Tony looked at his cell, unable to help himself as he force fed. There, he found a message from Wendy.
Wish I were with you.
With him. Not in safety, but with him. Selfishness struck Tony and he wrote:
I wish you were too.
Not Lila, he realized, but her. He wanted Wendy there with him, desperately.
Tony knew what it meant. Not only that, he knew what his anger about Gage Sawyers meant and hers about Lila. He could go so far to say that he had always known what it all meant.
He was in love with his first and truest friend. And she was in love with him.
Simple as that, the last puzzle piece of his life fell into place.
****
So far, they’d had only howls and threats. With nightfall descending and the true storm hovering in the distance, Deena and her husband eked out their last moments alone together in bed. It was their final stab at privacy, while privacy was still an option.
Deena laid on her side, studying the silent figure beside her. He was stiff in a way that felt foreign to her, in a way that followed no fight they’d ever had. Something occupied his mind.
“Are you worried about the storm?” she said. “I know the preparations were rushed but—”
“No,” he said gruffly.
“Then what?”
Tak’s lips parted before a puff of air escaped.
“Tyson,” he finally said.
Deena blinked. They’d fought over so much that week. What happened between her and Mike in the bathroom. The extent of his relationship with Aubree Daniels. Tony. She didn’t even know that her husband knew her cousin’s boyfriend.
“What about him?” Deena said.
Tak stared at the ceiling, stared through it, if that were possible.
“I don’t want to say.”
“Please do.”
“Why?”
He looked at her.
She had no right to say what she was about to say, no right to assert anything given the fierceness with which she’d guarded her secrets. Still, she felt the need to try.
“Because we’re married,” she whispered.
“Married.” He snorted at her words as if they were mere conjecture.
An afternoon of silence passed between them.
“He tried to kiss me,” Tak said.
“What? Like a Frenchman?”
“No, Deena. Not like a Frenchman. You know what? Forget it.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“The man’s gay, that’s what I’m telling you. He was hoping I’d be gay with him.”
“Well, he can’t be gay, he’s with Crystal!”
Tak sighed. “Tell him, not me.”
Deena stared at her husband. He had all the rigidness of someone expecting a cobra strike. She ran a hand along his arm and trailed fingers to his, laced them, and heard him exhale.
“I’m not—a homophobe,” he said as if the point had been pressing him. “It was just…I’m sitting there doing bro time. I don’t expect one of the bros to try and tongue me.”
Deena smothered the urge to laugh, then thought about her cousin and felt it dissipate altogether.
“What should I do? Talk to Crystal?”
The idea nauseated her. Five years they’d been together and Deena could shatter that with a few words.
“I told him to tell her or I would,” Tak said. “But by me, I really meant you.”
Deena looked at him.
“Maybe it was a mistake,” she said hopefully. “You know how you guys are with your zealous masculinity. Tyson violated some unspoken code and now you think it means something it doesn’t.”
Tak looked at her, his mouth a single thin crease in his face. All the blood had rushed away, leaving him blanched in its wake.
“The man thinks I look like his dead lover, Deena. He wants me to replace him and not tell you. You don’t need it clearer than that?”
Her mouth rounded out to a lower case ‘o’. Her husband snapped up like a rubber band, snatched on a tee and crumpled jeans. Deena followed him with her gaze.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Checking on Tony. You know how he gets about these things.”
He gestured vaguely to the atmosphere before stepping out the door. It slammed soundly behind him.
Outside the wind howled like a legion of the damned. Deena closed her eyes and focused on the pummeling rains, a tempestuous brew of turbulent, roaring showers. An insane urge came over her to run out, throw her head back and let the rage have her, full on as it came through.
Deena pulled on clothes and rushed out the door. She intersected with Tak as she passed Tony’s room and ignored his calls for her.
Downstairs, only two doors remained unsecured. They were strategically identified escapes should the storm make departure necessary. She headed for the one that served as the servants’ entrance and threw it open. It battered back shut in her face. When she shoved it a second time, it took both hands to keep it wide.
Blustering winds beat her to blindness with the first step, whipping and tearing at her hair, plastering it with rain to her eyes. Midnight descended like a cloak. The sound of rain filled her ears to capacity, water pouring on concrete, ceaseless, resolute.
Minutes of stillness had her drenched and shivering, with storm water running arctic currents down her face, flooding her mouth, and painting clothes to every curve and crevice of her body.
“What are you doing?” Tak yelled from the threshold.
Deena shot him a grin and let the storm engulf her.
With all life’s planning things happened, the heavens opened and destruction found a way in. All that lived came to die. All that was one day ceased to be. Every moment of her life had bathed in meticulousness, the careful work of a girl craving order. But that meticulousness, that careful planning had carved none of who she came to be. Wife. Mother. The things important to her. Even planning had its limitations.
And so, she’d stepped out into the storm, threw her head back and her arms heavenward.
Never had Deena done something so reckless.
Never had she felt so free.
Chapter Forty-Six
At midnight a window exploded, leaving the sound of cannon fire blasting into the mansion. Those who had been upstairs rushed down to see the damage, before Tak and Daichi ushered everyone into the drawing room.
“It ripped the boards straight off, I swear,” Lloyd was saying as Tak gave him a shove in the back, parting him from a horror-stricken Tony. “It was like peeling steel off a skyscraper. Those winds must be like, 400 miles per hour.”
Tony stared, wide eyed and rooted to his place.
“We’ll be fine,” Deena said and squeezed her oldest son’s shoulder. “Better than fine, in fact.”
They were the first words between them since the blowout and both seemed to be testing the waters since then. Deena with her words of comfort and careful touch, Tony with his look of latent remorse.
Noah careened past them as they spoke and cheered as another clash of thunder rocked the room. Mia came in sullen, not far behind, skateboard under her arm, no doubt sour at the closed in space. Any place that wasn’t big enough to skate was bound to put Mia Tanaka in a foul mood.
Tanakas, Hammonds, and the hired help that had traveled with them, pressed into the room, a room with a single, wide-paned, boarded up window. Grandma Emma, parked by Aunt Rhonda in the corner, had already begun muttering scripture.
“Behold. God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid.”
Tony found a seat at her feet.
“For yah, the Lord is my strength and song. He has also become my salvation.”
Mia sat down next to Tony; skateboard in hand, and said something for his ears only.
He smiled.
“Therefore,” Grandma Emma continued. “With you joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
Her gaze stopped on Allison as she entered.
“Glad you could make it,” Grandma Emma said.
Allison’s cheeks flushed an enthusiastic purple.
John entered next. Allison looked up, as if not knowing he was so close behind, and glued her gaze to her husband.
There was no one else in the room. No one else on the planet. Even their hurricane melted away in the look those two gave each other, a silent want mingled with naked pain.
John said nothing. Allison said less. Deena waited, spurring her on in her mind. Go to him, do something, fix this, she thought, even as her own problems mounted in a rearview mirror. The singular nature of adultery seemed so simple compared to the problems that she and Tak faced. Forgive or not forgive the one act; that was what needed to be decided. But for Tak and Deena, half a dozen, two dozen grievances, stacks upon stacks it seemed, stared back at them—more than either could hope to address.
Someone coughed. Allison crossed to Deena, saying not a word to her husband.
“Thank you for letting me come,” she said. “After all the flights were cancelled and the hotel was evacuated, I wasn’t sure what to do. Even the taxi cabs had stopped running. I swear, it was like this storm…came from nowhere.”
She was babbling, babbling because she had the attention of everyone, babbling because she wanted to look at her husband and didn’t want to look at her husband, less he realize how much she wanted to look at him. But the lights flickered out and all that was forgotten.
A whirring sound sliced through the groans. A promise of lights followed that—there and then gone and then there once again. Electricity returned.
“Thank God,” Deena said. “Let’s get the matches and stuff together. In case the backup generator goes out.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Tak slid an arm around his wife’s shoulders, pulling her in until she pressed hip to hip. With his free arm, he tugged on Mia until she nudged closer, even as she busied herself drawing on her skateboard with a sharpie. Only Tony, sitting on the other end of Mia needed no prompting, moving in closer to his sister, then telling her he would protect her as best he could. But his kid sister didn’t even bother to look up, so engrossed was she in getting the shading proper for the front fakie flip she re-imagined on her board. Not bad, Tak thought as he watched her technique and felt a stab of pride at the skill she exhibited in shading. Noah, never one to be left out, bounded rough into his father’s lap, earning a grunt, before curling up for a nap. He paid no heed when Mia barked that he was too big and in the way.
Gold whorls ran through the stark white carpet of the room they occupied. John, being careful not to look up and therefore directly into Allison’s eyes, busied himself tracing the pattern on the floor. On seeing this, Yoshi crossed the room, stopping only to yank on his pants so that his belly flopped up, and then dropped down on the floor next to his son.
“You’re being a fool,” he said.
John looked up. In his face was the weight of hurt, the toll of divorce. Shadows cast his eyes in dark relief and cheek bones jutted anew.
John went back to tracing patterns.
“I don’t understand,” Yoshi said. “Why won’t you fight?”
His father’s voice always carried. He was the sort who’d shout your business in what he thought was a whisper, only to look up and see even the postman grinning. John stole a glance at Allison and saw her head snap downward, eyes averted.
“She wants to leave, otosan. It’s not like the old days. You can’t make a woman stay.”
His father scoffed as if hearing the overtures of a snake oil salesman. Or worse, a fool.
“You can make a woman stay by making her want to stay.” Yoshi slid in even closer. “You are a man,” he said. “Can’t you remember passion? Desperation for the woman you love?”
Tak forgot to pay attention discreetly, and found himself leaning in for the response, breath absent.
“Maybe it’s too late,” John said, fingers still married to the whorls on the floor. He hazarded a glance at his wife, studying her as she concentrated on looking away.
