by Mary Manners
“You specifically asked me to remove this wall. I’m merely carrying out your request.” Morgan patted the thighs of his jeans, pacing like a caged panther. “You’re not gonna let what happened last night at the pizzeria go, are you?”
“No.”
“Fine. Have it your way. You’re the boss, after all. I can see working with you is going to be a chore.”
“Thanks for that.” Tears sprang to her eyes. Day one of the restoration, and she’d already riled him. A chore?
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Morgan raked a hand through his hair. Bits of plaster fell like plump snowflakes. “But for goodness sake, Lila, the hammer came within inches of your shoulder. I could have hurt you.”
“Well…” Lila brushed flecks of white from her floral-patterned dress. “The pain wouldn’t have been any worse than last night.”
“OK, let’s have this out.” He tossed his goggles onto a length of plywood balanced like a table between a pair of sawhorses. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You hurt me when you stormed out of the pizzeria and left me sitting there like a fool at the table, wondering what in the world had just happened. You left all of us wondering what was going through that mind of yours. Gunnar was crushed. Maddie, too. Not to mention poor Hattie, who doesn’t know what to make of it all.”
“I’m sorry about Hattie and Maddie, but Gunnar…”
“Stop right there.” She shuffled through her oversized purse and handed Morgan a bottle of water and an energy bar. “Eat that, and drink while you explain to me what’s going on. You never finished your dinner last night and you didn’t sleep so much as a wink, did you?”
“No.” He took the water and leaned back against a two-by-four to drink deeply. “How could I?”
“I don’t understand.” Without the safety glasses, Lila saw clearly that his red-rimmed eyes sported dark circles. The fact that his hurt was so raw tugged at Lila’s heart that much more. “You told me your name is Morgan Haynes. It even says so on your website and in all the paperwork we’ve exchanged. Gunnar’s last name is Holt. So how can you possibly be brothers?”
“Haynes is the name of the last foster family I lived with. I was lucky to bunk with them a solid eighteen months, the longest I ever lasted with a family. They were planning to officially adopt me, but then…well, Mr. Haynes had a stroke and Mrs. Haynes couldn’t manage being on her own. She suffered a breakdown. So I had to leave. But while I lived with them I had gotten in the habit of using their name. It avoided a lot of questions and was just easier all around. I guess I didn’t want to give it up because I wanted more than anything to belong somewhere, to have something permanent. They were the only people—besides Gunnar, and that was so long ago—who ever really watched out for me and made me feel like family.”
“The name change explains why Gunnar couldn’t find you. He’s been searching for you for a long time, Morgan. Since the two of you were separated.”
“No way.” A flash of shock brightened his eyes. “How do you know?”
“Because he told me. He told all of us last night after you left. He was torn up.” Lila crossed her arms over her mid-section and shivered, though the room was warm. “And I believe him.”
“Well, I don’t.” Morgan reached for the sledgehammer. “Now, please move out of my way so I can get back to work and get this done.”
“No. You can’t hide behind that hammer, Morgan.” Lila blocked him. “And you’re in no shape to be working right now. You need to head to Hattie’s and get some rest first.”
“Don’t tell me what I need.” Morgan brushed the dust from his hands and then swiped at his weary eyes. “You barely even know me. And don’t take up for Gunnar. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“But I’d like to know you, Morgan. I’d like to hear what you’ve been through. I’m here to listen and to help you if you’ll let me.”
“Why?”
“Why not? I care about you. And I can assure you that Gunnar has no reason to lie. He said he spent years looking for you on his own, and finally hired a private detective to lead the search over a year ago. But even together they turned up nothing.”
“I just don’t know what to think.” Morgan paced the floor. “When I received no word from Gunnar—or from my sister Charlene—for all these years, I figured he’d given up on me.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Don’t you even want to talk to Gunnar, to give him a chance to explain his side of things? Aren’t you even a little bit curious about where he’s been since you were first separated, and how it’s impacted his life? Maybe he knows where to find Charlene.”
