by Marci Bolden
She smiled. “Yeah.”
“That’s a good picture, huh?”
She looked at it again, but the image blurred as tears filled her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but one fell and splattered on the glass. “I can’t stand this, Pauly,” she whispered. “I have no control of my mind or my mouth…my life.”
“I know it’s hard. But you can and you will get through this.”
“What if I never get better than this? I don’t want to be so perplexed all the time. Everything seems so difficult. I don’t want to talk to people and have them look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. My job is sales. I can’t sell a house if the buyer can’t understand me.”
“Your speech is getting better.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re just getting more used to my pattern. I talked to Meg earlier, and she didn’t have a clue what I said.” She lowered her face. “I get so mad at you guys, and you’re just trying to help. I don’t mean it, but I can’t help it. I’m so angry.”
“You have a right to be angry.”
“Not at you.”
“Well, if we ever find the asshole who did this to you, we’ll all take turns taking our anger out on him, okay? Until then, you use us as your emotional punching bags as much as you need. We’re here for you, and we understand how difficult this is for you.”
Tears welled, and she shook her head. “I thought…I thought I could just be me again, but everything I do reminds me that I’m not. The more I try to be the old me, the more I prove to myself that she’s gone. I came in here today, determined to integrate myself back into work, and all I managed to do was confuse Meg and get pissed at Marcus for trying to save my business while I was in a coma.”
He frowned as he took her hand. “Come on. Put your coat on. Let’s go for a drive.”
She started to protest, but he pulled her to her feet and grabbed her coat from the rack in the corner. Holding it open for her, he helped her slip her arms in then pulled it up to her shoulders. He walked her out to his car and opened the passenger door.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, backing out of his parking spot.
“No.”
“Coffee?”
She sighed. “Know what happened to my coffee this morning?”
“What?”
“I dropped it. All over me and the kitchen floor.”
He chuckled. “You say that like you’ve never dropped anything before in your life.”
“I do it more frequently now.”
“Well, you are getting older. More frail.”
She grinned as he laughed. He reached over and took her hand, squeezing it as he reassured her he was just teasing.
“I’m a certifiable klutz these days.”
“Damn, you really are being hard on yourself.”
“I’m starting to feel pretty sorry for myself.”
He glanced at her. “How are things with Marcus?”
She looked out the window and frowned. “Fine. How are things with Dianna?”
“Amazingly well. I got lucky this time.”
“You did.”
“Now, you want to be honest with me? How are things with Marcus?”
“He, um… He’s been supportive. Understanding. Patient. Perfect.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
She swallowed as she debated voicing the fear that had been nagging at her for weeks. “It feels fake. Forced. Like he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, not what he wants to be doing.”
Paul was quiet for a moment. “You’re projecting your fear onto him, Annie.”
“My fear?”
“The same fear you’ve always had. You think he’s going to leave you. He’s not.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. I know you.”
“No, I’m beyond that. I trust him when he says he doesn’t want to leave.”
He glanced at her. “Then why are you convinced he doesn’t want to help you?”
She could actually feel her face heating. “I don’t want to talk to you about this.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s…private.”
“It’s just you and me here.”
Annie shook her head. “It’s private.”
He chuckled. “It’s about sex?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “You’re my brother.”
“Who happens to have sex with his wife on occasion. I learned all about the birds and the bees a long time ago, big sister. I’m fairly certain I can have this conversation without being grossed out.”
She rolled her head back. “Every time we get close to being intimate, he…shuts down. Rolls over. Goes to sleep. I think…” She lowered her face, surprised at the tears that stung her eyes. “I think… I don’t think Marcus wants me…like this.” She looked out the window as she sniffed and wiped her tears away. “It’s stupid.”
“No, it’s not.” He handed her a handkerchief. “Have you talked to him about this?”
“No.”
“You should.”
She sighed loudly. “It’s pathetic. To be so upset about sex.”
“No, Annie, it’s not. You’re in a relationship, and that is part of being a couple. If he has issues—which, by the way, I don’t believe for a minute that he does—you need to talk about it.”
“He’s trying.”
“But if he doesn’t know that this is hurting you, he can’t fix it.”
“I don’t want him to fix it, Paul. I mean…if he isn’t attracted to me anymore, then the last thing I want is to guilt him into bed.”
“There has to be more to this. You are beyond the point in your relationship where physical attraction is the number-one trigger for sex. It’s about the intimacy. It’s about the emotion.”
“So he just doesn’t love me anymore?”
“That is definitely not true. That man would not have put himself through the hell of sticking with you through your coma if he didn’t love you. Don’t ever question whether or not he loves you. He’s proven that time and time again.”
“So what is it?”
“I don’t know. Ask him. But I’d venture to guess it’s something he’s feeling about himself, not about you.”
