Spare Me

Chapter 11

A fter Maddy spent the evening taking care of a fever-delirious Alex, she sensed a subtle shift in their relationship. He’d been incredibly vulnerable in front of her—albeit not entirely by choice—and she felt herself starting to wonder about letting her own guard down. She was scared, though. After several additional discreet and casual dinners and another afternoon at his place watching 10 Things I Hate About You, she was reasonably confident that she knew Alex well enough to know how he’d respond, but she couldn’t be sure. And she also knew that the closer she let him get, the closer she came to breaking her resolve. To getting too involved with yet another man whose career would push her back into public view. Anything more than a fling would be in direct contravention of the Maddy 2.0 plan.

A few weeks after Alex had the flu the Stewarts were in Paris on a diplomatic visit. As much as Maddy wouldn't have minded a weekend of pains au chocolat and, if she were being honest, respectfully ogling the French president, she was also glad to have a weekend fully off. Winfield House would be almost completely empty, and she had no responsibilities. No chance of being asked to escort the twins to dance class. No need to track down a specific skincare product for Mrs. Stewart. It was going to be glorious.

Maddy had turned in early Friday night after seeing the Stewarts off. After reheating some pasta she’d found in the embassy kitchen, Maddy had fallen asleep on the couch watching TV and then dragged herself up to bed. The next morning she treated herself to a real lie-in for the first time in weeks. When she finally rolled over, it was ten a.m. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so rested and relaxed. Picking up her phone, she saw she had a text from Alex.

Mr. Martini

I saw on the news that the Stewarts are in Paris. Are you in town? Or did you go with them?

Nope. I’m living my best goblin life at Winfield House alone.

Mr. Martini

And what does a goblin life entail?

Well, I’m still in bed and I have a full day of dissociating on my phone, watching trashy TV, and lounging planned. And obviously at least 3 beverages on hand at all times.

Mr. Martini

Sounds amazing. Want company?

Maddy hesitated before responding. The real answer was of course she wanted to hang out with Alex. But she was also afraid that if they spent too much time together she’d let him get closer. That she’d have to explore the feelings that she kept resolutely shoving down each time they bubbled up. Decidedly un-casual feelings. That the closer he got, the harder it would be to keep her resolve to be independent, not beholden to another man with a powerful, public job. And she wasn’t sure if she was ready for any of that.

Mr. Martini

Of course, we don’t have to hang out. I don’t want to intrude on your solo-goblining.

Maddy bit her bottom lip and fidgeted with the chain around her neck subconsciously, the discs at the end clinking quietly between her breasts.

No! You should come over!

I mean, if you’re allowed to do that? Are you allowed to just go to a friend’s house? This friend’s house very conveniently has pretty robust security…

Mr. Martini

LOL. Yes, I’m allowed to go on playdates. Where’s the best door to come in?

She gave him instructions on how to find the back door to the kitchen and they agreed on him coming over at 7:30 with a pizza. Which gave her eight hours to panic about hosting the second in line to the throne of England for a casual hang. A casual royal playdate.

By the time Alex arrived at 7:40 with a pizza and a bottle of Syrah that looked far too expensive to be enjoyed next to a pizza while wearing yoga pants, Maddy was slightly panicking. She’d spent the day alternating between sitting in an absolute stupor scrolling TikTok while not doing anything and frantic bursts of tidying in the hopes that her sitting room, at least, would not look like a slob lived there.

She led him downstairs, and he gaped. “Do you… live in the scullery? Am I walking into a Dickens book?”

She laughed. “Well, at one time it was that, but thankfully, nobody else is subject to my thoroughly mediocre cooking.” She hung his jacket on the bottom of the banister and put the pizza on the coffee table before going to rummage through her postage stamp-sized kitchenette to look for a wine opener. “I usually eat on the couch…” she said, by way of apology.

“Perfect,” he said, toeing off his leather sneakers and making himself comfortable.

She brought over two plates, two wine glasses, and the wine opener, and set about pouring wine and dishing out pizza. There was companionable silence as they tucked into the pepperoni pizza, Alex on the couch and leaning over the coffee table, Maddy sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite him.

“So, how was your goblin day?” Alex asked around his slice of pizza.

