Her head filled with images of both of them—of Joel back in California, under the glass bus stop with the rain pouring, promising her he was coming back to her; of Austin in the meadow, kissing her tenderly; and watching the way he was with Jake, a beautiful child that Joel had left far behind.
She wished she knew what to do. She wished none of this had ever happened.
When she thought about her journey that had led her to this, she was overwhelmed with emotion. She had no idea who she was anymore. If she didn’t know who she was, how could she ever decide what was best?
She took in a deep breath. Austin felt like home, like safety and belonging. Thoughts of Joel made her stomach knot. It was like being at the top of a roller coaster and waiting for the fall.
Her body was tired and stiff, like it had been wrung out. She thought about how she almost died, how Joel almost died, and yet here they were, back together again, as if fate had tested them.
The last time she saw Austin was two days before. He had driven her back to the ranch after she had given a tearful goodbye to her parents, who had begged to stay with her to make sure she was well looked after, but they hadn’t the money or resources. Mimi had appreciated their love and promised to call them every day. She promised them that as soon as she was given the all-clear to fly, she would go back to London.
The smell of coffee wafted up the stairs. It suddenly reminded her of the mornings she spent watching Austin prepare Jake’s lunch for the day. The days she had spent drifting through the house like a ghost, wallowing in pity and grief over losing Joel were not that long ago, but now he was back, and she had a new kind of grief that she shouldn’t have and it made her feel sick with guilt.
She crossed the room and curled her fingers around the door knob. She suddenly sensed something. When she stood at the top of the staircase, her blood ran cold and her palms started to sweat. At first, she thought that she must be imagining things, but when she ran into the front bedroom and saw Austin’s black truck with mud splattered up the doors, she knew he was home and he was about to face Joel for the first time in years.
She ran back to the stairs. She was not ready to have her own dishonesty to Joel burst out into the open. She had no idea what to think or feel. As she took the first step down the stairs, she felt rooted to the spot. She held the banister rail to keep herself steady.
She tugged at the hem of her blue dress and locked eyes on Austin standing in the hallway. He was unshaven, and, by the creases in his clothes, it looked like he had gotten dressed in a crazy hurry. There was darkness in his eyes. His jaw remained tight and fists clenched.
“It’s been a long time,” she heard Joel say. Neither of them noticed her on the stairs. She tried to move closer to the wall, as if that would somehow shield her from being seen altogether.
It had been seven years since they were last in a room together, only this time the open casket of their mother wasn’t there to keep them from finally coming to blows with one another.
Seeing them together for the first time, Mimi felt a wave of sickness come over her. These two men were so similar in appearance, but so different in heart. Things had never been that way for Mimi and Larna. As the years had lengthened, so had the love that she had for her sister.
Joel was the man she had promised her life to. To this day, she had still, even after she had found out that he had fathered another child, kept her wedding ring on as if it was a symbol of hope. When she had made love to Austin, the glint of the shiny diamonds had reflected as if they were blades passing through her body, reminding her she was married; only she believed Joel was dead. Mimi had told herself that, time and time again.
She thought about the ranch and how this once was a family home. She wondered many times, If these walls could talk, what would they say?
Over the past few weeks, she had been faced with so many emotions. What most people would go through in an entire lifetime had unravelled itself to her in the most dramatic of explosions. She had lived through her husband going off to war and then being told his life had ended in bloodshed. Then she had met his estranged brother keeping her husband’s love child and raising him as his own. Her own life hung in the balance, and now it had come to this very moment of truth.
Yet it was not just a truth between Austin and Joel. It was a truth about a child and Mimi’s heart. There had been so many thoughts rushing through her head the day she had found Jake’s birth certificate. The feeling of betrayal had burned into her and it was laced with so many other doubts. She questioned what else Joel had lied about. Up until then, she had considered Joel to be a man that lived in the moment, but what she hadn’t known was the truth, and the truth was, he was trying to hide a past.
“Stay the fuck away. You’ve been gone all this time. You are nothing but a stranger to him.” Austin’s voice was eerily calm, but it carried the weight of threat.
“I’ve made mistakes. I know that, but he has a right to know about me.”
“You signed him away. Mom begged you. Why now? I don’t care what epiphany you may have had out there. You were already dead to me, Joel, and to Jake, you don’t exist.”
The words hung in the air. Joel may have come back from a war alive, but right now, he wasn’t sure he would come away from the war of his past and be rescued from it all.
Mimi was confused. She could only assume that Austin was talking about Jake.
Without thinking for a second longer, she moved down the steps. They both turned to her.
Joel moved toward her and put a protective hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t,” she said, and pushed his hand away. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Why don’t you ask your brave military boy?” Austin said.
“Fuck you,” Joel spat.
Austin lunged forward, but Mimi quickly stood between them.
“Stop it…stop it!” she screamed. Her voice cracked like glass shattering. Every last emotion spilled out of her, bursting free out of her body.
She looked at Joel, his face twisted. She had never seen him like this before.
