Only Love

by Garrett Leigh

  “Did you fight with Uncle Max too?”

  “What’s that, bug?”

  Tess relaxed her aggressive posture and slid onto his knee. “Mommy had a fight with him. That’s why he went to stay with Aunty Carla. Why was he cross? He never gets cross, not even when Daddy calls him names.”

  Jed glanced behind him, searching for Belle. He found her with Dan, but she wasn’t playing and she looked as miserable as he felt. “I don’t know why your mom and Max were fighting, bug, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out.”

  It was news to Jed that Max wasn’t staying at the Cooper house. He’d driven into town two nights ago to double-check Max was there, safe and sound. Carla lived in Portland, near the VA hospital Jed went out of his way to avoid. He wondered what Max was doing with himself in the city, but tempered the thought before it could take hold and distract him from the underlying reasons Max was there in the first place. He missed Max so much it hurt, but underneath it all, he was too angry to do anything about it. Whatever his reasons, one way or another, Max had deceived him.

  Softball practice dragged on for another half hour. Jed struck a deal with Tess—a promise of a ride on his shoulders in exchange for her civil behavior—but Belle remained sullenly rebellious, and he was beat by the time Kim pulled up in the parking lot. An afternoon spent crouched on the ground negotiating with mutinous children was exhausting enough on its own, but put together with a sleepless twenty-four hours, and he was running on empty.

  Taking a page out of Belle’s book, he strapped both girls into the car and walked away before Kim could engage him. He wasn’t as lucky with Dan.

  “Dude, you look like hell.”

  Jed stooped and picked up a stray pair of tiny sweatpants. “Who went home without their pants on?”

  “Mason. Megan’s brother. He likes to take his clothes off while he’s watching the game. Don’t change the subject. What’s up?”

  “Up? Nothing’s up.” Jed folded the sweatpants and handed them over. “The girls were both in a bad mood, that’s all.”

  Dan added the sweatpants to the growing pile of abandoned clothes in the plastic box he was carrying. “Bullshit. Kim’s been crying down the phone to my mom, Max has disappeared off the face of the earth, and you look like you haven’t slept in a week. Something’s up.”

  “Max is in Portland with Carla.”

  “Doesn’t explain the rest of it.” Dan stopped by his car and threw the box of lost property in the trunk. He shut it with a bang. “Listen, I know I don’t have a gun, or some badass, motherfucking tank, but I’m still your friend. You can talk to me.”

  Jed suppressed a sigh. Really? Dan was gonna turn shrink on him? “Talk about what?”

  “Anything, dude.” Dan spread his hands. “Putting your bro in rehab can’t have been easy. How are you dealing with that?”

  “You think Nick’s beer fetish is keeping me up at night?”

  “No,” Dan countered. “I don’t have a fucking clue what’s keeping you up at night. Enlighten me.”

  That wasn’t going to happen, and they both knew it. They’d been friends for too long for either of them to believe shit had changed.

  A mutinous silence took hold, and in the end Dan broke it with a heavy sigh. He socked Jed’s arm. “Fine. Have it your way. Some of the guys are coming over to play poker tonight. You should come. My dad would love to see you.”

  He walked away before Jed could refuse.

  Later that evening, Jed swallowed his pride and jogged into town to the Valesco house. Despite his best efforts to dissuade him, Dan was a good friend, and he didn’t often get up in his face about stuff.

  The surprised grin on Dan’s face when he answered the door was kinda nice too. Dan had his own place above the family’s auto garage, but Jed was pretty sure he spent every night eating his momma’s home cooking before he went home.

  “Dude, come in. The guys are in the den.”

  Jed followed the sound of masculine laughter to the family room at the back of the Valesco family home. He recognized the names of most of Dan’s friends, though he struggled to place their faces. He’d found that happened all the time since he left the Army. Before, he could spot a faintly familiar face a mile away; now he didn’t care enough to notice.

  He took a seat on the arm of the couch, eyeing the video game on the flat-screen TV. The fantasy kickboxing characters were almost 3D, so lifelike they seemed to jump out of the screen. Video games had changed since he’d last had the urge to play them.

