Late that night, alone in my bed in Daddy’s house, I received a text message from Quinn:
Landed MSP. Docs destroyed. LMK if U need me. (Landed in Minneapolis. Documents destroyed. Let me know if you need me.)
Chapter 34
I woke up the next day to a loud purr in my ear and the scrape of a rough tongue across my face. “Good morning, Emma,” I said. “I see you got brave enough to come out from under the bed. Care for some breakfast?”
After a quick trip to the bathroom, I threw a robe around myself and carried her downstairs to the kitchen, where Daddy sat nursing a cup of coffee. After I filled Emma’s bowl, I poured a cup for myself and sat across from him at the table.
“Morning,” I said. “Thought you’d be at work by now.”
“I told Peter I’d be late. We need to talk.”
I nodded, waiting for him to begin. He seemed older to me, with more silver in his dark hair and deeper lines around his tired eyes. I wondered if he’d slept at all. I did this to him, I thought. Through my actions.
He set his cup down and looked at me. “How long has this been going on?” he asked. “This thing between you and Trey?”
I assumed he meant the intimacy. “Two years,” I said. “Off and on.”
“Two years of back and forth. Breaking up and getting back together. Coming home to me and going to live with Trey. Now you’re here again. For how long?”
“I don’t know, Daddy. Just until it’s safe . . .”
“Safe!” Coffee sloshed out of our cups when his fist struck the table. “Safe!” Emma streaked out of the room in terror, but I couldn’t move. I was stunned by his anger.
“You will never be safe in this relationship, Elise. Never! I’ve been a fool to let this go on for two goddamn years. But no more. No more. Thanks to Quinn, your ‘relationship’ has gone public. Millions of people now know that Quinn Larson’s cousins are living together. And they know exactly what ‘living together’ means.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm himself.
“I know what it’s like,” he said. “Forbidden love. I loved my Elise more than life, but when Johnny stole her from me and married her, my love for her was forbidden. Illicit. Immoral. I never stopped loving her, even after I married your mother. But I lived with the hurt for her sake, and for the sake of our family. You must do the same. You must end this relationship before it destroys both of you. No matter how much it hurts.”
“That’s exactly what Quinn told us, right before he left.”
“How much does Quinn know? Does he know you’re siblings?”
“Yes.” As I wiped up the spilled coffee with paper napkins, I told Daddy about our meeting with Quinn: the Parkers, the blood tests, the blackmail. Everything. “Quinn thinks the money will keep them quiet.”
“But what about Quinn? What will keep him quiet some night when he’s drunk out of his mind? Do you trust Quinn to keep your secret?”
“Yes. He values his career. He paid a lot of money to silence her. He’ll keep quiet.”
Daddy just shook his head. Reaching across the table, he took my hand in a firm grip, his anger replaced by a steely authority very similar to Johnny’s—an authority that demanded obedience.
“You are my daughter,” he said. “You are all I have left. I cannot and will not risk losing you to this forbidden love between you and Trey. You must end it, Elise. For your sake. For his sake. And for mine.”
He squeezed my hand and looked straight at me, silently waiting for my response. Unable to force words past the tears clogging my throat, I nodded. A simple nod ripped my heart into bloody, dying pieces.
After Daddy left for work, I went through the motions that morning. Unable to eat, I placed our cups in the sink and went upstairs. I made the bed, showered, dressed, and played with Emma until she curled up for her morning nap. I tried surfing the web, but the words were meaningless. I went outside and walked through my mother’s garden, but I couldn’t smell the roses.
I knew Trey would come to me at noon, right after his last class. He’d come to me as he always did, with his face and his arms and his heart full of love, expecting me to return that love as I always did, because our love was the one sure thing in our lives.