“Mimi, I want to see Jake. I called Austin when he was in Dallas.”
“Ah well, look at that. Is your mouth on fire? You just told the truth for once in your sorry ass life. You think you are some big goddam hero, fighting in a war with your big guns, your ooh-rah buddies, but you’re not a man. What real man runs out on their kid?”
“I need to get some air,” Joel said. He pushed past Austin and pulled the front door open.
The air was humid and thick. Sunlight drenched the fields in a golden light. The echo of a voice came from behind him. Joel felt as though he were surrounded by a cyclone of memories. In the distance, he saw the place where his father took his final breath.
The day their father’s life had ended was the day that their war had started. Or so Joel believed, but for Austin, it had been way before then.
Mimi stood in the doorway, watching Joel walk away in the distance, and for the first time, she didn’t think of him as the brave super hero she had painted in her mind. She saw a coward, a deadbeat father who turned away from a beautiful child.
She felt a wave of sadness wash over her.
“I can’t let him take him,” Austin whispered. She turned and saw his eyes spring with tears.
“I’ll talk to him,” Mimi said.
“Like he’s going to tell you the truth.”
His words stung her. She wanted to yell at him, but she had no fight left in her. And as much as she wanted to disagree with him, she knew he was right, and it killed her.
***
The rest of the day moved forward in a blur. It had been a few hours since Joel left out the front door.
Mimi ran after him, but he told her he knew how badly he had messed things up. He said he would make it all right again, especially with her, but for now he needed a few hours alone.
She had no idea where he went. Without a car, she assumed he couldn’t go too far
.
Back at the house, Mimi walked into a wall of silence except for the ticking of a clock on the wall. She moved through the house, searching for Austin. She finally found him sitting in his office, holding a glass of whisky. The room was in darkness, the heavy curtains drawn, shutting out the final glow of the orange sun.
Mimi thought of the days she had soaked her pillows with tears back in her tiny flat in London, trying to piece together how her husband spent his final moments on earth. She’d had no idea he’d been rescued. The past swept in, no longer willing to wait to come forward.
“Tell me why you love him.” The slur of Austin’s voice was drenched in pity and anger, maybe even jealousy.
“Where’s Jake?”
“Safe. I can’t let him see him. He can’t know. I almost told Jake, but I couldn’t shatter his whole world. I can’t let him get dragged into all this shit. I will be honest with him one day, but right now, he’s too young. He wouldn’t understand why his real father never wanted him and why I lied to him. So you told him where I was, then?” His gaze met hers, waiting for an answer.
“I told him you were in Dallas. That’s all I said,” Mimi answered in a defensive tone.
“Amazing. Out of all of the hotels, he happens to find me at The Avery.”
Mimi rubbed her finger along her temple.
“I must’ve mentioned it,” she confessed.
“This is out of control. All of it. I cannot allow Jake to find out, not like this.”
Mimi wrapped her arms around her body and took a seat. There seemed to be too much at risk with her being there. She finally realized what she must do.
“I’m going to talk to Joel. And I’ll get him away from the ranch. That way you can protect Jake from all of this and then you and Joel can decide what is best, but I think the distance needs to be put between you both again. It will never work like this.”
“And you, Mimi? What is it that you want?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want. The most important person in this is Jake. He needs to be kept away from all this drama. Where is he now?”
“With Sara.”
“Does she know?”
“Yes. She is going to keep Jake with her until I deal with things. I can’t believe all of this. I mean, shit, how did we get here?” Austin said, pouring more whiskey into the glass. Glancing up at her, he gave her a sorry smile. “Look at what you got yourself tied up into.”
“You know, my wish when I was told that Joel had been killed was to go to sleep and be told, when I woke up, that it was all a bad dream. When I came here and found you and then Jake, I almost believed that somehow it was all meant to be. And then, finding out that Joel was alive and surviving my car accident…I don’t know what anything means anymore. When I saw Joel again, I thought it would all make sense, that all my old feelings for him would come flooding back, but he feels different to me, like a stranger. I feel like I don’t even know my own husband. And then there is you. I don’t really know you, but somehow you feel like home.”
Austin got up and moved across the room. He sat by Mimi. His breath was hot and heavy from the whiskey. “I wish I’d found you first,” he whispered.
“I feel so confused.” Mimi looked into his eyes.
“None of this is going to be straightforward. My feelings for you, they haven’t changed, but I need to protect my son. He’s my son, Mimi. I raised him.”
“I know he is. I know I shouldn’t say this, but I’ve fallen in love with you, and now I understand why you let me go that day of the accident. So now I know I need to let you go to keep your life safe. Where Joel and I go from here, I don’t know, but it’s because I love you that I need to keep you safe and keep Jake safe.”
Austin tilted his head back, breathing in deep. “It was never going to happen for us. I’ll never forget you.”
“And I’ll never forget you.”
She took Austin’s head in her hands and kissed him tenderly on his lips. He gripped her tighter, but she pulled away. If she didn’t resist him now, she would hold onto him and never let go. In that moment, she knew where her heart was. If Jake were not at risk, she’d choose Austin.
