The Cottage

Alex had just worked three days straight when she came home exhausted one night. She'd been covering for two other people, and had had a string of emergencies, babies coding, mothers getting hysterical, a father who had threatened a doctor with a gun when his baby died unexpectedly, and was subsequently arrested. She felt as though she'd seen it all and then some by the time she got to The Cottage. Mark and Taryn were away for two days, and all Alex wanted to do was take a bath and go to sleep in bed next to Coop. She didn't even have the energy to describe to him what she'd been through.

“Bad day?” he asked casually, and she shook her head. She was near tears from sheer exhaustion. She wanted to see Jimmy, but she was too tired to visit him. She had promised to go up and see him in the morning. He was getting stir-crazy being stuck in the gatehouse with his mother. Alex called him as often as she could, but in the past two days she hadn't even had time to do that. She felt like she'd been a hostage on another planet.

“Bad three days,” she explained, as Coop offered to cook her dinner. “I'd be too tired to eat it,” she said honestly. “All I want to do is jump into the tub and go to bed. I'm sorry, Coop. I'll be better tomorrow.”

But in the morning, he seemed strangely quiet. He sat staring into space at the breakfast table. She made him bacon and eggs, and poured him a glass of orange juice in his favorite Baccarat goblet. And after he ate it, he looked at her with an unhappy expression.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly. She was feeling much better after a night's sleep and a good breakfast. But she was a lot younger than he was, and recovered quickly.

“I have something to say to you,” he said, looking anguished for a moment.

“Is something wrong?” He didn't answer her, and she didn't know why, but she'd had the feeling they'd been losing altitude lately.

“Alex… there are things you don't know about me. Things I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want to tell me either,” he smiled sadly. “I have enormous debts. I'm afraid I'm a bit like the prodigal son, and have spent it all on ‘riotous living.’ The problem is, unlike the prodigal, I have no father to come home to. My father is long gone, and he had no money anyway. He lost it all in the Depression. And I'm up the creek, as they say. Taxes, debts, I have to pay the piper one of these days. I may even have to sell The Cottage.”

She wondered for a minute if he was asking her for money. It wouldn't have upset her if he had. They were close enough by now for him to be honest with her. She preferred that to secrets between them, even if the truth was unpleasant. She knew about all this anyway, from her father. “I'm sorry to hear it, Coop. But it's not the end of the world. There are worse things.” Like death, and bad health, and cancer, and what had happened to Maggie.

“Not for me. My lifestyle is important to me. So much so that I've sold my soul for it occasionally, making bad movies, or just spending money I didn't have, so I could go on living the way I wanted, the way I felt I deserved. It's not something I'm proud of, but I did it.” He was making a clean breast of his situation. He knew he had to. It was the voice of his conscience speaking, in his case a country never before heard from. It was all very unfamiliar to him.

“Do you want me to help you?” she asked, looking lovingly at him. She had truly come to love him, whether or not he wanted to have children with her. She had decided to make that sacrifice for him, if he asked her to. She thought he was worth it.

But he startled her with his answer. “No, I don't. That's why I'm talking to you. Marrying you would be the easiest way out for me. And the hardest in the long run. If I married you, I would never know for sure why I did it. For you. Or your money.”

“Maybe you don't have to know. They come as a package. Fully loaded. You don't have to select options.”

“To be honest with you, I'm not even sure if I love you. Not enough to marry you anyway. I love being with you, I have fun with you. I've never known anyone like you. But you're a solution for me. The answer to all my prayers and problems. And then what? The whole world will call me a gigolo, and they'd be right probably. And so would you eventually. And without a doubt, your father. Even my accountant thinks I should marry you. It's a lot easier than working to pay back taxes. That's not who I want to be, Alex. And maybe I do love you, because I care about you enough to tell you that's not who I want you to marry.”

“Are you serious?” She looked horrified. “What are you saying to me?” She thought she knew but she didn't want to hear it.