Angie #3 - through the cracks (weekend freewrite)

This is the last part of the story. Read the first and second part.

Then.

Slowly, slowly, the door opened creaking loudly. She sucked in her breath and whispered: 'You were going to oil this.'
'Yes, dear,' he absently replies, looking past this marvellous woman, no longer shiny and new in his grasp.
'Thomas, but this is gorgeous,' she cries and she seems so earnestly happy, that he can't keep a smile from his face. This woman who raised him from the gutter, who believed in what he was never willing to believe himself. And she irritates him all the more, with her eagerness, with her joy. Tom realizes, with a slight shock, that she believes the painting is for her. That it is her. After all, the torso, the perfectly shaped breasts, they do breathe her.
Ten years ago maybe, though not now.
Perhaps he no longer sees it, he concedes in his mind's eye, but he no longer cares either. Now, he only has eyes for her, for his beloved, his pride. The perfect angel who fell to earth just for him. The girl-child who bent down low to pick up her papers at an exhibit of his and he wasn't quite able to look away. The demon who's been tormenting him every night since. It's her image. There's not an inch that doesn't speak of her, and yet he cannot bring himself to tell his wife it's not her in the painting.
'Thank you, my love,' he says finally, not quite meeting her eye. She comes to him, this woman that oozes love and devotion and wraps her arms around him.
'No, thank you,' she says and kisses him hard on the lips. They make love right beside the canvas, amid the cans of paint. And he keeps his eyes closed most of the time, because each time he opens them, he sees her instead of his wife.

'I'm pregnant' she says, jumping into his arms as soon as he opens the door. For the past two months, he's been living in this separate world. Every time the door closes behind him, he's someone new completely. Secluded in their little love attic, they play and they're happy and they're allowed, for a few brief hours to forget the world beyond those walls.
'I know,' he laughs, coming alive. 'You say that every time.'
'Well, I'm happy,' she grins, showing off her beautiful white teeth. 'Aren't you happy?'
'The happiest,' he replies, still cradling her in his arms. She comes in for a kiss and they hold each other and laugh and for this one moment, he no longer cares what he'll tell his wife at home. 'I made you something,' he tells her, pulling his phone out of his back pocket.
'I can't take you there yet, but...' he watches her scroll through pictures, zoom in on parts of the painting. Eyes fixed on her, he awaits her judgment.
'Thank you,' she says simply, very serious now.
'I love you, I'd give anything to you.'
The words ring through his mind again and again through the months to come, even as his wife screams, tearing through his gallery and he jumps out to stop her. Even as he sits calmly in the waiting room, at the maternity ward. Even as he reads the note on the kitchen table one spring day. Nine words, clear as day.

'I'm sorry. I thought I could, but I can't.'

And as he realizes that she's gone forever, that she and his son will never walk through that door, the words grow louder than ever. Because he would've done anything for her.

Now.

'A most sweet natured gentleman and pleasant – it's what she used to call me. Right before she left,' he says, bitterly and looks down into his empty coffee mug.
Angie, who has listened in silence up until now, searches for words. 'And what do you want me to do?'
'I want my son back,' he tells her, with a soft shrug.
'But I can't give you that.'
'Well, I guess you have to,' he stands up, towering over her small frame, 'else I'll kill you.'
The words are flat, simple and utterly dead. And she knows for sure that he's being serious.
'Why me? I didn't take him,' she realizes, amazed, that what she's really asking is why not her? But life doesn't work that way and dire situations make beasts of us all.
'Because you were my only life boat, Ange, all these years, no matter how bad things got, how much I knew I was fucking up, I always knew I could count on you. I knew that if I needed you, you'd be there. And now you can't come up and tell me you can not. I was there for you, Angie, through all your father's screaming and all the violence, I was here, I took care of you. Now you have to take care of me,' he makes a shallow attempt to smooth her hair, but she pulls away.

And Angie, well, she feels her heart break slightly, just a small crack, but that's enough for all the perfect blood to gush out of it. It's enough for her to hurt. And she wishes she could help the man before her, this Tom, this savior she never knew.
'But what can I do? How can I bring this child back to you? I don't even know who she was,' she tells him, pleading with him to see sense.
'I don't know either. All I know is I saved you and now you save me.'
'But you saved me in your head, you didn't...' and she stops. How can she tell him he never really saved her? That all those times she ran away with him in her mind, her parents' arguing eventually broke through? How can she tell him that he only saved her briefly, fleetingly and from nothing in particular?' Angie finds she can't quite open her mouth, that she doesn't know what to say to him, how to help him see his son, even in his own mind.

It was colder and moister in the rest of the house, which didn't really surprise her. The man – Tom – was dressed for winter and had a slight sniff, she'd noticed, that he couldn't really shake. She walked with her head down, feeling his eyes burned into her back.
'In there,' she heard him call out and she took a sudden left and went into the bathroom. She looked around in vain, knowing there wouldn't be any window through which she might crawl. She hadn't really expected one, truth be told, but she had hoped for something else. Which was not there. The bathroom was clean like it had just received a scrub-down, been emptied out of any potentially dangerous items.
She used the toilet and washed her face several times, letting the ice cold water soak her blouse until she was fully awake. And yet, here she was, still in this most peculiar nightmare. In this dream from twenty years ago that should've never come back.
'Please wake up,' she whispered to herself in the mirror. And looking at her tired, terrified eyes, she understood she was not waking up and that one of them would die before she could leave here. There was no way she could find this vanishing woman, this lost creature of the wind. And she realized that she wasn't here for that. He didn't want her to find any missing woman or child. He must've known that was impossible, far out of her reach.
She was not here to find this beloved. She was here to replace her.

Angie walked out of the bathroom on unsteady legs, focused on not collapsing. He watched her, with pleasure, as she trembled her way back towards him and he was there to catch her when the light sedative he'd poured into her coffee had its way with her.
'Please let me go,' she murmurs, half asleep, as he carries her back to bed.
'I'm sorry, I thought I could, but I can't.'

the end

This is a weekend freewrite based on three different prompts offered by the lovely @mariannewest. Check her out and also support the freewriters if you can!

Thank you for reading,