Page 27 of So Close

My employer once again takes his meal alone in his office. His wife attempted to refuse dinner, but I was able to coax her to eat a quickly made soup she helped prepare.

I’ve noticed Lily is a competent woman regarding many things, both great and small. She reminds me of my daughter in numerous ways – the beauty and poise, the self-command. And the toughness and proficiency that come from being raised by a mother who is more child than parent. I don’t know if that is the case with Lily because I don’t know how much of her life she’s spent orphaned. Perhaps she’s simply had to parent herself.

She remains a mystery to me, as she does to the man she married. She’s a woman who prefers to listen than to speak, especially about herself, so the details she shared with him long ago were scant, and he – worried about reopening old wounds – questioned little.

“How is she?” Mr Black stands silhouetted against the sparkling Manhattan skyline, his gaze fixed outward through the window, staring sightlessly. The city lights below illuminate the night sky to an ashen grey. He is utterly still, yet itfeelslike he’s tearing the room apart. His inner turmoil never shows, but I hear phantom sounds of glass shattering and wood splintering. Howls of rage and self-inflicted agony.

Like lightning, his wife has charged the penthouse and jolted Mr Black out of his ennui. In so short a time, she’s become vital to the household. I cannot imagine returning to our lives as they were before, just as I can’t imagine the removal of her portrait from my employer’s bedroom. It’s a fixture, something that has simply always been. Her presence in the penthouse feels the same; she is corporeal now, but she has always been here.

“She seems unruffled by the questioning,” I answer casually, although I’m concerned. The detectives dropped by unannounced to speak with her further, despite having already interviewed her while she underwent physical therapy in hospital. On both occasions, she waved off the suggestion of legal counsel, saying it was unnecessary. “I overheard laughter among them, and when the detectives left, they appeared to be in a good mood.”

“She got to them,” he says, sounding weary. “She charmed and dazzled them. It’s what she does, and she’s very, very good at it. You’ve seen her in action.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Looking over his shoulder, my employer laughs softly. “She’s taken a different tack with you, Witte, but you’re just as bowled over as they are.”

I don’t know whether I should be offended. “Sir?”

“One moment she’s a stranger, the next you love her.” He turns his back to me again. “There are people who can light up a room. Her gift is to take all the light with her when she leaves.”

Abruptly, I comprehend how insightful his statement is. It isn’t simply Mrs Black’s charisma that’s remarkable. It’s how reluctant one is to separate from her and how acutely one misses her when she’s absent.

He walks over to the brass cocktail trolley. Lifting the cut-crystal decanter, he pulls out the stopper and pours two fingers of Macallan Fine and Rare. He holds the whiskey up in silent offer.

“No, thank you, sir.” I wait a beat, then, “I’ve taken the liberty of giving Mrs Black one of the tablets so she can amuse and edify herself.”

Neither one of them has discussed providing her with a mobile. Perhaps Mr Black just hasn’t thought of it. Why his wife hasn’t expressed a desire to connect with old friends is more curious.

“That’s fine,” he tells me. “She knows to behave.”

I frown at his back, having no idea what he means. It’s not my place to question him, though. To advise, yes, but never to pry.

He collects his glass and moves to the desk, sinking into the chair with practised grace. We’d worked on that poise for months when I saw how he dropped into seats like a bag of rocks. To sit elegantly is second nature to him now.

While Mr Black is drinking deeply, his gaze sees something I cannot.

By chance, I spied him in their shared sitting room last night, his palms and forehead pressed against the door leading through Lily’s wardrobe into her bedroom. I understand his captivation. His wife is beguiling and lovely, a rival for the young Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh or Hedy Lamarr – classic, timeless beauties with sultry sensuality and girlish smiles.

I suspect he watches her sleep some nights; a chair in the corner of her room has been repositioned to face the bed. The altered placement has become apparent only since she awakened. He was reluctant to enter her room while she was comatose, as if he feared being present when consciousness returned to her. After her reaction to seeing him on the street, his caution was thoughtful.

His longing is truly a horrible thing. Or is it guilt? The woman whose memory has haunted him waits, yet he denies them both. She is not the woman we found crossing the street, a woman who ran from him with terror whitening her face. The Lily who shares the master suite would welcome him with open arms. She tells him so with her eyes, the searing green almost unworldly. She goads him with her tantalizing smiles and provocative messages. Sexual tension seethes when they are in proximity to each other, evident to all. I’ve scolded the maids for whispering about it, and Mr Black’s family was put on notice by its strength.

I clear my throat to ease the tightness. Love heals some; for others, it’s an agony. “You could be a comfort to each other,” I suggest, “if you went to her.”

“Lily was never a comfort, Witte. Joy, yes. Ecstasy. Every moment with her was euphoric, but under the rush, I know she’s an addiction that’s eating me alive. I’ll always need another fix, and I’ll accept any conditions to get it.”

I’m cognizant that a man in the grip of obsession – especially with a woman – is capable of anything. My employer is a man who was denied love his entire life until he met Lily. He was cursed with a father who abandoned him to poverty, a mother who abandoned him to pacify her second husband, and siblings twisted by jealousy. Lily’s love is the rarest, most precious of treasures to him. But she ran when she saw him. Why? I can’t stop asking myself that question.

The truth lies within the seven days before she disappeared, a week in which they married, and Mr Black became entitled to her fortune upon her passing.

He sips from his glass, his gaze on her lip print.

It’s a quiet dismissal, but my feet won’t move. His inaction suspends us like insects in amber. It can’t go on indefinitely. “You should know she’s eating less with every meal. It was an effort to convince her to have a bowl of soup before retiring.”

His gaze sharpens with alarm and finds me. “She won’t heal if she doesn’t eat.”

“She might try if you’d join her.”

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