Finding Refuge

by Lucy Francis

  “This garden always amused him, your father.”

  She never spoke to him about anything to do with her relationship with Dad. He barely breathed, afraid to say anything that might stop her from talking.

  “He said that people looking at my garden were seeing the real me and they didn’t know it. It was his greatest secret on display, and no one ever realized.”

  He looked from his mother to the overgrown garden and back again. How could that possibly be her, his mother who never let a hair out of place, who defined refinement and elegance, who insisted on perfection in every last detail?

  She carefully settled the sunhat over her hair. “Even he didn’t realize how right he was. It’s unruly now, neglected rather than free. I haven’t worked out here in a very long time. I paid someone to weed it on occasion, but even that fell by the wayside. I haven’t bothered to add anything new. And I finally understand why.”

  His heart pounded when she turned to face him. “Why, Mother?”

  “Because this is where I put my heartache. I came out here to plant a bleeding heart a week after we lost Jacob. I thought I could leave the suffering here with the flower. Instead I ended up leaving my joy, too.

  “I left that part of myself here, instead of giving it to you and to Daniel. I’m sorry, Travis. I let you down.”

  The bruised child hidden deep inside of him peeked out, seeking warmth from her apology. The adult in him cringed to hear her cut herself like that, but when he shook his head and opened his mouth to absolve her, she said, “No, Travis. Don’t tell me what I want to hear. The truth is what it is. Let me own it.”

  She was still his cool, pleasant, but impassive mother. If she didn’t want to let him placate her self-doubt, perhaps there was one thing she would accept from him. Something he hadn’t said to her in a very long time. “I love you.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes for a moment before she swallowed them back. “Thank you. I love you, too.”

  The awkwardness stretched but snapped off abruptly when she looked down at her hands and pulled on the gardening gloves. “Well, then,” she said briskly. “I have a great deal to do if I’m going to reclaim this garden. I’d better get started.”

  She turned away, sank to her knees, and began to pull out weeds. Only now, he saw it for what it was—repairing and reclaiming herself.

  ****

  He hadn’t seen Andri in weeks, and though he’d had plenty of work to do, on far more than his job, he couldn’t bear the loss of her any longer. It was time to secure the most important relationship in his life.

  He drove to her apartment Friday night. He’d waited long enough to catch her at home even if she’d put in one of her twelve hour days. Her car was in its space. Good. His heart pounded in anticipation as he walked up to her door. He knocked.

  No response. Maybe she was in the shower. That thought kicked up a flare of heat deep inside that he tamped down. Later. He slipped his key in the lock and let himself in.

  One light was on in the kitchen, but the silence in the apartment struck him. Was she asleep? It wasn’t that late. Fluffball jumped up on a nearby chair and meowed for attention.

  “Hey, buddy.” He scratched the cat’s back. “Where’s my girl?”

  He checked her bedroom, the bathroom, tension growing by the moment. He looked into her office. No laptop. A few pages sat on the printer tray. The internet address printed on the bottom of the pages looked like it might have been an email she printed, taking what she needed on the first page and leaving behind the excess ads and junk. Ads for rental cars, hotels…where was she going?

  He gave Fluffball some attention before he left. He called Andri on the way to his truck. No answer. Was she avoiding him?

  There was only one place he could think of to go now. He drove, not wanting to call for fear of what he might hear over the phone. He cursed the length of the drive, but his luck wasn’t all bad tonight. The lights were on at Rachel’s when he finally reached her house. She opened the door, she gave him a once-over and stepped back to let him in. “She’s not here.”

  “What, I can’t come see my oldest friend just because I miss her company?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Oh, please. Though I think you probably owe me dinner. Or a movie. That would be nice.”

  She went to the kitchen, and he followed, settling on a chair at the table while she reached into the refrigerator for drinks. “Rach, it pains me to see you sitting home alone.”

  She met him at the table and handed him a bottle of beer. “I don’t mind. Beats the dating meat market.”

  “You’re amazing, you know. You’ll find someone.”

  Her gaze flickered, exposing a cloud of confusion for just a moment before it cleared. “It’s just a matter of time.” Then she waved a hand at him, moving on. “But, you’re not here about my lack of a love life, you’re here about your own.”

  He stared at her for a moment, realizing in a flash how much more he’d gotten from their friendship than he’d given over the years. “I’m sorry, Rachel.”

  “For what?”

  “Being such a selfish friend.”

  “Travis.” She leaned across the table and squeezed his hand. “You’ve always been there when I’ve needed you. We’re cool.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep. Cool enough to tell you that Andri is out of town.”

  “I thought she might be. On business?”

  “Nah. She had the day off today, some company thing, so she flew to New York last night to see her brother for the weekend.”

  Fear rattled his insides. What were the chances that she’d decide to stay there? “Everything okay?”

  “She needed a little change of scenery.”

  He nodded, staring at the table. Damn. He really didn’t want to wait until she came back. He needed to see her now. He’d worked through so much of the crap he’d hauled around inside of him. Now, it was down to her. To them.

  He had two choices. Stay where he was, apprehensive, worried about the possibility of another relationship crumbling in his hands. Or move forward. Go for broke and possibly end up miserable, or not move and be ripped to pieces anyway.

