Within These Walls

by J. L. Berg

  “I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” I sneered.

  And I’d be damned if he didn’t.

  I woke up the next morning to see my face plastered all over national news.

  “Next up, Jude Cavanaugh’s tortured past. We have an inside look at how losing his fiancée turned this young man into a recluse.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I muttered, throwing the remote across the room.

  I got out of bed and maneuvered around the untouched boxes toward the kitchen. Since arriving in New York weeks ago, I’d been staying in this furnished upscale apartment that Roman had found for me, and I still hadn’t unpacked a single box.

  Moving in would make it too real, too permanent, and I was having difficulties coming to grips with my new reality. It was the reason I counted down the minutes each day until Marcus called to check in, and it was the reason I still hadn’t visited my parents after being home for three weeks.

  Dressed in loose-fitting pajama bottoms, I made my way into the sleek, modern kitchen, shaking my head at the size of it. Why Roman had thought I needed all this was beyond me. He always had been over the top. His own apartment was twice this size and three floors up. We were practically roommates.

  I started a cup of coffee and walked briskly over to the door where the weekend paper had been delivered. For three years, I’d lived virtually off the grid, and now, I couldn’t go five minutes without turning on the news or picking up the newspaper.

  I made a quick breakfast, grabbed my coffee and paper, and sat down at the table, prepared to read all about me and whatever clever story my brother had managed to whip up overnight. Flipping through, my fingers tabbed the crisp pages, and I had the briefest flash of Lailah lying in her hospital bed, reading one of her worn paperbacks, her fingers thumbing the frayed edges. She loved books, real books, just like I loved real newspapers. Something about the smell and feel of the words right in front of you was irreplaceable.

  Like her.

  My chest ached from that one tiny memory, and I no longer cared about what the paper said. Roman could do what he wanted—paint me as the poor, grieving broken man—but it wouldn’t change anything.

  I was here, and she wasn’t.

  I might have been that broken man after Megan had died, but Lailah had saved me, and now, I was saving her—by being here.

  Food forgotten, I cleaned off my plate and walked up to a lone box standing in the corner of the vast living room. Taking a deep breath, I cut it open with a knife and slowly began the process of coming to terms with my new reality.

  Breaking down the last of the boxes, I folded and hung the few clothes I had side by side, next to the closetful of suits my brother had had waiting for me upon my arrival. How he’d gotten my measurements I’d never know.

  Seeing my old clothes stacked up next to my new ones was odd. My ratty old T-shirts, worn and faded with years of use, were next to priceless suits from top-of-the-line designers. As I stood there in my towel, readying myself for my first visit to my parents’ house in over three years, it was like looking at two halves of myself—the old and the new.

  But which was old? And which was new?

  My entire life, I had been raised for one thing—the family business.

  You are this company’s future, my father would tell me as I traipsed behind him as a young boy.

  It had been what I wanted, what I was good at, until the pressure got to be more than I could handle.

  My three years in the hospital had taught me that I could be more than what I had simply been raised to be.

  Now the question was, could I be both? Do I even want to be?

  Looking at the closet again, I reached out and grabbed the nicest T-shirt I could find, deciding to bench the internal debate for another day. I had a family reunion to attend.

  For as long as I could remember, our time growing up had been split between Manhattan and what my parents would describe as the country. For most of the year, my father had lived and breathed work, and during those times, which always seemed to coincide with school, we would live in the city. Although my father had been absent much of this time, my mother had been very atypical of our high-society lifestyle, and she’d immersed herself in the lives of my brother and me. When I hadn’t been with a tutor or the occasional nanny, I had been with her. Growing up in a place like New York could be stressful on a shy kid, but she’d made it like a game, a giant mystery the three of us were employed to solve.

  During the summer, however, when my father had taken much-needed vacation time, we’d be whisked away to the summer home upstate. It was there, in the country as my parents had called it, that I’d found my real childhood home. Far away from the noise and chaos of city life, everything had moved at a slower pace out there. Even my father’s relentless drive had lessened in that house. I’d see him go on evening walks with my mother, pick roses for her in the garden, and laugh with her while they sipped lemonade.

  As I drove out of the city that Saturday afternoon, heading down the winding roads toward the house my grandfather had built and passed down to our family, I realized I’d never get to bring Lailah here. I’d never walk her through the gardens my parents loved or pick roses for her like my father once had for my mother. It was the first time I doubted my decision.

  Two long lives without each other—is it worth it?

  Turning off the road, I drove down the tree-lined driveway until I came to the main gate. Hoping my security code hadn’t been voided, I entered the six-digit combination and waited. The click of the gate had me lurching forward again. Apparently, they had retained some hope after all.

  After entering the gate, the view was still as breathtaking as I remembered. Intricately laid bricks made a circular path down the palatial estate of my childhood memories. It still reminded me more of a castle than a house, but as a kid playing hide-and-seek in the cupboards and hallways, it hadn’t mattered what it was called as long as I wasn’t the one getting caught. If it weren’t for my mother, I didn’t think I would have gotten those rare moments away from tutors and textbooks.

