Julian. She remembered all the days and nights she’d waited by the phone for his call, the countless times she’d cried herself to sleep, waiting. Waiting …
And Liam. She remembered the hows and whys of her love for him … and how it had never been enough for her.
She’d spent years waiting for Julian to come back to her, but at some point, she’d had to go on with her life. She’d enrolled in school and become a nurse, and taken a job in this very building.
She’d first met Liam in his father’s hospital room. She’d been so lonely then, so lost. She’d read about Julian’s new marriage and it had broken her spirit. When Liam finally asked her out, she’d said yes.
She’d known that Liam fell in love with her almost instantly, and though she hadn’t felt the same, she’d needed someone to love her, someone to care about her. Day by day, Liam had shown her how it felt to be truly wanted.
Still, when she found out she was pregnant, she’d felt trapped. She could remember every nuance of the day she’d told him.
They’d been out at Angel Falls, their favorite spot, stretched out on a blanket. When she told him about the baby, he stifled a laugh of joy, and then, quietly, asked her to marry him.
She’d told him some of her past. She’d said, I’ve been married before. I loved him with all my heart and soul. I’m afraid I’ll love him until I die.
I see, he’d said. But she was the one who could see. She was breaking his heart, this gentle, caring man who loved her the way she loved Julian. She’d wanted to believe that they could be happy. And in many ways they had been. She had grown to love Liam, but never had she fallen head over heels in love. In truth, she’d never allowed herself to; she saw that now.
She’d always been secretly waiting for Julian. Down deep, in that place reserved for true love, she’d kept a single candle burning for his return. Because of that, her love for Liam had been thin and brittle, a layer of ice on a bottomless blue lake. How could it be more when Julian was already there, taking up too much space in her heart?
She didn’t know if she’d regretted it then—that was something she couldn’t seem to remember—or if she’d ever let herself look closely enough to see it. But she regretted it now, regretted it with a ferocity that was nearly desperation.
Her past felt like a huge and tangled fishing net, filled with debris, and she wondered if she could ever untangle it enough to find the pearls that had to be hidden in the mess.
Now, whenever she closed her eyes—and sometimes even when she didn’t—she saw the flickering reel of her whole life. It was everywhere, in the dozens of floral arrangements and green plants that filled this tiny room, in the accordion of get-well cards that lined her windowsill, in the pad of phone messages that the nurses brought in to her each day.
In Last Bend, she’d found a place where she belonged. And the saddest part was, she was certain that she hadn’t recognized that. For years, she’d thought that she was an outsider here. Even as she’d volunteered for a dozen different charitable events and organized the Bits-n-Spurs 4-H club, as she’d sat down to dinner at friends’ houses and sipped punch with people after church, she’d always believed that she didn’t belong. It was, she realized, an ugly bit of baggage that she’d carried here from her youth, and she’d been so damned busy hanging on to it that she’d failed to notice that the bags were empty.
She was so deep in thought, she didn’t hear the knock at the door.
Rosa stood in the doorway. She looked old and tired, and for once, her white hair wasn’t held hostage in a tight braid. She wore a pair of crisply creased black pants and a red turtleneck sweater. In her arms, she held a big, square book.
Mikaela maneuvered herself to a sit. “Recuerdo mi vida, Mama,” she said softly, not even bothering with hello.
Rosa stumbled, then went still, her wide brown eyes focused on Mikaela’s face. “You remember? All of it?”
“How’s Bret … after yesterday?”
“A milagro.” Rosa moved again, taking shuffling steps toward the bed. Her smile was gentle. “He is fine. This boy of yours, he has a hardy heart. And, of course, Dr. Liam was there.”
Mikaela swallowed hard. “Can I see the kids now?”
“Bret is on a field trip today. His class went eagle watching at Rockport—it is the migration time. Jacey has a social studies presentation to give at noon. It is half of her grade.”
Mikaela sagged back, disappointed. “Oh. I guess life goes on, eh, Mama?”
“It is for a short time, only. I will bring them to your room this afternoon, sí?” Rosa handed Mikaela the big leather book she was holding. “This is for you.”
Mikaela touched the fine leather. “Muy caro, eh, Mama?”
“Sometimes it is good to spend the money. Myrtle—your friend at the drugstore—she told me that you have wanted this for a long time.”
That was something Mikaela couldn’t remember, but she did know that she’d been meaning to put together a family scrapbook for years. Another entry in her endless stack of somedays. “Gracias, Mama. It’s beautiful.”
“Ah, you did not used to be so stupido. Open it.”
Mikaela’s mouth fell open. “Stupido? Stupido?” Her mother never talked like that. “A little respect for the recently brain damaged, if you don’t mind.”
