Eternal Brand

by Sami Lee

  No. I think I’m completely fucked, actually. He nodded. “Yeah. Sorry I woke you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t sleep so well myself.” Keith held up a mug. “Rum and milk helps sometimes. You want some?”

  Brand’s throat felt red raw, and he knew sleep wouldn’t be returning anytime soon. He wasn’t sure he wanted it to. He nodded again. “Thanks.”

  He put on his old gray hoodie and followed Keith downstairs, where the old guy found him a mug and microwaved the milk before adding a nip of Captain Morgan’s and setting it on the bar. Brand took a sip of the concoction. It was good.

  They sat on adjacent barstools quietly drinking their rum for several minutes. Brand wanted to apologize again for the screaming, but he was too embarrassed to bring it up. In the past the screaming had remained trapped in his head, a dull echo. But this nightmare—a series of nightmares, one on top of the other—it was worse than the others.

  He hadn’t thought they could get any worse.

  After a while Keith asked, his voice quiet, “How many tours did you do?”

  Brand should have realized. The gruff mannerisms, the broken sleep. The limp. From his age Brand guessed Keith’s bad dreams were often set in Vietnam. He didn’t evade the truth. “Four.”

  Keith let out a low whistle. “I did two in ’69. Got my knee torn open in the second one. Took some shrapnel to the gut too.”

  Brand was lucky in that way, that he hadn’t been physically maimed while serving his country. The ever-present sense of guilt that he was able-bodied when so many others weren’t made it impossible for Brand to say anything. Nothing you could say to make someone feel better about it, and any attempts would end up sounding hollow.

  A few more minutes passed. The town of Kelly was dead silent beyond the pub walls, and Brand had the eerie sense that he and Keith could be the only people left in the world. Two weary soldiers sharing a last rum before the end of time.

  Keith snapped him out of it pretty quick with his next question. “You talked to anyone about it? A professional?”

  Brand glanced at Keith, before returning his stare to his drink. “Army psychologist a couple of times.”

  “The compulsory stuff.” Keith shook his head. “Bullshit. Designed to make sure you’re fit for active duty. If you’re not, they send you home and forget about you.”

  There was more support than that these days, but Brand wasn’t going to argue about it. He’d been offered help. He’d refused it, instead opting to travel around the country doing odd jobs to sustain himself, making sure he didn’t get attached to anyone. You don’t get attached, you’ve got nothing to lose.

  That had worked for a while. Until he’d done some odd jobs for Emily Irving and he’d found somewhere to stay. He’d broken his rule and it had ended badly.

  He rubbed his hand, sure he could feel the salty sting of Emily’s tears flowing onto it.

  “You know, I wasted a lot of time after I got back,” Keith said. “Twenty years of being angry or drunk, usually both. Twenty years lost. Took me a long while and some group therapy to realize the drink doesn’t kill the nightmares, only slows them down.”

  “I don’t drink.” Brand looked at his half-empty mug and pushed it aside.

  “I can tell. But you’re losing years, son, as surely as I did. I was lucky. I eventually found Doris.” Keith cast his eyes to the roof, where the woman who ran the pub with him slept. “She saved me. Too late for kids or anything like that, but we made a life here. You have to find a reason to keep going, or you’ll die. Doris is my reason. Maybe Emily is yours.”

  Prickling heat raced over Brand’s skin. How many times had he called Emily’s name before Keith had eventually gotten out of bed? The nightmare had gone on and on, a blur of images he couldn’t escape. Emily’s face in place of his mother’s, her beautiful green eyes cold and unseeing. Emily with blood seeping out of a gaping chest wound, gasping her last breath as she told him she loved him.

  And it was Emily’s face he’d seen, not the bearded bikie’s, beneath his fists. He’d hit her and hit her until she was bloodied and bruised. Jet had been standing by, his voice accusing. This is going to break her heart.