Morgan’s silence was deafening. Lila thought he might dismiss the question without so much as a grunt. Then his fists clenched at his side as he muttered, “I can’t talk to him.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I don’t want to draw you into this, Lila. It’s…ugly.”
Give me the words, Lord…please give me the words to help Morgan through this to the other side…to peace.
“God has a way of turning ugliness into beauty.” She closed the distance between them and lifted a hand to Morgan’s cheek. The stubble there grazed her palm. “With my own eyes, I’ve seen Him work miracles. Give Him a chance.”
“Why should I?” His gaze wilted as his shoulders slumped. “God’s always been fresh out of miracles when it comes to me. I don’t even bother to ask anymore.”
“He brought you and Gunnar together. He crossed your paths here in Clover Cove under the most unlikely circumstances. Wouldn’t you call that a miracle?”
“I’d call it just a little bit late, Lila. This should have happened a decade ago, when I was tossed from foster family to foster family like a bag of dirty laundry. I used to cry myself to sleep at night and wonder what I’d done wrong to be saddled with such a fate. For years I begged God to change things, to bring me out of it, and He never answered. So don’t preach to me. I don’t need it…and I don’t want your sympathy.”
“God works in His own time, Morgan. And for your information, it’s not sympathy I’m feeling for you right now. More like pity, because your attitude in dealing with this is blinded by resentment. You may think you’re on an island, but we all get hurt by circumstances beyond our control. We all have things happen that knock us off our feet and make us question God’s plan for us. But you have a chance here to make things right with your brother—to have the family you’ve always wanted—and you’re blowing it, bigtime.” Lila’s hand dropped from Morgan’s cheek. “Did you ever consider that Gunnar might be hurting too?”
“No…I suppose I haven’t. He’s got a wife...kids. You said so yourself.”
“But he doesn’t have you.” She retrieved the sledgehammer from the floor and handed it back to him. Then she lifted her chin as tears stung her eyes. “I know you can’t see that because you’re too…too pigheaded. So why don’t you just go ahead and tear things up? It seems to be your specialty.”
So much for patience and choosing the right words; I’ve really blown it here. I’m sorry, Lord.
Lila bit back a sob as she turned from Morgan and strode toward the door. She got as far as the foyer before he came up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“I’ve crossed the line.” His breath whispered warm against the nape of her neck. “I’m sorry, Lila.”
“I know.” She turned back to face him and frustration suddenly melted away. In her heart, she felt his pain as if it were her own. She stroked his jaw, letting her thumb slide along the ridge at the center of his chin. “It’s OK.”
“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have left you high and dry at the pizzeria like I did, after inviting you to dinner. It wasn’t just about getting your signature on the contract. I wanted to spend a little time with you, to get to know you better. Because there’s something about you, something that’s taken hold
of me. And you’re right—I let my resentment get the best of me. I blew it.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, brushing the skin ever so gently as he skimmed a finger along her cheek, gathering a single tear. “I shouldn’t have flown off the handle and walked out like that. I hurt you last night, and I’m hurting you now. I’m making a mess of things.”
“You’ve had a rough time…a terrible shock.” Lila forced back the tears that threatened to choke. His touch comforted, a paradox to the firestorm of emotions that had just swept through. “I can’t even begin to imagine…”
“It’s no excuse.” His finger dipped to her chin and he tilted her head slightly to study her tear-moistened eyes. “Did you get home OK?”
“Yes.” Lila sniffled. “Gunnar and Maddie walked me back to my car. I was fine from there.”
“It should have been me walking with you…making sure you were safe.” He shook his head and fisted his hands once again. “I want to share dinner with you, to spend time with you. I want to know you, Lila.”
“I want to know you, too, Morgan.” She lifted his hand to her lips and gently kissed the callused palm. “We’ll get another chance.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” She nodded to emphasize.
“I sure don’t deserve it…but I’m happy to hear you say that.” He drew his hand back and jammed it into his pocket. “Maddie and Hattie…Gunnar…they must all think I’m a real jerk.”