“And maybe you saved all your passion for the wrong woman,” Allison spat.
“Okay,” Deena said. “I’m going to take the kids out. They can gather some toys or something.”
“I don’t mind staying,” Mia announced, looking up for the first time.
Deena rose and ushered out a half dozen children. When she turned and demanded that Tony help her, she was met with a cry of outrage.
“Dad?” he said.
“Hurry,” Tak answered. “Before you annoy me by questioning your mom.”
He needed the kids gone so he could see how this ended. Certainly, if these two could find some way to begin anew, then optimism for his own marriage felt possible.
“I didn’t—” John cringed with the force of a man trying to crawl inward. “I didn’t give my passion to the wrong woman.” His gaze darted from face to face, with him questioning each on how they’d earned a front row seat to his humiliation.
“So, you don’t regret what you did,” Allison said.
“I didn’t say that either.”
“You did.”
“I know what I said! And if you’d listen for once, you’d discover that you don’t know half of what you think you do.”
Oh boy. Self righteous indignation wasn’t the best course of action. Not when trying to get a woman back.
Allison dashed back a lock of messy blonde hair from her face. Never had Tak seen her so frayed, with hair sticking here and there and clothes that needed straightening.
John turned on his father.
“You see? I told you. It’s over.”
Yoshi stared, incredulity etched in his every pore. A minute passed, maybe more, of him searching his son’s face for something.
“Fine. Your marriage is over. You win. Do you like your prize?”
Yoshi jumped up, strode across the room and flopped down near his wife.
“Daddy, marriage is just an artificial attempt at validating—”
“Shut up,” Yoshi and June snapped. He rubbed the entirety of his face with a hand. “Please, shut up,” Yoshi added.
Eventually, Deena stuck her head in, found all silent, and returned with the children.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Aubree Daniels stood before reading what should have been hidden in Deena’s purse.
“I take it that you have received my other letters and now know that I’ll be out on parole soon.”
Her eyes did a little jig.
“As you know, budget cutbacks mean that the usual halfway houses are practically nonexistent.” She hesitated for effect. “Meaning, I’ll be out on the street once released.”
Aubree tut-tutted and made a show of considering this dilemma.
“You’ve asked so much of him. First, to hide from your family for years because he’s Japanese—which is really racist by the way. Then you reject his overtures for marriage time and again for the exact same reason.”
“I never—”
“Oh come, Deena. You always held him in the palm of your hand, controlling with your melodrama.”
Aubree waved the letter from Deena’s mother as a smile found her red-painted lips.
“This is too far, you know. It’s why you haven’t told him. Why you can’t tell him. Your murdering mother under the same roof as his children? His children are where he draws the line. And you’d put them in danger just to settle an old debt.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“But it’s what you’ve promised, isn’t it? A home for your mother because she saved your life.”
Aubree let the paper cascade to the floor. In its drift it accentuated her slight flare of hips and long, pale legs stacked in stilettos.
“She’s not dangerous,” Deena said. “And I haven’t promised her anything.”
“But you will.”
These words for her were but luscious fruit, dripping with delectable juices. She could have said them a hundred
times, squeezing sweet taste every time.
“She’s in prison, Deena. Of course she’s dangerous. How else do you think she’s survived? She’s made alliances. Hurt people. Nothing she’s not used to doing.”
“She’ll be out by the time you return,” Aubree continued. “And here you are, having not said a word to Tak yet.”
“I will. When the time is right.”
Aubree’s smile broadened, wide enough to make the Cheshire cat blush in parental pride.
“He’ll leave you. He doesn’t trust and he knows he can do better. You know he can do better. He certainly has before.”
“Tak loves me,” Deena said.
“No, he fucks you. You’re not stupid enough to think it’s the same.”
Aubree strutted across the room, effortless in monstrous needle heels sounding off on wood. Except the room wasn’t a room anymore, as the roof melted back. Deena looked up to open skies, a blue expanse of perfection. Wind twisted her hair and she smoothed it with a cautious hand. Aubree’s gold locks stayed in place. Her body looked thinner and even more curvaceous than before.
“Your husband,” Aubree whispered as the wind found rage. “Loves me. Still.”
Deena opened her mouth to contradict, only to find it flapped aimlessly—also on her side. A croak escaped her.
And the world exploded.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Tak yanked Deena to her feet, ripping her from her dreams. With feet like cinder blocks, she took one step, then another, before realizing her pants were wet.
Rain.
The light flickered ominously.
“Dee, come on. The window’s gone. We’ve got to move.”
Only then did she see her family bottlenecked at their only exit.
“I was asleep!” Tak shouted over a roar like a wind tunnel. “Everyone was. Then the sound woke me—I can’t believe it didn’t wake you. Then I saw this hole in the wall where the window used to be.”
Deena examined it. The yawning gap into night was where a respectable window once stood, low enough that water rushed in on a steady stream.
Crimson Footprints lll: The Finale Page 18