  The front door opened as I pulled up front, and I saw tears leaking from my mother’s eyes as her hands went to her mouth. She’d aged since the last time I saw her. The dark blonde hair she’d always kept perfectly styled was now gray around the edges and cut short. Tiny lines had formed around her green eyes, and she’d traded her designer pantsuits for something a bit more casual.

  Rising from the car, I slowly walked the short distance to where she stood.

  “My baby boy,” she choked out, lunging into my tight hold.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom,” I said, apologizing for everything from being a selfish person to a horrible son.

  “You’re here now,” she replied, taking a step back. Her eyes roamed over me. “That’s all that matters. Let’s go inside, shall we?”

  Her arm still linked in mine, I followed her through the double doors, taking a deep breath as I entered. There was always a faint smell of lemons and fresh flowers in the entryway. As the smell hit my senses, I couldn’t help but travel back a ways to long-forgotten summer days when Roman and I would torment the cleaning staff as they had spent hours polishing the ornate wooden banister.

  “It hasn’t changed a bit,” I commented, taking a look around at the circular foyer.

  A large bright bouquet of flowers sat in the center on an antique table that had been my grandmother’s.

  “No, not here,” she said sadly. “But in other places, yes. Your father and I live here permanently now. We sold the penthouse in the city two years ago when…”

  I nodded, not needing further explanation. Roman had already filled me in on the physical demise of my once formidable father. Early signs of dementia had set in a few months after the accident, and my mother had made the decision to relocate to the country, tucking him away from the board. It must have been obvious to the investors that my father wasn’t well, but Roman had believed that th
e board held out hope I’d return and take over instead of my brother.

  “I missed you,” she said.

  We took a seat in the grand living room together.

  “I know. I missed you, too. I just had to…I couldn’t come back.”

  “You don’t owe me an explanation, Jude. I can’t begin to understand what you went through when Megan died. It hurts me that you didn’t come to me. It does, but I will never hold that against you. A heart does what it needs to in order to heal. Please tell me you’ve allowed yourself to do so?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “I was finally able to say good-bye.”

  She took my hand in hers. They felt softer, thinner than I remembered.

  “Then, why do you look so destroyed?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “No story is ever too long for a mother to hear.” She smiled.

  I didn’t know where to start, so I started at the very beginning. I told her about the accident and losing Megan—how I’d never gotten to say good-bye and the pain I’d caused by forcing her parents out of the organ donations.

  “They didn’t reconsider after she passed?” she asked.

  “No,” I replied. “Megan’s mother was so broken by her death. I don’t think either of them had anything left to give at that point.”

  I told her about my work in the hospital, about moving up and obtaining my license. She actually smiled and seemed proud.

  And then, I told her about Lailah.

  I told her about the way Lailah lit up a room, how she babbled when she was nervous, and that she had the most amazing heart—the most amazing broken heart of anyone I’d ever known.

  “She’s dying,” I managed to say.

  I went on to explain, detailing our late-night pudding conversations and how I’d discovered I was the reason she’d missed out on her first transplant.

  “How did she even know?” she asked.

  “Her doctor. He’s her uncle. In his blind love for her, he told her before it was official.”

  “She should have never known.”

  “I know, but she does, and I can’t blame Marcus for loving her. It’s an easy thing to do,” I said.

  I moved ahead and told her about what Lailah had decided after the denial from the insurance company and why I’d left.

  “Jude, I admire what you did, and I’m so grateful to have you back in our lives again. But are you sure you made the right choice?” Her expression was warm and comforting.

  I looked down to the floor, gathering my thoughts. “If you had the choice, right now, between spending a lifetime alone or a single year with Dad, which would you take?”

  “The year,” she answered without hesitation.

  I nodded without looking up. “But what if it were in reverse?” I questioned, meeting her gaze. “What if you had to choose for him? Only one year with you or a lifetime, Mom? Would you choose differently?”

  Her lips pursed together, and I knew she understood.

  “Why does it have to be one or the other, son? Why can’t you have both?”

  “Because I can’t be in two places at once,” I answered.

  “YOU FILED AN appeal?” I bellowed, slamming my salad fork down on the hard wooden surface of my mom’s solid oak dining table.

  She startled slightly from the noise, and I watched her eyes widen in surprise.

  “Yes, um…” she stumbled before blotting her lips with her cloth napkin and sitting up in her seat. She glanced over at Marcus, who had suspiciously joined us for the evening. With a nod, she turned back to me. “I know you asked us not to, honey, but this is your life we’re talking about, and I—we couldn’t just sit around and do nothing.”

  I looked at the two of them. “So, both of you were in on this?”

  They nodded their heads.

  “When?”

  “When what?” Marcus’s brows furrowed together.

  “When did you submit the appeal?”

  “A day or two after Jude left,” he said.

  My heart fell at his answer. For a split second, when they’d mentioned an appeal, I’d thought Jude might have been behind it as well. He’d been so angry, so firm against my decision, that I just thought maybe he would have done something.