  “It’s like another world, eh?”

  Jed glanced to his right. Somehow he’d missed Hector Valesco sinking into the seat beside him. “Sure seems that way.”

  “Abuelo thinks so too. Sometimes the boys can’t play their games when he’s here. The noise is too much for him.”

  Jed had heard that before—how soldiers returning from war couldn’t handle the computerized, Call of Duty gunfire. For a long time, he didn’t get it… didn’t understand how something so ridiculous could wield so much power over a battle-hardened soldier. Hector’s father had fought for Ecuador in the Guerra del 41. How could he be fooled by a simple video game? It didn’t make any sense to Jed until the sight of a lone man talking on a cell phone had scared the crap out of him, and then he understood it all too well.

  Dan changed the game. Artificial mortar fire rocked the room. Jed felt the couch vibrate beneath him. Yep. He understood it all right. He just didn’t know how to fix it.

  “Jed?”

  “Hmm?”

  Hector smiled. “Anna’s in the kitchen, son. Go and say hi. I know she’d love to see you.”

  Jed admitted defeat and left the room. Hector had always been intuitive. For years, Jed and Nick had been wary of him, their knowledge of father figures based on their own, but over time, Hector’s kind eyes and gentle patience had won them over.

  Anna was less subtle in her affections. “Jed! Come in, sweetie. Sit down, you look tired.”

  Jed let her hustle him into a kitchen stool. He’d learned a long time ago that it was pointless to resist. He leaned forward and put his head on his arms. Suddenly, he really did feel too tired to hold himself up.

  Anna bustled around him for a while, and Jed let her chatter soothe him into a light doze until the noise of ceramic on granite roused him. Anna placed a mug of something herbal in front of him. “It’s lemon balm. Carla said you like herbal tea.”

  Jed sat up and drew the mug closer to him. He didn’t feel like testing his aching stomach, but the smell was nice. “Thanks.”

  Anna took a seat beside him, sipping delicately at her own mug. “Carla said Max is staying with her. I think she likes the company, but Max… he’s not…. How do say it in English? He’s not a city boy, no? He likes his mud and his chickens.”

  Jed had to smile at the endearingly accurate depiction of Max. It was simplistic, but so true. At least, true of the Max he knew. That Max enjoyed the city but craved the peaceful sanctuary of the quiet cabin by the lake. In that respect, they were the same.

  “It’s not like Max to leave his home, Jed. Did something happen between you?”

  The reminder that he’d driven Max out of his home stabbed Jed in the gut, but he ignored the pain and considered his answer. He wouldn’t bother with most people, but Anna was different. She had a way of getting under his skin. “We argued about something. Something he hadn’t told me.”

  “Ah, I see. So Max has a secret? It can’t be a bad one. A boy like that has a good soul. You know this is true.”

  “I know.”

  “So, why punish him for something he cannot tell you? You have always carried secrets, Jed. I saw them in you when you were a boy, and I see them in you now. You fight so hard to protect others, and perhaps Max is the same. You are in love with him, no?”

  Anna’s words cut deep, too close to the truth. Jed let out a shaky breath. Could he tell her? Could he really explain the clusterfuck his undeniable love for Max had become?

&nbs
p; The oven timer beeped, breaking the spell. Anna squeezed his arm and rose to retrieve a dish from the oven. She set it on the counter, and the smell of the bubbling food hit Jed like a truck. His stomach rolled.

  He stood and backed away. Reading his intentions, Anna moved to intercept him. “Don’t go, sweetie. Stay and have something to eat. You’ll feel better then.”

  If only she knew. Jed sidestepped her, holding his hands up. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Tell Dan I said good-bye.”

  He made it home in time to puke and collapse on the couch with a tentative plan to drive to Portland in the morning. Whatever… whoever Max was, he deserved the sanctuary of his own home.

  Sleep found Jed and he woke early the next morning to Kim standing over him, the incriminating passport in one hand and the black-and-white photos in the other.

