The first call Andrew made after getting back to his office was to his agent, Derek. Judging by the sirens going off in the background, Derek must still be at the hospital.
“Hi, it’s Andrew. I just returned from lunch with the editor. How’s your daughter?”
“She’s going to be okay. It’s only a minor fracture. How did the lunch with the new editor go?” Derek questioned, a little breathless.
Andrew considered the best way to approach this, but there was only one way. “She’s my ex-wife.”
“Ashley is your ex-wife?” Derek’s rising intonation peaked at the word ‘wife’.
“Yes.”
“And I’m guessing you guys didn’t part amicably.”
“Yes again.”
Feet shuffled at the other end. Derek had a habit of pacing around when deep in thought.
“I don’t know what to say. Can you work with her?”
“I can,” Actually, he was eagerly awaiting working with her. “I think she’s the most qualified person to edit my autobiography, because she’s lived through part of it. I know she’ll do a good job on it.”
Derek snickered. “It sounds like you’re enamored by her. By her professional skills, I mean.”
Andrew hated to admit that Derek was right.
The years had transformed Ashley into a stunner. She had been a vision—an enticing vision—in a beige skirt that clung to her shapely derriere and the black blouse with a low neck. Only his firm grasp on the past had made him stay glued to his seat… or rather, his mat.
Not that he was even sure that she was single. For all he knew, she might have a boyfriend—a really lucky boyfriend. And hopefully a better one than he had been.
Even if, after all these years, he was attracted to her, he couldn’t make the same mistake twice.
He couldn’t let his selfishness hurt her this time. No matter how much he wanted to kiss those perfect lips, stroke those sandy strands, hear the melody of her laughter… she was the one woman who was forbidden. Dragging her through hell once more would be inhuman.
At twenty-four, he’d had the excuse of inexperience, but at thirty-one, that wouldn’t cut it anymore. He had to stay away from her. That was the only thing that would do.
“Daddy,” a child called. It must be Derek’s daughter.
“Amy, I’m on the phone.”
Amy. Andrew closed his eyes. In his mind, he saw a vivacious girl with the same dark curls and penetrating brown eyes as his agent. Andrew smiled, envisioning rosy cheeks and lips the same color.
Buds of longing grew in him. For a while now, he had been thinking of having kids. At thirty-one, he had finally acquired the financial stability and emotional maturity to be a parent. The only thing he hadn’t acquired was a wife, or rather his wife.
After growing up in a single-parent home, Andrew wasn’t going to raise a child alone. His children would have a mother. A real mother, not a face they only saw in pictures. And that mother would be Ashley. He couldn’t imagine anyone else living with him. Couldn’t even consider kissing anyone else before going to work every day and before going to sleep every night.
Which meant he should forget about kids.
He squeezed the thoughts back to their dark source. His office was no place to be daydreaming.
“Okay, Andrew, I have to go. Amy will eat me up for lunch if I don’t buy her something to eat instead.” Derek said.
“Ha. Bye.” Andrew lay his phone on the table top.
He focused his attention on the flashing screen of his Mac, but saw Ashley’s reflection instead of the spreadsheet. She was going to haunt him all day today, even in his dreams.
The sound of an email arriving into his inbox made him sit up straight. Anticipating an update from the finance department, Andrew clicked on the email without reading the subject.
Blood. That was all he saw before his lungs stuttered and his body started caving in. He had known this was coming since he’d met her.
He shut off the gruesome image flashing on the computer screen with a punch of the power button. Somebody had sent picture of lungs and blood in a lung cancer awareness email. Blood always triggered the memories, the alarm, the hysteria that accompanied an attack.
His ribcage started folding in, muscle by muscle, and an electric sting punctured his thoracic cavity. Oxygen supply came at irregular intervals, making him dizzy.
Mixed with the physical agony was the mental torture. Recollections of Ashley in a lake of blood. Visions that he had not seen in a long time.
He threw open his drawer and flushed out every scrap of paper, frantically searching for the aluminum foil of the strip of tablets.
Where was the damn Xanax?
He knew he had put it in here somewhere.
His windpipe was locked. He massaged his throat, trying to coax it open. Desperation grew in line with the quickening of his pulse. Andrew tried to take deep breaths, but nothing would pass through the narrow passage of his throat.
