Foolishly Falling for You

41

Lance

I smile at the letter. Anita's warmth envelopes me. She wishes my safe return to her side in no other form but corporal, tells me she will make it so. Michael came to visit me. He tells me Anita has been doing some unsavory things and keeping company with the devil. I do not put anything past her, when she wants something.

My wife,

I am thinking of our son, who has gone before us. I know we do not know for sure if he was a son, and yet I am convinced he came to you in a dream. He must've felt so loved by you, my wife that he felt compelled to visit you once more, to imagine a life of being loved by you.

I have many regrets regarding our relationship, but among my many regrets, the most sore of which was that I wasn't able to comfort you through the lost of our child. I grieve now, in my heart for his loss, and it is so profound I wonder if I have met him before. Still, I know you hold Matteo safe and whole in your heart.

How I love you so. The unconditional love you have in your heart. You would've made an excellent mother.
Michael informs me you've attempted to slow my trial.

Do not trouble yourself with such matters. I march to the gallows with a smile. You know me, innately and to my core. I am a military man, and I don't enjoy arbitrary breaking of rules. I know you wish for my return home, but I do not think it is in the stars. Keep yourself well, and keep not with dubious company. Time heals all wounds my love, sometimes it simply takes a larger dose.

I think back to our life before we shared the same feelings. I used to be stunned in the face of your affections. After so much time consider it, I believe I have discovered why.

Despite my disdain for you, misplaced as it was, I had no idea how to handle those moments. Your eyes twinkling and full of love. Your love, Anita was intense and it was real, palpable in my hands and I did not know what to do with it. I rejected it out of fear.

Because...deep down, it is the one thing I have craved my whole life, that I tried to bury and I never would've known. No one loved me before you, and that deep ache you carved out with your attentions, was a cruel hole I was too afraid to let you fill.

I am grateful that for a moment I was able to feel full. My love to you always,
Admiral Lance Mendoza

I have been imprisoned for almost a month. The days blur together, but I wonder what she must be doing to delay my trial to such a degree. Michael seems so deeply concerned with her doings, telling me she is walking with the devil. I do not know if it's true. I can imagine it though. My wife has no qualms or quarry's about dancing on the line between life and death and she strays on the other side of it.

It's worrisome and by the time I had got wind of it she had tiptoed back on the side of living and I fear I beckon her. There is no limit, after all, to what she will do for people she loves. And I am unsure if I should count myself among the lucky few. If she loves me, I am honored, but I wish she would let me go. She's stubborn of course.

"You have a visitor," one of the guards shouts, as the door creaks open. I sit up, catching sight of a face...I hardly remember.

"I didn't know you were alive," I murmur.

My father lifts his eyes. He's gone gray, his body weak and fragile nothing like the monster I'd imagined him as. I hardly ever saw him, and now, this stranger takes stock of my surroundings.

"Your accuser is the Duke heir apparent. Custom dictates I not interfere especially when I have no knowledge of what has occurred."

I scoff. Is that what he came here for? To tell me the rules told him he has to let his son die? How like him. Such a stickler for rules. He never spoke to me or saw me, a rule he created himself.

"Why are you here? You usually send letters,"
I could sooner recognize his handwriting than his face.

"You look like your mother."

I raise my brows. Ah...a mother. Sometimes I forgot I had one.

"I couldn't look at you. I loved her, truly. I had a dream last night. I saw her. She...asked how you were and if I were taking care of you. I was silent. I could not look at her, even in a dream, and admit I had neglected you."

How disappointing. I had always wished my father would turn his eyes to me, to show me affection and apologize for the cold way I'd been forced to live my life. Now he does, it is cold and hollow with no weight. No meaning.

"I confess it was easier to abandon you than to admit that she gave her life to offer me a son, in vain as I could not love you without her."

I blink sitting on the edge of my cot. "Is that all?"

He's silent for a moment. "I'm sorry. I wish there was more I could do—"

"No, you don't. In fact, I am sure you are relieved. I go before you, in the arms of my mother and you are finally freed of any nagging responsibility to me."

He shakes. "That is not true."

I scoff. I often wonder if I were able to be a father—a good one. Maybe not. But I never would've been him.

"You're despicable old man. Hobbling here to alleviate your guilt. I am not going to absolve you. I do not know my mother. But I am sure wherever she is if she ever cared for me she is writhing in disgust at your treatment of me."

He stumbled back catching himself. How feeble he is now.

"Do you think you will be by her side? Do you think she will accept you? I am sure she has cursed you since the day I arrived till now."

My father swallowed with a frown. "You don't understand —"

"My wife and I lost a child. I didn't even know it until recently. As soon as I learned of him, his name was all I thought about. What he might sound like, what he might look like. How tall he would've gotten. I think of him all the time, even though everything I think is just my imagination. He never got to get that far, never had a body or a face."

I stand, putting my hands on the bars that separate us. "My child was never even born and I love him. You had a child. I wish I had been as lucky, to have a son to love. You squandered it. I do not forgive you. I am one of the least feeling men partly because of you—and I even I cannot help but love my child. How callous you must be to have never loved yours."

He turns around and leaves in silence. I do not bother calling out to him, there is no purpose. He went against nature to hurt me. I have no desire to rekindle any kind of relationship with him.