My Sweet Audrina (Audrina 1)

I sobbed, knowing I’d betrayed her, too, and married the friend she’d hoped would protect her and fight for her … and he’d run. I jumped from the chair and ran from the room. Oh, if only I’d known before I would never have gone to his cottage! This day would never have happened. Papa, why didn’t you tell me all the details about your first daughter? Why did you hold back so much? Didn’t you know the truth always serves the purpose better than a lie?

Lies, so many lies … and to think Vera had told me the truth all the time when she said she’d known the First Audrina, who was so much better than me—prettier, smarter, more fun …

As I ran toward my room, determined to wake Arden and face him with the truth, a gaslamp came on. Next a flashlight was shone directly into my eyes. Blinded by the lights after the darkness of the hallway, I barely made out the vagueness of a hand that dangled a crystal prism before the beam of strong battery light. Colors refracted in my eyes. I staggered backwards, throwing up my hand to shield my eyes from the light. Then I turned to run. Someone followed. I heard the thump of footfalls. I screamed, whirled around and shouted, “Arden, have you come to finish what they started? What are you trying to do to me?”

More lights came on. Strung down the main upstairs corridor were hundreds of crystal prisms, catching colors, sparkling, stabbing and blinding me, threatening me. I spun about, confused and disoriented, unable to find the direction of my bedroom. Then the hands … hands that struck me on the shoulders from behind. Hard, strong hands that sent me pitching forward into space … and down, down, down … hurting all the way until my head struck … and then blackness.

Whispering, whispering, on the shallow waves of evening tide voices drifted. They called. Forced me back from a place I couldn’t name. Was this me, this tiny pepper dot in the sky? How could I see above, below, behind and before? Was I only an eye in the sky seeing everything, understanding nothing?

Whose name was that I heard spoken so softly? Mine? Whose room was this? Mine? On a narrow bed I lay, staring up at the ceiling. Fuzzily I made out the dresser across the way with its wide mirror that reflected what was in back of my bed. My vision cleared more so I could see the white chaise lounge that Arden had wanted me to have. Whitefern, I was still in Whitefern.

In the adjacent room Vera’s voice drifted to me as she spoke softly to Arden. I cringed, or tried to. Something was wrong with me, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that. I had to concentrate on what Vera was saying.

“Arden,” she continued in a stronger voice, “why do you keep objecting? It’s for your own good, for hers, too. Certainly you know she’d want it that way.”

What way?

“Vera,” answered the unmistakable voice of my husband, “you have to give me time to make a decision like that—an irreversible decision.”

“I’ve had about all I can take from you and from her,” said Vera. “You have to decide just who you want, her or me. Do you think I’m going to hang around here forever waiting for you to choose?”

“But … but …” stammered my husband, “at any moment, any day, maybe today or tomorrow, she could pull out of the coma.”

Coma? I was in a coma? I couldn’t believe this. I could fuzzily see, hazily hear. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

“Arden,” said Vera’s deep and sultry voice,

“I’m a nurse and I know about things you’ve never heard of. No one can stay in a coma three weeks and pull out of it without irreversible brain damage. Think about that for a while, a long while. You’d be married to a living vegetable to burden the rest of your life. When Damian is dead, you’d have Sylvia, too—don’t forget her. With the two of them to care for, you’d be praying to God that you’d done as I suggested, but then it would be too late. I’d be gone. And you, my dear, would never have the courage to do it alone.”

Courage to do what?

The two of them were coming closer. I wanted to turn my head and watch them enter my room. I wanted to see Arden’s expression, and watch Vera’s eyes and see if she really loved him. I wanted to swing my feet to the floor and rise. But I couldn’t move, not anything. I could only lie there, a stiff, still thing, feeling only mental anguish and an unbearable sense of loss. Again and again I was flooded with panic. Drowning in panic. How could this have happened? Wasn’t I the same as earlier today, last night, yesterday? What had made me this way?

“Vera, my darling,” said Arden, now sounding even closer, “you don’t understand how I feel. So help me God, even as she is, I still can’t help loving my wife. I want Audrina to recover. Every morning before I leave for work I come in here and kneel by her bed and pray for her recovery. Every night before I go to bed, I do the same thing. I kneel and wait for her eyes to open, for her lips to part, for her to speak. I dream about seeing her well and healthy again. I’m in hell and I’ll never be free of hell until she’s herself again. Just one sign of life and I’d never … never consent …” He paused, sobbed, choked out, “Even as she is, I don’t want her to die.”

But Vera did. I knew now that somehow Vera was responsible for this situation, as she was responsible for the most disastrous events in my life.

“All right!” shrilled Vera. “If you still love Audrina, then you cannot possibly be in love with me. You have used me, Arden, used me! Stolen from me, too! For all I know I may be carrying your child again—as I carried your child once before and you didn’t know it.”

“One time between us then, Vera, only one. You don’t know that I was the one responsible. The odds against it were too great. You came to me, too, and let me know you wanted me, and were willing to do anything, and I was young, and Audrina was still a child.”

“And she will always be a child!” Vera shrilled. Then her voice dropped an octave as she continued to persuade. “You wanted me, too. You took me and you enjoyed it, and I had to pay the price.”

Oh, God, oh, God … on and on all of us kept paying prices, I thought, my mind going in circles as I tried to grasp at something stable.

“But if you love her, Arden, then you keep her. And I hope her arms will give you comfort when you need it and her kisses will warm your lips and her passion will satisfy your desire. Lord knows I’ve never known a man who needs a woman more than you do. And don’t you stand there and think you can hire another nurse to take my place. You may not know this, but Audrina needs me. Sylvia needs me, too. Somehow, despite all you’ve said about Sylvia not responding to anyone but your dear wife, I’ve managed to make Sylvia trust and even like me.”

“Sylvia doesn’t trust or like anyone but Audrina,” Arden said.

I stared at Vera. Her shining apricot hair peaked out below a starched white cap. Every strand was perfectly in place. Her pale complexion appeared as soft as putty, but even so, she was very pretty wearing white, with those glittering black eyes of hers. Hard, cruel, spider eyes, I thought.

Just as I used to do, she cupped Arden’s handsome face between her hands, resting her long, crimson fingernails on his cheeks. “Sweetheart, there are many ways to know when Sylvia is trusting. I’m beginning to know her …”

Oh, God! Sylvia shouldn’t trust and believe in Vera! Of all people, not Vera!

As if she heard me speak, Sylvia shuffled forward into view. I sensed she must have risen from her perpetual crouch and realized, too, that she was desperate now that I could no longer protect her. In her meandering way she advanced toward my bed as if to shield me. Poor Sylvia, all I wanted was to keep her safe, and now she had to keep me safe.

Her aquamarine eyes stared at me blankly, as if she saw through me, beyond me, and into some far, far distance.