Only now . . . now I had to tell him we couldn’t be together. Our love was forbidden. Dangerous. The scandal of our love could affect not only us, but our whole family. Quinn’s career. Johnny’s construction business. Daddy’s accounting firm. And what would happen to Trey, Boise State’s brilliant young professor, if our true relationship became known? He’d lose everything—his career and his freedom. Better to lose just one thing. Me.
His car pulled into the driveway a few minutes past noon. From the sidelite I watched him approach the front door, his stride long and confident, his handsome face smiling at the thought of joining me for lunch and perhaps something more. Trey, I thought. My beloved one. The very best part of me.
I opened the door and stepped back. He reached for me and I stepped away. A puzzled look replaced his smile. “Elise?”
I felt him close behind me as I walked to the family room, certain I would crumble if he touched me. So I stiffened my shoulders and my resolve, choosing a narrow chair where he couldn’t possibly join me.
“Please,” I said, motioning toward the sofa. “Please sit down.”
He sat, leaning forward with his arms on his thighs and a frown on his face. “What’s going on?”
I couldn’t get the words past the pounding of my heart and the pain in my chest. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do this. But I must.
Concerned, he started to rise, to come to me. “Are you ill?”
“No. Please sit down. Daddy talked to me this morning.”
“And?”
“We discussed our situation. Yours and mine. The danger we’re in, now that people know of our relationship. We . . . he . . .”
“He what?”
“He said we must end it. For our sake. And for our family.”
His fists clenched. “End it. Just like that.”
“Yes. That’s what he said.”
“And what do you say, Elise?”
“He’s right. You know he’s right. Our secret is no longer a secret. Too many people know too much. We can’t be together, Trey. We can’t.”
“Okay. So maybe we can’t live together. But surely we can be together here.”
“You once told me you refused to sneak around, being my ‘secret sex toy’ in my father’s house. You refused to hide our love. Have you changed your mind?”
He scrubbed a hand across his face. “Let’s just go. To a place where we won’t have to hide.”
“Where? Mexico?”
“No. Rhode Island. Remember? Incest is not a criminal offense in that state. We can live together openly, without fear. Please, love. Come with me.”
“What about your career?”
“If I can’t teach in Rhode Island, I’ll do something else. Build houses. Drive trucks.”
“Be serious.”
“I am serious. We’ll survive. Together. Say you’ll come with me.”
He waited, unmoving. He simply waited, his blue eyes watching mine, never breaking our connection. Though we were six feet apart, I heard his every breath, smelled his familiar scent, felt his love reach out to touch me, drawing me to him. Only him. Always him.
In my mind, I stood up and crossed that space between us. I felt his arms around me, his thumbs brushing the tears from my cheeks, his mouth on mine. I saw the beauty of his smile when I spoke the words he longed to hear. “Yes, Trey. I’ll come with you. Because you were right all along. The rest doesn’t matter. Only love matters.”
But that was only in my mind. In reality, my body didn’t move. My mouth didn’t open. Seconds stretched into minutes while he waited for my answer. I just sat there, watching in silence as hurt slowly dimmed the love in his eyes, breaking our connection and our hearts.
I’d expected ang
er. Arguments. I’d expected him to cross those six feet between us and pull me into his arms, using his touch to convince me. But none of that happened. Instead, he pulled back as though he’d been slapped. Then, with one final look, he stood up and walked out of the room.
I heard the front door close, heard his car start, heard him drive away. Those were the sounds of his goodbye.
Only then did I get up and cross to the sofa, curling into the still-warm spot where he’d been. I started to shake, my chest aching with every breath as the tears came. I lay there in desolation until Emma demanded food and attention, blissfully unaware of the pain of human heartbreak.
Chapter 35
I grieved as though my life had ended on that July afternoon. Nothing mattered. I barely ate and scarcely slept. I wandered aimlessly around the house and outside with Emma, watching her chase butterflies while I sat on a bench in brooding silence.
