Ascending to the sixth floor of the Pinnacle, Eloise had recalled all the events that lead to her current circumstances. It was his work, that was the start of it. He didn’t have to merge with that company, he didn’t have to keep it a secret from me – what he plans on doing – or any of it. His whole life is a secret.

She remembered how she tried to stick it out for a while and continued to live with him, but after several months he was barely recognizable as her husband. When she tried to interact with him he would only respond half the time, and yet those times were only managed with some sense of vulgarity.

And with what impeccable timing, Eloise admitted sarcastically, for this was right before she had found out that she was pregnant.

As the elevator slowed to a stop, she already had her hand pressed against the inside of the door, as if she could transfer her hurry to the mechanical process.

Gliding her way to the entrance of room 606, she was now digging for her key; but stopped short when she saw the door. It was open.

She yelled out when she passed through, “Alastair!? Alastair, are you here?”

She looked around frantically over the immediate spaces, but he was nowhere to be seen.

In here. Eloise felt that small impression in her mind, giving away her husband’s coordinates.

With her keys still in hand, Eloise rushed to Arran’s room. There she found Alastair’s tall figure relaxing on the frame of Arran’s crib.

It was odd to see him then – after all this time. He had practically missed her entire pregnancy, not to mention the first six months of his son’s life. Two years all together basically. But here he was now, popping up in her flat as if nothing had changed. Any woman’s wrath henceforth would therefore be justified in this kind of situation. But on the contrary, Eloise, to her surprise, felt in herself a deep longing for what she was seeing: as if she had somehow been dropped into a world where nothing had in fact changed – a once-upon-a-time land where everything had fallen into place like it should’ve. Walking closer, she shook herself out of that fantasy and into more reasonable questioning: Had her husband changed at all?

Seeing her, he brought his index finger to his mouth to signal hushed tones.

“What are you doing here?” her volume only half obeying his caution.

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“Our child is sleeping, Eloise. Please be quiet.”

Remembering Arran, her attention became fixed on the baby in the crib.

After being confident that it indeed was her child, she tilted her head up to face Alastair.

“Why did you take him?”

“What – a man can’t see his own son?”

Eloise was taken aback by his manner. She was expecting to see shades of the Alastair she had recently known, the more sinister version; but this wasn’t quite that. Even so, she gave him a look that indicated she was in no mood to humor him.

She then opened her mouth as if she were about to say more, but her nerves got the best of her. She frowned in embarrassment. To not speak when one has the mind to say something was deemed unaesthetic and she detested it. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel a crawling shiver as she looked at the man before her.

Alastair didn’t say anything more. He had only returned his watch to the child in the crib.

“You must know he’s an Innocent,” Eloise said finally.

“Ah, such is life, my wife,” Alastair remarked as one inescapably subjected to the Fates.

“Apparently he has a rare combination.”

“Fluency and Passion,” Alastair confirmed. “It’s practically an open sesame to insignificance.”

She frowned at this. She had made the remark hoping it might lead to optimism.

Then Alastair heard from his wife what he had not heard for a very long time: a plead.

“What can we do for him?”

He looked at his wife then and saw the sincerity in her eyes.

In that moment, he felt a sting of regret swell in his emotion. Though not to say that he was sorry per se; it was more akin to god’s righteous remorse for having made man. He was sorry for his existence, he was sorry for Eloise; and now, looking into the crib, he was sorry for the life that he had brought into this world.

He then recalled something a French Algerian philosopher once wrote: “…Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage.”

What? Eloise interjected after having extended her energy to catch his thought.

Looking at his wife he spoke, “We’ll do what we can, Eloise, but you must remember that fortune and doom are hardly controllable outcomes. Sometimes you can make your fate, yes; but at other times,” his shoulders shrugged in surrender, “it’s your fate that makes you.”

“Even so, I still like to think it’s us,” she moved her searching eyes over Alastair’s face, “that each of us are able to make our own fate.”

Alastair drew closer with a growing smile. “As do I, my wife.”

This was certainly a different Alastair, Eloise thought to herself, and surprisingly it wasn’t bad – dare she say nice?

She looked over his smile. That gorgeous smile. She often imagined what remnants of his body were purely his. That is, what phenotypic expressions would still show up without him having had the genetic modifications. But she never entertained wonder when she got to his mouth. For being one of a long line of Brits, she could only suppose for him some various form of disfiguration – something that bespoke his Eastern European heritage. Yet, what Alastair bore was in fact a set of perfectly straight teeth.

Eloise returned a smile of her own. And as she reached to softly place her hand over his, it was then that Alastair heard again something that had long been unspoken.

She said, thank you.