He Stands at the End of Memory

When Vivienne Carter married Sebastian Cross at twenty-two, everyone said how lucky she was.

He was ten years older, a mafia Don with terrifying power in his hands, and yet for three years he doted on her alone.

He indulged her in everything, kept her sheltered under his wing, tender and attentive down to the smallest detail.

Only in the dead of night did he turn possessive and overpowering, taking without limit, never once relenting even when she begged him through tears.

She had always been certain she was the one thing he loved.

Then her father died without warning. Drowning in grief, she called him ninety-nine times, and every call was cut off.

In an instant, a single photo shattered every illusion she had.

On a Paris street softened by dusk, the man she'd loved for three years was bending to hold another woman.

That woman, gentle-featured and faintly resembling her, was her cousin.

On the day of my father's funeral, my husband, Sebastian, never came after all.

Night fell, and Sebastian came home.

He saw how pale and worn my face was and reached out to comfort me. I turned my head away.

"This is my fault, baby. Something came up in Paris and I had to deal with it. Whatever you want, I'll make it up to you, okay?"

After a long silence, I lifted my hand and slid two neatly folded documents across to him. "Sign them."

Sebastian looked relieved. Without so much as glancing at what they were, he picked up a pen and signed his name.

As far as he was concerned, anything I wanted, whatever it was, he'd agree to without hesitation.

"Anything you and the baby need, I'll give you, sweetheart."

I'd just opened my mouth to say something when his phone cut sharply through the quiet.

The name flashing on the screen was the one he kept pinned at the top and never let me see. Serena.

Serena, my cousin.

He ended the call and gave an awkward little laugh, then pressed a light kiss to my forehead. "There's a deal I have to close. I've got to go make money for our baby. I'll spend real time with you next time, all right?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed his coat and turned to go, hurried, without a trace of reluctance.

The house sank into dead silence, the empty space pressing down until it was hard to breathe.

I sank slowly back onto the couch.

Countless images flooded in without warning, every small piece of the last three years.

Sebastian had treated me well, so well that every woman in the city envied me.

I slept badly, so for three years he held me on his side every night and pulled the blanket over me, never once letting it slip.

Whenever we fought, right or wrong, he was always the first to soothe me and the first to apologize. He would swallow his own feelings rather than let me feel slighted, and he never touched work until I had cooled down.

Once, in the middle of the night, I wanted to see the rain-soaked streets, and he simply ordered the whole road cleared. Every car was banned, and an entire busy avenue opened quietly for me alone.

Back then I drowned in that kind of devotion, endlessly grateful, sure I was the luckiest woman alive.

I naively believed that was love, that year after year of safety lay ahead.

But the day my father died, ninety-nine unanswered calls and one photo of an embrace on a Paris street broke the beautiful three-year illusion to pieces.

After hesitating a long time, I rose from the cold floor and walked to the deepest part of the house, to the hidden basement Sebastian had never let me set foot in.

The moment the heavy iron door swung open, a biting cold rushed at me, and the blood in my veins went still.

The entire basement was packed full, every inch of it a trace of Serena.

Her portraits covered the walls. The shelves held neat rows of candid shots of her, photos from her awkward school years, even doodles she had scribbled without thinking. On the vanity sat the perfume and jewelry she always wore, each piece wiped spotless, each one carefully kept.

So every bit of tenderness, every indulgence, every favor he had shown me had never been because I was Vivienne.

It was only because I had a face that looked so much like Serena's.

The cold swept through me and my heart ached in a thousand tiny places, yet I could not squeeze out a single tear.

It did not matter.

He had lied to me for three whole years, but this time he was not going to win.

I picked up the phone and called immigration to start the paperwork. Sebastian, let us never see each other again.

I bent to pick up the two signed documents from the table, my fingertips brushing over his sharp handwriting.

The first was the divorce agreement.

The second was the abortion consent form.

Inside me was a child not yet two months along, one I had once pinned all my hopes on, believing this bond could tether his tenderness to me.

Now I saw the child was nothing but the most ridiculous accessory to this absurd deception.

Sebastian, cling to the obsession you will never have for the rest of your life.

I hoped you would spend every year in regret, and never once feel whole.