The Last Embrace

by Pam Jenoff

  Liam raises his hands, acknowledging that it will have to be enough. “Mom and Dad won’t be here until tomorrow,” Liam says. So for tonight it would just be the four of us, with no one else to break the awkwardness.

  The boys walk to the car to get the bags. “I heard your plane crashed,” Liam says, switching to the war, somehow an easier topic.

  “I was in a dogfight over Munich,” Charlie replies, describing it all to his brother in a way I have not heard before.

  “I wanted to go, too,” Liam offers, surprising me. I cannot picture him enlisting. Would it have been a shot at redemption—or suicide? “They wouldn’t take me, though, after everything that had happened.”

  At the mention of the fighting, Charlie grimaces with frustration. “I should be over there.” Some part of him was still with the soldiers he had left behind.

  “He wanted to go back, or even to the Pacific,” Grace says in a low voice so the boys cannot hear. A knife shoots through me as I remember the pain and fear of his going to war the first time. “But they wouldn’t clear him medically.” Even as I exhale with relief, I feel for Charlie. Being sidelined and unable to help is so contrary to who he is—it has to be killing him. I start after him, my first instinct to try to offer comfort in the way only I can. Then I stop. It isn’t my place anymore.

  The boys have come inside and Liam is showing Charlie some of his work on the house. Charlie peers out the back door critically. “You aren’t rebuilding the shed.”

  “No, I thought it would leave more space for the garden.” The tension returns between the brothers, their rift unhealed by time.

  “Let’s go to the beach,” I blurt. Anything to break the awkwardness between them.

  Both boys looked at me with simultaneous surprise. “You?” Liam asks.

  I shrug. “I didn’t say I was going in the water.”

  “Addie is afraid of the ocean,” Charlie explains to Grace.

  Liam chimes in. “Yeah, and there was this one time when we first met her that we threw her in.”

  “We?” Charlie repeats with mocking disbelief. As the boys carry the story, talking over one another, a look of curiosity crosses Grace’s face. She has Charlie, but there is still a part of his past she will never share.

  A wave of sympathy for Grace washes over me. “Come, I’ll help you get settled.” Grace smiles thankfully in return. She isn’t the enemy really, I reflect as I lead her up the stairs to the guest room Liam has just finished restoring. Even if she had not come along at the field hospital, Charlie and I would not be together. It was timing and fate—if I dare to believe in that again—and who we are that had kept us apart—not another woman.

  An hour later we are settled on the beach, the air a degree or two cooler with the first hint of fall. The smell of suntan lotion tickles my nose, sending me back. Charlie pulls a football from his bag. “You aren’t serious.” Liam groans.

  “Of course.”

  “All right. You asked for it.” Liam leaps to his feet, planting an easy kiss on my cheek that sends shivers through me.

  “Your leg is too weak,” Grace frets. I, too, worry that Charlie cannot manage. But he limps gamely after his brother.

  I watch, marveling how the light and the way they move are unchanged after all these years. Once I would have had my camera with me to capture the moment. The photos might have been the same, save for the boys’ size—and the fact that two of them are missing.

  A few minutes later they return the ball to the blanket. Liam runs to the water’s edge and dives in, owning the waves as he did in his surfing days. Charlie follows, leaving me alone with Grace once more.

  I peer north, drinking in the familiar topography of the tall hotels and piers. The shore has the feeling that the war is over already. The beaches are crowded, the boardwalk bustling. But the scars of war remain. The Convention Center, once used to train new recruits, now houses convalescing veterans. I imagine them sitting by the door in their wheelchairs gazing sadly across the ocean at the unseen fighting that had ruined their lives forever.

  “You don’t like the water?” Grace asks, trying to make conversation.

  “I’ve always been afraid of it,” I say. “And then after everything happened with Robbie, I hated it even more.”

  “But he drowned in the river, right? Not here.”