The dizziness swirling inside his skull was starting to detach him from the plush visual of the CEO suite. The choking feeling grew, making his eyes water. His body was trying to strangle him.
Andrew looked out of the office and remembered that Adele was still outside. He should call his secretary. She had some medicines in her drawer, too, as a backup. Thankfully, the phone was within reach atop his table.
On his third try, he managed to reach it.
Zero one one. That was Adele’s number.
“Hello, Dracosys. CEO’s office. How may I help you?” she said.
He coughed multiple times, before forming his first coherent phrases. “Adele, now… my office…”
“Mr. Smith, are you okay? Are you having an attack?”
More coughing. “Yes… come now.”
“I’ll be there.” Adele abandoned the call.
He rested against the wooden table’s legs, losing the battle with his willful brain. It had been almost a decade. Why was he still having these attacks? Ashley was long gone from his life and any remains of her should be gone too.
The problem had begun the night after her surgery. At first it had been disturbing dreams that had shown up daily. Then, when he had tried visiting her at the hospital the following day, the attacks had started in earnest.
Every time he approached the gate, the smell of iron and hemoglobin, antiseptic and medicine, distress and fear crushed him and brought him to his knees. He had barely been able to hand her the divorce papers personally and get two decent phrases out of his mouth before his throat had clenched and made it impossible for him to stay with her.
He could never forget her wounded expression as she widened her eyes and tried to speak through her dried-up lips. In that instant, he had known how deep his betrayal must have sliced her.
Andrew was the kind of man who couldn’t even hold his wife’s hand while she lay weak and lifeless, yearning for his warmth; couldn’t stay by her side when she had no one else to hold on to. No matter how much he had wanted to whisper so many encouraging, words to her, apologize for his neglect and hug her tight enough to wring all the despair out of her motionless body, all he had done was run away.
Ashley had been his only family and he had disappointed her, the same way he had disappointed his dad all throughout his life. He couldn’t give any happiness to the people closest to him.
And he was still avoiding hospitals. Those places triggered flashbacks. Last year, even after contracting a serious infection, he had refused to step into one, instead, making his physician do a house call.
Dr. Yu had given him an ultimatum—he would not come again unless Andrew saw a psychiatrist about the panic disorder Dr. Yu believed he was suffering from. After six years of neglect, Andrew’s case had advanced into something unmanageable, even affecting his work at times.
He had started treatment after understanding the graveness of his problem. He was still in the initial stages of therapy, so it would be a while before he could step into hospitals or become immune to his ‘triggers,’ but he was determined to triumph over this illness.
Adele’s heels planted themselves in front of his body on the marble flooring. She handed him a pale blue pill with a glass of water. He chugged it down, but stayed rooted where he was. Having taken the medicine made him feel better. The chemicals would only slowly spread in his bloodstream, but the mental relief was fast.
“I’ll cancel your afternoon meetings with the design and finance departments. Will you be taking the rest of the day off?” she asked.
“No, I’ll be okay in an hour. Keep my meetings as they are. I’ve already postponed the design meeting twice.”
She looked worried. “Mr. Smith, you need to rest. You have been working very hard recently.”
“I know my limits.”
Adele didn’t argue.
“Do you want me to ring up Dr. Clark and tell him about this?” she asked.
Dr. Clark, his psychotherapist, had instructed him to call if his panic attacks came again. But Andrew didn’t want to. He had a breakneck schedule. Dracosys had an international product launch in six months and his book was going to hit the stands in four months, and with the financial year ending soon, the year-end reports had to be checked. Between this and that, he barely had time to blink.
“It’s not necessary.”
She crossed one bony leg in front of the other, the doubt in her eyes reflecting that she wasn’t sure about his decision.
“You can leave now.” The curtness indicated that her function here was served.
She was still unconvinced. “Take care, Mr. Smith.”
He spent the next fifteen minutes emptying his mind of what had happened. It would affect his work if he let himself linger on it for too long.
When his mind was blank, he turned to the computer screen.
***
Andrew’s apartment on Riverside Boulevard was haunted by an eerie silence when he rolled in after work. The cool air from the air conditioner hit his face. It was midnight.
The window, cradled above the dark waters of the Hudson River, provided the best vantage point to view the city’s parade of lights from. New York was a glittering jewel at this hour.