  It had to be forward.

  He stood, then leaned down and grabbed Rachel in a tight hug. When he kissed her on the cheek and released her, she looked stunned.

  “What was that for?”

  “For you being you. For being my friend. For putting up with all of my bullshit over the years.”

  “Um. Okay. Not sure who you are or what you’ve done with Travis, but okay. You’re welcome.”

  Travis started toward the door. She called after him, “Where are you going?”

  He pulled the door open and tossed a grin at her over his shoulder. “Where else? New York.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Andri went into the kitchen and washed her hands at the sink, looking out over the expanse of lawn and trees that made up her brother’s back yard. This was the first time she’d visited since he bought the gorgeous colonial in Hyde Park last year, and a part of her never wanted to leave. She loved the hardwood floors and the ten-foot ceilings and the acre yard just begged for someone to garden. The fact that it was practically walking distance to the Hudson was a major plus.

  “Andri?” Dmitri’s deep voice carried through the house from the entry.

  “I’m in the kitchen.” The house was far too big for her bachelor brother, but she knew he intended to spend his life here, so he’d planned ahead for the needs of an eventual family. He was a man who deserved to be happily married, raising a couple of kids, enjoying weekends running the boat on the river.

  They’d been out on the boat all afternoon, she and Dmitri and a couple of his friends. The trees on the hills overlooking the Hudson had just started changing color for autumn, and the beauty did her soul some good. She’d make another trip in a few weeks, maybe, to see everything in full color. For now, she needed to clean up before her brother took her to dinner.
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  She heard him enter the kitchen behind her and she turned. “So what’s the proper dress for this restaurant?”

  Anything else she might have said fled at the sight of Travis standing behind Dmitri. Heart pounding, she focused on her brother. He wore his lawyer face, completely impervious to interpretation.

  “Andri, you have company. I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.” Dmitri turned, nodded once to Travis, then left the room.

  She shifted to look at Travis, her pulse thumping hard and loud in her ears. He wore gray jeans, a white t-shirt under an open red flannel shirt, and a bit of scruffy stubble shadowed his jaw. He looked yummy without even trying, and she clamped down on her cell-deep response, crossing her arms in a desperate need to protect herself from his draw on her heart. The magnetic pull made her lean back against the counter to balance herself, to keep herself from falling into his arms. It had only been a few weeks since she’d seen him, but oh, God, she’d missed him like she’d miss water, or sunlight, or warmth, if similarly deprived. But the situation was delicate and she had to keep her brain firmly in charge here. “Hey.”

  “Hey. You look great.”

  “I’m all windblown. Smell like the river, too.”

  “I like a girl who smells like the river sometimes.”

  Damn, he always made her stomach flip. “What are you doing here, Travis?”

  “I heard you’d gone to see your brother. I figured I’d come out and meet him.” He didn’t move toward her, instead choosing to tuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and lean against the door jamb.

  “What did you think of him?”

  “Nice guy. I like him.” Now he did move, taking a single step toward her, ratcheting her pulse up another notch. “He did give me a bit of grief outside, but I had it coming.”

  “Oh really? And what did he say?”

  Another step closer. “I introduced myself and he said, ‘oh, you’re the reason my baby sister is upset.’ And that hurt. I never want to be the person who upsets you.”

  She appreciated this little reminder that the brother who had picked on her in their youth still refused to let anyone else in the world give her grief. She loved Dmitri more than ever in that moment. “You’re a guy, I’m a girl, upset is going to happen sometimes. Comes with the territory.”

  “True. But I’d rather it be little, momentary upsets. Because I forgot to take the garbage out or I missed the tenth anniversary of our third date or something.”

  Another step placed him directly in front of her, and her pulse soared, her breath coming faster. She licked her dry lips and his focus zeroed in on her mouth.

  “We’ve had some much bigger upsets,” Travis said, his voice softening. “And those I don’t ever want to repeat.”

  “Neither do I.” If he touched her, she feared she’d collapse into his arms like some silly little girl. The very air around them crackled with the feeling of something momentous, and she needed her brain fully engaged before her heart agreed to something foolish. “Did my brother say anything else before he unleashed you on me?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. A few things. Standard big brother language, requirements, conditions, that sort of thing.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Conditions?”

  “Well. One condition. But I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s a lot to catch you up on since you smacked me in the head with the verbal two by four.”

  She winced. Yeah, that was accurate. “I’m sorry.”

  He chuckled. “If I recall correctly what you said once before, no you’re not. Not for what you said, anyway, because it needed saying. It really did. You’re incredibly adept at telling me what I don’t want to hear.”

  “Then I’m sorry for the timing. It was a lot to hit you with at that moment. I’m ashamed to admit that I do have some of my mom’s temper.”

  “If that’s as pissed off as you ever get, I’ll consider myself a lucky man.”

  His expression grew serious, his eyes turbulent but without a hint of the wall she’d grown accustomed to seeing inside him. “How are things, Travis?”