  Remembering it now was like sinking into an ice bath. Brand shivered and changed his mind about forgoing the warm rum drink. He picked up the mug and took a long swig. The chill stayed with him.

  Eventually he spoke. “Emily deserves better.” So does Jet, he added silently, not willing to confess the full extent of his complex love life.

  Keith let out an ironic chuckle and clapped Brand on the back. “Don’t they all? But they love us anyway. Never underestimate the healing power of that, son.”

  The gruff touch, the word son, caused a ball to form uncomfortably in Brand’s throat. How different would his life have been if he’d had a father who gave a shit? Maybe none. Maybe his mother’s death and the war would have been enough to break him anyway.

  Are you broken, or just bruised?

  “You want to stay a while, you’re welcome,” Keith said as he eased off his barstool, favoring his good leg. “We could do with someone to help unload the beer truck. Lot of other jobs to do around here if you want meals and a room in exchange. The screaming don’t bother me, and Doris sleeps like the dead. An earthquake wouldn’t wake her.”

  Too choked up to speak, Brand merely nodded his thanks as Keith limped away. The old man’s kindness was both welcome and humiliating. Is this what he’d be reduced to now? Relying on the generosity of strangers to help him through? How long could he go on like that?

  I wasted a lot of time…twenty years… Was he going to wake up an old man whose best days were behind him, filled with regret that he didn’t make something of his life? Keith had found Doris. Brand had already found Emily, but he’d messed that up. What if she was the only woman who’d ever love him enough to put up with him?

  And Jet. Jet had loved him forever, through times when he shouldn’t have. Brand wished he could make up for all the hurt he’d caused the other man, but surely it was too late for them now. Jet had given him more than enough chances. Brand had blown them all, for what? Room and board in some pub in the middle of nowhere, where nobody knew him from Adam?

  What the fuck are you doing, Walker?

  Brand went back to his room and tried to sleep. He dozed fitfully until dawn came. Then he got up and went for a run, as he’d sometimes done at Mulholland. He’d jog through the cane fields, enjoying the soft whoosh of the high stalks in the morning breeze. Sometimes he’d run all the way to the beach, or take one of the horses down.

  Nothing in the flat planes surrounding Kelly could compare, because Kelly wasn’t home. The thought of never returning to Mulholland was like a raw ache in his chest.

  Brand spent the next three days helping Keith and Doris with odd jobs around the pub, and spent his nights tortured by the same muddled nightmares. The activity was good, it kept his mind from dwelling too long on the regrets that nagged him. He’d found a home, a life, and he’d left it. He’d acted like some deranged animal, making sure neither Emily nor Jet would fight for him to stay. Was Jet there now, enjoying Emily’s hospitality? If he went back, would they ever forgive him?

  How could they, when he couldn’t forgive himself?

  Afternoons, Brand disappeared to his room. Keith and Doris were nice people, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who enjoyed making small talk all day. Emily had understood that. Sometimes they’d go hours without talking, but there would always be her soft smiles and her warm kisses. When Jet had come, there’d been more chatter, but Brand hadn’t minded because there’d been more laughter as well. He hadn’t realized how rarely he’d made Emily laugh until Jet came to them.

  He missed them so much it was agony.

  “You feel like taking a drive, Brand?” Keith asked him on his fourth day in Kelly. “Doris needs a few things from Al
bany. It’d help me out if you went over to get ’em for me. I’m stuck doing the accounts.”

  “Sure, I can do that.” Brand was happy to help out, as Keith hadn’t charged him for the room.

  “Great. You got a mobile phone? You break down on the road between Kelly and Albany you’ll be out there for hours waiting for another car.”

  He had the phone Emily had given him not long after he’d moved in with her.

  She’d said it was for emergencies and Brand had acted accordingly. He rarely turned it on. He hadn’t turned it on since he’d left Leyton’s Headland.

  “I have one. I’ll take it with me.”

  While Doris wrote out her shopping list, Brand went to his room to get the phone. He turned it on to test for a signal. There was one.