“Lovely,” Maddy replied, pausing for a sip of wine. “What did you get up to today?” It was surreal to be sitting on the floor of her suite casually wiping pizza grease off her face with the second in line to the British throne, but she tried to sound normal.

“Well, my mum and dad are on an official visit in Scotland, and Ben and Hannah went out to their country house, so I mostly just bummed around. Read a few briefings for some events I’m working this week. Took Bertie for a jog through the park.”

“You can jog?” she asked incredulously.

“I mean, I know we have a reputation for being inbred—” he started, slightly defensively.

“No, I meant, you’re allowed to go out and move about freely and exercise?” she said slowly, using two fingers to mime running, as if explaining to a very confused person.

“Oh!” he said, catching up to her. “Yes. Parts of Kensington Gardens are private for the family, so I can go there. I have a treadmill too, but it’s nice to get outside, especially before winter really settles in.”

“Ugh, the winter’s going to be so cold, isn’t it?” she groaned, shivering at the thought of enduring the long British winter.

“Well, it won’t be warm ,” he hedged, clearly trying to protect her from the truth.

“I can take it. Just say it. It’s going to be colder than a witch’s tit, isn’t it?”

“Those aren’t the exact words I would have used to describe it, but yeah, pretty much. Sorry.”

She sighed and topped off her wine glass. She looked up at the glass panes that made up the back wall and ceiling of her suite of rooms. “It’ll be interesting to see how well insulated this place stays once the cold really sets in.”

He glanced up and repressed a wince. “Well, based on my knowledge of British HVAC systems, it’ll either be frigid or a sauna. There is no in-between.”

She sighed again. “Yeah, I figured as much. I guess we’ll find out.” Maddy leaned back on one arm, relaxing into a cozy wine buzz. Gazing over at Alex it was hard not to stare. He was so attractive. It was honestly mind-boggling that he hadn’t settled down with a nice aristocratic English person. After a brief pause, she looked at him and grinned. “Truth or dare?”

Alex narrowed his eyes slightly. “Truth.”

“Okay,” Maddy swallowed and then asked the question she would never have asked before two glasses of wine. “How are you still single? You could be banging every girl in Britain right now—and, hell, for all I know, maybe you are—but… I gu ess… how has someone not snatched you up and convinced you to put a ring on it yet?”

“I assure you,” he said sardonically, “if I was banging every girl in Britain, at least one of the tabloids would have gotten a whiff of it.” He took another sip of his wine and seemed to debate his options.

“Sorry, that was kind of a personal question—” she began.

“No, it’s a fair question,” he said, stopping her. “Usually when one gets to be thirty and has a public role in a family that relies on you marrying and producing offspring, one doesn’t wait quite so long to start.” He took a breath and another sip of wine, and went on. “Honestly, it always just seemed easier to keep things casual. The weight of expectation on anyone who gets involved with me is, frankly, absurd. The scrutiny, the lack of freedom. It asks too much for most people. And” —he paused for a second and then seemed to make a decision—“and I’ve been afraid of falling for someone and then having her realize that she can’t do it, that it’s too much for her. Which is a totally fair realization. But I guess it’s been mostly self-protection.

“There was someone. Once. Just before I left for New Zealand. Imogen. She was a friend of a friend, and we met at a weekend in the country and… well, hooked up in what I thought was going to be just a simple ‘just for the weekend’ thing. But for some reason a weekend wasn’t enough. So we started seeing each other. Casually. Mostly at people’s country houses where there was no danger of the press seeing and starting to hound her. But then suddenly when we’d go on dates in London, the press started showing up. But only when we were together. And finally after a few weeks I realized she was calling them herself. She claimed she liked me, but she clearly also liked the publicity. So, yeah. That was my one kind of disastrous attempt at a more serious monogamous relationship.” He let out a small sigh and shrugged. “I guess it wasn’t—isn’t—meant to be.”

“Oh, Alex,” she said, frowning. “That’s horrible. Having someone use you like that must have just been awful. And really, who could possibly want that attention?” She also found herself angrier than she would have expected to be at the idea of someone taking advantage of Alex in that way.

“Okay, my turn.” Alex leaned back as he picked up a third slice of pizza. “Truth or dare?”

Maddy took a deep breath. She’d vaguely realized that by starting this she’d have to play, too. She was not a daring person. “Truth.”

