9.
~ "It'll be nice to be home." Ariadne said as he husband drove them carefully back to their neighborhood.
"Yes, it will be." He agreed. He had stayed with her the four days she was in the hospital. The Architect, finally able to leave when the doctor preformed another sonogram and told her the baby was fine and healthy. She was released with strict instruction not to do anything stressful until the birth. She was under doctor's orders to live as stress free a life as was possible.
Arthur was scowling at the road as they neared the building. He looked a little mad as the silence between them seemed to weigh them down.
"You know, I don't care about the money. You know that right?" He said. "Whatever those people wanted, you could have let me deal with it."
She didn't say anything as they drove on.
"Was that what they wanted? More money?" He asked. He was not able to keep his burning questions inside him anymore.
"Why didn't you tell me about them? Who are they?" He asked.
"The doctor says your not supposed to upset me." Ariadne told him in a ghost like whisper. Her eyes catching her reflection in the car window. A transparent girl who looked too sad.
~ Arthur called Mcline after Ariadne went to their bedroom for a nap. The kids would be dropped of later.
"I need a comprehensive back ground search." He said.
"On who?" Mcline asked.
Arthur looked over the canceled check for 40 thousand dollars. The child like scribal of a name carved on the other side and told Mcline the name.
"He was recently in Paris. I want to know everything about about him." He said sternly.
~ The dossier Mcline sent, the back ground check on the man who had chased the check Ariadne wrote, sat on the kitchen counter.
Arthur was afraid to touch it. It was thick and foreboding. Mcline even telling Arthur maybe it was best not to read it.
"Sometimes it's best not to go mucking around for skeletons in closets." The old lawyer had said.
Arthur stared at the thick folder. It was stacked with witness statements, pictures, police reports and newspaper clippings. He knew Ariadne was involved in there somehow, but he couldn't bare to see how.
He had to know he decided suddenly. It was late at night and it had taken him a long time to steel enough courage to open it. His wife was in their bedroom. Sadie had dropped by unannounced to visit her. The Point Man grumbling that the Architect needed to rest. The leggy spider woman ignoring him.
Arthur left the two women alone and returned his focus to the file.
"What's that?" Came a voice that was like nails on a chalk board to him.
The Point Man felt his head hurt as he looked up to see Sadie.
"Is Ariadne alright?" He asked her instead of answering the question.
Sadie's gaze was fixed solely on the dossier on the table.
"She is fine. What is that?" She asked. Her long arms snatching the file off the table before Arthur could reach it.
"None of your business!" Arthur almost shouted. He had never wanted to hit a woman so much in his life.
Sadie opened the folder and stayed out of Arthur's reach with a gazelle like grace despite her high heels.
"This doesn't seem to be your business either." She accused shutting the folder after looking over the documents there.
Arthur opened his mouth to retort, and closed it again. For a moment, Sadie didn't look like herself. She didn't appear to be the selfish, spoiled woman who aggravated him like another Eames.
"Why are you poking around in the past?" She asked holding the folder in one hand. Her eyes cutting into the Point Man.
"I need to know. I need to know who those people are." He said.
"Will it help Ariadne if you know who they are?"
"It might." He said defensively.
"No. It will only hurt her. It will not help you either. It will not help you to be burdened with the things no one can change. She did not tell you about it for a reason. She has moved on. She is happy not thinking about the past." She said. The tall woman suddenly very wise.
"You know, don't you?" He asked. "Who they were."
"Yes. Bad people from when she was little. A history that she can not change so she moved one. She was very happy until they showed up."
"Who are they?" He barked.
"Not important. If she wants to tell you, she will. She did not tell you because it's a part of an old life. It's not who she is anymore." Sadie told him.
"I have to know so I can protect her from them." Arthur said defensively.
Sadie casually strolled to the fireplace. The gas burners lighting a merry fire in a few seconds with no kindling or matches. Sadie lit a cigarette from the fire, and threw the file into the flames.
"Do not ask her about this. Let it go. She is happier not remembering. It hurts her too much to remember that old life." She said as Arthur watched the file burn.
He was shocked he had allowed the leggy woman to do that. A part of him also relived the file was burning, never to be read.
"Tell me, how do I keep her safe from those people if I can't know who they are?" He said watching the flames lick the paper. Burning it away.
"Not to worry. Eames and I have it taken care of. Those ugly tourists will not come back. I can not believe they came to Paris dressed like that. Of all the nerve. I don't blame Ariadne for hating them. I would hate people who dressed like that to." She said more to herself then to the Point Man as she pulled out a compact and checked her heavy makeup.
"She was asking about you. Go and see her. Ask her nothing about this. Let it be over." Sadie said as she stalked out of the apartment on her long legs.
~ In their big, comfortable bed, Ariadne watched the previews for next weeks reality show. Sadie had made her laugh as the spider woman made fun of all the contestants. The Architect enjoying a session of being a mean girl.
"Sadie left." Arthur said coming into the room as she snapped off the TV.
"It's been nice to see her." Ariadne told him.
She was feeling good lately. The ghosts of that playground fading away with the presence of her husband and friends.
"Are you mad she's been around so much?" Ariadne asked.
"No." Arthur said honestly. "She's your friend. She makes you happy." He told her from their closet as he undressed for bed.
"Kids asleep?" She asked as her husband crawled into bed with her. His lips seeking out her forehead.
"Oh yes. Busy day." He told her. "You were in bed and I had to play mommy." He told her with a laugh.
"Welcome to my world." She said as she burrowed deeper into her husbands arms. He turned off the light and breathed in the smell of her shampoo.
"Ariadne, I won't press the issue, but you know that you can tell me anything. You know that right?" He said softly.
She said nothing. The fear of ghosts rising up from their graves filling her.
"I know." She said at last.
"Do you want to tell me anything?" He asked.
The ghosts were making her body hurt. Gripping her in their cold claws. A past she could not change. Wounds long healed threatening to rip open and bleed.
"No." She said sadly. "There is nothing I want to talk about."
The ghosts retreated. Their power gone as she laid her in husbands arms. The snowy playground too far away to remember as she thought only of getting the kids dressed in the morning.
Darcy's cereal and Dominic feeding himself oatmeal. Her husband's hand running over their unborn baby in the way that always made her smile.
A feeling of safety and warmth filling her as she drifted into happy dreams.