  There was also an electronic envelope on the screen, indicating two voice mail messages.

  The only people who had the phone number were Emily and Carla Durante, whom he’d sent it to with his other contact details. Maybe Jet had it too, if Emily had given it to him.

  Brand’s palms started to sweat. Were the messages from Emily? Had she called to abuse him for being a jerk? Or was there some kind of emergency? Brand pressed the digits required to pick up the messages. The first one had been left six days ago, the night he’d left.

  “Brand?” Hearing Emily’s tear-filled voice was like being punched in the stomach. He sat on the rickety bed, frozen, as Emily sniffled and tried to control her words through her tears. “Brand, I just need to know you’re okay. I know you don’t want to be here anymore, and I’m sorry I didn’t…I wasn’t…whatever you needed me to be. But I have to know you’re okay. Please call me… Please.”

  The message ended. Brand’s thumb trembled as he pressed the number to make the message replay. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Emily thought he didn’t want to be with her anymore? She thought she wasn’t what he needed? Didn’t she know it was the other way around? He could never be good enough for her, not in the condition he was in.

  Maybe it’s past time you improved the condition you’re in then. Brand thought about Keith’s words of a few nights ago. The old vet had suggested therapy. Could he go through with that? Talking to some stranger about his life? Not just the war, but all the stuff before that.

  The idea filled him with terror.

  But Emily’s tears filled him with shame, because he’d caused them.

  Brand listened to the next message. Maybe this was the one where Emily would come to her senses and call him out for his behavior. But to his shock the message was not from Emily, but from Carla Durante.

  “Brand, I need your help.” The words made Brand sit up straighter. “There’s been an accident. Rafe’s hurt. He’s okay but he can’t work in the orchard. I wondered if you might consider coming down here for a week or so to help? I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate, and you always said if I ever needed anything… If you could do it, that would be great. Let me know.”

  Carla had never asked for his help before, and it piqued Brand’s concern. How bad was this injury of Rafe’s? It had to be bad or Rafe’s pride would never have allowed her to call for help. And what about Jet? Why hadn’t Carla called her son?

  Maybe Jet wasn’t with Emily at all, but had already moved on to his next photography assignment. He could be in Africa or the Amazon. The idea of him being so far away flayed Brand open. It was bad enough losing Emily. But the thought that Jet was on the other side of the world left him feeling more hollow than ever.

  Hollow or not, he had to get moving. Brand owed Carla and Rafe his life, and they’d never asked for anything in return. Going to them now was a no-brainer. And maybe he was relieved to have something to keep him busy, take his mind off Emily’s emotional message.

  I’m sorry I wasn’t what you needed me to be.

  How could she think that?

  “You’re going, huh?”

  Keith was standing in the open doorway, watching him with knowing eyes. Brand glanced at the list the old man held. “Yeah. Sorry. I need to go repay a debt.”

  “Understood. Don’t worry about this.” Keith waved the list. “I’ll go. Any excuse to get away from the accounts.”

  “Thanks.” Brand stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. He couldn’t quite look Keith in the face. “I mean for the room…and the advice. I can pay you—”

  Keith cut him off with a disgruntled sound. “Don’t embarrass me. You can pay me back by talking to someone about those dreams. Maybe by going to see that girl again.”

  “Maybe,” Brand said, the idea filling him with an unfamiliar sense of hope. Maybe…if it wasn’t too late to somehow make up for everything he’d done.

  “Good luck, son. Send me a postcard from wherever you end up.”

  Brand was on the road again in less than twenty minutes. He called Carla and got her machine. She was probably out in the orchard, and maybe Rafe was too hurt to get to the phone. The thought made his foot press harder on the accelerator. Estimating he had about seven hours of driving ahead of him, he left a message that he’d be there by that afternoon.

  Then he drove the day through.

  The sun was setting over the old house when Brand pulled up in front of it. The last time he’d seen the place it had been white, now it was painted a cheery yellow with light blue trim. Carla’s influence, no doubt. She’d always had a flair for decorating.

