The Poison Morality (37 page)

“That’s ridiculous, she knows I would do anything for her, I have done unspeakable things for her.  And I would still, none of that has changed.”  He dropped down on the side of the bed exhausted not wanting to go down the path that Sydney was leading him but knowing he had to as she was the key to getting to Sophie.

She sat beside him, “Can you know, can you understand, the difference between us?  Because if you can’t….”

“Oh yes,” he interrupted, jumping up again, staring down at her, “even my heart knows the difference.  The body is there but I could never love you as I do Sophie.  And if I wanted to blame her for anything,” he squinted, accusingly at her, “I don’t have to when I can blame you,” he pointed at her with every word he said.  “Why would she think that the baby’s not mine, unless,
you’ve
been with someone else,” he looked suspiciously at her, she sat on the bed, he sat beside her, leaning back on one hand partially turned towards her, and the other hand lingered on her middle.

“It’s a matter of timing…” she paused, “you and Sophie were only together the once,” she revealed, waiting for him to do the math.  “And believe it or not, I’ve only been with you… and Josie.”

There was quiet contemplation and then the realization that…, “The first time… was with you,” he was suddenly repulsed at the idea that he had been tricked by her.

“Precisely.  Ironically, I can’t really tell her so you have to.  That’s why I asked if you could tell the difference between us because you couldn’t that night and you couldn’t when I told you to get rid of Mariella.”

Oliver frowned at her, his brows furrowed together, “Any other time I need to know about?”

“No.”

“But you were pretending to be Sophie; I can see it, now I know you and what to look for.  But it wasn’t you the
whole
night,” his thoughts lingered on thoughts of the kiss, her apprehension, and then her acquiesce and sudden eagerness. 

“When she started to leave that night,
I
was the one who decided to stay,” her mouth tilted at the corner, pleased.

“Why not let her go instead?”

Sydney rolled her eyes and sighed, leaning back on her hands, the baby taking up too much space, “Did you want her to go?”

“No, of course not, but I wanted her to want to be there.  Not very intuitive are you,” he said, sarcastically; it was like a slap in the face, wiping the smirk off of it.

“I had to have sex with you.  If she left, you might have lost interest.  Oh, believe me, she wanted to be there all right,” she replied defensively.

“Your ideas about men are as distorted as Sophie’s.  You had no need to have sex with me to keep me interested, as you told me before, you know what I wanted,” he said the anger rising and dissipating almost immediately; his hand went from the baby to his heart.
“I already adored her.”  He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, elbows on knees, “Was getting pregnant part of your plan to seduce me?  Becoming what you thought I wanted the most,” he asked repeating her definition.

“No, but we weren’t very careful were
we
,” they both became quiet, both to blame for the happy predicament.  “Ollie, I just want you to know, what you said at the house about,” she fingered the duvet nervously, “well basically telling me I’m no different than Declan.  You’re right except my intentions were good, you see that don’t you?”

He stood in front of the window, leaning on the wall with his hands behind his back trying to keep from touching her, “I do, but that doesn’t change the fact that she was almost killed because of you.  You gambled with her life,” his tone changed, cold and solemn.

“Is this your warning to me,” both her eyebrows shot up defiantly, “Look, I can feel guilty about it and that emotion will take its toll on Sophie as well or we can be relieved that it’s over and Sophie will get the normality she’s always wished for.  You do the same thing with your injections.”

“I
never
put her in danger.”

“No but you kill, you fill people up with morphine, is it,” the sarcasm dripped from her words.

“To end their suffering,” he justified.

“And if you get caught, what happens to Sophie, to your baby?  You can’t be married to the job anymore, if you’re going to be a father.”

“I know,” he nodded in agreement.   “I’ve known for a while that I was going to have to change just to be with Sophie but now, I want to be there for both of them.  Does she know the men she killed and why she killed them?”

“Yes.”

He waited for her to elaborate but when she didn’t he asked, “Is she alright with it?”

“There’s something you have to understand about Sophie and why I did what I did,” she struggled on her feet, instinctively he reached a hand to her but she didn’t need to take it.  “Any of them could have done it to someone else, strangers, teenagers, their children, or someone else’s.  Sophie would have felt the weight of that possibility her whole life.  Eventually, she could have remembered and it would have pressed down on her until everything became too painful to bear.  And I couldn’t let that happen,” she was so close now, he could smell her, bend over slightly and put his lips on hers but they were so distinct, he wasn’t even tempted, “Sophie…
feels
… everything,” emphasizing every word to underline its truth.

“It was one of the first things I learned about her, even though she tried to hide it.”  He reached to take her hand but thought twice about it, his fingertips brushing her knuckles.

“One mistake or a thousand, it doesn’t matter.  Sometimes to forget a memory you have to eliminate the source of it, just to survive, just to know for sure it can’t happen again,” it was a random thought not meant to justify, she looked beyond him, out the window at the city skyline. 

A few moments of silent contemplation passed between them, each taking the meaning.  It cancelled out his belief in memories, what Mariella told him and what he told Sophie.  It was true sometimes but not all the time. 

“I’m sorry about Sam.  I really am.  I had no idea that Josie was capable of such a thing.” Oliver took a deep breath, trying to read her face but all he could find was the sincerity of the apology in her dark eyes.  

“If Declan was telling the truth,” Oliver crossed his arms across his chest and stared at his bare feet.

“I’m sure he was.  She was foolish when it came to Declan; she did anything he asked of her willingly but she turned the tables on him.”

“Did you love her?” 

