staring deeply into her eyes. Somehow not an intimate or presumptive gesture; just concerned. Besides, her mind told her, he hadn’t been touching her face at all. He had touched someone else’s face, the person on the outside of her. Felicity herself had felt nothing.
“You’re in shock,” he announced.
The pronouncement meant nothing to Felicity. He could have said, “the mountains are purple dinosaurs” and it would have made the same amount of sense to her brain.
Jase reached gingerly for her elbow, grasping it firmly and speaking to her as if to a child. “I think maybe you need a hospital. Are you hurt?”
“No hospital,” she managed. “Not hurt.” Not that way.
Still, he moved her, leading her away from the wall. She didn’t resist. If she did, she might scream. She might devolve into a rabid, screeching monster that would bring the whole city to the commotion. So, she let him lead her to wherever he led.
Until she smelled the coffee, her mind processed nothing. Strange, she thought, that a smell could make it all the way past the person outside her and into her brain. Of course, the distance seemed shorter now. Glancing around for the first time, Outer-Felicity’s eyes sent the message to Inner-Felicity that she was in a coffee shop, that there were delicious looking pastries in the display, and that the lights were warm and pleasant. Inner-Felicity understood but didn’t feel any of it.
“Breathe, Liss,” the Jase voice spoke again, and Felicity finally felt herself pulled back to her surroundings as she looked up into his eyes with confusion.
“Where are we?” she queried, disoriented but impassive.
Placing his hand on hers, he peered back into her eyes. His hand was warm.
“In a coffee shop,” he explained as a grey-haired woman walked over with a tray. Felicity vaguely processed that the woman placed a cup of coffee in front of her and a small croissant beside the coffee. “Merci, Claudine,” Jase smiled. “Vous avez les meilleures pâtisseries au Canada.”
Felicity heard the language, and some primitive part of her reacted with a smile of pleasure.
“You speak French,” she murmured. She remembered when she had met him. C’est impossible, he had said, after he had laughed at her comment in French. Interesting, her automaton mind processed even as her sensations felt nothing.
“Eat, Liss,” Jase insisted, not bothering to reply. “And drink some coffee.”
Obediently, she took a sip of the black, bitter liquid. Amazing, her mouth purred to her brain, and she found Inner-Felicity slowly creeping through to the surface of herself to tap into the rush. Back to where the pain resided. Panting breaths cut off the subtle groans of misery as she resurfaced from the black water with herself in tow.
“Shhh,” Jase soothed.
“It doesn’t work,” she gasped.
“It doesn’t?” he wondered.
Squeezing her breath into a tone, she whispered. “I read somewhere that a person couldn’t feel pleasure and pain at the same time, so if someone is hurting, you just need to give them a backrub or hold them in a hug, and they won’t feel the pain as much.”
“But it doesn’t work?”
“Your hand,” she glanced at the table. “It feels nice, but there is still enough pain that it doesn’t really matter.”
Jase smiled sadly. “Maybe it dulls it a little.”
“Then don’t stop,” she whispered, “because I don’t think I would survive anything worse than this.”
“You already have.”
She processed his words slowly. “No,” she disagreed. “I ran away. I hibernated. The pain was too much. Now it’s back.”
Jase just brushed his hand over hers, saying nothing.
“Drink some more coffee,” he finally commanded.
Once she seemed firmly nestled into her coffee, he finally removed his hand from hers.
“Eat the croissant now,” he urged, and she dutifully grasped the flaky little pastry, bringing it to her lips. As she slowly chewed and swallowed the bread, a very small crumb of her strength made its way back into her body.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he prodded, but she was shaking her head before he finished the question.
“No, it’s not right to talk about it with you.”
Felicity saw something flash in Jase’s eyes. Anger maybe? But she didn’t think at her.
“Besides,” she continued. “I think everyone at the company knows. It explains some of the comments I heard and the looks I got at the party the other night.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she tried physically to hold the breaths steady that were gasping out of her. Not in a restaurant. She would not fall to pieces. Not in front of this person. Not in front of anyone.
Nodding, Jase breathed deliberately and said nothing.
After a few minutes of silence, Jase put his hand back on hers.
“Do you want to go somewhere else? Do you want to walk?”
In the back of her mind, as the pain evened from jagged shards into a steady burn, Felicity’s thoughts took more comprehensible form. Hadn’t she prepared for this? She had known, a thousand years ago when she had married the husband, that people were human. That people were fallible. That people had affairs.
And right-now-Felicity knew that she had three children with the husband.
