He got up and walked to the sink, pouring his coffee down the drain. “I had such high hopes for you,” he said. “Marriage, children, a happy life. You’ll never have that with Trey.”
“Not marriage, and probably not children, but we will be happy. I know we’ll be happy.”
My father just shook his head and left the room.
I moved in with Trey that evening, packing our cars with clothes, bags and boxes of stuff and hauling everything up three flights of stairs to the middle of his living room. It took three trips, and I still hadn’t brought everything.
We collapsed on the sofa, staring at the big pile in front of us. “Well,” Trey said. “Looks like we need a larger apartment.”
“But I like this place. With a bit of organization, it’ll be perfect. You’ll see.”
“I see perfect when I look at you,” he replied, pulling me into his arms. You’re all the perfection I need.”
Organization disappeared from our list of priorities that night.
We asked Daddy to ride with us to Ontario on Thanksgiving Day, but he declined. He’d been avoiding us all week, staying late at the office while Trey helped me move. His animosity bothered me, but I was more concerned about Johnny’s reaction, knowing our “resolution” was not exactly what he’d expected.
We entered our grandmother’s house through the back door to the kitchen, carrying two pies made by Trey the night before: chocolate cream and mystery pecan (a bottom layer of cheesecake being the mystery).
Grandma greeted us with hugs and kisses in her heavenly smelling domain, where the aroma of roasting turkey mingled with the scents of mashed potatoes, assorted casseroles and pumpkin pie. Our Swedish grandmother knew how to create a feast.
Trey and I peeled off our coats and pitched in to help Grandma and Stacey. We heard an occasional roar from the family room, where the men and boys were watching football. When I went downstairs to announce dinner, Johnny gave me an approving smile. He doesn’t know, I thought. Daddy hasn’t told him about Trey and me.
We all joined hands at the big dining room table while Granddad Quinn said grace. Then we dug in. Our family was not a quiet bunch, so eating was accompanied by talking, jokes and laughter as platters were passed around for seconds and thirds. Trey and I sat together, holding hands under the table whenever we had a chance.
When dinner was over, we all trooped downstairs to watch Quinn’s Vikings take on the Pittsburgh Steelers—the team CJ had played for as their star running back. CJ’s loyalties were divided that afternoon, but he gamely cheered with the rest of us when the Vikings won 38-30.
Johnny drew me aside after everyone else went back upstairs for another round of pie. “I want to thank you for coming,” he said, “and for resolving your situation with Trey. The two of you seem to be getting along quite well.”
I smiled. “We’re getting along very well, Johnny. So well, in fact, that we’re living together. As a couple.”
He glared at me. “That can’t be!”
“It can and it is, thanks to that talk you arranged. You should be glad. Now we’re all one big, happy family again.” I spun away from him and ran up the stairs, astonished by my audacity.
Peter called me the next day, full of plans for our Saturday outing. “I thought we could go up to Brundage,” he said. “The skiing should be great this weekend. I’ll make dinner reservations at Steamers.”
I was momentarily speechless, not knowing what to say as he rattled on. Trey was in the shower but I was still in bed, blissfully satisfied on that Black Friday morning after hours of lovemaking. I had to break things off with Peter, a good man who’d always treated me with patience and kindness. If not for Trey, I might have grown to love Peter. But now I had to hurt him.
“I need to tell you something,” I said.
“All right. Go ahead.”
“I’ve moved in with someone.”
“Rather sudden, isn’t it? Just last Saturday night, we . . .”
“I know. But things changed on Sunday.”
“Is it that guy you fell in love with? The one you haven’t heard from in months?”
“Yes.”
“Care to tell me his name?”
“It’s Trey. My cousin.”
“Hold on. Your cousin? You’re living with your cousin? You’re in love with your cousin?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Peter. I thought it was over between Trey and me, but we talked on Sunday and . . .”
“You talked. And now you’re living together. Holy crap.”
“Peter . . .”
“I can’t wrap my head around this, Elise. I really can’t.”
That was all. He was gone.
Chapter 25
T he weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas flew by as we happily adjusted to our new life together. Our days were tied up with Trey’s teaching and my law school classes and studies, but our nights were just for us. I organized the apartment and decorated for Christmas while Trey cooked wonderful dinners and baked dozens of cookies for our big family celebration.
“You missed your calling,” I declared, munching on a still-warm gingerbread man. “Even Grandma doesn’t make cookies this good. I’m going to get fat living with you.”
He carefully squeezed white icing onto a row of gingerbread bodies, creating little faces and buttons. “You won’t get fat if you exercise. Go running with me.”
I groaned. He ran for miles on the Greenbelt every day in all sorts of weather—definitely not my idea of fun. “You go too fast. I can’t keep up.”
“Okay, then. We’ll try something else. The gym downstairs has lots of equipment: weights, treadmills, elliptical, exercise bikes . . .”
“Sounds like work.”
“It is. But I can think of some fun ways to burn off calories, too.”
“Such as?”
“Soon as I’m done decorating these cookies, I’ll show you.”
He did. He took me to bed and showed me several fun ways to exercise. Losing weight never felt so good.
“Happy?” he asked as I curled against him in sweaty and satisfied exhaustion.
“Yes. Completely. I love you, Trey Matthew Larson. I will always love you. When I think of how I almost lost you . . .”
“Shhh. Don’t think of it. We’re together now, just as we were meant to be. We’ll be together from now on, my love. Always together.”
When Quinn called to say he’d be home for Christmas, we told him we were living together. “Way to go, kids!” he crowed. “I’m happy for ya!”
My father was not happy. He remained distant, declining our dinner invitations and not saying much whenever I stopped in to see him. I hoped his attitude would change in time.
Meanwhile, I was caught up in the last-minute rush of Christmas shopping and gift wrapping while Trey put the final touches on his goodies for Christmas dinner. Actually, there were two special dinners at Grandma’s house: the traditional Swedish Christmas feast on Christmas Eve, and a big “turkey with all the trimmings” dinner on Christmas Day.
We drove to Grandma’s on a snowy Christmas Eve afternoon in a car loaded with boxes of gifts and containers of food, looking forward to the familiar celebration we’d enjoyed since we were tiny children. Pulling into the driveway, we recognized every car but one: a wine red Ferrari Portofino. Quinn was home for Christmas.
He met us at the door, taking gifts from my arms and crushing me against his big body. “Merry Christmas, Elise. And Trey—how goes it, bro?”
“Good. Give me a hand unloading the car, will you?”
I joined Grandma and Stacey in a kitchen smelling of lutefisk, potatis korv and lefse along with other Swedish specialties. Johnny helped as well; Trey took after him in their knack for cooking.
With a mountain of gifts around the tree and mounds of food on the table, we all sat down for the feast. James and Elias were bursting with excitement over Christmas and their Uncle Quinn, who dominated the conversation while he consumed great portion
s of food. Daddy sat beside him across the table from Trey and me, not saying much as Quinn held forth.
Dessert followed with the traditional Kladdkaka (rich chocolate cake) and a vast assortment of cookies baked by Grandma and Trey, including those gingerbread men. The boys laughed when Quinn bit the heads off half a dozen men before he ate their bodies. Naturally, they followed suit.
The gift opening took hours. Granddad Quinn’s gifts were extravagant as usual, diamond jewelry being the norm for us ladies. The diamonds caught Quinn’s eye when I slipped a sparkling bracelet onto my left wrist and showed it to Trey, who took my hand for a closer look.
“Diamonds look good on her, bro,” Quinn declared. “You plannin’ to put a ring on her finger anytime soon? Since you’re living together and all, why not? I’m no poster boy for marriage, but you two . . .”
“That’s enough!” Johnny’s command stunned the room into silence, even stopping Quinn mid-sentence. “Not another word, son. You’re way out of line.”
But no one gave orders to Quinn—not even Johnny. “Seems to me you’re out of line, forbidding them to marry. What gives you the right to tell them how to live, huh? Just because they’re cousins . . .”
I scrambled to my feet, wading through piles of wrapping paper in an effort to reach Quinn before Johnny did. “Stop it,” I pleaded, wrapping my arms around his waist and feeling the coiled tension in his body. “You must not fight your father. Not over this. Please, Quinn!”
“Well, hell,” he said. “Didn’t know it was such a sore point with y’all. Fuck it. This party’s almost over anyway. Think I’ll find me a better one. Anyone care to join me?”
“Just leave,” Johnny said. “Go.”
“Fine. I’m outta here. Nothin’ merry about this Christmas.”
Quinn was right about that. No one pretended to be merry after Quinn’s Ferrari roared down the driveway. Johnny retreated upstairs, CJ and Stacey left with their boys, and the rest of us cleaned up the mess in the living room and kitchen.
“Is it true, dear?” Grandma asked as I loaded the dishwasher. “Are you living with Trey?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Just as roommates, or something more?”
My grandmother was old, but she was nobody’s fool. I’d never dared lie to her. “Something more.”
“I see. But surely you don’t intend to marry? Surely Quinn was wrong about that?”
“Yes. Quinn was wrong. Trey and I will not marry.”
“Because Johnny forbids it?”
“No. For other reasons.”
“Well, apparently Quinn thinks Johnny is the reason. Perhaps you should tell him the truth.”
Perhaps I should, I thought. But I can’t trust Quinn to keep our secret.
Unsurprisingly, Quinn did not show up for dinner on Christmas Day, a subdued celebration despite the antics of Elias and James. Johnny was unusually quiet, and my father barely spoke a word. Well, I thought. Johnny wanted me to make up with Trey for our family’s sake, and look how that’s turned out.
I was putting away the last of the pots and pans when CJ found me in the kitchen. “Come for a walk with me,” he said. “We need to talk.”
I was surprised. Cousin CJ was sixteen years older than me, having been conceived when Johnny and Elise were still in college. Then came Johnny’s years in prison, so CJ had no siblings until Quinn’s birth nearly thirteen years later, followed by Trey a year after that. CJ graduated from high school before my second birthday, went off to college and spent eight years in the NFL, so he was almost a stranger while I was growing up.
But as I looked at him—Johnny and Elise’s firstborn son—I realized CJ was no stranger. Like Quinn and Trey, CJ was my half-brother.
“Okay,” I answered. “I’ll get my coat and boots.”
CJ was tall like all of Johnny’s sons; at six-four, he was just one inch shorter than Quinn. My cousin-brothers inherited their father’s good looks as well, with their dark hair, blue eyes and athletic physiques, but their personalities were quite different.
CJ was a successful architect with a firm in Boise, but his great passion was drawing. His amazing drawings were featured and sold in galleries throughout the Pacific Northwest. CJ was not a quiet, introspective artistic type, however; he was definitely a talker. Now he wanted to talk to me, but I suspected he also wanted answers.
Our boots left parallel tracks in the snow as we walked down the long driveway, heading nowhere in particular on this quiet Christmas afternoon. We engaged in small talk about his boys and things in general for a while, but halfway down Dorian Drive, CJ stopped and looked at me.
“What’s really going on with you and Trey?” he asked. “Why is my father so upset because you’re living together? What’s the big secret that’s affecting our whole family?”
So I told him. I told CJ everything as we stood on that cold sidewalk with snowflakes falling on our heads and shoulders. CJ said nothing while I recounted the whole secret story of my creation—of how his father became my father as well, leading to my forbidden love for my own brother.
I described my futile attempt to break up with Trey, and how we’d reunited over our fathers’ objections, and that we were committing a crime by living together intimately, and how we could never marry or have children. And all that time, while I stood there shivering from cold and nervousness, CJ said nothing. For probably the first time in his life, CJ was speechless.
