Matters Of The Heart

Chapter 17

From the day Finn first asked her for money, things went steadily downhill. The tension between them was unbearable, the arguments were constant, his drinking increased noticeably, and the conversation was always the same. He wanted four or five million dollars from her, no questions asked, in cash. And now he was demanding more when they got married. He asked her to go to the fertility doctor too, and this time she flatly refused.

The only thing that was keeping her there was the tender memory of how loving he had been with her before. It was almost as though he had temporarily lost his mind, or was having a nightmare, and she was waiting for him to wake up and become himself again. But so far he hadn’t. He just kept getting worse, while she clung to the belief that he would once again become the man she’d fallen in love with. And on some days, she wondered if that man, of the first eleven months, was even real. By Thanksgiving, she was beginning to wonder if he ever had been. Maybe the man she had known and loved was an act Finn had put on to suck her in, and this one was the real one. She no longer had any idea what to think. She felt off balance and confused, and she was miserable all the time. It had been going on for weeks.

On Thanksgiving she made a traditional turkey dinner for them, which was ruined when he started to argue with her halfway through the meal. It was the same horrifying conversation about the money he wanted, and why he felt she should give it to him. She finally got up and left the table without finishing her dinner. Listening to him wheedle, rage, and insult her made her feel sick.

As she lay in bed that night, thinking that maybe she should pack her bags and fly home, Finn suddenly turned to her and became loving again. He didn’t mention the money, thanked her for a beautiful dinner, and told her how much he loved her, and was so tender with her and kind to her that she actually made love with him, which they hadn’t done in days. And afterward, she felt psychotic, no longer knowing what to believe or what was real.

He woke her in the middle of the night, and started arguing with her again, on the same agonizing subject, until she finally fell asleep. She woke up in the morning and he served her breakfast in bed, and was his old attentive, good-humored, loving self. She felt as though she were losing her mind, or he was. But one of them was crazy, and she was no longer sure who. She was most afraid that it was her, and when she said something about his waking her during the night to argue with her, he insisted that he hadn’t, and she felt crazier than ever and wondered if she had dreamed it. She needed to talk to someone, to try and make sense of it, but there was no one to talk to. She had no friends in Ireland, and she didn’t want to call Mark and worry him. And she didn’t want to call the lawyer he had recommended whom she didn’t know. Paul was too sick to talk to. The only person she could talk to was Finn, and he had started telling her that she was acting crazy. She really thought and was afraid that she might be going insane.

The only thing that saved her was that on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Paul’s doctor called her. Paul had developed pneumonia, and they were afraid that he might be coming close to the end, and if Hope wanted to see him, she needed to come to Boston as soon as she could. Without saying a word to Finn after the call, she packed a bag, and was ready to leave by the time he came home from the village with a bag of things from the hardware store, and some laundry soap Katherine had asked him to pick up. And he had bought a big bouquet of flowers for Hope, which touched her when she saw them, but only confused her more.

He was startled when he saw her, already dressed to travel, and zipping closed her bag.

“Where are you going?” He looked panicked, and she told him about Paul. Hope looked upset about it, and he put his arms around her and asked if she wanted him to come. She didn’t, but she didn’t want to insult him by saying no.

“I’ll be fine. I think it’s better if I go alone,” she said sadly. “I think this might be the end.” The doctor had said as much to her on the phone. They had expected it for years, but it was hard to face now anyway. But the last thing she wanted was for Finn to come with her. She needed to get away from him and try to figure out what was happening to her, and who he was. She was no longer sure. Finn was either accusing her of something now, or adoring her, kissing her in their bed at night, or demanding money, waking her out of a sound sleep to argue with her, and then insisting she had woken him while she staggered around in exhaustion the next day. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he was playing mind games with her, and some of it was working, because she felt totally confused. And Finn looked fine and undisturbed.

He drove her to the airport, and she kissed him and ran for the plane. And as she took her seat in first class, all she felt was relief to be away from him, and burst into tears. She slept for the entire flight, and woke up in a daze as they landed at Logan Airport in Boston. She felt as though her life with Finn had become totally surreal.