“Same question.”

Resignation settled heavy in her chest. Some part of her had known this was coming. And, if she really let herself be honest, wanted to tell him. Had wanted to tell him for days. This was it. This was the sign she’d been looking for. She took a large swig of wine and leveled her eyes on him. “Just promise that you’ll let me finish the whole thing before you say anything.”

“Mads, of course,” he said, concern creasing his forehead as he leaned forward, forearms on his knees. “You can tell me anything. But also, you don’t have to if you don’t want to or aren’t ready.”

“No, I do,” she said. “And really, this,” she gestured between them, “will never be more than surface level if I don’t tell you. Plus, it’s going to come out sooner or later. I can’t run from this forever.” She took one more deep breath and began.

“So I was married,” she started, and almost immediately, she saw Alex’s eyes widen in surprise.

“You were?—”

“You promised you’d let me finish,” she said, chastising. “It’s going to be hard enough for me to get this out without you interrupting me. ”

He nodded and sat back again.

“Our families were close growing up. His dad and my dad served in the first Desert Storm together with Ambassador Stewart. The three of them were good friends, and Evan’s dad and my dad both re-upped their contracts. We wound up posted at the same place a few times and started spending a week on a lake in the Adirondacks every summer.” She paused for a fortifying sip of wine and plunged forward. “Evan and I were always together during those weeks. We’d swim out to a dock a little ways out and climb out and lay there and talk for hours while we baked in the sun. It was kind of hard for me to make friends growing up—we moved so often, you know—but Evan was a constant. Once we were a little older we started texting and emailing all the time. He was one of the only people I knew well who truly got what it was like. His life was just like mine.

“And then came college. Evan, being the good Army son that he was, got a commission to West Point and half coincidentally, half on purpose, I wound up at Vassar. Poughkeepsie’s only about an hour away from West Point, so we’d get together as often as he was allowed to leave campus. And gradually”—she closed her eyes briefly, then kept going—“we became more than friends. It was honestly partially puppy love and partially connection to a person who knew me better than anyone else, who understood me, who wanted me to be happy. And so, when he asked me to marry him at Christmas our senior year, I said yes. We were married at the Cadet Chapel at West Point the weekend after graduation.

“I knew it wouldn’t be an easy life. We left for Fort Drum basically right after the wedding, and we lived in the middle of nowhere not far from the Canadian border for months. But I grew up in a military family. I’d watched my mom. She loved being an Army wife—getting to live in so many different parts of the country, hosting events, supporting the other wives and families, running a tight ship at home. My dad always jokes that he’s a general on the battlefield, but she’s the general at the Cartwright house. So I found a job on post, kept my chin up, tried to be supportive, and waited for things to get easier. I assumed once I got used to it, I’d flourish in that role the way my mom did. I assumed eventually our relationship would flourish too. Would…” She searched for the right phrase. “Would be more .” She swallowed. “Would make the constant fear of deployment and having to move all the time worth it.

“Unfortunately, it just never really blossomed the way I hoped it would. On paper we had the perfect marriage. We got along, never fought, we had fun together, but there was no spark. And I gradually started to feel like I had less and less agency. And started getting resentful and itchy. I wanted to be able to choose where we lived together, to stay somewhere longer than a few years, to really put down roots. I had a job, but it wasn’t something I was passionate about. I wanted to be able to develop a career without knowing that I’d have to pick up and move again as soon as we really got settled.

“His second deployment was to Afghanistan. It was eighteen months long. By then I was starting to realize that even though I loved him, I wasn’t in love with him. We were good friends, but—” She swallowed. “He wasn’t my soulmate. When he was gone I let myself start to dream about what it would be like to make my own decisions, get to choose where I lived based on what I wanted to do, maybe even go to graduate school. I played the good Army wife, talking to him on FaceTime as often as we could, supporting the other wives, volunteering, running events… but I also started looking up divorce attorneys.

“I realized one day when I was at a baby shower for one of the other wives in our cul-de-sac that even though all the other women’s husbands were deployed too, they all seemed really happy. Like, fulfilled, excited, starting families… and I realized I just… wasn’t. I didn’t want that. I wasn’t ready to settle down. There was more I wanted to do before I started popping out his perfect West Point-bound babies.” By this time, she’d risen from her seat on the rug by the coffee table and was pacing, not making eye contact with Alex, just trying to get the truth out as fast as possible.

