Dark Notes

A muscle tics in his jaw, and his hard eyes crease, fanning wrinkles from the corners.

“Is it his?” I ask.

“He doesn’t know.”

My breath hitches. “He doesn’t…? She was with someone else? Did she cheat on him?”

“He has no proof of that.”

“Oh.” My chest deflates. “She told the receptionist she’s carrying your grandson.”

He swivels toward the drawers behind him and removes equipment and supplies, giving me a momentary reprieve from his stony gaze.

“I know you’re living with him.” He rips open packages of instruments. “I’m not going to lecture you on the risks you and he are taking. I gave him my opinion on the phone last night.” He turns back to me, his expression pensive. “Emeric is hardheaded and unstoppable when his passion is provoked.”

I disagree with the unstoppable part. At least when it comes to my limits. Where his passion is concerned, I’ve been on the receiving end of that for two months. I guess that’s why this secret he’s kept from me feels like a blade in my chest.

Dr. Marceaux slides on reading glasses and grabs the blood pressure monitor. Without asking me to change clothes, he begins an above-the-waist exam. For the next ten minutes, he pokes, prods, and draws blood while I answer his medical questions, including the embarrassing ones about my sexual history and mishaps with protection.

He maintains a professional demeanor, but I wonder if he thinks I’m just a money-grubbing whore.

While he makes notations on his tablet, the door opens.

Emeric slips in, shuts the door, and his frosty eyes find and imprison mine.

Chills sweep over me, and I find it difficult to look away.

Dr. Marceaux stands, his voice clipped. “What are you doing in here?”

Emeric doesn’t break eye contact with me. There are so many emotions seeping from him, I don’t know how to sort them. Anger is the easiest to recognize, locking his jaw and engorging the veins in his tense forearms. But there’s an undercurrent of something more vulnerable. His fingers twitch at his sides, and tendons stand out in his neck. Is he scared? Afraid I’ll leave? Or is that my wishful thinking?

Dr. Marceaux moves toward the door, his voice low and harsh. “Emeric, there are five nurses here today, watching your every move. I won’t be able to contain the gossip.”

Emeric holds my eyes as he speaks to his dad. “After the scene Joanne just made, they’ll think I came in here to talk to you.”

“Is she still here?” I relax my hands in my lap and try to look brave and mature. “What did you talk about?”

“You can discuss it at home.” Dr. Marceaux pulls a gown from the drawer and sets it beside me. “Dr. Hill will be in any second to do the pelvic exam.”

“I’m staying.” Emeric leans against the counter, hands in his pockets, settling in.

“No, you’re not.” I grab the gown, turning it every which way to make sense of it. “This is awkward enough. Besides, I’m pissed at you.”

He snatches the smock from my hands and holds it open. “It goes on like this.”

Dr. Marceaux grips the doorknob. “Let’s go, son.”

In a flash, Emeric closes the distance between us, grips the hair at my scalp, and puts his mouth at my ear. “We’re not finished.”

Then he follows his dad out of the room, leaving me breathless and even more confused than I was before.

In a daze, I pee in a cup in the bathroom and change into the weird gown in the exam room. The elderly Dr. Hill arrives with news that I’m not pregnant. Then he hands me a package of birth control pills, does a breast exam, and sticks his hand and other invasive things in my vagina.

By the time I climb into the Porsche, my head is pounding with a barrage of questions. Where do I go? What should I do?

I grip the steering wheel and search my gut for the right decision. Going to his house doesn’t mean I’m desperate or needy. I can always go back home and return to the way things were before.

But I’ve never been the girl who runs from an argument. I need answers, and there’s only one place to find them.

A few minutes later, I punch in my code at the security gate, a code Emeric let me come up with on my own. Then I park beside the GTO and enter the house through the unlocked back door.

Schubert greets me in the mud room with a purring leg rub. As I scoop him up, I’m distracted by the muffled melody of a piano. He’s playing?

I give the kitty a nuzzle, set him down, and follow the notes through the winding corridors.

I’ve peeked into his music room several times, admired his Fazioli from afar, but I’ve never gone in. I had this idea that he would lead me there when his hands were healed. Then he would sit behind the keyboard and play something crazy amazing, like Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit.