Nuo fu coward
"Darling? Regan?" Gabriel Tam wrinkles his nose as he crosses the threshold into the bedroom. The room stinks of unwashed linen and stale air. The louvers are still down, which means he can hardly see three inches in front of his nose, and the air is stale. Surely the maids have been up to clean? What is he paying them for, otherwise? "I got your wave at the office; are you all right?"
"You're not usually stupid, Gabriel; don't start now." Regan's voice comes out of the darkness from the direction of the bed, gluey and slurred. "Of course I'm not all right. Now go away." There was a rustle of bedclothes. They've been married thirty years; he knows the sound to mean she's drawn the quilts up over her head. Another migraine? She is prone to them.
"Are you ill?" He pitches his voice at headache level, just in case and crosses to the bed. One hand under the covers and he caresses the cinnamon tangle of her hair. It's uncombed and a little sweaty. He doesn't mind, though he worries. Regan growls and shoves his hand away.
"Of course I'm not ill."
"Then what? You know we have the Oriana Charity Ball tonight."
"As if I care about some tiresome ball, Gabe, really. I said in the wave I'm not going. You'll just have to make my excuses."
"I've been making your excuses for the last six months." Impatience shows in his voice. He's tired of this; this... malingering. "How long is this going to go on, Regan? People are starting to talk."
"And God forbid they do that!" Regan shunts back the covers and sits. A moment later, she touches the lamp to brightness. She looks a wreck, still in the same nightgown as when he left that morning. She's been crying, her nose and eyes red and swollen. He wonders if she's been drinking too. He compares the hagridden woman before him to the pert and vivacious beauty he met at the Carnetheby's so many years ago. He thinks of her on their wedding day.
"A man's reputation--a family's fortunes--can turn on the waggle of a gossip's tongue, Regan. You know that. It's bad enough..."
"It's bad enough we lost our children, Gabe, and all for the sake of what people might say!"
His face turns stony. "I told you I don't care to talk about that. Not in my home. The amount of damage control I've had to do..."
"Damage control?" Regan scoffs. "Damage control? I always knew you could be ruthless, Gabe, but not heartless."
"Well, now you're just being melodramatic."
"Am I?" She drags a hand through her hair, tangles it further. "Maybe it's because you're not their mother..."
Gabriel sighs. "I'm really not going to sit for another tirade about the sacred virtues of motherhood, Regan. They're my children too. I've been there all the way for them..."
"Not when they needed you most, you weren't! Simon called you from that terrible place, he begged you to help..."
"Help him break the law, Regan! Let's not lose perspective, here. He wanted me--us--to break the law."
"For River!"
"For some crackpot conspiracy theory cooked up out of..." He gestures. "Misspelled words and imagined nonsense. You read her letters...River was fine! More than fine, she was happy!"
"So happy that she and Simon have run off to be fugitives.."
"Don't romanticize it, Regan, call them what they are--criminals! Do you know how lucky we were, not to be implicated? The Alliance could have taken everything, everything we've worked all this time to build. I know that's the reason we didn't get the contract with Hyperdyne and the Cosgroves still aren't speaking to us--they lost their son in that assault your son carried out on the Alliance facility! He was a clerk, Regan, a gorram clerk, so don't you dare pretend that Simon and River are victims in this fahng-tzong fung-kwong duh jeh."
"Nuo fu!" Regan screams in return. Tears run down her face, ravaging it further. "So we have the house, we have the money! So what? We lost our children!"
"Our children were lost to us long before now," Gabriel says grimly. "We were too indulgent with them; I see that now. As I've been too indulgent with you, hoping you would come to your senses, if I just let you be. No more. Get up, Regan. I'll have Linnet draw you a bath and lay your clothes out."
"I won't!"
He grabs her shoulders and shakes her, hard. "Don't test me, Regan!" he hisses. "I am at the end of my patience. Now you will get up, you will pull yourself together, and we will attend this ball tonight. You will be charming, and vivacious, and the envy of all the other women there, and you will not bring up the subject of River or Simon again.
"As far as I--or the rest of the world--is concerned, we never had any children." He lets her go, and she falls back on the mattress, white and wide-eyed.
Gabriel turns and leaves, calling out for the maid as he goes down the stairs. Suddenly, he could really use a drink.