Paul’s doctor was waiting for her when she got to the hospital. She had called him on her way in from the airport. And she was shocked when he took her to see Paul. In the short time since she had seen him, he had wasted away. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks were hollow. He had an oxygen mask on, and she wasn’t sure if he recognized her at first, and then he nodded, and closed his eyes peacefully, as though he was relieved that she had come.

She sat with him for the next two days. She never left him. She called Finn once, but explained that she couldn’t speak to him from Paul’s room, and he said he understood and was very sweet to her, which seemed strange to her again. He was mean to her so often now, and then loving at other times. She almost hated talking to him, because she never knew which one he’d be. And afterward he’d blame her for starting a fight, when she was certain it was him.

She called Mark and let him know she was in Boston. She promised to keep him posted, and then finally on the third day Hope was there, Paul quietly slipped away, and as he did, with tears rolling down her cheeks, Hope whispered to him that she loved him, and asked him to take care of Mimi, and then he was gone. She stood next to him for a long time, holding his hand, and then she quietly left the room, heartbroken that he was gone.

Paul had left explicit instructions. He wanted to be cremated and buried with their daughter in New Hampshire, where Hope’s parents were as well. It was all over in two days, and seeing him put to rest next to Mimi had an overwhelming finality for Hope. She had never felt so alone in her life. She had no one left now, except Finn. He had been wonderful to her on the phone, ever since Paul died. But now, whenever Finn was nice to her, she wondered how long it would last. He was a different man.

She drove back to Boston from New Hampshire in a rented car, and then flew to New York, and went to her apartment. She felt as though the world had ended, and she sat there alone for days, calling no one, going nowhere. She hardly ate. She just wanted to think about what had happened, and all Paul had meant to her. It was hard to believe that he was gone.

She met with Paul’s lawyers. His boat was being put up for sale. Everything was in order. There was nothing for her to do. And afterward, she went to see Mark at his office. She looked drained.

“I’m so sorry, Hope.” He knew how hard this was for her. Paul had been all she had left in the world. His secretary poured her a cup of tea, and they sat and talked for a while. “How are things going in Ireland?” At first, she didn’t answer and then she looked at him strangely.

“To be honest, I don’t know. I’m confused. Sometimes he’s wonderful to me, and then he’s awful, and then he’s loving to me again. He says I’m going crazy, and I’m not sure if I am or he is. He wakes me up at night and argues with me, and then the next day he tells me that’s not what happened. I don’t know,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on. He was the best thing that ever happened to me, and now I feel like I’m living in a nightmare, and I’m not even sure whose nightmare it is, his or mine.” What she described sounded terrifying to Mark, and he was deeply worried about her.

“I think this guy’s a lunatic, Hope. I’m really beginning to think so. I think his brother was right and he’s a sociopath. I think you have to get out of there, or maybe not even go back.”

“I don’t know. I need to think about it while I’m here. When he’s nice to me, I feel stupid for being upset about it. And then he starts all over again, and I feel panicked. He’s been asking for money.” Hearing that upset Mark even more.

“How much money?”

“He wants five million in his own account, as spending money.” Mark looked furious at that.

“He’s not crazy. He’s a shit. He’s after your money, Hope.” Mark was sure of that now.

“I think he’s after my mind,” she said softly. “I feel like he’s driving me insane.”

“That’s probably what he wants you to think. I don’t think you should go back there again. And if you do, I want you to call that lawyer in Dublin first, so you have someone to rely on close at hand.”

“I will,” she promised, “but I’m going to stay here for a few days.” She was still too upset about Paul to want to go back. And she felt better now in New York. Every day her mind got clearer, and the confusion Finn was spinning around her had less effect. He was calling her often, but a lot of the time, she wasn’t answering the phone. And then afterward he’d ask her where she’d been and with whom. She usually told him she’d been asleep. Sometimes she just left her cell phone in the apartment and went out.

