Page 4 of Now & Forever
Still, such events that not even the likes of James could have ever foreseen, put unprecedented strains on their relationship.
Before that night, we were as happy as ever.After that night, they had drifted apart, until Gwen often wondered how much more she could take before she opted for the stipend and moving to the west coast. Alone.
Albert was one of her least favorite people.Hewas the one who conspired with the Welshes to get the grandson he didn’t think he would otherwise have, since Gwen wasn’t good enough, and she and James had often discussed the idea of never having children. Something he probably ran by his father a time or two, considering the family was already small and had amassed quite the fortune over the generations.
Thatman was the family type. Not that he was ever so involved, James made sure to explain, but he loved the idea of children and probably thought of them as proof of his virility.“Must’ve sent him mad to know his wife could only have one.”Like it had driven him mad when he realized he and his real love, Sarah Welsh, would never be together as anything more than an illicit affair that transcended decades.James’s mother is more humiliated than I am on a daily basis.
This family was so fucked.
After the awkward dinner concluded and presents were exchanged over cherry pie, James insisted that he had an early meeting Monday morning and needed to get home. Albert asked his son to stay at the family estate and leave early in the morning, but the matter had already been decided once Gwen impatiently waited in the passenger seat of James’s latest vehicular acquisition, a 2018 Jaguar coupe. She popped some gum into her mouth and willed the car to get them home as quickly as possible. The only thing worse than awkward dinners like that were the awkward silences that always ensued on the drives home.
“God,” James muttered as they pulled out of the estate’s driveway, “I hope I didn’t have too much wine.”
“I didn’t have enough.”
That was all they said during the twenty-five-minute drive home.
For the past five years, they had made their primary residence a two-story colonial manor (James swore it would’ve been a proper manor in the 18thcentury, but now it was simply charming) in a gated community that boasted as many expendable heirs as it did self-made millionaires. Having a proper house suited them more than living in a penthouse or expansive apartment downtown. Besides, the community was only a ten-minute drive from the city center, and that accounted for mild traffic. All the amenities without the hectic pace of city life.
James hid in his man cave –Sorry, his office –while Gwen took a long, hot shower and kicked her heels up in front of the TV with a bottle of hard cider in her hand. Their one live-in servant, Rebecca, asked the lady of the house if she required any other refreshments before turning in for the night. Gwen asked her what the hell she was doing asking that on the staffs’ day off. Deferential until the end, Rebecca retreated to her private quarters on the other side of the house.
“Did you know,” Gwen asked John Oliver on HBO, “that Rebecca camehighlyrecommended by James’s parents when we were in the market for a new maid?” She wanted to gag. While Rebecca was more than qualified to take care of a vintage house while the owners kept to their deliriously busy schedules, she was also a trained doula and nanny. The hint hadn’t been bigger if Albert Merange rented a billboard to tell Gwen to get knocked up if she insisted on infiltrating the family.
James stumbled into the shower without a word to his partner. Gwen finished her cider and crawled into bed, hoping that the alcohol would make her eyelids heavy.
The bed sank with James’s added weight a few minutes later. For a brief, hypnotic second, Gwen was pulled in by the scent of his shampoo and the sandalwood soap he used on the rest of his body. That’s what happened when she was half-asleep and presented with the comforts of their past – she forgot everything that had happened and happily slung her arm across her partner’s chest.
He held her hand in his, chest slowly rising and falling with his breaths. Gwen would have forgotten what she was always so angry about if it weren’t for him opening his mouth.
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
She slowly opened her eyes to the darkness of their bedroom. “I’m going to brunch with one of the fundraising committees I’m on. Then I guess I’m going to the gym. Why? What are you doing after your morning meetings?”
His silence spoke a thousand words.
“To the Welshes?”
“Yeah.”
Gwen turned over without a word. She loved James, and loved that he was willing to be a father to a boy he never knew existed until a year ago, but the amount of time he spent at Welsh Grove visiting his son made her nervous. Not the part about the boy.
The part about everyone else in that family, constantly conspiring to marry him to a woman he claimed to have never loved – likethat.