Dropping his laptop on the couch, he wandered to the phone.
Carl had left him three messages. That was novel for a man who didn’t remember that he had a son for the larger part of the year. Despite the curiosity, Andrew resisted.
When he showered, the steam from the water melted the tiredness in his muscles, but did little for his overworked eyes. He lingered in the shower longer than he should have. It was midnight and he was in no mood to go over product strategy.
He could defer it to tomorrow. Wait. Tomorrow was already here.
Groaning, he shut off the spray of warmth and gave himself a mental pep talk. His job was impossible on most days, but he loved it, so he was going to get through this one last pending task for today.
Patting his hair dry, Andrew sat down at his computer and scoffed at the desktop background. It was his wedding portrait.
It was impossible to take his eyes off Ashley in the picture. Her face was pasted with the widest grin. So was his. This was probably the only picture he had of himself in which he was smiling. This was the only time in his life when he’d had everything. Including happiness.
Instead of the pie chart on his computer screen, he found himself thinking of her.
She looked different now. She had curves. Dangerously seductive curves. She carried herself with a confidence she had lacked. Her shoulders didn’t slouch anymore.
His phone cried out for attention. An unknown number.
“Hello?”
“What the hell have you been doing? I called thrice.” Hearing his father’s voice put Andrew on edge. He crushed a sheet of paper within his reach.
“Did you get my messages?”
He should have slammed the phone back down right then, but he couldn’t. That would be admitting that he wasn’t strong enough to face his father. “No, I was busy.”
There was a growl from the old man. Carl Smith wasn’t known for his even temper. “Your company is not even big enough to have offices in three countries and you are already struggling with the workload? You’ve become inefficient. You should have stayed working at Finn. It would have toughened you up.”
“Did you have something to say or did you call because you needed someone to pick on in the middle of the night?” The sharpness in Andrew’s voice was a warning to back off.
“Frank is retiring next month. I want you to take over as vice-president. You’ve been VP before. You know the company.”
Andrew stifled the urge to laugh. Did Carl think he could still tell him what to do?
“I have my own company to run. And a book release in four months.”
“Appoint someone else CEO. I need you here.”
“Appoint someone else vice-president. Finn Associates means nothing to me now. If that was all you had to say, then goodnight.”
Why he still expected validation from his father was beyond him. Carl had stopped communicating with him when Andrew had set up his company. Getting the old man to acknowledge him would be the ultimate victory.
“Wait. How is your wife now?” There was genuine worry under the rough tone.
This was a new one. Carl had never bothered to enquire about Ashley when she had been married to Andrew. What was with the sudden curiosity?
“She’s okay. We divorced seven years ago.”
“Why? You begged me for money to pay her medical bills. I thought you’d stick to her. You were so attached to her.”
“I paid you back, so why are you bringing that up?”
Andrew hated revisiting the past. Especially the part where he had cried in front of his father, pleading for money. It had been the single most humiliating moment in his life.
“Lending to you at that time was a huge risk. I hope you appreciate that. You had no stable source of income.”
If that was meant to make him feel obliged, it was a useless attempt. Unlike some parents, his father had not given him money, but lent it. With five percent interest.
“I’m not going to become vice-president. Look for someone else.”
Carl expelled a rush of air. “It’s not easy to find someone to replace Frank. Frank was exceptional.”
“Then why do you want me in his position? In your own words, I am lazy, inefficient and overly emotional.”
“But you’re still my son. You can be trained.”
How convenient to bring up their blood relation when it benefited Carl. Once, Andrew would have clung to the shallow displays of parental affection, but that time was long gone.
“I was your son when I asked you for money six years ago, too.” Carl had just as conveniently forgotten about their blood relation back then.
“That’s a different matter. Don’t mix money with family.”
“And hiring me for Frank’s position is not mixing money with family?”
That made Carl back off and drop the subject.
“Anyway, I’m having a party for my seventy-first birthday. I’d like to see you there. You remember when my birthday is, don’t you? September eighteenth.”
“I’m busy on that day,” Andrew said, without even trying to check his calendar.
“It’s after eight.”
“I’m still busy.” he repeated.
“There’ll be some people you haven’t met in a long time.”
“Good night. I have work to do. And I’m sure you do too.”
When Carl didn’t argue, Andrew cut the call.