  “Interesting reading material to keep on your kitchen table, Jed. Get up. We need to talk.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  JED SAT up, ignoring an unpleasant wave of nausea, and glanced at the window, perturbed he hadn’t heard Kim let herself in. “What time is it?”

  Satisfied he was awake, Kim took a step back. “Six.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Asleep in their beds. I left Mrs. Dagastino knitting in the lounge. She’ll be all right for a while. You and I need to talk.”

  Jed tried to picture the Coopers’ elderly neighbor while he eyed the time bomb Kim clutched in her hands. “What do you want to talk about?”

  Kim narrowed her eyes. “Really, Jed? Are you bloody kidding me?” She dropped the passport and photos on the coffee table and walked to the window, though she didn’t turn and look out over the water. Jed thought about following her, but didn’t. Kim ran a hand through her inky hair. “This is my fault. He never wanted this. He never wanted to run… you have to believe me.”

  Jed took a breath, but Kim cut him off. “Jed. I know my brother, and I know there’s something between you. Just, before you let this tear you apart, let me explain. Please?”

  The shock of being called out on his feelings twice in as many days left Jed dizzy. For a moment, he didn’t trust himself to speak. Instead, he beckoned Kim forward and gestured for her to take a seat next to him on the couch. “Go on, then. Explain.”

  Kim sat down. Jed appraised her through the haze of whatever was screwing with his sense of balance. She seemed apprehensive but determined, a trait he’d seen in Max many times.

  “It’s such a mess. I don’t know where to start.”

  “Try the beginning.” Jed gritted his teeth and reached for the passport. “Start with this.”

  Kim touched the gold harp on the battered, deep-red leather. “Max was born in Dublin. The only time in his life he’s ever been early. He wasn’t due for another three weeks, but my dad was pleased. Dublin was his father’s hometown.”

  “Your father was Irish?”

  “Galway, born and bred.”

  Jed turned it over in his mind. An Irish father and a Congolese mother. It was a hell of a mix. “Where did he meet Makemba?”

  If Kim was surprised he knew her mother’s name, she hid it well. Max had never told Jed, but Jed had seen it scribbled on the box that held Max’s favorite recipes—the recipes he said were his mother’s.

  “My dad was a lawyer by trade, but he worked as a diplomat for the Irish government. He met my mother when he passed through Kisangani in the seventies. They got married at the Irish embassy in Ethiopia.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Singapore. I’d been all over the world by the time I was a few months old.”

  Jed thought of the giant atlas on his bedroom wall. Thought of Max’s collection of pins. “When did you move to London?”

  Kim shook her head. “Never. My dad quit politics when Max was a toddler and went back to being a lawyer. He took a job in central London, and we settled in a commuter town about fifty miles north of the city. We grew up in a town a lot like this one.”

  Jed absorbed her words, analyzed them, and looked further, searching for the seed that would lead to whatever bombshell she was trying to drop. The conversation had begun with her father, but Max had never mentioned him. Not once. “Who did your father work for?”

  Kim faltered. Jackpot. He’d found it… found the source of the pain and heartache that lurked behind Max’s bright smile.

  Jed grasped Kim’s shoulders, leaving her no way out. “Who did he work for?”

  “Who didn’t he work for? That was the problem. My dad was principled. He believed in right and wrong, whatever side you came from. He worked human-rights cases… prominent ones from the troubles in Northern Ireland, and he didn’t care which side of the boundary they fell.”

  “Risky game for an Irish lawyer in London.”

  Kim sighed. “Exactly. I used to hear my parents arguing about it. My mum thought he should pick a side and be done with it, but it wasn’t that easy. He said people were suffering on both sides, and it was his duty as a human being to help them.”

  “So that’s where Max got his conscience, huh?”

  “Without a doubt. He didn’t always agree with my dad, but he has his stubborn, self-righteous nature.”

  Jed plucked the passport from Kim’s hands. They were getting there, slowly, but he needed more. “So how did you go from a sleepy commuter town in the UK to Max becoming someone else? What happened to your parents?”