The pain of my loss was unrelenting. I truly felt as though part of my body had been ripped from me, leaving a raw, gaping wound—a self-inflicted wound. I’d sent him away, severing our union without a single word. The ring on my right hand mocked me with the inscription ‘Forever Us,’ reminding me of the night we married, when I promised to have and to hold him until the end of time.
Liar! my mind screamed at me. Cowardly liar!
But I did it for him, I argued. He won’t have to drive a truck in Rhode Island. He won’t have to live in fear in Idaho. He can realize his full potential and have a brilliant career at Boise State. He won’t be held back by me and our forbidden love.
Excuses! my mind countered. Love is all that matters.
And so it went on, while Emma grew and summer ripened toward fall. August trudged from one sweltering day to another, moving inexorably toward the start of fall semester at the College of Law. I’d preregistered for my classes in the spring, looking forward to my second year of law school. But that was then, before my life ended. I no longer cared about law school or anything else. I firmly squelched our family’s plans to celebrate my birthday on August 14th.
Daddy worried about my weight loss and apathy, suggesting various things in an attempt to cheer me up. A dinner at one of our favorite restaurants? A jaunt to Ontario to visit Grandma? Perhaps a bike ride on the Greenbelt with Peter? (The look I gave him at that one could’ve cut steel.)
When I wasn’t busy blaming myself, I blamed Daddy. And Johnny. And Quinn. But I never blamed Trey, whose only sin was loving me.
As he’d done during our previous separation, Trey retreated behind a wall of silence. He didn’t text or call me. He didn’t come near our house. Our only knowledge of him came from Johnny, who said Trey had moved to a different apartment complex. He refused to say where, doubtless part of the conspiracy to keep us apart. I had no intention of looking for Trey, knowing I lacked the strength to break down his wall again.
Boise is large enough to facilitate separation, but small enough for chance encounters. So I avoided all of our favorite places: the Greenbelt, parks, restaurants, even our usual grocery stores. And I stayed away from Boise State’s campus, which would be more difficult when I returned to law school. If I returned.
Media interest in the ‘Quinn Larson rape case’ quickly evaporated, vanquished by his gridiron exploits as the preseason games began. We heard nothing from him; he was far too busy to contact us. He destroyed our world and doesn’t care at all, I thought bitterly. That was Quinn.
So of my three brothers, only one was still in my life. CJ, whose illness—and the blood tests—had precipitated this disaster. But I didn’t blame CJ for any of it. Instead, his home became my refuge, where he offered comfort and understanding. With Stacey at work, the boys back in school, and Nurse Parker gone for good, CJ and I spent hours alone together nearly every day. He was a non-stop talker with a seemingly endless supply of topics. I just listened, allowing the flow of his words to soothe my troubled mind.
Only once did he mention my situation. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Sorry my illness led to your breakup with Trey.”
“You weren’t at fault,” I replied. “If not for Quinn, I think we would’ve been okay. I don’t regret doing the transplant. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but that won’t be necessary. You’re obviously doing well.”
And he was. At four months post-transplant, CJ was gaining weight and strength every day (and growing more hair). Close monitoring showed no signs of graft failure, graft-versus-host disease, organ damage or cancer relapse. Though he would continue to be monitored for at least five years, at this point his doctors were quite optimistic. CJ planned to return to work in September, part-time at first.
“You saved my life,” he told me one afternoon. “You put yourself at risk to save me, and I can never repay you for giving me this miracle.”
I crossed to his recliner and gave him a big hug. “Live a long, happy life. That’s the only repayment I want. I love you, CJ. I’m so glad you’re my big brother.”
“I love you,” he replied, “and I want you to be happy, too. What are your plans? Are you going back to law school?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was looking forward to it a month ago, but now I can’t seem to care about school or anything else.”
“Don’t give up your dream, Elise. You’ve always wanted to be a lawyer.”
“Well,” I said, “we seldom get what we want in life. And dreams can’t replace reality.”