  “Yes, but it’s still the water.” It’s all jumbled together somehow in my mind. “I didn’t like it, even before.” For a second, I’m annoyed. It’s really none of her business. But she is trying to be kind. I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry we didn’t have time to get better acquainted in England.” Liam is not the only one who needs to make amends. “My aunt needed me to come home. It was a difficult time.”

  “It still is,” Grace blurts, and I know then that Charlie still lives with his ghosts.

  “Time heals,” I reply softly.

  “I hope so.”

  I had been so focused on my jealousy of Grace, I never stopped to think how she might feel about me. “I didn’t ask for that. It’s over, Grace, and if I’m being honest it has been for a long time. We’re different people now.”

  “I know, and I’m glad he’s got his memory back.” Grace’s chin juts out defiantly. “I want him to choose, not win by default.” Her words are an echo of Liam’s as she stands and takes a step toward the ocean.

  * * *

  That night Liam grills again, steak this time, the charcoal briquettes sending up embers like tiny fireworks into the almost dark sky. At the table, Charlie produces a bottle of red wine. I eye the glass he holds out to me uncertainly. I desperately want it to dull the awkwardness and pain, but do I dare in front of Liam? “It’s okay,” Liam says calmly. “I’m fine.”

  When we’ve finished and cleared up, Liam heads back outside. “A few more hours of work. I want to get the garden just so before Mom arrives.” He does not ask Charlie to help and Charlie does not offer.

  Grace yawns. “Excuse me. It’s been a long day with the travel and I’m exhausted.” She starts for the stairs, then turns back. Doubts flicker across her face at leaving the two of us alone. But she is too proud to hover.

  Charlie watches her protectively as Grace climbs the stairs. I expect him to follow, but he remains seated, dividing the rest of the bottle of wine between our two glasses. “You’re looking well,” I observe. “You have your memory again, too.”

  He nods. “All of it, thanks to you. When I saw you, it came flooding back.” Was he glad? Or were there parts he would rather leave forgotten?

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m too injured for active duty. I’ve been offered a promotion, and a job in Washington if I want one. But I don’t know.” He, too, has been reshaped by his experiences, perhaps too much so to ever go back.

  “You could go to Georgetown at night.”

  His face brightens. “I could, couldn’t I?” School is an old dream, to dust off and try anew. If only everything else was that easy.

  “I’m glad you’re well.”

  “Thanks. The rehab was intense and Grace has been a wonder.” He speaks her name a bit self-consciously and I feel the punch in my gut that might never go away. “She’s a lovely woman. But this thing that has always been between us...” He reaches out, hand floundering midair. “I can’t fight this.”

  My breath catches a bit at the unexpected shift back toward us. Such conversations are too dangerous—and at the same time moot. “You must. You’re getting married.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen like this. I’m sorry if that sounds disloyal to Grace, but it’s true. She was so kind.” Kind. I would never want to be described that way by a man who purported to love me. I feel a moment’s sympathy for the woman who has everything she’d ever wanted. “Anyway, I wouldn’t have wanted to come back to you
like this.” He points toward his legs. His limp is minor and almost healed, but to Charlie the imperfection makes him somehow less of a man. “I’d always wonder if you were here out of love or pity.”

  “You should know the answer to that.” I am suddenly angry at Charlie for making decisions for all of us, just like Claire said he always had.

  But I was the one who walked away, I remember then. And our dream had died before he was ever injured, so long ago we had not even realized. “Even if we could turn back the clock we’d still be standing here or somewhere pretty close.”

  “How can you say that? We had everything when we were together,” he says. He gestures upward. “It just isn’t the same.”

  “There’s a reason that feelings like that come only once, Charlie.”

  “I still think we would be together.”

  I shake my head. “There was a time when I believed that. I thought we were some sort of star-crossed lovers and that all that kept us apart was circumstance.”

  “When did you stop feeling that way?”

  “Today, when I saw all of us together and how we changed. I’m not that same scared kid who put you on a pedestal. You need that, Charlie, you always have. Grace gives you that adoration. I can see it in her eyes. God bless her, she’ll probably be able to do it for the rest of her life.” Part of me would always want him, and wonder what would have happened if I had made a life with Charlie. But that door is now closed.