  “Improving. I had a legitimate, heartfelt conversation with my mother. Well, as much of one as I could ever hope to have. It was good. I did the same with my brother. That was even better. He and I are hanging out.”

  Relief swamped her. “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah. Climbing another mountain next week. It’ll be fun, if it doesn’t kill me. The last one nearly did.” He stepped back, giving her a moment to breathe. “Now, there’s something important I want to tell you about. It’s kind of a long story, so maybe we could sit down somewhere?”

  Her insides twisted in response. So far he’d offered good news, but this sounded more serious. Now that she’d seen him and realized just how deeply she’d missed him, she wasn’t sure she could take something bad. Her lingering sense of inadequacy surfaced, anticipating the worst. Luckily, her good sense beat back the pathetic, whiny voice shouting scary what ifs and reminded her that he wouldn’t bother to come all the way to New York to permanently break up with her. She needed to rise to the occasion and listen to his story.

  She waggled her fingers at him to follow and she led him into the formal room near the front of the house where Dmitri housed his baby grand piano. She sat on one of the damask love seats and patted the burgundy cushion beside her.

  Travis joined her, but, thankfully, he didn’t reach out for her. Their knees touched, and that warm connection reminded her just how deeply she’d missed him, but didn’t distract her entirely.

  He blew out a breath. “Did Rachel ever mention Jacob?”

  “In a very cryptic way, yes. After our last, um, upset. We were talking about the pieces of your puzzle.”

  “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

  “And accurate. Anyway, I’d noticed his name at the cemetery. She suggested I ask you about him. She said to tell that you she loves you and it’s for your own good that she mentioned it.” Her stomach flipped, and not in a good way. Nerves kicked up, making her hands tremble until she folded them together in her lap.

  Travis gave her a half-smile. “I do love that woman. She has a knack for doling out just the right bit of information when it’s needed.”

  “She does.”

  He held her gaze, his own turbulent. “Jacob was my older brother. He killed himself when I was ten.”

  Oh, damn, that was a sharp left turn she wasn’t expecting. It sucked the breath from her lungs. As she reminded herself to breathe, she realized that, for once, Travis wasn’t hiding a thing in his expression. He let her see the pain. Pain that touched her soul-deep, made her ache with the desire to soothe him. “Travis, I can’t even imagine how that hurt.”

  “It did. It damaged us all. But here’s the thing. I was convinced it was my fault.”

  “How could it possibly have been your fault?”

  “I found him in the bathroom, talking to himself in the mirror. He was holding a gun he’d stolen from a friend’s dad.”

  Sickness roiled inside her, leaving her unsure she wanted to know the truth, but determined to listen if he was going to talk about it. “What happened?”

  “I knew something bad was going to happen. I could feel it in the air. So I tried to take the gun away from him. I fought for that gun until he punched me in the stomach and shoved me out of the bathroom. He locked the door.” His voice grew rough and the darkness in his eyes pierced her heart. “When I got my wind back, I pounded and kicked the door, but he wouldn’t answer me. It finally occurred to me to call my mom and dad. They’d gone to dinner. Jacob was babysitting us.”

  Andri reached for his hand, clutching him with trembling fingers. Understanding tore a hole in her soul and left tears streaming down her cheeks. “By the time they got home…”

  He nodded. “Too late. Every time something goes wrong now, especially with Danny, I fight with Jacob in my dreams. I hear that gunshot over and over.”

  She wiped her cheeks and folded
her fingers over his. “You felt like you should have stopped him.”

  “Yes. It took Danny to help me finally put it in perspective, but I’ve always felt responsible. After his death, my mother pulled away from us. Which meant I was responsible for that, too.”

  The rest of the pieces rapidly clicked into place. Oh, he made so much more sense now. “And then Danny and his problems.”

  “It just kept building. I felt responsible for it all, and I failed people who were everything to me. Then came Melody.”

  Andri ached for what he’d gone through, for what he’d done to himself all those years, all that needless suffering. She tightened her grip on his hand. “I do have a bit of a theory about Melody.”

  He squeezed her hand in return. “Oh, really? What’s that?”

  She felt the strength in his grip and realized how steady, how open he was now. His healing was well underway, and her heart lifted. “My theory is that you married a woman a lot like your mom. To try to fix what you couldn’t.”

  “Not bad, detective. I’ve thought about that a lot lately. I tried to make Melody happy because I loved her, and so I wouldn’t fail at being married. About the only close personal relationship I haven’t screwed up is with Rachel, though we’ve had our moments over the years. Even with my dad, look where we ended up.”

  Andri reached out, laying a hand against his cheek. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”

  “I know. But that’s where my brain naturally wants to go with it. Anyway, I digress. Melody’s similarity to my mother stopped at withholding emotional intimacy, and for very different reasons. Melody liked having all the control, and she wielded intimacy in all its forms like a weapon to get what she wanted. But the fact that she was never satisfied was far bigger than our marriage. When she decided the grass was greener elsewhere, she left.”

  He blew out a deep breath, his expression lighter, as if he had finally released everything that tortured him. “So. That’s it. My litany of failure. I’ve realized that I held onto those failures. In my own way, they were my shield from being hurt by anything new. They were my protective armor.”