The law school decision wasn’t the only problem on my mind during that third week in August. Something strange was happening to my body. I blamed it on stress and grief at first, especially the frequent bouts of nausea. But my period was more than two weeks late, and I was never late.
Impossible! I thought. I can’t possibly be pregnant. I have an IUD!
But online research told me it was indeed possible. Not probable, with less than a one percent chance of pregnancy with an IUD in place. But certainly possible.
I remembered our last night together in mid-July, when we’d made love without a condom. I’d been so certain we were safe, but now I wasn’t so sure. Do not panic, I told myself. Take this one step at a time.
So I did. I bought a home pregnancy test, peed on the stick and waited ten minutes, sitting in the bathroom with eyes closed and timer in hand, forcing myself to stay calm. When the timer buzzed, I opened my eyes and looked at the digital display. “Pregnant,” it said. Definitely. Pregnant.
Feeling numb, I went back online and read about pregnancy risks with an IUD in place: miscarriage, bleeding, placental abruption, premature delivery. Immediate removal of the IUD was recommended, but removing it could also cause a miscarriage.
Isn’t that what I want? I reasoned. Wouldn’t a miscarriage be best? Or an abortion?
Emma followed me outside to our garden gazebo on that hot Friday afternoon. My law school classes would begin on Monday. I couldn’t possibly attend law school and continue with this pregnancy. Unwed mothers were no longer scorned, but my situation was a bit different. I was pregnant with my own brother’s child.
I thought about telling Trey, but I quickly discarded that notion. He was living his life, free from the danger of our relationship. It wouldn’t be fair to entangle him again. Not here. Not in Idaho, where incestuous pregnancy was a crime.
When Daddy came home from work, I told him I was not going back to law school. First shocked and then angry, he lectured me about responsibility, achieving my potential, moving on with my life, etc. I said nothing. When he finally wound down, we ate in awkward silence. Then I ran upstairs and lost my dinner in the toilet.
Instead of going to law school on Monday, I drove one hundred and thirty miles east of Boise to the Planned Parenthood Center in Twin Falls, hoping for the anonymity I could no longer count on in Boise.
I paid in cash, not wanting an insurance company record of this visit, vaguely aware I was behaving like someone in hiding. The staff was pleasant and professional, assuring me of complete confidentiality. Right, I thought.
Like those blood tests we took.
A urine test confirmed that I was indeed pregnant. Then a doctor came in and gave me three options. Since I was only five weeks pregnant, an abortion pill would effectively terminate the pregnancy. Alternately, removing the IUD with no regard for the fetus could cause a miscarriage, achieving the same result. But if I wished to continue the pregnancy, careful removal of the IUD was advised, since leaving the device in place could result in a miscarriage or other complications. Then the doctor left me alone in the exam room, giving me time to decide what I wanted to do.
I sat all by myself in that cold, sterile room, facing white walls and a choice that would forever change me. Though choosing to separate from Trey was agony, it was not a matter of life or death. I would survive. But this! Aborting this pregnancy would destroy a life. Our baby’s life. The living proof of our precious, forbidden love.
Closing my eyes, I pressed a hand against my belly, feeling a mysterious connection with that miniature human inside me. Though her body was less than seven millimeters long, her tiny heart was beating eighty times a minute. I already thought of her as a girl, and I knew she was perfect. She could be nothing less than perfect. She was ours. Ending her life was not an option.
The IUD was carefully removed that afternoon, and everything went well. I was given a supply of prenatal vitamins, instructed to rest for a day or two, and told to make an appointment with an obstetrician to begin prenatal care.
They made it sound so simple, but it wasn’t. My decision to continue my pregnancy forced me to make an equally difficult choice: where should I go? I couldn’t stay in Boise when my condition became obvious. Thanks to Quinn, half the city knew Trey and I had been living together, and a few people knew we were siblings. Staying in Boise—or anywhere in Idaho—was far too dangerous.
Forbidden- Our Secret Love Page 21