“I’d finally decided I was going to tell him when he got back. That I wanted to end it. And that’s when it happened. I was home alone on a Thursday afternoon, the day before I was supposed to meet with my divorce lawyer for the first time. Evan was six weeks from coming home. I was having a cup of coffee, watching TV, when there was a knock on the door. When I opened it and there were two soldiers there in uniform, I just knew. They told me his helicopter had been shot down. They were ambushed and his chopper took the heat, created a diversion, so that three others could get away. Evan and five other soldiers died.”

“Oh, Maddy,” Alex said softly.

“Would you believe,” she said, finally looking at him, bitterness on her face, “that that isn’t the worst of it?” He closed his mouth, his eyes full of unsolicited sympathy. “Because they had died so heroically, so publicly, the president invited the families to come to Dover to meet the bodies. There was press there, and a photographer happened to be standing right beside me.” She fished her phone from the pocket of her leggings, unlocked it, and, after tapping a few times, handed it to him, with the photo on the screen. Masochistically, it was never far from the top of her search history, if she ever closed the tab. Maddy stood, silhouetted from the back and just to the side in a black-and-white photograph, wearing a black sheath dress and black hat. Her head was bowed, shoulders bent. The picture of a grieving wife. Flag-draped caskets were just visible out of focus in the background of the shot, being rolled off the military aircraft .

“That’s you,” he said, recognition and sorrow heavy in his voice.

She nodded. “That’s why I just assumed you knew who I was. It was the picture seen ’round the world for weeks. I was the public paragon of a grieving young Army widow.” She started pacing again, fingers subconsciously tracing the metal oblongs nestled against her sternum. “God, I hate that word, ‘widow.’ Talk about Dickensian.” She gave a hollow laugh. “Everyone wanted to talk to me, comfort me, interview me, offer me sympathy. This amazing community of families whose servicemembers had also been killed in the line of duty reached out to try to support me.” Another pause. “But none of them knew. Nobody knew. I wasn’t this perfect grieving wife. I’d been ready to leave. I got this huge chunk of money from the Army, but the idea of using it for myself made me sick, so I just stuck it in an investment fund and tried to forget about it.” She paused for a second, trying to collect herself. “I stuck with it for as long as I could.” She sighed. “But after I’d been lying low, avoiding going out and being seen, just… moping around my parents’ house for a year, my dad called Ambassador Stewart and asked him to find something for me. A few weeks later, he handed me a plane ticket and shipped me off to my new ‘duty station’ at Winfield House.”

She was working up the nerve to actually face him, to confront the familiar and uncomfortable sympathy that would be in his eyes, the same way it appeared in everyone’s eyes when they found out what had happened. The unwelcome pity that gnawed at her, reminding her of the lie she’d lived for so long. But then feet appeared on the carpet in front of her, strong arms encircled her, and Alex was holding her tightly, pulling her head to his shoulder.

“Who else have you told that all to?” he asked gently, smoothing a hand down her hair. “How long have you been holding that all in? ”

“Nobody,” she confessed, her voice slightly muffled against his chest. “Who could possibly hear how awful I was and understand? Even if I’d wanted to confide in anyone, I’d already become this patriotic icon,” she said, disdain dripping from her voice, her body still tense in his arms. “I couldn’t turn around and be the person who was going to divorce her war hero. I couldn’t do that to my parents, I couldn’t do that to Evan’s family, and I couldn’t do that to Evan and defile his legacy that way. So… yeah. It’s been eighteen months,” she said. “You’re the first one I’ve told.”

Her close friends from college had, she thought, had an inkling that all wasn’t as it seemed between her and Evan and had gently tried to inquire. But she’d known that if she opened up at all, the entire truth would come flowing out. And she wouldn’t let herself do that to Evan. So she’d held it in, swallowing the truest parts of her grief—the loss of not her husband, but of her best friend. The guilt over what she’d been planning to do. She’d dutifully kept it all to herself.