Too much had happened with Joel. She didn’t know the man she married. Their relationship was laced with too many secrets and too many lies for her to ever feel the way she once did.
Her heart chose Austin, but her head kept her with Joel.
Our brain makes millions of unconscious choices everyday—to turn left or to turn right, what food we eat—but it’s matters of the heart that have our undivided attention because those choices determine the rest of our lives and map out our future.
“I sort of wonder why you are letting Joel stay here. I mean, this is your home.”
“Yeah, it is, but technically my parents left it to both of us, so I can’t tell him he can’t be here. Under the circumstances with your accident and all, it was easier for him to be here and me be gone, but after he called me in Dallas and said that he wanted to see Jake, I had to get back here, even if that meant facing him after all this time.”
“This is all so fucked up,” Mimi said and shook her head.
“Yeah, yeah, it is.”
Many times Austin had wondered about Joel’s life. He was living as a Marine, and Austin had stayed true to his roots as a cowboy. They were worlds apart, but they would forever be connected.
Even as children, there was a distance between them. Austin could never remember feeling close to his older brother, not in the way he thought that most siblings should. They had spent time together, that was a given, but a brotherly bond had never been formed.
Neither of them had ever tried to understand what had gone wrong, nor had they tried to fix it. Instead, they competed against one another. The older they became, the more serious the competition.
It had never really been about Sara. She was just something else they could fight over. With Mimi and Jake, everything was different. It wasn’t about winning or losing. It was about doing the right thing.
There would be no kiss and makeup between the two brothers. It had gone way beyond that. There could be no reconciling and beers on a Friday night as they watched the game. They needed to be apart because if they were together, the friction between them could ruin their lives forever.
***
Joel
Joel walked for several miles, thinking and feeling unsettled with the way Mimi had seemed to almost protect Austin. He took himself to the meadow. His mind flashed back to when he used to come here with his father. He could almost hear his voice in the whisper of the wind. He was certain that if his dad had never died, things would have never turned out the way they had.
He settled onto a rock jutting out by the lake and started skipping stones into the flattened surface of the water. He counted the bounces before the rock sunk into the lake’s depths, never to resurface. That is how he had always thought his secret would be kept from Mimi, sunken beneath the surface.
He realised he had spent so long running away from the truth that he was tired. He thought about everything he had been through in the last few months and realised that his demons were not only in the war that almost took his life, but deeply rooted into his history, and it all stemmed from the relationship with his brother.
He never really knew where it had all gone wrong. The memories he had were now a blur. Being back at the ranch brought back so many unwanted memories. The Marines had carved out a new life for him, had given him a new purpose. It was as if his childhood belonged to somebody else.
The day that Joel joined the Corps was the day he thought he was becoming a man. Nothing could have prepared him for the vigorous training he received. The decisions he had made were the ones that change lives. There was a drive inside him. When he had wanted to give in, something deeper had pushed him forward.
On the first day of boot camp, he stepped out of the stifling bus and onto the yellow footprints on the sticky tarmac. He locked eyes with his drill instru
ctor, a burly hulk of a man. His voice boomed like a stereophonic surround sound system, and he had a growl that sounded like it had come from the belly of a beast.
Joel, along with the other recruits, moved into the receiving phase. His body was no longer his own; it was the property of the Corps. As the buzz of the clippers pushed on his head like the mowing of grass, he felt as if the clumps of hair that had fallen to the floor was shedding the skin of who he used to be.
In the weeks and months that followed, his body and mind were pushed to places he never thought were possible. There were times he had almost given up, particularly one night in the depths of darkness with the lashing rain soaking through his tired and weak body and his drill instructor yelling in his ears.
Then he remembered how his father had always told him to never give up on a dream. His dad always said anything worth anything in life was worth fighting for; the road ahead may not be smooth, but it’s the bumps, bruises, and scars that build character. It’s what makes a man a man, so he stayed.
He pushed harder because he had something to prove, and he made it through the thirteen weeks of being knocked down to nothing to become something—the man that made him tough enough to fight a war.
He dismissed his history, his life at the ranch the day that he shed his old skin. He had buried it deep. The Marines allowed him to travel to places in the world that he probably would have never discovered if he had chosen to stay in Texas.
In the drizzle of an early London morning, the fog just starting to burn away from the sun burning through, he had been running when Mimi crashed into him. His attraction for her had been instant. Moments like that one don’t just happen. He believed it was fate.
When he heard her well-spoken voice, he thought her tone had a golden ring of class and sophistication. He just wanted her to keep talking and never stop. Her laugh was girlish, but her eyes had a fierceness about them.
He couldn’t let her go. It was a moment in time that he knew was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. If he had let his raven-haired girl walk away, he knew that he would spend the rest of his life thinking about her and what if? He was a risk taker by nature, but this was the one time that he wasn’t prepared to risk letting go of a woman he knew was about to change his life.
Till Death Us Do Part Page 19