  I hadn’t wanted him to, so I didn’t know why it saddened me that he hadn’t.

  “So, you submitted an appeal. What now?” I asked, picking up my fork to push a grape tomato around the bed of greens on my plate.

  “Nothing.”

  I looked up at my mother, who was smiling.

  “What do you mean, nothing? Did they already deny it?”

  “No, Lailah. They approved it.”

  My fork tumbled from my fingers, falling to the floor with a clattering clank. My eyes stung with repressed tears as I jerked them from Marcus’s jubilant expression to my mother’s.

  “Approved?”

  They both nodded, rising from their chairs with open arms that wrapped around me.

  “Are you sure?” I asked as the emotional dam broke, and moisture dampened my cheeks.

  “Yes.” They laughed. “We’re sure.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. Change of heart. Divine intervention?” my mother said.

  I looked up at her with a dubious expression, and she laughed.

  “Who cares? It’s approved!”

  “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe it!”

  My mom took my hand, pulling me up from the chair. “Come on, I made something special for you. It’s in the kitchen.”

  We all followed her into the small galley kitchen and watched as she moved things around in the refrigerator. Finally, she turned to face us, proudly displaying a bowl full of homemade chocolate pudding.

  I stared at it, frozen in place.

  “I always saw the empty containers in your trash can at the hospital, so I figured you had a thing for it even though those store-bought ones are so high in sodium. Really, Lailah, you should know better.”

  Flashbacks of Jude pulling out tiny packs of pudding, his dimple etched into his megawatt grin, before we spent the night talking over our spoonfuls of chocolate. The night he’d fed me in the hospital, and my stomach had turned into butterflies came blazing back and then fizzled into a moment not too long ago when we’d spent an evening in his apartment, licking the sticky dessert off each other’s bodies.

  “I’m actually not that hungry,” I blurted out, turning my head away to flick away the tears that had begun to trickle down my cheek. “Maybe some popcorn later though?” I added quickly, looking up with a fake smile plastered on my face.

  My mom nodded, looking over at Marcus, who just shrugged.

  We settled down onto the couch and watched a movie together. Eventually, Marcus did make a bowl of popcorn. No one touched the pudding. I thought it had been blacklisted even though neither of them understood why.

  It had been nearly a month since I’d seen him, felt his touch on my skin, and heard his deep voice whispered against my ear. Every minute had felt like a year. I’d always thought watching time go by in a hospital bed was agonizing. Seeing the seconds tick by without Jude was hell.

  I couldn’t turn on the television without eventually running into his face. He was everywhere. He was like the lost city of Atlantis for the financial world. Even the Hollywood gossip magazines and TV shows were picking up on it, taking photos of him on the street, as they told the story of his tragic past.

  Will Jude Cavanaugh find love again?

  The world all wanted to know.

  “Will you tell him?” my mother asked.

  I looked up to find her staring at me. The TV was off, and Marcus was gone. Two hours had gone by, and I had stayed locked up inside my head.

  “Who?”

  She raised her brow as if to say, Really?

  I gave an exasperated huff. “No,” I answered. “He left me, Mom. He wasn’t strong enough to stay when things got hard. Just because I have the approval doesn’t mean th
e road ahead is paved in gold. What if he came back, and the transplant didn’t take? Would he leave again?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered as sorrow etched her features.

  “He chose his own life, and now, I guess I’m choosing mine—alone.”

  Waiting for a heart to become available was a lot like waiting on a natural disaster. I knew it would eventually happen, but I didn’t know when, and I didn’t know how.

  For weeks, I was glued to the phone and pager the hospital had provided.

  After the third week, I started to lose hope.

  It’s never going to happen.

  “It will happen, Lailah. Give it time,” Marcus encouraged as we sat on the couch one evening, watching The Vampire Diaries.

  “I know. But will I be sane by then?”

  “Probably not, especially if you keep watching this ridiculous show. Seriously, it’s horrible.”

  I hit pause on the remote and turned to him. “Say you didn’t mean it.”

  “What?” He grinned.

  “Turn to the screen, look deep into Damon’s gorgeous blue eyes, and say you didn’t mean it.”

  “Um…”

  “I’ll call you Uncle Marcus,” I sang, causing him to laugh.

  “Fine,” he grumbled. He repeated the words, which were nearly inaudible due to the amount of mumbling.

  “That was terrible, but I’ll take it. Damon and I forgive you. Now, quiet, Uncle Marcus, and finish the show with me,” I said.

  I must have dozed off after the show had ended because I was suddenly being shaken awake.

  “Lailah, wake up.”

  “What?” Why? Just let me sleep here,” I protested.

  “The hospital just called,” Marcus said. “It’s time.”

  I jolted upright, looking around the room, until I found him standing in front of me. My mom was racing around the apartment, packing things into a duffel bag. Absolute fear took over as I watched her.

  This is real. No more waiting for the phone to ring.

  It is happening—now.

  I could die. I could die on that operating table, and this could be my final moments with my family.