C9 Chapter 9

Even with her mother’s reduced voice, Marcia clearly hears her mother’s sad, distant voice from the kitchen downstairs say the next words, “If it weren’t for her, maybe we’d still be happy.”

Marcia was lying in her bed, with her knees pulled up against her chest, bed covers up to her chin, her small body trembling with the weight of the words she didn’t fully understand but somehow felt in her heart. It’s because she’s sick, because she’s a burden, that her parents are fighting. She feels this with the certainty that only a child could have.

She looks up at her bedroom door and sees her elder sister, Annette, standing there, looking at her.

The young Marcia’s eyes fill with tears and her big sister comes over and hugs her tight.

“It’s okay Marcia, don’t worry, mum’s just tired, that’s all,” the eleven-year-old Annette, shouldering more responsibility than a child her age should, replies while rubbing her sister’s back.

Stupid mum and dad! Why are they talking so much when Marcia is at home? Don’t they usually have these talks when Marcia is in hospital? Annette thinks angrily.

Marcia looks up at her sister, lips trembling, fingers gripping her big sister tightly, “But…if I wasn’t so sick all the time, mummy wouldn’t be so angry right?”

Annette wipes her sister’s tears, her heart sinking as she looked at Marcia’s small face. She shook her head at Marcia, smiling softly. Marcia could see the sadness in her big sister’s eyes.

Downstairs, their father’s voice responds, “Tracy! The kids are upstairs! Stop this!” the girls can hear his voice, rough and heavy with emotion.

“See, you don’t deny it,” Tracy says, her voice more distant than earlier.

The girls hear footsteps coming upstairs and then Marcia’s bedroom door opens wide. Their father walks in with a small smile on his face, coffee in one hand and coco in the other, his face falls when saw his daughters’ faces looking up at him.

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Marcia’s coffee is ready and she picks up her espresso, taking a short sip.

That was the moment everything changed for me, she reflects.

That was when the guilt and anxiety started to creep into my life.

She shakes her head as if to drive the thoughts away, as she heads to her office to call the next number on her list.

As she walks in, the phone rings. Marcia sighs, picking it up as she puts down her coffee. She answers pleasantly, forcing a smile into her voice.

“Hello?” A voice said, seemingly repeating itself. Marcia forces her mind to focus.

“Yes, hello,” Marcia says, sitting down.

“This is Alister Conway, we spoke a few weeks ago?”

“Oh yes, Alister,” Marcia responds, sitting up in her chair, this is a potential client that would bring in serious revenue for her business, “Have you had a chance to go over our proposal?” she asks, burying her apprehension deep and speaking in a pleasant tone.

There is a pause on the other end, followed by the sound of papers rustling. Marcia holds her breath, waiting.

“Ah yes. About that…” the man’s voice says.

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A few minutes later, Marcia ends the call. She leans back in her chair, her fingers absentmindedly tracing the edge of her coffee cup.

Her mind floats back, again, to her life growing up.

Years had passed after that kitchen incident, and the guilt she felt about her parents' fights and estrangement had grown along with the distance between them.

Her anxiety about relationships had deepened as she watched her parents' polite, pretend relationship grow more formal; more like a play in which all the actors had prescribed scripts, and they, her parents, were simply playing their parts.

As a result, she assesses everyone, gauging who is safe and who she has to keep at bay, and because she cannot bring herself to rely on anyone, she works harder at everything than anyone else.

She cannot allow herself to be a burden.

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Her mind flickers back to Jullian, the man at the center of this storm surrounding her.

She pictures his piercing light blue eyes, like lightning, and reminisces about how those eyes had made her feel seen back then. Now, those same eyes are working against her from behind the scenes.

Jullian. The first man she had ever truly loved.

It is one thing to battle her own insecurities and painful past, but now the man she thought she understood better than anyone else – and who she believed understood her the same way – is waging war on her business.

Throughout her childhood, Marcia could not stop blaming herself for the rift in her family.

When her parents finally divorced, just before she left for college, she was at a very low point emotionally and psychologically.

Marcia evolved very quickly into a special type of woman: bright and charming, but one who never really let anyone, especially those of the opposite sex, get too close.

She was easy to talk to, but she never revealed much about herself.

She laughed a lot and was almost always surrounded by people. However, when it came to friends, she had very few.

Her intimate relationships had been few, and none had lasted long.

She didn’t run away from them; it was her partners who felt the pressure or distance in her eyes, in her mannerisms – that false front she had learned from her parents, that feeling of being with an actor, given a role and a script that was being played out.

It unnerved some and angered others. But she was okay with it; it was a play, after all.

Until Jullian…That had never been a play, an act, or a role.

That was a man who had been hiding, and she was the one who could see him – the real HIM – or so she had thought all those years ago.

What had made it even more real for her, was that feeling she got being with him; she always felt that those piercing light-blue eyes could see through her – to the real HER.