She knew that, regardless of the pain to her, if it would serve her children best, she would stay with him. She had read stories of recovery and reconciliation and healing. Beautiful stories. That’s what would happen, she suddenly realized. She would make it happen.
Brendon had fallen to his humanity.
Now that it was out in the open, he would have no choice but to acknowledge what had happened and, since Felicity was willing, to fix the marriage. It was the smart thing to do, and everyone knew Brendon was very smart.
Maybe the marriage could even be better for paying attention to and fixing the problems that had plagued it for years.
Felicity even knew that she was mostly not just lying to herself, engaging in wishful thinking. She believed that it could happen.
Fortunately, the barrage of thoughts infused breath into her. Not lungfuls of air, but a thin stream of breath. And with returning breath came returning steadiness. She was up to fix this.
Still, she cringed when she remembered that she would have to tell him she knew.
Glancing out the window to the street, Felicity sighed. “I guess I have to go find him now, and talk to him.”
Jase seemed surprised.
“You’re going to go talk to him?” he repeated.
“Jase,” she ventured eye contact, determined that if she could speak convincingly to Jase Hamilton, she would convince herself. “We have children. We have to figure out what we’re going to do.”
Pursing his lips, Jase looked irritated. “I imagine that is exactly what you would do. Go talk to him.” His mouth curved up sardonically on one side.
Suddenly coming to herself, she cringed lightly at Jase. Of all the people to come to her rescue! True, he had just treated her with more respect than she would have imagined he ever would, but she hadn’t forgotten the party. His very blatant attempts to lure her to him. That was a minefield that tattered and broken Felicity would not go anywhere near.
“How…how far away from my car are we?” she queried with a grimace. “I don’t remember much about the walk.”
“Are you parked here or in town?”
“Here,” she nodded firmly.
“Then you’re probably right over there,” he pointed to a nearby lot, only about twenty feet from the coffee shop. “I’ll walk you over.”
A full smile graced Jase’s pretty face, and Felicity made a point to glance over at the pastries until she could speak.
“Okay,” she agreed.
With the sun just past noon, it had moved over the buildings until it shone in her eyes. She smiled at the nearness of her escape, a strange sensation that threatened the gasping breaths again. You’re not allowed any feeling but pain right now, Inner-Felicity hissed, and Felicity grunted as she realized she hadn’t become quite as coherent as she had hoped. She could drive, though, she knew.
Standing carefully to her feet, Felicity reached into her jacket pocket for her car keys.
Jase stood to his feet, reaching to steady her when she wobbled. “You’re sure you’re okay.”
Nodding, Felicity stepped back, transferring her support to the chair back. “I don’t really know how to thank you, but now is not the time I would expect kindness. Kind of seems like a fairytale at this point in my life.”
“Not a fairytale,” he assured her. “I’ll be there when you need me.”
Felicity blew out a fast breath. “You know why that’s a really bad idea.,” she corrected.
“Not bad for me,” Jase grinned.
“But you’re not the only one to consider here,” Felicity chastised.
“Not bad for you either,” he insisted.
“You don’t know that. And I don’t believe that,” she challenged. “And there’s more to consider than either of us.”
“Surely you don’t mean Bren -“
She cut Jase off. “Don’t say his name. And, no, not him. My kids. I have to do what’s best for them.”
“And if that’s not your husband?”
She stopped walking and stared at him, not processing how to be offended at the suggestion – not through her trauma – but knowing he shouldn’t have said it. “Then I’ll have to spend some serious time in thought,” she drawled, picking up her foot stiffly of the ground and forcing it forward. She peered at her car with intention, as if it were the other side of a bridge. She had to make it there before the bridge collapsed under her. “I have to make a plan for the kids and me to go forward, “she mumbled, not wanting to use too much energy to speak.” You can’t help me with that either.”
Successfully rebuffed, Jase smiled flatly, stepping back and opening the car door as she reached it. “Take care of yourself then,” he urged as she collapsed inside. “And be careful.”
“You know,” Felicity turned back, her thoughts flowing freer once she didn’t have to support her body. “I’ve been a little uneasy around him lately. Like I wasn’t sure whether or not to be scared of him. But this explains everything.” She shouldn’t share with this man, but she needed to get the words out. “This is an awful situation, but it’s a different kind of fear than I had imagined. On one level, it’s harder to deal with. But on another level, it’s more tangible and so it’s more solvable.”
“But you’ll be careful?” Jase pressed, as if he didn’t agree with her.
“I’ll be careful,” she smiled at him from the far side of her mind. “Thank you.” Without looking back, she put the car in drive. Steeling herself, she headed back to confront her husband.