“They think you’re hurting…same as they are. Gunnar doesn’t understand your reaction to seeing him after all this time. He thought you would be…slightly more elated. He certainly is. He never thought he’d see you again. He feared you were gone for good.”
“Well, I’m here and I don’t understand any of it, either. I’ve let the anger and resentment take hold like a vice. It’s been years since I left the last foster home to make my own way but it still…” He hesitated. “It still hurts, Lila, and it’s going to take some time to undo all the pain that swirls like an F-5 tornado inside of me. I was just a kid going through all of that. There were nights I didn’t know where I’d lay my head, days when I wasn’t sure whether I’d return to the same house that I left for school in the morning.”
“That must have been awful.” Lila’s tears streamed down, splashing onto her dress. “Truly horrible to feel like you never really belonged.”
“Even so, I was childish and wrong to behave so callously to Gunnar…and to you and the others, as well.” Morgan lifted her hand to his lips and planted a kiss along her fingers. “Can you forgive me?”
“Of course I can forgive you, Morgan.” Lila trembled at the wash of heat that filled her belly and tangoed along her ribcage. “I already have.”
5
“It was so cold that night.” Morgan sat with Lila on the back porch of the Victorian half-an-hour later. Sunlight warmed his back through his navy T-shirt, in stark contrast to the chill he’d felt that long-ago night—the last time he’d seen Gunnar.
Until yesterday, when his brother had walked into the halo of a streetlight outside the pizzeria like a long-awaited apparition.
“Go on.” Lila pressed a cup of coffee into his hands. He took it, sipped, and his senses came alive.
“It was the week before Christmas and we had this huge snowstorm that came out of the blue. Everything was blanketed in snow and ice and the roads had been treacherous for days. We’d been stuck inside the house—everyone but my stepfather Carl, that is—and we were crawling with cabin fever. It was late, nearly midnight, and I had fallen asleep reading a book I was behind on for a report that was due in English class. Gunnar’s voice woke me. He sounded upset. I stumbled from my bed and out to the living room. Mom was all worked up and pacing the floor. My brother was trying to calm her. Gunnar had a knack for that…the ability to take the edge off things. He kept an even keel even when everyone else was going stir-crazy.”
“Yes, I’ve seen that in him,” Lila murmured. “Level-headed. Calm. A go-to guy when the chips are down.”
“Exactly. Anyway, Mom was freaked out because it was way past quitting time at the factory where Carl worked as a machinist, and he wasn’t home yet. I suppose her imagination got the best of her, as it often did. Where Gunnar had a tendency to calm things, Carl had a knack for stirring them up. Mom worried he’d lost control on the icy roads and was lying in a ditch somewhere. I’m ashamed to say I hoped she was right. I knew the score, and chances were that any given night Carl was still out past ten, it was a sure bet he was knee-deep into a fifth of bourbon with his buddies at the bar across town. The thought gave me chills. He was mean when he drank—which was quickly becoming most of the time. His temper was…” He hesitated, shook his head. “Well, fierce. Fierce and unpredictable. He’d lost his cool and ripped into Mom on more than a couple occasions.”
Morgan stopped, closed his eyes, trying to process it all as the memories returned. He remembered Mom’s black eye, her bruised arms. His gut roiled, and temper seethed within him.
Lila placed a hand over his and his pulse calmed. She waited quietly beside him, her long, slender legs dangling from the edge of the porch. She was a breath of summer in her pretty floral sundress.
Morgan marveled that he’d opened up to her. He’d never shared the darkest event of his life. He hadn’t told anyone the details of that gut-wrenching night—not the police officers who plied him with cookies and soda in the station office as they waited for a Child Services caseworker to arrive for him, or the counselors who questioned him in the weeks and months that followed.
But Lila proved different from all of them. The expression in those wide-set chocolate eyes wasn’t easy to read. Morgan wished he could take a quick peek inside her head to glimpse her thoughts.