Mark called her two days later and sounded grim. This time, he offered to come to the apartment to see her. She invited him to come down, and he showed up half an hour later with his briefcase. The investigator had just delivered his final report, and Mark had brought it to her. Mark handed it to her without a word, and waited while she read it. The report was long and detailed, and Hope was shocked by almost everything she read. Most of it was different from what she had heard from Finn. Some he had never mentioned at all.

The report started where the last one had left off, after his childhood and youth, early jobs, and went on to tell about his marriage to Michael’s mother. It said she was a model, with some moderate success, and had married Finn when she was twenty-one and he was twenty. It said that the couple had had a reputation for a heavy party life, with both drugs and drinking, that she had gotten pregnant, and they married five months before Michael was born. The report said that they had been separated several times, both had committed infidelities, but had gone back together, and that they had gotten into a severe accident on the highway, coming back from a party late one night on Long Island. Finn had been drinking heavily that night, and was at the wheel. Their car was hit by a truck at an intersection on the highway. It had been totaled, and his wife had been severely injured. The driver of the truck was killed. There had been no witnesses on the scene, and eventually a car driving by had called the state police from a pay phone just down the road, and asked for emergency assistance. When the highway patrol arrived, they had found Finn conscious and uninjured, inebriated but not extremely, and he had been unable to explain why he had not gone to the pay phone to call for help himself. To do him justice, the report said he was in shock and disoriented after a blow to the head, and he had said he hadn’t wanted to leave his injured wife to walk down the road to the phone. The accident had occurred half an hour before the other car drove by, and medical examiners had concluded that if help had been called sooner, Finn’s passenger, his wife, would have lived. He had made no effort whatsoever to save her life.

Investigations afterward had determined that their marriage was in trouble, and Finn had asked her for a divorce, which she had refused. There was some question as to whether he had caused the accident, but whether he had or not, he had let her die. Charges had been formally brought against Finn, he was given a five-year suspended sentence and five years probation and had his license revoked for manslaughter for the death of the truck driver. His late wife’s death was deemed an accident.

The investigator had contacted the family of Finn’s late wife, in California, who were still bitter about it and said that they believed Finn had intentionally killed their daughter, in the hope of inheriting some money. Her father was a wealthy stockbroker in San Francisco, and he and his wife had brought up their daughter’s child, who was seven at the time of his mother’s death. They said that Finn had flatly refused custody of the child. They had told the investigator that Finn had seen his son twice in the ensuing years before he left for college, and they believed he had seen him a few times since, but had no real role in their grandson’s life. They considered him a poor influence on the boy and a dangerous man. He had attempted to extort money from them after their daughter’s death, threatening to expose her use of alcohol and drugs and immoral, promiscuous lifestyle. They had reported his extortion attempts to the police, but never brought formal charges against him. They just wanted him out of their and their grandson’s life.

They were aware of his literary success in the years since their daughter’s death, but nonetheless considered him responsible for her death, and said he was a man without a conscience, who was after money and cared for no one but himself. They said he had claimed to love their daughter in the beginning, and was charming. And he had cried copiously at her funeral. A doctor’s report attached said that in his opinion, she would have died anyway, with or without help. Her injuries were too extreme, and she was brain dead.

It was chilling to read the report, and Hope looked up at Mark without comment. His wife’s death had in fact been an accident. But he had done nothing to help her. There were several more pages about women he had gone out with. There was also a separate sheet that documented that he had eventually gone after his wife’s estate, and sued her parents for support, although they were supporting his child. All his efforts to get money from them, legal and otherwise, for himself had failed. It was certainly wrong of him, but it didn’t make him a murderer either. Just a crook or a man desperate for money. He had also attempted to invade monies that had gone to the boy directly from his mother, and her parents were able to stop Finn’s attempts to get money from his son as well. Hope couldn’t help wondering if Michael knew about that. He knew his father was a liar. But Finn was infinitely worse. He was totally amoral.

