Page 74 of Iron Cross

“Darling, he’s two years old, he’s going to need to sleep in his own bed.”

“Please, Eoghan, you… you haven’t been there. You don’t know him. He’s…” She quieted, turning away as though I had struck her, blush coloring those beautiful cheeks. She must have seen the anger in my features again.

An anger and bitterness I would resolve soon. But not yet. One thing at a bloody time.

“He’s never slept well without me,” she finally said.

I did the only thing I could. I kissed her forehead and gave in.

“We’ll work on it together, sweet Muse,” I said against her skin. “Place him in our bed for now.”

I led her up the way, and though she had initially turned away, to head to the room that used to be ours, I led her by the waist to the grand suite at the end of the hall. The room that had once belonged to my parents was now ours. We were the heads of the household, after all.

Though, in my penance I had often chosen to sleep in the office downstairs, now that she was home everything would change. This haunted house would have new life. My wife, my son, would fill our home with the laughter that had been absent from it for far too long.

When I led her into the suite, she gasped at the opulence inside.

I had seldom seen the room. All I ever saw was the empty bed and the fact that she was not in it. But it was quite grand. A smallchandelier hung near the foot of the hand-engraved, four poster bed. Antique Persian rugs kept the cold of the northern winters from the occupants, and the hand-engraved night stands, and a small reading nook made the room look like it belonged in a castle. Heavy brocade curtains, hand-sewn with ivy and leaf patterns blocked out the outside world, and black bookshelves matched the board and batten walls.

On every empty surface was another ornate pot, with a pretty little stem of snow white blossoms. More orchids for my darling.

“What happened to the green walls?” she asked, her voice a little hoarse, as she quickly glanced around. I wondered if all the change was too much for her. Or did she like it?

I couldn’t tell herwhyI had changed the colors that surrounded me. It would make me look insane. Now that she was home, I’d never felt saner in my life.

“Do you not like it?” I asked, in lieu of an answer.

“No, it’s fine.”

So she didn’t know the significance, or she hadn’t put two and two together yet. That was probably for the best, lest I terrify her again.

She put our son into the bed, tucking him under the heavy duvet. She gently ran her fingers over the boy’s hair, and I watched the two of them as I discarded the clothes of my disguise, and quietly put on the trousers and button-down shirt that was more in line with my station.

For the first time, I realized that our son… snored.

Loudly. Like he was a grown man, with a thirty year smoking habit. Jesus! It gave a strange meaning to the words “sleeping like a baby”. Every time I had used that particular idiom, a snoring little human that sounded like he had a deviated septum was hardly what I imagined.

I wanted a cigarette. I really did.

I wanted to watch them with a drink in hand, and a cigarette in my fingers. I wanted to observe them like I would a painting. Madonna and child.

I had never been a fan of Mary Cassatt and her studies of mothers with their children. But I wondered if I had erred in some way. There was something holy about the way a mother could comfort a child. The way my mother used to comfort me, when she was alive. It was timeless but new. Common and holy.

My fingers itched to sketch them both. Above those shelves were stacks of sketch pads, paper and charcoal, the smell of graphite perfuming the air. I should have hidden them. But I wanted her to understand the depths of my obsession. How I had drawn her, the same way she had sketched me from what I had seen at the coffee shop.

My phone chimed, and I brought it to my ear. I quickly saw Shiny’s name, before I answered, “What?”

Unperturbed by my lack of greeting, Shiny got right down to business. “Jericho Vasiliev and Aoibheann called, and said they would visit soon. They’re leaving their place now.”

“Did you tell them we were here?”

I thought I had forgiven her. I really did. I knew that Shiny and Aoibheann had a particular bond in their hatred for my father. Maybe they also bonded in their hatred for me. I wasn’t sure.

“No, I didn’t Eoghan,” Shiny said, carefully, in that particular tone she used, when she wanted me to know that she meant what she was saying.

I wasn’t sure if I could believe her.

Fuck.

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