That evening, Aubrey had a quiet night alone. Foster would be gone until late, something to do with the city planning committee. She was still processing her therapy session with Ian earlier that day, and she decided not to assign any meaning to it. So she went to bed and streamed a rom-com.
She fell asleep before Foster came home. Not unusual. But she had a strange and sinister dream about going on a date with Ian—
It was a beautiful afternoon. Calm. Balmy. A day when the sun washed over the landscape, and the light breezes felt soothing to the skin. Ian was driving Aubrey through the countryside to spend the day at his family’s estate.
His family wanted to meet her. They were going to be married that afternoon!
But where was her dress? She had to call her friends; they would be so excited. Did she have a bridal shower? She couldn’t remember, but here she was, the new Mrs. Ian Heshaw III.
She was wearing an unfamiliar dress, a spring frock Ian had picked out for her when they were shopping in Paris. Wags the dog was sitting in her lap.
Ian, drive faster, we’ll be late for tea.
He looked at her while he was driving.
He was grinning.
He was leering.
He was laughing.
At what Aubrey didn’t know, but he started driving erratically.
Aubrey begged him to stop, but he couldn’t hear her over the blustery wind that had picked up. Aubrey thought they were going to crash, but then they were there, at the gates of the Henshaw estate.
The massive wrought iron gates opened smoothly, beckoning the young couple to enter their new Eden, the place where they would raise children and live happily ever after.
Servants lined the driveway, welcoming them to the mansion that symbolized old money and social status. One servant, though, gave them a hateful stare. It was Hope, in a maid’s uniform, waiting to exact her revenge.
No matter, Ian would get rid of her soon enough.
Ian parked the car, and Aubrey looked up at the manor house that would soon be hers. The granite façade reached upwards to the sky, not ending where it should. The front oak doors were sturdy-looking and carved, bearing the Henshaw family crest.
The servants ushered Aubrey and Ian into the great hall, where champagne was flowing, and many party guests reveled. They had familiar faces and toasted the couple with garbled joy.
Ian and Aubrey were handed crystal champagne flutes to make a toast that was lost in the hubbub as the crowd parted and the Henshaw family came into view.
There they were, distinguished and proud, bowing to Ian and Aubrey, welcoming them to the family. There was Ian Henshaw Senior, and the rest of the family, whom Aubrey knew but didn’t recognize.
Welcome, welcome!
Aubrey and Ian were on the terrace, standing before the minister, exchanging vows. A kiss and a five-carat diamond ring. A dress that was being photographed for a New York fashion magazine. The social reporter from the times. It was all so impetuous.
A wedding feast. Delicious food that Aubrey loved but couldn’t name. No matter. Ian was about to make a toast.
He raised a glass. “To Aubrey, the woman I will love forever…”
Merriment, a small orchestra, the first dance.
Kiss Ian whenever someone taps silverware against the crystal.
Catch the bouquet. Oh, it was Susan. She’ll be with Bert soon enough.
They deserve each other.
Time to open presents!
A full set of silver. A crystal punch bowl. Some Irish linens. A trip to Spain from the Henshaws.
What a beautiful day.
Then came the rain. Wasn’t that good luck?
The guests were leaving. The rain was pouring. The Henshaws were tired and went to bed.
Ian and Aubrey were alone.
Hope appeared at the bottom of the grand staircase. Bitter. Angry. Jealous and out of sorts.
“Won’t you follow me to the Bridal Suite?” She lurched up the staircase in the dimming light. She had a candelabra to light the way. The house was growing dark. There were exaggerated shadows that turned Greek statues into ogres, furniture into animals.
Aubrey was frightened. Ian was steadfast. He held his bride tight to his side, a tower of strength in the fading twilight.
Hope led them down an extensive hallway, old family portraits lining the walls, looking down on Aubrey in staunch judgment. Who does she think she is?
“Don’t worry, honey,” Ian said. “They’ll learn to love you. Not like Hope.”
Hope didn’t hear. She unlocked the suite door with a heavy brass key. The door groaned as it opened; a musty smell wafted from the room.
“Have a good night,” Hope said, the dead in her eyes expressing her lack of meaningful presence in Ian’s life.
The suite turned out to be magnificent. There was a king-size bed with luxurious bedclothes, and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the back terrace and gardens. The air smelled sweet. Was that jasmine? There was a generously sized claw-foot bathtub in the adjoining room with fresh towels, soaps, lotions.
Aubrey was in her fine lingerie, and Ian wore pajamas and a smoking jacket.
They talked for hours in front of the fire until it died down.
Time for bed.
Ian took off his pajamas, and Aubrey shed her silken nightgown.
They were naked in the bed together, skin touching skin, Ian on top, pressing his erection into Aubrey. Marvelous. It was a movement of two souls intertwined, enjoying each other’s bodies as they became one.
They were holding each other until Ian fell asleep. Aubrey, wide awake, got out of bed and slipped her nightgown back on.
The air was stale. Aubrey couldn’t breathe.
Open the windows, get some fresh air. But the windows wouldn’t open. Aubrey was suffocating. She ran over to the bed. Ian was gone.
