Page 30 of Save Us
“I didn’t realize my grandfather was so romantic?” I say with a smile as I blow away the steam rising out from the top of my cup. “He must buy you flowers all the time.”
Initially, Elsie looks at me with confusion written all over her face, so I gesture to the flowers before me, only to watch her face fall in horror. She clutches her hand over her mouth as though she’s only just remembered that they’re here.
“Oh, Beth, no, these aren’t mine,” she explains, shaking her head as well as tutting at herself. “Oh, dear me, I should have moved them, but I didn’t realize you’d be up today. Carl told me to hide them, but they are so beautiful, I thought I’d hide them down here, out of your sight. Silly fool!” she mutters to herself in annoyance. “I’m afraid they’re yours, Beth.”
Her words cause me to pause with my cup floating mid-air, now at a loss as to why there are so many bunches of flowers for me in someone else’s house.
“Mine?” I ask, if only to check I heard correctly.
“Yes, they’re from your husband, Oliver,” she replies with an obvious wince, telling me she more than knows what happened to me. The full, unabridged edition. “Twice daily, without fail.”
“Oh,” I say rather pathetically, before looking down at my cup. To be honest, I don’t have the foggiest idea of what to do with this information, other than feel nauseated.
“Leo, dear, will you help me get rid of them?” she asks and begins to fluster around a couple of vases, prompting Leo to begin pacing over to help.
“No, wait!” I call out at the same time as I put my hands up to stop them. “Leave them, they’re beautiful. I can’t watch them be destroyed, even if they are from him. I’m fine, honestly.”
“Are you sure, dear?” Elsie looks sympathetically at me while holding a vase of exquisite-looking calla lilies.
“Beth?” Leo questions me, no doubt thinking I’m a little weird for wanting to keep something that my murderous husband gifted me. Especially, after he literally tried to beat me to death.
“Crystal!” I nod with a fake smile, then continue sipping at the soothing warm liquid from my cup.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Elsie and Leo glance at one another, shrug their shoulders, then reluctantly place the vases back on top of the shelves and table. Once back in place, she walks over to sit with me, now pouring herself a drink and releasing a breath of held air. I look up and we smile before she opens her mouth, getting ready to talk again. However, no sooner than she has done so, someone else comes marching into the room with a tapping of his designer Oxfords on wood. The sound of which stops the poor woman mid-breath.
“Beth!” Carl booms as he walks over to kiss me on my cheek. “So glad to see you up, my dear.”
His smiling, withered, but strangely friendly face confuses me, especially when I consider all that he has done in his past. Flashes of what has been said to me about his atrocities, including killing his own son in cold blood, destroying my grandmother when she was barely sixteen, as well as signing me up to an arranged marriage, all pass through my head at an alarming rate. Plastering on my own fake smile, I silently remind myself that I’m looking into the eyes of a murderer, not the loveable old grandfather he is trying to portray himself as.
“Thank you,” I reply, then second guess myself as to how he might have expected me to have responded to such a greeting.
“I see you’ve met Elsie, good, good,” he says as he begins rubbing his hands together and looking around the room, only now taking note of all the flowers. “Oh, the flowers, they should have been-”
“It’s my fault!” I quickly respond, interrupting him before he can even begin to get angry with Elsie. After all, she has been nothing but lovely towards me. “I asked Elsie to keep them; I can’t abide wastage.”
“Oh?” he says, hooking up his eyebrow while glancing suspiciously over at a mortified-looking Elsie. He turns back to face me, just as I begin to nod my head. “Well, ok then. Actually, it reminds me, Oliver is coming over next week, to see how you are. Naturally, he’s worried about you. He thinks the world of you, you know.” I remain tight-lipped but can see Elsie discreetly shaking her head in complete abhorrence over what she’s just heard. “But anyway, before that, I have some guests coming at the weekend. Hopefully you’ll feel a little better by then and you can let your hair down a bit, hmmm?”
Learning from years of servitude to Oliver, I know I need to just smile sweetly and nod in obedience, so this is what I do. He grins smugly before gesturing for Elsie to follow him into the other room. I inwardly beg for him to not give her hell over the flowers. Once they close the door on us, I sigh long and heavy while Leo just shakes his head in complete exasperation.
“Leo, will you help me have a little walk in the garden?” I ask, desperately needing some fresh air to clear my head.
“Are you sure? You’ve just been through a ton of shit, Beth.” He looks at me sternly, even though I know he’ll do whatever I ask of him. I merely nod sweetly to which he sighs before helping me to my feet.
Once outside, I indulge in the scent of fresh air and the sound of birds chirruping, lost in a Jane Austen kind of appreciation for just being able to walk about in a garden without the fear of being reprimanded. The sun warms my skin and the crunch of gravel under my feet without the added accompaniment of traffic noise is like music to my ears.
“This is bliss!” I sigh contentedly.
Leo chuckles at me, just as we take a left into a nearby herb garden where the lavender and thyme remind me of the garden we had back home. Of course, this has me thinking nostalgically about my family still existing without me. Leo seems to notice me slipping, like he always does, so pulls us over toward a path edged with red and purple hydrangeas. The change in direction instantly vanquishes the emotional-inducing smells of my former life.
“I hope you don’t mind, Beth, but…” he says a little cryptically, all the while looking around for any signs of people who might be snooping on us, “…here.”
He slides over a plain, blocky-looking mobile phone, which is devoid of the usual modern, sleek aesthetics. It appears to have been made for nothing other than making and receiving calls.
“It’s the one Kai had hidden for you. I went and retrieved it after I left you at…” he breaks off, taking in a deep breath and looking guilty for what happened after he left me with Oliver that night. I simply put my hand over his arm and shake my head, telling him not to think on it anymore.
“Anyway, I haven’t looked at it, so you might want to switch it on and check,” he says, still wearing a sad smile.
I look over the aged phone, then press a button that instantly lights up the black and white glass with heavily pixilated characters. The small, illuminated screen tells me I have two messages waiting to be opened.