  Memories filled him as he got out of the truck and stared at the house. He’d first come here at fifteen, in the system because his father had been convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to eighteen months. Brand had treated the Durantes with suspicion for a good long while, hardly able to believe such loving people could be taken at face value. Eventually he’d realized they were for real, and he’d even taken Jet up on one of his daily offers to go fishing at a nearby lake. After that they’d become practically inseparable. Jet had been his first real friend. His best friend.

  Brand’s father had ended up serving only ten months of his sentence, getting time off for “good behavior”. Someone on the parole board had believed Boyd Walker’s act about being a changed man, and he’d once again been granted custody of his son. The next year of Brand’s life was filled with violence and chaos as his father’s meth-manufacturing business grew and his addiction to the drug got out of control. The only thing that had kept Brand sane were regular emails from Jet, reminding him of their time together, fishing and kicking a football around in the yard like normal teenagers.

  Eleven months after he’d gotten out of jail, Boyd Walker was shot dead in a drug deal gone bad and Brand was back at the Durantes’ orchard, a seventeen-year-old who’d seen enough of human fallibility to last a lifetime. He was back with his friend, but by then he’d started to want so much more from Jet than friendship, and he’d behaved like a complete tool because of that.

  Something he’d never quit doing. Thirty-one and he couldn’t stop acting like an angry, scared kid.

  The screen door creaked as Carla Durante emerged from the house. She stared at him for a long moment, as though trying to convince herself he was actually standing in her yard. Even from a distance, Brand could see she was close to tears. Remorse niggled at him. Although he’d always kept Carla apprised of his movements, he’d only visited her once in the last thirteen years, after his first tour in Afghanistan. He hadn’t known if Jet would be here, and hadn’t known whether to be relieved or disappointed when he wasn’t.

  Carla came down the stairs to get a closer look at him. Her dark brown eyes were shining but her lips curved. She touched his stubbled cheek. “Brandon, my sweet boy.”

  Brand’s eyes burned, and when Carla moved to hug him he all but crushed her in his arms. This is why he didn’t come here. Carla Durante always brought out emotions in him he didn’t know how to handle. “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?”

 
For not visiting you for a decade. For not being worthy of you. “For not coming right away,” he said instead. “I didn’t get your message for a couple of days.”

  “It’s fine. You’re here now.” She pulled away and took another long look at him. “You don’t look well.”

  “You mean I look like shit.”

  She pinched him on the arm. “Language.”

  “What about Rafe? How is he?”

  Carla’s expression turned sheepish. “Oh, pretty well, all things considered.”

  The screen door creaked again. This time Rafe Durante came out, walking pretty smoothly for a man who’d had such a severe injury he couldn’t work. He was trailed by two boys who looked to be about twelve and fourteen, and a young girl who couldn’t be more than seven.

  Rafe came over and gave Brand a hug, thumping him on the back. He had a strong arm for a reed thin guy in his fifties. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I heard you needed help.” And Carla had known he’d come if she only said the word. Brand narrowed his eyes at her as he spoke to Rafe. “But you look pretty fit to me.”

  Rafe chuckled ruefully. “Over to you, Carla. I’ll load the kids in the car. We’re going out for pizza, aren’t we, kids?”

  Only the twelve-year-old answered with an enthusiastic “Yeah.” The older boy tossed his blond fringe out of his eyes to project a couldn’t-give-a-shit air, and the girl stared up at Brand with wary blue eyes.

  With one last clap on the shoulder, Rafe walked away with the kids. Brand watched them go for a few seconds. “You’re still fostering kids, I see.”

  “You know me, always a sucker for a sad story.”

  That was because she had a kind soul and an indomitable spirit, a combination which made her perfect for fostering. Brand loved Carla for that, but when he turned back to look at her he knew his expression was cool. “Rafe wasn’t the one who wanted me here then. Where’s Jet?”