The door was stuck. A final push, and it was open. She was running through the endless hallway. Where was Ian? The ancestral portraits were chiding her, “Get out!”
Aubrey made it to the staircase. There were lights on below. Everything was going to be all right.
She made her way down the staircase to hear lighthearted laughter and conversation coming from the study. The door was ajar. Aubrey went inside and saw what she feared all along.
There was Hope, sitting on Ian’s lap, kissing his neck.
“What’s going on here?” Aubrey found her voice.
“Did you think you were going to have Ian to yourself?” Hope sneered.
“That’s right,” Ian said. “I want you both. Come here, Aubrey, I have something to give you.”
Ian held up a diamond tiara. “All you have to do is beg me for it, and it’s yours. You can have anything you want as long as you do what I say. And what Hope says too. And of course, what Ian Henshaw senior says.”
The tiara gleamed. It was the only thing Aubrey wanted at that moment. Ian held it out, and Aubrey took it. She took a moment to admire it. She had won.
Ian grabbed her roughly. “You’re mine now. You took the bait, Aubrey, now you're here forever.”
Aubrey ran from the room, looking for an escape, but there was none.
“We control you now, Aubrey.” Voices echoed throughout the house.
Aubrey put her hands over her ears to shut out the noise.
But the voices only grew louder.
“We control you now, Aubrey. ”
The words reverberated through the marble floors, through the ancestral portraits, through the carved banister beneath her trembling fingers. The house itself pulsed with one word.
Control.
Control.
Control.
She stumbled backward down one of the lower hallways, her nightgown tangling at her ankles. The chandeliers flickered, their candlelight stretching out shadows that ran like ghouls along Aubrey’s path of escape.
“Ian!” she screamed.
Her voice sounded small. Childlike.
She turned a corner. The corridor narrowed, the walls pressing inward, the portraits growing larger and more grotesque. Faces she half-recognized sneered down at her: professors, patients, her father, Foster.
Foster.
He stood at the end of the hall in his finest suit, holding a blueprint.
“You should have stayed in your lane,” he said calmly, without looking up.
She ran past him, then stopped.
Mirrors everywhere.
She saw herself reflected a hundred times.
Bride.
Doctor.
Mistress.
Fraud.
Each reflection slightly different. One wore the tiara. One wore a hospital badge. One wore nothing but shame.
“You wanted this,” one reflection whispered.
“No,” Aubrey said out loud. “I didn’t.”
But the mirrors showed her making eyes at Ian in her office. Accepting his advances. Dressed like a tramp. Aubrey looked like Hope to seduce an innocent-looking Ian.
Aubrey was lost in the mirrors, but she heard someone smashing them.
It was her father! He motioned her to a door that suddenly appeared. She opened it, and she was out in the sunshine.
Freedom. At last. A simple gravel road leading away, toward the gates where the dream began. She was almost there.
She could only run in slow motion; every step was an effort.
She pulled at the gates.
Locked.
Behind her, footsteps were approaching.
She could hear the crunch of gravel beneath someone’s feet. Two people?
“Where are you going, Aubrey? You’ve already chosen. You’re here forever. Just like you wanted.”
She turned around slowly.
It was Hope and Ian. Smug. Knowing.
Hope, no longer in a maid’s uniform but in a white gown identical to Aubrey’s.
Ian stood between them, holding the diamond tiara like a scrap that Aubrey should beg for.
“You don’t get to be the only one,” Hope said.
Ian smiled.
“You wanted to be special.”
Aubrey tried the gate again. It wouldn’t budge. The stone fence was too tall to climb.
Trapped.
“I don’t want this!” she shouted.
The house staff filed in behind Hope and Ian.
Ian threw the tiara up in the air; it shattered into a million pieces of light.
The staff began chanting:
“Analyze me. Analyze me. Analyze me.”
The words twisted, distorted.
“Annihilate me.”
The earth gave way.
Aubrey fell—
She jolted upright in bed.
Darkness.
Silence.
Her heart was racing.
But the room was real.
She was in her bedroom.
Not the estate.
Not the gates.
Foster’s side of the bed was empty.
Another rom-com on television. People were wishing the happy couple a wonderful life. Bird seed flying.
The clock read 3:17 a.m.
Her nightgown clung damply to her skin.
For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.
Then slowly, air returned.
Inhale.
Exhale.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, walking to the window.
It opened easily.
Cool night air rushed in.
No gates.
No portraits.
No chanting.
Just the quiet hum of suburban darkness.
She took a deep breath of the cool night air and felt a slight, calming breeze.
The dream had not been about marriage.
Or even about Ian.
It had been about surrender.
About the subtle way she let Ian’s power rearrange her life.
About how easily love became leverage.
She closed her eyes.
“I am not owned,” she whispered into the night.
She looked back at her bed, no Foster. No Ian. No man in her life.
Did she need one? She wasn’t sure.
The nightmare over, Aubrey went back to bed, only to toss and turn all night.
But wasn’t tomorrow another day? Someone had said that to her once, a long time ago.