Page 24 of Searching for Hope

There’s something almost sacred about the space. It’s mainly bare, causing our footsteps to echo loudly. His bed is bathed in colored moonlight that streams through the stained-glass window. His clothes hang on racks in one corner. There’s a door off to the side, a leather sofa and a gilded mirror than runs the entire length of one wall. The arched window is a mosaic of color, depicting two swans locked in battle, almost the same design as he sports on his back. I walk past the bed and over to the window, staring up at it in wonder.

“It’s beautiful.”

Jericho steps behind me. I can feel the heat of him, and it makes me want to lean back and find security resting against his chest.

“It took months to get it restored.” He runs a finger over the seam of one of the pieces. “It’s part of the reason I bought the place. It reminded me of her. She was obsessed with swans. We used to watch them floating across the water on a pond near where we grew up. Hope said she found them peaceful. There were black ones, only black ones.” He takes his hand off the glass as though it suddenly burned him. “There was no explanation of why it was here. No story behind it, but I felt it was calling to me. Telling me something. Once Ette was born, Hope got a tattoo on her hip of a swan. Her ode to Odette.” He smiles sadly. “I’ve had dreams about this piece of art ever since I’ve moved in. That’s why I got it tattooed on my back. I thought if I embraced it, it might stop haunting me.”

“And did it?”

“It just made it worse.” He shakes his head. “Looking back now, it was stupid of me to spend all that money on restoring it.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It is,” he agrees. “But it’s pointless. I should have…” He sighs and sits on the edge of the bed.

“Art isn’t pointless.”

“There were other places I could have spent it, that’s all.”

I perch myself next to him. The weariness is still there. It weighs on him. And I want to be the one that lifts it. His solace in a time of trouble. I want to be the one he looks to for comfort and distraction. But the good kind of distraction. The kind that once you indulge, it feeds you.

I clear my throat. “I feel like it would help if I understood a little more about what happened. More about Hope.”

His eyes dart to mine. There’s uncertainty in them. And fear.

“Please?” I add.

He sighs and leans back on the bed. I lie beside him and tilt my head to rest against his shoulder. The peaked rafters are high above us making me feel small and insignificant in the vast space. I feel both at home and like an intruder in his room. In fact, it’s the same way I feel about him. He confuses me.

He picks at the blanket, not looking at me as he speaks. “She was my best friend.” He sighs deeply, as though it pains him to speak of her. “She was only a couple years younger. I was the quiet one, the one who stood to the side and watched while everyone else played. Hope wasn’t. She was the one who made friends, the one who the boys wanted to date and the girls wanted to be. They didn’t know the trauma of her home life.” He stops talking and his fingers increase their grip on mine.

“Keep going,” I encourage.

“It’s hard to talk about her.”

“But it’s good to keep her memory alive. Good to remind yourself why you’re doing this.”

His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. He closes his eyes as he speaks. “When I finished school, I started working at local construction sites. Just a lackey, a boy for them to order around, but at least it brought in some much-needed money. Mum had left by that stage, so it was up to me to look after everyone. I did my best. I worked three different jobs, never had a day off but, in the process, it meant that Hope was left to herself. She met an older man, a married man.” His voice tightens. “She got pregnant. She was convinced the man was going to leave his wife and marry her, but of course, that never happened. He tried to make her get rid of it but, although she was only seventeen, Hope wanted that kid more than anything else in the world. After she told him that, he refused to have anything to do with her. She was heartbroken.” Jericho stops picking at the blanket and his fist clenches. “But as soon as the baby was born, his wife somehow found out about the affair and told him she wanted to bring up the child as their own. So, they filed for custody.”

He relays it all so bluntly. It’s as though he’s not trying to think about it, and instead, merely relaying the facts. The only thing that gives a hint of his distress is the timbre of his voice. Every so often it quivers and shakes as though he’s struggling for control.

“I was doing everything I could to support her, but you know first-hand how money can sway the court processes. She was terrified of losing Ette. They could offer Ette a home, two parents, a secure life. All she had to offer Ette was love. She was living alone, determined to prove that she could make it on her own but Ette’s father kept threatening her, doing everything he could to make her give Ette up, but she refused.”

He opens his eyes and turns to look at me. “He wasn’t a good man. He…” Jericho chews on his bottom lip again. It’s a hypnotic action and I get caught watching it and reliving the taste of his lips on mine. “He just wasn’t a good man. She didn’t want him to be part of Ette’s life.”

His gaze turns back to the ceiling. “So when I discovered a knack for gambling—”

“Wait.” I sit up. “Is that how you made your money? Gambling?”

“Poker especially, yeah. Pathetic, isn’t it?” He gives a resigned laugh. “There’s no great story of my rise through the ranks to become the man I am now. Nope. I merely struck lucky and won a bit of cash.” He props himself onto his elbows. “Does that disappoint you?”

“Disappoint me?” I repeat. “It makes sense actually. I always thought there was something different about you. Like you were pretending. It makes sense that you stumbled into your wealth, kind of.”

His fingers drum over the bedding. “It led me into the life I’m now living. The clubs. The connections. But there’s a part of me which still feels strange living in this skin. It’s like it’s not really mine.”

“So then what happened? She must have won the court case, right? Did your money help her fight it?”

Jericho stands then and starts pacing again. “Yes.” He chews his lip, the skin puffing and turning red under the abuse. “And no.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I paid for us to take a trip. A holiday just to get away from it all before the court case even started.”

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