“Have I shocked you into silence?” I asked.
He smiled, taking my gloved hands in his. “No. I’m not shocked. Surprised, yes. It’s not every day a guy finds out his cousin is really his sister. Who knows about this?”
“Only Johnny and Jim. And now you.”
“No wonder sparks flew yesterday when Quinn said you and Trey should get married. He sees nothing wrong with cousins marrying, but Johnny . . .”
“I know. And I can’t tell Quinn the truth. He’s too volatile and unpredictable, especially when he’s drunk. I can’t trust him with our secret, but I feel I can trust you.”
He pulled me close in a tight hug. “Of course you can. I’m glad you told me. Now there’s something I’ll share with you.”
“What?”
“Barring a miracle, this will be my last Christmas.”
Chapter 26
W hile I listened in shocked silence, CJ told me he’d been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a cancer of the blood and bone marrow in which rapidly growing abnormal cells (myeloblasts) interfere with normal blood cells. He said he’d been feeling tired lately, losing weight and bruising easily, along with a persistent fever that finally convinced him to see a doctor. After a variety of tests and a bone marrow aspiration, he received the grim diagnosis and prognosis: without treatment, he would be dead in less than a year.
“And with treatment?” I asked.
“The five-year overall survival rate is twenty-six percent. I’m young and otherwise healthy, which helps the odds, but so was my mother and look what happened to her.”
“Your mother had advanced brain cancer, CJ. She refused treatment. Surely you don’t intend . . .”
“No. I’ll do the treatment for the sake of Stacey and our boys.”
“Do they know?”
“Stacey does. We haven’t told Elias and James yet—didn’t want to spoil their Christmas. I just found out a week ago.”
“Who else have you told besides me?”
“Johnny knows. I asked him to keep quiet about it until Christmas was over. He agreed.”
We walked arm in arm back toward the house through the steadily increasing snowfall, leaving deep tracks in our wake. An inveterate talker, CJ was unusually silent as we plodded along, no doubt thinking of the secrets we’d revealed.
“Why me?” I asked as we neared the house. “Why did you tell me before Grandma, Trey or Quinn?”
“You trusted me with your deepest secret,” he replied. “I decided to do the same. But mine won’t remain a secret. Yours
will.”
“When will you tell Trey? Or do you want me to?”
“No. I’ll come over in a day or two to tell him. I’m starting chemotherapy next week at Mountain States Tumor Institute in Boise. It’s an intensive treatment that takes about a week.”
“And then what?”
“A couple of weeks after chemo, they’ll do a bone marrow biopsy. If leukemia cells are still present, it’s either more chemo or a stem cell transplant. Maybe both. No one knows at this point. We’ll just take it one step at a time.”
So we did. Our family rallied around to support CJ in his fight against AML—a harrowing fight against a deadly foe. But CJ was young at thirty-nine, a strong and otherwise healthy man. He was determined to win this thing, and so were we.
Quinn had to leave to prepare for the NFL playoffs that January, but the rest of us were never far from CJ’s bedside. He spent three weeks in the hospital, first undergoing one week of intensive intravenous chemotherapy that destroyed most of his normal bone marrow cells along with the leukemia cells. This was followed by two weeks of antibiotics, blood transfusions, and drugs to raise his white blood cell counts.
Stacey spent every day at the hospital, only going home at night to be with her boys. The rest of us rotated in and out as we’d done when my mother had her stroke, putting in shifts around our work and class schedules.
CJ put on a brave face, but the chemo’s side effects were numerous and difficult. His thick dark hair fell out in clumps, but that didn’t trouble him like the mouth sores, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. He lost weight, developed a fever and was very ill for several days.
Toward the end of the third week, I sat alone with CJ after everyone else had gone home for the night. We were all discouraged by the results of the latest bone marrow biopsy: the chemo had not destroyed all of the leukemia cells. Doctors were considering more chemo and/or a stem cell transplant.
Forbidden- Our Secret Love Page 15
