Tricks Of The Mind
I caught Laurie by the white marble fountain on his way out. He had just told the family that Victoria had accepted his proposal and they'd marry in the spring. I was quiet when Thomas squeezed his shoulder and congratulated him. Lizzie was suspicious of how fast the situation had developed. When Laurie walked past me with triumph and smugness, Lizzie nudged me and told me to chase after him.
"Don't do it," I said out of desperation. "Don't marry her so carelessly out of your hatred towards me. It won't end well."
I was unspeakably jealous and excruciatingly worried when I was entitled to feel neither. I should've saved the last piece of my dignity and wished him the best. But I couldn't control myself.
He stopped. His shoulders moved a little, and I thought he'd turn around. He didn't. After a short pause, he slammed his car door shut.
-----
Three days before Laurie's wedding, Thomas knocked on my bedroom door. Usually, when he knocked on my door this late at night, it'd be out of urgency, and his knock would be in a quick and rapid succession. Tonight, however, it was slow and light.
"Yes?" I was dubious of his intention. "Would you like to come in?"
"No," he shrugged. "It's nothing important. I thought you'd like to know that Laurie came to me. He said he regrets his decision and would like me to call off the wedding."
My ears rang. I didn't know what to say or how to react.
"As you can expect, I told him that, unfortunately, it wouldn't be possible," he continued. He sounded just and cold, though I saw the faintest smirk hanging on his thin lips.
"Where is he now?" I asked in a daze.
"He left just now," he said indifferently. "If you run, you may catch him."
I was stiff, perplexed, and stunned. Thomas stepped aside so I could pass him. I had no time to voice my thoughts – not that I had anything coherent enough or of value to say. And that was all right, for nothing would come out of a meaningless disagreement.
"Laurie!" I yelled as he was about to get inside his car. Hearing my voice, he turned his head. "Wait!"
"Thomas told you, didn't he?" His bright eyes were dim. He avoided facing me. "It's okay. You can think I'm pathetic."
"No," I reached for his hand. He hesitated but eventually, he let me take it. "I don't think you're pathetic."
"I don't care for her," his thick eyebrows tied into a knot. He spoke childishly, "and yet, I'm marrying her. I'm sure she feels the same. I can't do it like how you did it. But I have no choice."
He sounded calm, too calm. I was overwhelmed by all the emotions I had bottled up.
"I'm so sorry," I knelt as my tears began to fall. "It's all my fault. I was selfish and deluded. I thought I did the right thing. And now I'm living out my days in regret. I'm ashamed of wanting to ask you for forgiveness. I can't bear watching you drowning in misery. I don't know what to do. There's nothing I can do. I can only promise that I'll be here for you in the name of God, for as long as I shall live, or for as long as you want me to, whichever comes to an end first."
He knelt as well. Pulling me into his arms, he held me tightly.
-----
Rarely was I made to think. During the weeks I spent inside the house, lying in bed staring at the art deco ceiling, I thought of nothing. It was more complicated learning to be bland and empty-minded than to think. When the records played on the gramophone, I sang along, picturing myself as a starlet like Lizzie, and laughed at how silly that thought was. There would be no remembrance of me when my time came. Ceased with my last breath was my existence, the love I loved, the hate I hated, and the inscription on the headstone would say: a woman who once lived. Or there would be no headstone at all. Thomas would toss a flower on the dirt above me and stand in silence for an adequate amount of time before walking away for the last time, leaving the petals to rot like my body beneath the ground.
Thomas didn't ask about what was said at dinner. He was outlandishly patient in this sort of thing.
When fall approached, I was on the rooftop on a rare, precious, gloomy, windy day in the perpetual Los Angeles heat. I rested my elbows on the railings, smoking aimlessly and watching the boys playing in the garden. I could only hope and pray for them to grow into decent, honest men. I heard footsteps coming toward me and felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Aren't you going to see Emma?" Thomas asked, signing me to hand him a cigarette.
"Should I?" I looked over my shoulder to see the side of his face and turned back to watch the boys again like he was. "Has she gotten any better?"
"Worse," he said indifferently, narrowing his eyes in the sun. "It's rather comical to see how tricks of the mind can break a person."
"She's too good for this family," I said with a light sigh.
"You should pay her a visit," he ordered firmly. "I think it's time for you to get back to work."
"As you wish," I said softly. His lamb was I. He trained me to act, forbade me of deviances, and paid me with a life I couldn't have dreamed of.
Would I truly be freed if freedom meant to become a commoner's wife again? Had I become shallow, hollow, and full of vanity? I couldn't tell. A past was no longer the same when all the pain was locked away and forcefully forgotten.
-----
Whenever Lizzie was made to visit Victoria's house, she spoke of the despair lingering in the thin air in that mansion from the 1850s. Victoria adored that house. With her stranger-than-fiction obsession and dedication, she restored the ruins to their former glory. Lizzie joked that the spirits had possessed her in that house, and part of me believed it. She loved this inanimate object more than she loved anyone. The only time I saw her raise her voice in agitation was when Lizzie senselessly suggested she sell the house and get a contemporary one in the Hills, like what the movie stars were doing at the time. This house meant something to her, something symbolic that she held near and dear. Through the restoration, she had tasted a thing called control. She did whatever she wanted without any restraint. It was like a dangerous, irrational, and forbidden joyride. Ever since then, she'd been lusting for that thrill.
I found Emma watering the plants in the garden. She stayed in Victoria's house under Thomas' order, though she had asked quite a few times to return to her house. She looked gaunt, not the typical paleness of her face, but the frail state of holding onto the last thread of sanity. As I approached her, melancholy overcame me for a moment, although I quickly abandoned that unorthodox sentiment.
"Anne!" She sounded excited. "I'm so glad to see you out of that house again. I'm sorry I couldn't visit you."
"Don't worry about it," I smiled. Carefully observing her expression, I said: "I'm here to see you since I heard you're troubled, and I'm rather concerned about you."
"Can't remember the last time I'm not troubled," she attempted to joke around. I could hear the self-loathing in her tone. My heart ached for her.
"You have to get better," I said earnestly. "You have to live on, but not like this."
She put her watering can down and shook her head.
"I wouldn't want you dead," I was straightforward and honest. After a pause, I continued anxiously and quietly. "Would you like me to help you get away?"
"Help me get away?" She looked puzzled at first, then she sighed. Her blank, directionless, brown eyes met mine, the eyes that resembled Thomas', with the will of life completely drained. "You can't even get yourself away, Anne."