She frowned at her hands curled in her lap. She didn’t look up again until he parked the car. When she did, she noticed they were sitting in front of the house where they’d grown up.
Sometime between the time Annie had sold it—one of her first sales—and now, it had had a major overhaul. The siding was no longer broken and mildewed, and the shutters weren’t hanging haphazardly off the second-story window that had been her bedroom. The gardens were trimmed instead of overrun with weeds. Even so, she could see the house as it was when they were kids, and her heart started pounding.
“What are we doing here?” she demanded.
Paul looked at the house. “That night. When you were shot. The doctor told us to prepare for the worst. She said the chances of you surviving until morning were minimal. We all went in and said our goodbyes to you.” He lowered his face and took a shaky breath. “Man, that was…that was the hardest damn thing I’ve ever been through. Seeing you like that, with your head wrapped up in gauze and your face so swollen you didn’t even look like yourself. Never in all my life had I seen you so still. I’d never seen you so empty. And that’s how you looked. Like you—the essence of you—was already gone. You’ve always had this presence, this way of making the world know you were there, but in that room, that night, Annie, you were gone. And one thing kept popping into my mind, one memory.”
He shook his head. “The night Mom died. I remember you sitting with Matty and me and explaining that she had been in an accident and was gone. I remember us crying and you promising that you’d take care of us. You tucked us into bed, like Mom had always done, and then you sat with us until you thought we were asleep. After you left, I stared at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about how it wasn’t
fair that you had to take care of us because Dad was too drunk. I was so mad, I threw the covers off and stormed downstairs to tell him that. When I got to the living room, he was passed out, and there you were, taking care of him. Just like Mom used to do. I watched you take his shoes off and cover him with a blanket then clean up all his beer cans. All of a sudden, I wasn’t angry anymore. I was sad. I was sad for you because you were the only one left to take care of us and that wasn’t fair to you. Even as a kid I knew that wasn’t fair.”
Annie sniffed and wiped her face. “I was the oldest.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t the only reason. You took care of us because that’s who you are. That’s what you do. You always did that. There has never been a moment in my life when I ever doubted that you were there. Not until that night in the hospital, and it tore me in two, Annie. I swear to God, part of me wanted to die with you because I can’t…” He stopped when his voice cracked. “I can’t even begin to imagine what I would do without you.”
“Stop,” she whispered as she gripped his hand as hard as she could—which still wasn’t very hard.
“You are my rock. You always have been. I know this recovery process is hard for you. I know it’s frustrating because you’ve always been so strong, but believe me when I tell you that having you here is something that I never thought would happen. So you get mad, and you get upset, and you take it out on me all you want, because it’s my turn to be your rock. And I’m not the only one who feels that way. None of us will ever walk away from you, Annie. And none of us would ever think less of you because of something you can’t control.”
“I know that, Paul. I just—”
“Think less of yourself.”
Her lip trembled as she lowered her face.
“I don’t know why I started coming here,” he said quietly. “I felt compelled for some reason. When that one night turned into a week and that week turned into a month, I’d come here and stare at the house and remember how you kept us together. I’m surprised I haven’t been arrested for stalking whoever lives here, actually.”
She chuckled. “Try to explain that one. I come here to remember how my sister was a real bitch before she went into a coma.”
“You weren’t. Well…”
She laughed again. “My bitchiness got you through some really bad teenage years.”
He put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb. “Yes, it did. And it’s going to get you through this.”
“Oh, Paul. This…this is different.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is. There are things here I can’t control.”
“And that is driving you insane.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to know what the problem is and not be able to fix it? This stupid hand. I go to therapy, and I try and I try, and it does nothing. They ask me to lift two pounds, and you’d think I were trying to move a building. I do all their speech exercises, and I still sound like Dad on any given Saturday night.”
Paul snorted. “You’re much clearer than that. Trust me.”
“I can’t live my life like this. I can’t go back to work and not be articulate. I can’t take care of my properties when I can’t even manage to cook dinner. What am I going to do?”
“Focus on getting better. That’s all you can do right now. The rest will come. For once in your life, just take a break and let everyone else do the worrying for you. You focus on your therapy and let Marcus worry about the business. He’s doing a great job. I’m keeping an eye on everything. Let Mallory help around the house. That’s why she moved in with you.”
“I don’t want to be dependent.”
“You’re not. You’re letting us help, but you are far from being dependent. It’s okay to accept help when you need it.”
She sighed and leaned her head back against the headrest. “I never cried for her. I couldn’t. I wanted to. I knew I should. But I couldn’t. I’ve cried more in the last few weeks than I have in the last—how long has it been?—thirty-four years. I never realized how numb I’d gotten until Marcus. I was just starting to figure out how to be…normal, when this happened. I was just starting to feel, really feel. The shooter took that from me. He took everything from me. I know there are people who have it worse than me, Paul. I know that. But I was just starting to feel alive for the first time ever. He took more than my voice and my clarity and my hands. He took the life I’d been wanting for so long. Now I look at Marcus, and I feel like he’s stuck with this broken-down woman who can’t even dress herself without altered clothing. This isn’t what he expected.”