  “I’ve never been able to tell Grace the whole story about us. The whole thing feels too close, y’know?” I nod. “What holds this family together is all of the stuff we’ve been through. That’s hard for outsiders to take.”

  He tilts his head toward Liam, who is working intently in the yard. “So you two are together?”

  “Yes.” The word comes out with more certainty than I had planned. I hadn’t thought about it consciously until just now. After all, it has only been two days. But there is no hesitating or couching it, like I had done with Teddy in London. “Liam and I are together.” I savor the words, owning them.

  “And you’re staying?”

  The harder question. “I haven’t thought about it.”

  “Don’t hurt him, Addie. He’s been through so much. I don’t know if he could take it if you left again.” The weight of others’ happiness is suddenly heavy on my shoulders once more.

  He stares out at the window in the direction of the ocean and I can tell he is thinking about the fighting overseas and not being a part of it.

  “It’s tough, isn’t it? Not being there, I mean.” He looks up in surprise. “I remember being in London and so desperately wanting to help. I felt powerless.”

  “Yeah.” He smiles faintly. On this one level, at least, we can still connect.

  “It’s almost over,” I say. Paris has been liberated in the week since I left, a sure sign that this couldn’t go on forever. “And we will win.”

  “Maybe,” he says slowly, “our own war is coming to an end, too.” He kisses me on the cheek and the longing in me that will never completely disappear rises, then ebbs again as he stands and joins Grace upstairs.

  Desire pulls at me as I watch him go. Not for Charlie, though. It is Liam I want. I start toward the porch, wanting to cajole him upstairs. Going to him with Charlie and Grace here feels somehow wrong, though. I turn away. As I climb the stairs to the loft, I remember the night before. Perhaps Liam will come to me again. But even after I undress and climb into bed, the hallway remains still. With Charlie and Grace here, it seems everything has changed.

  It is late afternoon when I hear the crunching of tires over stones and the screech of brakes. I set down my paintbrush and follow Liam around the side of the house. The Connallys stand frozen, looking up at their house as though seeing it for the first time. Drinking in the sight of them, I am unable to speak. Mrs. Connally, in a gray pinstripe dress with white cuffs, is a different person, an elderly relative of herself. Her once-lively cap of red hair is now back in a firm knot, strands of gray beginning to creep in at her temple. The circles under her eyes which appeared the day of the accident had never gone away. Beneath his straw brimmed hat, Mr. Connally still gives off the appearance of a grizzly bear, one now worn with age. He lumbers slowly, advancing ahead of his wife.

  “Addie.” Mrs. Connally’s voice is the same, only softer. I lean forward and kiss her cool, dry cheek. She embraces me tightly as if clinging to a life raft, oblivious to the paint that threatens to seep from my clothes to her own. “We didn’t know you were coming back.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Mom... Dad.” Liam steps forward.

  “Liam.” His parents speak flatly, almost in unison. Mr. Connally stares hard at his son, taking in the changes of the time since they had seen one another. Mrs. Connally looks away, unable to mask the anger and love that mix in her eyes.

  From their car comes a sudden clattering and a yellow dog squeezes out of the backseat, tail wagging slowly. “Beau!” I cry as he ambles over. He is overweight, his snout more gray than gold. But his lick on my hand is unmistakable. Through it all, the old fella is still here.

  “That’s about as much excitement as he manages these days,” Mr. Connally offers. “Ten is pretty old for a dog.”

  Liam kneels, ruffling Beau’s fur. “He missed me most.” For a moment he is transformed to the insecure boy I met that first day, who cared so much about being taller than me. Then he straightens and gestures toward the car. “We should get your things.”

  Mr. Connally lifts the small suitcase he has brought with him. “These are our things.” Liam slumps beside me. They could not be planning to stay more than a few days.