He cleared a wad of cotton from his throat with a sip of coffee and continued.
“Anyway, Carl did finally return that night and, as expected, he was beyond plastered and in one of the foulest moods I’d seen. He staggered through the front door, reeking of booze. One look at Mom standing there wringing her hands, and he shook his head and…he laughed.” Morgan paused to draw a much-needed, strengthening breath. “His laughter, it…it made my spine tingle with dread. Then he narrowed his gaze at me and asked why I was still up—why we were all still awake and waiting on him as if he was a teenager with a curfew. I couldn’t find my voice. But Mom spoke up. She told him he’d worried her, worried all of us because of the storm.
“Instead of being appreciative that Mom cared enough to worry, Carl lit into her. He ranted that he wasn’t a child. She had no business keeping tabs on him. He thundered on and on, and the more Mom tried to reason with him the worse it got. He backed her into a corner, his eyes wild with rage. There was no talking sense with him; he was out of his head from the liquor.”
“You had to be terrified.”
“I was only eleven at the time, but I knew plenty. I’d seen what his temper could do. And I’d been on the receiving end more times than I could count.”
“And Gunnar?”
“He was furious. Mom cower there against the wall, and Gunnar…he got this look in his eyes that might have ignited the short fuse of a flare.”
The scene played like a horror movie through Morgan’s mind.
“Gunnar muttered something about Carl being a sorry excuse for a stepfather—I couldn’t make out the exact words. That was it; the volcano erupted. Carl went after Gunnar, raising his voice with all kinds of threats. He hated my brother. They were always butting heads.”
“A father shouldn’t hate his son.”
“He wasn’t our father. I never thought of him that way. My real dad had died a long time before. I never really knew him.” Morgan shook his head stiffly. “Anyway, Mom stepped between them, warning that the neighbors would come like they had twice before. Or, worse yet, summon the police. Carl didn’t care. He just kept coming like a freight train bearing down at a crossing. When the blow intended for Gunnar grazed Mom’s shoulder, Gunnar lost it. It only
took a single right hook, backed by a wagonload of fury, to send Carl sailing through the living room window.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Lila’s eyes flew wide as if she could feel firsthand the terror Morgan had experienced that night. She slipped a finger into her mouth and gnawed the nail. “Had that ever happened before…the two coming to blows?”
“No. Gunnar was usually good at talking Carl down and keeping things under control, but not this time. He sent Carl crashing through the window and into a snowdrift. I thought the man was dead. It took a moment or two for me to realize he was still breathing and had merely passed out cold.”
“Oh, Morgan.” Lila squeezed his hand. “What did Gunnar do? What did you do?”
“I was beyond terrified. I could barely breathe, couldn’t utter so much as a sound. I felt like an elephant had set up camp on my chest. Gunnar grabbed the cordless phone and punched in a few numbers to call the police, I guess because Mom’s face was bleeding and her shirt was torn at the shoulder. I suppose Gunnar had had his fill of the cruelty and of watching Mom get tossed around like a sack of flour. But as the call connected, Mom did something that neither one of us expected.”
He could hardly fathom it, even now.
“What Morgan? What did your mom do?”
“It’s crazy. Unthinkable.” He swallowed the melon lodged in his throat. “She grabbed the phone from Gunnar’s hand and sent it sailing out the window. Next thing I know, she rushed to Carl’s side as she screamed at Gunnar. “What have you done?”
The shriek resonated through Morgan’s mind. Even now, he couldn’t wrap his brain around the words.
“If you could have seen the look in Gunnar’s eyes…the utter shock and horror as he flinched at her tirade. It was horrible. It tore my insides to shreds.”
“I can’t imagine.” Lila placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “That’s just beyond awful.”
“The wind whipped and snow piled up along the windowpane. It was so cold…” Morgan wrapped his arms around himself and leaned forward as if he felt the chill. “I still remember the way the shards of ice raked my face as the air carried them through the shattered window. Everything happened so fast then, sort of like a movie in fast-forward.”