Sydney squinted suspiciously but he didn’t say it to be callous.  “She could have had my heart if it was mine to give and she hadn’t already given hers to Declan only to be wasted.  She loved me I’m sure and I guess she just couldn’t resist doing what he wanted her to do.”  She seemed hurt and disappointed, “Don’t tell Sophie whatever you do.  When you’re filling in gaps, leave that one empty, otherwise, it will set you back beyond the point of return.”

His head shot up, “Are you saying you’ll tell me where to find her?”

“I’m here to tell you where you can find her so you can tell her all she needs to know including what she doesn’t remember and needs to know about that night in the house and that you’re the father of her child.”

Aggravated, he grabbed her arms, she flinched, “I can’t stand this, I am telling her.  I’m talking to her now!”

“This is what I’m talking about,” jerking away, “You have to know the difference.”

“Why won’t she come home to me, talk to me, come out now?”  His eyebrows creased together concerned.

“She’s found a new home, much nicer than this dump,” she wrinkled her nose as she looked around, “don’t know how she lived here so long.”

“Tell me where she lives,” approaching her, he was inches from her face but didn’t touch her again.

“That wouldn’t be very wise, would it?  You know Sophie; if you show up on her doorstep suddenly she will panic.  No I’m here to tell you that she frequents Regent’s Park and she can tell you where she lives when she’s ready.”

“Regent’s Park is….,” he was going to say huge but he grabbed the sketch book that sat by the bedside that he wanted desperately to look at but couldn’t since the night they ate Chinese takeaway in her living room.   Picture after picture of people, places, and things but most of them were areas of Regent’s Park and when he saw the drawings of the
Triton Fountain, located in the Queen Mary’s Gardens, he knew that was her special place.

He looked at Sydney knowingly, yet dismayed, “The answer was here the whole time and I,” he sat on the edge of the bed staring at the pictures,
berating himself.  Her words came back to him, ‘Regent’s Park is my favourite in the whole city.  It was my safe haven’, one fist pressed against his lips and he choked on more tears, “I missed it, how could I miss it?”

One tear slid down his cheek and he looked up at Sydney, “How did I miss it?”

Sydney looked a little surprised that he was asking her that question with sincerity.  She could feel the love between them, caught in the middle as it were, his blue eyes filled with tears, staring at her, waiting for an answer, “Love can reveal and conceal, you know that as well as I.  If she hadn’t broken your heart you might have remembered but Ollie, all it took was a reminder.  Sometimes that’s how the mind works; it just needs a key to open where the heart has shut it.”

He chuckled slightly, “That sounds like something Mariella would say.”  He sniffed back the tears.

“For God’s sake Ollie, don’t compare me to both parents, Declan was enough thank you.”

“Why didn’t you come sooner?”

“I came now because…” she was thinking, “she was distraught about me and she ran from you, because of her love for you.  Then she went to Declan’s funeral and then found out she was pregnant.  When the math didn’t add up she was…is terrified to be a mother without you.  She’s been trying to figure out a way to communicate with you but she’s just too scared to tell you and thinks that you are in danger from me.”  She answered matter of fact.  “She needs
you
.”

“And if she has me, you might become obsolete.  Is that what you want?”

“What
I
want is peace for Sophie.  It’s my job to protect her from herself and your job to protect her from everything else,” she said with emphasis and turning to walk back out the door without so much as a peck on the cheek.  And as much as it was killing him to watch her go, he knew he had to let her.

“
Sydney,” it was the first time he actually addressed her by name since the house, she turned, “thank you.”

“If Sophie is happy, I’m happy.  I can do a lot of things for her but that’s not one of them.  That’s all you.”

“Will she be there tomorrow?”

“It depends on how she feels because of this,” she said, pointing a finger at her middle.  “Some days she goes, some days she doesn’t depending on how much she’s sicked up or how tired she is.”  Turning, she walked another step and turned back around.

“Do me a favour, will you?”

He didn’t answer but waited not ready to agree to anything Sydney asked for.  “Before you go to her, there’s a curio shop in Chinatown that has a necklace, a jade heart with Chinese engraved on it in the window.  She loves it but she would never buy it for herself.”

“I’ll get it for her.”  He smiled.

“Good man.  She never thought she could be loved by a good man until you came along and loved her, a good man.  Oh and for God’s sake clean yourself up.  You look…pitiful.”  And with that she was gone as quietly as she came.

Oliver dropped to his knees, sobbing tears of release and joy.  His head rested on his crossed arms on the side of the bed.  He would see her, his mind started racing of all the things he needed to do before he saw her.  He wanted to camp out at the park, wanted to be there when she arrived, not wanting to waste a single second but he couldn’t just go to her.

There were things that had to be done first, put in place for their future.  A new home for them, he would quit the hospital and search for a job that gave him time to be with his new family.  As much as he wanted to see her, he didn’t want to go empty handed.  Not to mention a quick trip to Chinatown.

But tonight he would return to himself first, when he went to her he had to go as Oliver, not this dishevelled shell of a man that missed her so much he could hardly get out of bed.  Looking in the bathroom mirror, he looked appalling to himself; it was like looking at another person, a stranger.   Is that what it feels like to be Sydney?  To look in the mirror and feel like you don’t have an identity?

Dark circles rimmed his eyes from lack of sleep and red from crying, his face covered in two days’ worth of facial hair, maybe longer; curiously a little redder than he thought it would be, having been clean shaven since he started shaving, his tousled locks curled around his face.  In the previous weeks, it was all he could do to wash and feed himself, giving everything to his patients and his search for Sophie.  Tasks for him seemed too burdensome and trivial.

He felt the stubble on his face and thought; this would be what Sophie would see when he found her and he wouldn’t want to see her reaction to this.  That evening he shaved, waiting for food to come.  When it arrived, he forced himself to eat even though his appetite was still gone, his stomach in knots, nervous with anxiety and excitement.