Chapter 9
ANTHONY'S POV
For a while, my suspicions about this woman had me discover I was wrong about her. Maybe my doubts had led me to realize that I and her are alike.
She's someone who lost her life to building someone else's.
I lost mine when I lost the one person who built mine.
"What makes you say that, sir?" I turn away from her as I try not to remind myself of the past.
She has such a close resemblance to her, even just her voice ties in hauntingly.
"You and I are more alike than you could imagine," I chuckle under my breath as the memories I've pushed down slowly crept back up from the surface of my mind.
"That's why I hired you, you took the job wholeheartedly and I knew then that my son needed a mother figure from how you brought yourself into the room until you left…" But deep down, I knew I felt her in you.
"But, if an opportunity comes during your job here… I hope you don't hesitate to take it, because you have the potential to be somewhere else," I remember her saying that to me, my wife who used to love and believe in me.
"I do have to ask, if you had every resource in the world, what kind of life do you wish it would turn out to be?" I turn to her and I see her glance up at the sky with a saddened look.
"Well, if it were possible… I wish my family had enough resources to never let me and my brother go… To have stopped them from making their decision,"
God, I feel so bad for even asking her in the first place. I thought it would have helped to get to know her with alcohol and see if I was right about my suspicions of her stealing from me, but it turns out she's just going through a dark path as I am.
"I am sorry, Alexa,"
"It's alright, Sir… I've grown used to people asking about my life more than asking how I am," She gives me a small smile before taking her last sip of her drink.
I walk around the island table and pour her more of the cocktail as she watches my actions.
"What about you, sir? How do you wish your life would have turned out?" She asks as she takes a sip from her drink.
I smile at her as I bring my lips to a thin line to think and grab another drink for myself under the counter.
"I wish for my life to still be as is-"
"Oh hell no, now that is a downright lie," I laugh along with her as she says those words.
"No, it's the truth. I love my son as much as you love your brother despite his laziness, but I do want something if it were possible" She looks at me expectantly.
"I wish for my wife to come back," She looks slightly shocked, trying to make out of the situation she had started.
"What happened, if you don't mind me asking, sir?"
I walked back to my seat and contemplated whether to tell her or not.
"I lost my wife during childbirth," I slid out a secret stash of cigarettes from inside the vase beside the bar and took one for myself.
"Want one?" She takes a stick before I slide it back in.
"I had Nolan when I was fresh out of high school, the timing was exquisite as both of my parents had hated me along with my wife's-" I put the cigarette in between my lips and bit it softly to light it, which afterward I passed the lighter to her.
"My wife, Cecile, was 14 at the time, and I was 15… Her Christian family kicked her and I decided to take her in, I told my parents the truth and inevitably they didn't have much choice but to accept her," I take breathe as I inhale the smoke and exhaled with a sigh.
"I understand my son's rebellious antics and his moments when he would run off somewhere I don't know,"
I turn to her and take a drink from my bottle leaving it half full.
"The first time he did that was when he was 14, the same age his mother had him… I thought he might've felt ashamed about hiding Kathy, but it was just one of his hobbies gone mad."
"What do you mean?" Alexa asks as she inhales the cigarette butt for a smoke.
"He got into a fist fight and got scared of coming home after he got a terrible bruising… He came home one day with Kathy, she helped him hide it for while until he stopped using makeup and eventually told me" I explained, throwing away the butt on the floor as I finished it.
"I'm happy that he is make choices of his own, that he isn't making the same mistake as I had." I feel her turn to me with a concerned look that had me assumed she took the wrong idea.
"I don't hate my wife nor my son, I knew my life changed the moment my son cried in my arms after the doctor called both of them dead… I thought I lost him too, but I didnt" As I finished, I take my last drink from the bottle which had started to come on my system.
"I should better get going now sir, I'm sorry for asking you about your private life" Alexa steps unto her feet and I could see her covering her body with her ragged jacket.
"Don't be, I should be the one apologizing…" I got off my seat and walk towards her, putting my hand over her shoulder.
"I understand how it feels to lose yourself in order to keep everything at balance, you're far so young to be handling such responsibility which I commend you for…" I feel tears brimming my eyes, remembering my wife's teary eyes before she died.
"I'll be off, I'm sorry…" I turned and walked off with the towel in hand.
Climbing up the steps and entering my bedroom, I walk towards my drawer where my aged whiskey and glasses were placed.
Taking the glass bottle and a glass on my other hand, I sat by a chair in my balcony as I stared at the night sky.
Taking a sip from my glass, the strong alcohol lingered in my mouth and trailing a sharp note on the back of my note to help me hold back my tears once more.
"Oh, Cecile… Why have you come to haunt me?"
As I couldn't hold it back any longer, the drift of the memory played in my head as I hear his father's yelling and leaving them at the mansion after his wife had been complaining of cramps.
"She is your wife, you deal with her!" My father yells as he picks up his keys as my mother followed behind him with an apologetic look.
"But, Father, she needs to go to the hospital!"
"And we have a dinner party to attend to, Anthony! Your name is at stake because of the woman, and because of her you and everything else in your future will crumble!"
As my father leaves, I hear faint footsteps behind me followed by a thud and soft groaning.
Following the sound, I hurriedly rushed to my lover in pain on the floor.
"Tony, it hurts so bad-" Cecile cried as she held her grown belly with tears pouring from her eyes.
"Cece, it's alright, my love… Just breathe, I'll call the butler to drive us to the hospital-"
Soon as we were driving there, traffic occured for the longest time I thought I couldn't endure.
"Anthony, God! I feel my back ripping me apart!" Cecile cries out as she hold my hand as my own way of supporting her but I knew there wasn't much of a relief to it.
"It is going to be alright, my love… Trust me- Jared, get us to a faster route, please… Please I beg of you!"
Arriving at the first hospital, they denied me any service or of my poor wife. They told me my father had rang them to keep them away, and I knew we had to go somewhere we didn't have insurance for.
By the time we arrived, I could see my child's head popping in between my wife's legs and her water and blood pouring at the backseat. The doctors came rushing to her aid and informed me that she was in a critical state because of her posture in her seat. That her ribbage had been broke by the size of her belly and her diaphragm had pushed her lungs up even more.
As I held my wife during labor, I was alarmed that the doctor's could take out my child from the exit.
"What- what 's going on?" I cried as I look over to my wife who was quivering on my hold and her lips pale white.
"Sir, we have to ask you to leave?" A resident nurse ushers me out because I push pass her as I try to reach my wife again.
"Wait, why? My wife needs me- Cece! Cecile!"
I cried as two more nurse pushed me out of the operation room and the guards outside held me back from entering again.
I watched by the window and saw her eyes full of fear. My heart had been broken that the moment I saw her eyes closed at the sound of her heart monitor flat lined.
The doctor had arrived with my son's incubator that had reported him in a 50/50 state, that's when my parents and hers came in utter shock.
I couldn't hold myself back that day, that I punched my father's face multiple time to give him a broken nose.
But his broken nose couldn't bring back the woman I love and the child I could have… But then, Nolan cried.
It was like a miracle… And he was the only one I had left of her.
"Cecile, my love… How have I become?" I cried as I drank myself to waste and tipping the glass bottle dry, finishing it in one single go.
"How I love you so," I cheers my glass to the sky before drinking the last whiskey away.