  I turn to Mrs. Connally. “I remember another day of unpacking,” I say, calling upon the memory of our first summer in an attempt to ease the tension. But Mrs. Connally simply nods, the nostalgia a painful reminder of her loss.

  “You’ve done a fine job of reopening the house,” Mr. Connally remarks as we go inside. He and Mrs. Connally walk a few feet apart from one another, not moving in unison as they once had. Separate, Charlie had told me that day in Washington, which now seemed so very long ago. Their relationship with Liam was not the only thing that needed to heal.

  “Addie’s helped me a lot these past few days.” The Connallys look at me with surprise, as though I am still a child and incapable of being any real use at all.

  Automatically we all gravitate toward the kitchen. I put water in the kettle and begin to rummage through the cupboard.

  Mrs. Connally looks around anxiously. “Charlie?” She has not seen him since he’s come home from Europe. I look at Liam, worried that he will be hurt by his mother’s preoccupation with her eldest.

  But Liam pats her arm, seeming to understand. “He’s already here. He and Grace went to the beach. He looks good.”

  “And Jack?” Mrs. Connally asks.

  Liam shakes his head. “He’s got a big conference for work.” Among us lies the truth that Jack was simply too tired to weather another family confrontation. He has his own life, has managed to break free.

  “Our Addie,” Mrs. Connally says as she plants an easy kiss on my cheek.

  “How’s your place in Miami?” I ask.

  “Small, new. Close to the water, like here.” Mrs. Connally’s face drops. “Only it’s nothing like here. But we couldn’t go back to the city. Everything has changed. The neighborhood isn’t what it was.” Other families had moved in and would create their own stories on the streets where we had lived and worked.

  The door clatters and Charlie and Grace walk in. I marvel at how Grace’s classic beach wrap is unwrinkled and her hair pristine, not blown wildly from the ocean winds as mine would have been. “Oh!” Mrs. Connally sets down her tea so hard it splashes across the counter, then flings herself at her oldest son. “You’re here.�
� She pulls away, staring at him.

  “Mom and Dad, this is Grace,” Charlie says. I stand back, having never felt more like an outsider. I do not belong here.

  “So nice to meet you.” The warmth in Mrs. Connally’s voice is genuine at meeting her future daughter-in-law. Envy rises in me.

  Liam, seeming to sense this, comes up and takes my hand. “Why don’t you show Mom what we’ve done with the yard?”

  “I’m going to dress,” Grace says softly to Charlie.

  I lead Mrs. Connally out back. “See how Liam restored the garden.” I point, driven by a need to point out all he has done to make things right. Mrs. Connally’s face crumbles, the garden a reminder of a time before. I see then how far I have come in my grief. But for her, Robbie’s mother, it might never change. I reach down and squeeze her fingers in mine. “I think Robbie would have loved it, don’t you?” Not talking about him would not make things any easier.

  Beau meanders out back and lies down on the deck in his usual spot from years ago, as though he had been there yesterday. If only it could be that easy for the rest of us.

  “You try and do everything to protect them.” Mrs. Connally’s voice is flat and her eyes cloudy, as though elsewhere. “Swimming lessons at the Y from the time they were two. No riding in cars with friends.” She drops her head to her hands. “And still it was never enough.” A minute later, she looks up. “You knew, didn’t you, about Charlie and the army? Back when he was keeping it from us?”

  “I did,” I say, unable to deny it. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” I wait for the anger which will surely come.

  But her face remains impassive. “You were doing what you thought was best. We all were.” I cannot tell if her forgiveness is genuine, or if she is simply too tired to fight anymore.

  “Grace seems nice,” I offer.

  “She does,” Mrs. Connally replies, her voice carefully neutral. “I just always thought that maybe you and Charlie would wind up together.” Me, too. So she had not guessed or known after all. I flash back to the Thanksgiving night it all had happened. The news of my relationship with Charlie had sat untouched like a forgotten present under the tree the day after Christmas. I consider telling her everything that happened, the reasons Charlie and I could not make it work. But none of it matters anymore. “Come.” We walk back inside.