“This isn’t what any of us expected, Annie, but when you love someone, you love them through all of life’s ups and downs. This is a down time. But it won’t always be this hard. You’ll either get better or you’ll come to terms with your limitations and learn to work around them. Marcus loves you no matter what. He just wants to make your life as good as it can be—the same as before the shooting.”
“I’m not making that easy on him, I’m afraid.”
“Well, you didn’t before, either. So that hasn’t changed.”
She laughed quietly. “I should have let him in sooner.”
“You can’t look back. Looking back doesn’t help anybody. You let him in. That’s what matters. He isn’t going anywhere, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“No. He was stupid enough to love me before; he’s sure as hell not smart enough to run now. I guess this whole situation is my comeuppance, hmm? I refused to give in to my feelings for so long, and now I’m the one on the outside wishing he’d let me in.”
“He barely left your side, you know? We had to kick him out a few times so we could sit with you, too. That man loves you. He’d do anything for you.”
“I know.”
“Talk to him. Tell him you know that he doesn’t mean to, but he’s hurting you and you just need to understand his hesitancy at being with you. And as for the business, trust him. He is doing what is best for your company. If you need to be a part of things, let him help you. He’s not trying to take anything from you.”
“I didn’t think he was. I just… That’s my life. That’s my…everything. And I can’t be a part of it, and it’s killing me inside.”
“You can be a part of it, Annie. Just not like you were before, at least not yet. You’ll get there. I promise you, we’ll find a way to get you there. Take it one step at a time, and you’ll get where you want to be soon enough.”
She closed her eyes. “Stop being so goddamned logical. Logic has no comforting qualities, whatsoever.”
He laughed. “Now you know how I felt every time you tried to fix my last marriage.”
“Oh, there was no fixing that marriage. I just wanted you to wake up and realize how hideous she was.” She smiled as she reached for his hand. “We had it all for a few minutes, didn’t we? Us messed-up O’Connell kids. For a little bit, we had it all figured out.”
“We still do. We’re all happy, and we have good people in our lives.”
She looked out the window when he slowed and turned on his blinker. “Paul, what are you—”
“When’s the last time you were here?”
She sighed as he pulled into the cemetery. “Dad’s funeral.”
“That’s what I thought.” Parking the car, he turned off the ignition. “You’re so damned emotional these days, I figure now’s the time.”
“For what?”
“You’ve been bottling it up for thirty-four years, Annie. It’s time to grieve for Mom. It’s time to feel the pain of losing her.”
Tears blurred her vision. “Oh, you little jerk.”
“Yeah, I know.” He climbed out as she sat frozen in her seat. He opened the passenger door and nodded toward the graves behind him. “Come on.”
Wrapping her arm around his, she walked with him to two flat markers. They hadn’t been able to afford anything better for their mother, and their father didn’t deserve more. She inhaled t
he crisp November air, feeling it sting her lungs before letting it out slowly and finally looking down. She was certain an arrow had been shot through her heart the moment she saw her mother’s name written in raised lettering on the plaque at her feet. She pictured her, smiling despite the bags under her eyes and the shadow that always seemed to be hanging over her soul.
Her voice echoed through Annie’s memory. You’re my brave girl, Annie. Mama loves you.
The pain spread from Annie’s chest until she was clinging to her brother as she cried for her mother and her lost childhood and her wasted life and everything she’d lost in that one moment when a bullet ripped through her.
Chapter Sixteen
Marcus tried to act casual when Annie walked in the front door well beyond dinnertime, but the fact was, there was a panic settling in his heart and he was barely controlling it. Paul had texted him, let him know they were fine and that they were going to have dinner before coming home. That had done little to ease Marcus’s anxiety. In fact, it increased it. She hated when people saw her eat. Where was he going to take her? What was she going to order that didn’t require his assistance? Had Paul considered any of that before taking her out to eat?
On top of all that, Marcus didn’t like her being out on her own. Not that she was on her own. She was with Paul. But she wasn’t with Marcus, and that triggered a kind of fear in him he couldn’t explain any more than he could explain the relief he felt at seeing her.
Setting the papers he was looking over onto the end table, he smiled as she walked into the living room. She’d been crying. Why the hell had she been crying?
“Hey,” he said as lightly as he could.
“Hi.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” She sat next to him. “I’m sorry about today.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I do. I got testy, and you didn’t deserve that. You’ve done so much to help me.”
He ran his hand over her hair. “I never thought for a moment that you’d appreciate all the changes that were made without your consent. I knew you’d be frustrated that we made decisions without you. But they had to be made.”