  Kim let out a shaky breath, but Jed resisted the urge to comfort her. He got the feeling that if he distracted her now, she’d lose her nerve.

  “You have to promise me that I can trust you, Jed. I shouldn’t be telling you anything… I should let you and Max part ways, let you pack up and move on like you did before.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Kim met his gaze properly for the first time since she’d begun to talk. “Because I know you love him.”

  Jed had no answer to that. Instead he took her hand and said, “Go on.”

  Kim pulled a photo the size of a passport from her back pocket. “This was taken a few months before they died. It’s the only picture I have. Max doesn’t have any. He won’t let me reprint this for him.”

  Jed scrutinized the faded picture of a tall, fair-skinned white man, his African wife, and their children. “Max had dreadlocks?”

  “For a long time. I don’t think he cut his hair at all after he turned seven.”

  Jed smiled in spite of himself. He loved the feel of Max’s fine buzz of hair under his chin, but there was something captivating about a dreadlocked, teenaged Max. He got a hold of himself and handed the picture back. Recently, it seemed his heart was ruled by the power of faded old photographs. “What happened?”

  “My dad took a case defending Loyalist prisoners against the British government. It brought a lot of flak from both sides. The Loyalists didn’t want a Catholic defending their own, and the Republicans saw it as treason. Put together with their shared disapproval of his African wife….”

  Jed got the picture. “Was he threatened?”

  “So many times I think he stopped taking it seriously.”

  Jed closed his eyes and asked again, one more time, “What happened?”

  “They came for him,” Kim said flatly. “I was away at college in New York, but Max was home. Some men attacked my father with an ax, and when he was dead, they killed my mother too. Max tried to protect her, but they bludgeoned him with a poker from the fireplace. There were three of them, and he was only sixteen. He didn’t stand a chance.”

  For a long time, the only sound in the quiet cabin was the gentle tick of Max’s homemade clock. Jed felt shattered. He’d seen more death and carnage than any man should have to see, but he’d never once imagined Max’s past harbored a secret so devastating. He steeled himself as a conversation from a few months back flashed into his mind. “Max told me he was seizure-free as a teenager. Did this bring them back?”

  Kim nodded and wiped her eyes. “Yes. He suffered a serious
head injury… bleeding on the brain. I nearly lost him too.”

  Jed’s chest hurt. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t bear to imagine a world without Max. “What happened next? Did you leave right away?”

  “As soon as Max was well enough to travel. The security services couldn’t guarantee our safety—they didn’t even know which side had ordered the hit. I panicked, Jed. I was so scared. Nick was the only person at college I could turn to. We shared an art-history class before Nick changed his major to business. He wired me some money so I could fly us back to America. We stayed in New York until we could buy new identities, then we came here.”

  Ashton was about as far from New York as you could get on US soil, but one thing didn’t make any sense. “If Nick was your boyfriend, surely it wouldn’t be that hard to find you?”

  Kim smiled, wistful and wry. “No one knew we were together. Nick didn’t have any friends even then, and I was a little embarrassed to be dating such a….”

  “Dweeb?”

  “Don’t tell him I said that.”

  “I won’t,” Jed promised absently.

  “Come on, Jed. I know there’s a lot of bad blood between you, but he was there for me, for both of us, when we had no one else.”

  “What about the rest of your family? You must’ve had other relatives.”

  “Not really. My mum’s family are scattered around the Congo, so we’ve never known them, and my dad didn’t have much family left. The authorities implied it might be safer to let them think Max had died of his injuries. They arranged everything, then put us on a plane to NYC. Nick suggested we come back here, and it all seemed to make sense. I never stopped to think about what might happen ten years later.”

  Jed could relate to that. The circumstances were radically different, but he’d spent more than a decade hiding from himself in the military machine, burying himself in war to avoid admitting how much he missed the kid brother who’d once been his shadow. “So if anyone really is looking, chances are they’re only looking for you?”

  Kim shrugged. “I guess, but—”

  Jed held up his hand. “I get it. You were scared, and you ran before you really knew the score. What was your father’s name?”