Alex placed a gentle kiss to the top of her head and then pushed her away a bit to hold her at arm’s length. “Madeleine, you need to get something very clear.” She hung her head, but he used a finger to lift her chin, forcing her to face him again. “Just because the situation wasn’t what it seemed, just because you weren’t willing to stay in an unfulfilling marriage does not say anything about who you are as a person.” Maddy was slightly taken aback. She hadn’t exactly expected him to run away in abject horror, but she also hadn’t been sure how he’d react. In her darker moments the guilt still ate away at her. “If anything it makes you even braver than he was. Did it ever occur to you that he could have felt the same way? If you never talked about it, we’ll never know. But that kind of feeling in a relationship isn’t usually one-sided. And most importantly,” he said, ducking his head a bit to look directly into her eyes, “just because you weren’t in love with him like that doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to mourn. It doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be sad he’s gone. You still lost someone really important to you.” He pulled her close again, and she sagged a bit in his embrace, finally relaxing into the comfort he was offering. “Come here,” he said, guiding her to the couch and snuggling her down next to him.

Maddy felt emotionally roto-rootered after revealing so much. Roto-rootered and slightly shellshocked after finally unburdening herself. The Army had sent grief counselors, but she’d struggled to open up to them. Even though they’d tried to reassure her that all of her feelings were valid and that they were a confidential resource, her total discomfort with the fact that there was a small, wriggling filament of relief, of freedom, infiltrating her brain alongside the grief and anger kept her from really being honest. Of actually doing the work to process. She’d sat through several insipid sessions, telling them what she knew they wanted to hear, were expecting to hear, numb and brittle, but convincing enough for them to believe that she wasn’t going to hurt herself or go postal on the news. And after a few sessions they were convinced enough that they stopped making her go. And she’d been left to marinate in her own feelings of guilt, shame, and sadness. She’d told herself she was going to seek out a counselor when she got settled in London, but it had been several months and she still hadn’t followed through on that commitment she’d made to herself.

Now, sitting next to Alex on the cozy and slightly droopy couch in her sitting room at Winfield House, she felt her entire body go almost limp. She hadn’t realized how much tension she’d been holding in her body for so many months, but when it all left, it was almost as if she was the living embodiment of a “no bones day.” Alex glanced at her and then, without saying anything, refilled her wine glass, and pressed it into her hand. He pulled her close, putting his arm around her shoulders and pressed another kiss to the top of her head, somehow both fierce and tender at the same time. “It’s going to be okay, Maddy,” he whispered, and then turned on the TV and turned his attention to an octet of bakers attempting to recreate a Twix bar on the television.

Several hours later, the pizza and wine were gone, as was most of a container of chocolate gelato they’d swiped from the Winfield freezer. Between the emotional exhaustion and several glasses of wine, Maddy was completely spent. As the baking show had segued into a historical drama about women behaving badly in the court of Henry VIII, Maddy had drifted off. When she woke up some time later, Alex was looking down at her, his eyes slightly crinkled with an emotion that, in her bleary state, she couldn’t quite suss out.

“Sorry,” he said, smiling apologetically. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, no,” she said, rubbing her eyes and pushing herself to a sitting position. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I didn’t mean to emotionally dump on you and then trap you on my couch until eleven pm.”

He smiled at her again. Maddy felt like she was in a tractor beam. She knew she needed to look away, couldn’t let herself get sucked in, and yet, somehow, his gaze was magnetic. “Allow me to reframe that,” he said. “Thank you for being so vulnerable and then trusting me to help you decompress from what was a really emotional evening.”

She blushed, looking down at her hands. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I… I didn’t realize how much that was all eating at me until I got it all out.”

“Anytime, Mads,” he said, grabbing one of her hands and squeezing. “And now,” he said, standing up, “I’m going to go home and get some rest, and you should too.” She nodded and got to her feet. She stood awkwardly while he shrugged into his leather jacket, unsure of what to say, how to end this evening that had smashed through the remaining armor she wore around herself.

“Hey,” he said, grasping her by both shoulders. “You deserve to feel happy. No matter what happened, you are worthy of knowing what real love can feel like. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” He leaned down, kissed her forehead swiftly, and took the stairs back up towards the rest of the house two at a time. She knew she should walk him out, but the affectionate gesture and his kind words had been so startling that she just stood there staring after him until it was too late. After a few minutes she shook her head a little, quickly disposed of the trash from their dinner, and wearily climbed the stairs to bed.