Free Illusions Complete Series by Annie Jocoby Page A

volunteered some information then. “I married her because she was pregnant.”
    I thought about the baby room. Here’s where he will tell me about his child. However, what he said stunned me.
    “So, you have a child, right?”
    His face darkened. He said, softly, “No. At least not a child who is alive.”
    I blinked, feeling the tears coming to my eyes.
    “Um, I am so sorry. What happened?” I thought about the baby room some more, and how it was so perfect. There was nothing that was disturbed in that room. I immediately felt so sad, knowing that he must have loved his child very much. The evidence for this love was in the pristine condition of that room. I now figured that he didn’t want to show me, because he wasn’t ready to talk about her.
    “Mia was born healthy. She died at the age of 6 months. SIDS.” That was all he said. And, I could tell from his tone and his body language, that this was all that he was going to say.
    “Oh, I am so sorry…” What was there to say?
    “Yeah, it was a tough break. Alexis was never the same after that, and our marriage, which wasn’t all that strong to begin with, just went downhill. I found her in bed with Paul, my former driver, one day when I came home early from work to surprise her with a trip to Italy. I had it all planned out – the blindfold, the limousine taking us to my private jet, the whole nine. I wanted to cheer her up. It was like a kick in the gut, to say the least.” I like how he slipped in there that he had his own jet. He must be getting more comfortable talking to me about his wealth.
    “Geez.” Again, what do you say to that?
    “Yeah. I kicked her out. During the divorce, I found out how dirty she can fight.”
    “Oh?” Come on, tell me everything that is going on.
    But he left it at that.
    “Yeah. Hey, listen, it must be getting kinda late. The show starts at 7, and we should head over to get a good seat.”
    “Sure.” I felt disappointed, but I also felt that he would slowly reveal what was going on with the blackmail thing. I found myself genuinely caring about what was going on, as opposed to wanting to know for nosiness, which, I admit, motivated me before to want to find out.
    We made our way out to the outdoor theater. It was dusk now, and the cicadas were buzzing in the trees. Those bugs were so loud, but I had never actually seen one. There are apparently millions of them, however, judging by how loud the sound is. It’s funny though – although these bugs are annoying because they are so loud, I miss them when I am in a different city that doesn’t have them. I thought about my trip to San Francisco, which, to my knowledge, was the most magnificent city in the world. But it was August, and there were no fireflies and no cicadas, and it made me a little sad.
    We ended up not even using the lawn chairs, preferring to simply spread my Indian blanket on the lawn. Thank god this was a park that still allowed alcohol. We poured our wine into some plastic wine cups and drank the wine while the dogs, tired out from chasing around various balls and frisbees earlier, lay beside us. The park was packed, as this was a free show. It was something that I try to make every year.
    As the night wore on, I tried hard to keep up with the action. Twelfth Night was a play that I had learned in college, but Shakespeare had always been exceedingly difficult for me to follow. I really learned Hamlet when I took my Shakespeare course in college. I read the actual play, got the Cliff’s Notes, and watched the surprisingly good Mel Gibson version. I didn’t put that kind of effort into Twelfth Night, so I felt a little lost. However, the experience of being there – under the stars, with thousands of other people, on a warm summer night, with the most beautiful, sweetest man I had ever met, was intoxicating.
    Ryan was lying behind me on the blanket, and I was leaning against him. The dogs were beside us, snoozing and snoring. I started to notice