Edward’s words sink in, Bobby’s death infuriatingly preventable. Mixed meds. A simple mistake that could have so easily been avoided, and for the Holbecks to know that, how arbitrary and preventable the loss of their son and brother was. It’s realizations like that that can change a person.
I should know; what happened to me at eleven changed who I am.
‘Edward, I love you, but at any point over the last year could you not have told me this? We’ve discussed my family, their deaths, multiple times. Did you not even think to share this with me then?’ I can’t help but be unsettled by this fact.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, fully aware of the inadequacy of the apology. ‘I know. I should have. I’m an idiot and I took the coward’s way out. I don’t know what I thought would happen, that it would just disappear? I mean it’s not as if no one was ever going to mention Bobby.’
Guilt seeps in through the tiny breech opened in our relationship and fills me. I have not told him everything about my childhood. In the same way he kept this from me, I still keep my biggest secret from him. But that is for the best.
‘Your father didn’t mention Bobby,’ I say, a question implicit in the statement. I can’t help wondering if the family don’t talk about Bobby because they feel culpable – for applying too much pressure, for not noticing until it was too late.
‘We really don’t talk about it, I promise you. It isn’t just you. I should have told you. Please don’t think that I price my own loss higher than yours. I just… I guess when he left, the burden passed on to me. I try not to think about the bad places things can go.’ Edward studies me for a moment. ‘Did you like him? My father?’ Edward asks.
‘I did,’ I answer honestly. After a moment I add, ‘I think I passed whatever test that was.’
Edward laughs, his eyes catch mine in the pooling light of streetlamps as we weave on through the streets. ‘Of course you did,’ he says, his tone changing as he observes me.
They say sex and grief are inextricably linked; I feel the shift between us.
He takes my cheek in his hand, almost appraisingly, then softly brushes a thumb over my lip. ‘How could you not? You’re a very unique individual,’ he whispers with an oddly familiar tone, and suddenly I’m back in Robert’s study, the air thick with cigar smoke and dangerous ambiguity. I try to block Edward’s father from my thoughts but in my mind father and son have become mixed; they morph seamlessly.
I feel Edward’s lips on mine, but Robert is there too. I let them happen, the thoughts, even though I know I shouldn’t. I know the warm ache rising inside me is for both of them, and it is tinged with danger and a bitter twist of guilt. It feels wrong, but by God do I want it.
They say your sex drive can go wild during pregnancy. That must be it. A chemical reaction; nothing to do with me, or with my character.
As Edward pulls me close, I become aware of the scent of Robert’s tobacco on me, in my hair, on my clothes. I open my eyes and there is Edward, Robert thirty years younger. I bury my hand in his still dark hair, my body pressing into his, as I desperately try to separate the man I am thinking about from the man I am kissing. The hard ridges of Robert’s tape cassette dig into the skin of my upper thigh through the velvet of my jumpsuit, less than an inch from my silk underwear. I wonder if I should pull away and stop this before it goes any further. But I do not.
As Edward’s lips travel to my neck, my gaze flutters to the Holbecks’ driver, a thick sheet of glass dividing us. His eyes are glued to the road, oblivious.
* * *
Back in the apartment, hours later, I sit on the edge of the bathtub, my feet cold against the tiles. I can’t sleep but it’s not morning sickness this time; it’s everything else.
Bobby, Edward and Robert Holbeck himself.
I tap Bobby’s name into the search bar of my phone. The apartment is silent around me; Edward is fast asleep back in our bed.