Among the women Finn had gone out with were several wealthy women, some of whom he had lived with for a short time, and it was generally believed that they had given him money and gifts. His finances had always been shaky throughout the years, despite his literary success, and his appetite for money was apparently voracious. There was an additional page about his publisher’s current lawsuit against him, and a list of other lawsuits that had been filed against him, usually without success. There was one in particular, by a woman he had lived with, who had brought charges of mental cruelty, but she had lost the suit. All together it painted a picture of a man who exploited women, and all the subjects interviewed said he was a pathological liar. Two of them said he was a sociopath, and an unnamed source at his publisher said they considered him unreliable, untrustworthy, unethical, and incapable of following rules of any kind. All of the subjects, including his ex-parents-in-law, said he was charming, but many considered him an unscrupulous, dangerous man, entirely motivated by greed, and who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. There were no kind words about him in the report, except that he was charming, and was always loving and kind in the beginning, and heartless and cruel in the end. It was what Hope was discovering as well and hoped wasn’t true. The report made it hard to deny.

Hope sat back on the couch and looked at Mark after she read it. And added to it, but not in the report, was the girl who Finn had told her himself had committed suicide because of him. So indirectly, he had caused two deaths. And Hope suddenly remembered his question to her when she had found the photograph of Audra, when he asked her if she would ever commit suicide herself, almost as though it would have been a compliment to him. The question had a whole new meaning now. She was surprised to find that she was shaking as she thought about it all and tried to absorb what she’d just read. It was horrifying to think that all those frightening stories and details of his life had slipped through the cracks over the years and become obscured. The investigator had worked hard to unearth them.

“Not pretty, is it?” Mark commented, looking worried.

“No, it isn’t,” she said sadly. He was charming, as they said, and extremely loving in the beginning, but almost every one of them considered him a dangerous man. “Now what do I do?” she said almost to herself, staring out the window into space, thinking about Finn, wanting with all her heart for him to be who he had been at first.

“I don’t think you should go back,” Mark said wisely, and she thought about it for a long moment, and how confused she had been when she left. She wondered if he was trying to drive her to suicide, but he wanted the five million dollars first. And if she married him, he would have more. If he had a child with her, he could pump her estate forever, and the child, or her.

“I think I need to go back and sort it out. In my own head at least.” He was two people. The one she had fallen in love with and the one in the report. She couldn’t help wondering if his late wife’s parents blamed him because they couldn’t accept their daughter’s death, and it was easier to blame him. She wanted to believe that, and was wrestling with herself. She tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it was hard to do in light of the report. “We were supposed to get married and for my own sake, I need to find out what is real.”

“What if he kills you?” Mark said tersely.

“He won’t. He didn’t kill his wife. It was an accident. The police report, and the coroner both said so. I think what he wants is to get as much money out of me as he can.” That was ugly too, and she still wanted to believe he loved her. “I’ll call your lawyer in Dublin before I go back, so I have a contact person close at hand.” She felt so alone in Ireland now, and could no longer trust or count on Finn. Whoever and whatever he was, there was a part of him that was evil. Strangely after what she had just read, Hope wasn’t afraid of him. She knew that part of him was good too. She still believed that. She also knew she wasn’t crazy but there was a possibility that Finn was. It was why he wrote the books he did, all those dark characters lived in his head, and were different sides of him, the ones that didn’t show. “I’ll be all right. I need to see this through and sort it out,” she reassured Mark, handed him back the report, and thanked him. “I’ll call you before I leave.” She wanted to be alone, to mourn the man she loved, who possibly didn’t exist, and never had.

The silence in her apartment was deafening after Mark left. All she could think of now were those wonderful months she had shared with Finn, how completely she had believed and loved him, how real it seemed. Tears rolled down her cheeks, knowing there was a strong possibility now that every moment of it had been a lie. It was hard to believe and harder still to accept. The dream she had lived with him may never have been more than that. A dream. And suddenly it had turned into a nightmare. She no longer had any idea who Finn was. The good man she fell in love with or the ne’er-do-well in the report? All she knew was that she needed to go back, look him in the eye, and find out.