Rosa shrugged. “Lo siento. Lately I have spent much time with a little boy, and he has changed me. Yesterday I actually said that a cartoon was rad.”
“That’s my Bretster. Last year everything was either awesome or puke-o-rama. Now it’s rad.” Mikaela opened the book. The first page was a sheer piece of crinkled tissue, inset with dried violets. On a panel in the middle, in Rosa’s careful hand, were the words Mikaela Conchita Luna True Campbell.
It made her sound like she belonged on a throne. Slowly she turned the page, and there, alone against a sea of white paper, was a dog-earred old black-and-white Kodak print.
It was a picture of her and her mother. In the background was the shack they’d lived in during apple harvest, twelve to a room with no working bathroom.
The memories of that time were still buried in Mikaela’s heart, as jagged and sharp as bits of glass. Those were the days that had shaped Mikaela’s spirit, snipped the edges off her dreams.
For all of her life, Mikaela had been running away from these memories, as if with enough speed she could distance herself from the truth. Now, she was standing still at last and she saw the past for what it had been. She saw these photographs not as a child, rather as a mother. Rosa had had no choices. Without an education, a poor Hispanic woman who barely spoke the language had no way out, except—
She looked up at her mother. “I would have done it, too, Mama.”
“Done what?”
“William … the house … If Jacey had crawled into my arms and looked at me with sad, hungry eyes, I would have done it, too.”
It was the first time Mikaela had ever seen her mother cry. “I would give anything to have loved him less and myself more, but I cannot regret that my sin gave you a chance for something better.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long to say.”
Impatiently, Rosa wiped her eyes. “Keep looking.”
Mikaela turned the next page, then the next, and saw the few photographs of her childhood.
Then came the wedding picture. Julian and Kayla.
Mikaela gasped. This she had hidden. She remembered that; this photograph had been in a pillowcase in her—
“Liam found these while I was in the coma,” she said in a dull voice.
Softly, sadly, “Sí.”
She could hardly imagine the pain it must have caused Liam to see her life in such vivid shots. She’d kept Julian hidden, both because no man could live up to such competition, and—if she was honest—because she couldn’t give up this secret obsession she called true love. She’d wanted the piece of herself that loved Julian to be hers alone. Not even Jacey was allowed to share him.
Maybe s
he’d been afraid that if she exposed her true feelings, if she talked about him as if he were someone ordinary, just a first husband, she’d fall out of love with him. And the thought of not loving Julian was more than she could bear. It had defined her for so long.
Mikaela turned the pages slowly, mesmerized by the images of the life she’d led.
She had forgotten how young she was when she married Julian.
At first, in the pictures, she was bright and beautiful and always smiling, but as the photos accumulated, she saw how thin she’d grown, how jaded her look had become.
In all the photographs of Mike with Jacey, it was just the two of them, alone. No smiling father. And later, as they waited for Julian, the pictures of them had been taken by strangers.
She sighed. “Oh, Mama.”
Rosa flipped through a few pages, until she found the first pictures with Liam. “You see it?”
“See what?”
“Your smile. It is coming back here. I notice this the first time you send me pictures of you and Liam.”
An aching sadness spread through Mikaela. “Why didn’t I love him, Mama? What’s wrong with me?”
“You know the answer to this question.”
“I’ve made a mess of my life.”
Rosa laughed. “You are young. It takes many years to truly make a mess of your life. This I know about.”
Mikaela turned to her. “How will I fix it?”
Rosa’s smile faded. “Let me tell you something else I know. When you hide things away, and keep them secret, they have a … power. Take your life apart, Mikita, look at it for once … and maybe you will be surprised at what you see.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Mikaela counted the moments until she could see her children. After Rosa left, Mike had spent an hour with the physical therapist, trying to relearn how to gracefully use a spoon. Who would have thought it would be so damned complicated to stick a spoon in a bowl of oatmeal and get the gruel to your own mouth? At one point, she’d wanted to hurl the whole breakfast at the wall. Then she’d remember why it was that men had temper tantrums and women didn’t: cleanup.
Now it was nearly noon. She stood at the small window of her room, staring out at the parking lot below. The outdoor Christmas decorations were in place. Multicolored bulbs twined around the street-lamps. At night, she knew, the sparkly lights transformed even this ordinary parking lot into a winter wonderland.
It saddened her, this evidence of the coming holidays. Usually she was a Christmas addict, a whirling dervish who maniacally put up decorations and gathered her children around her on the sofa for the yearly viewings of It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. This year all she felt was a yawning, aching sense of loss. She couldn’t get a true sense of where she belonged anymore, and somehow, at Christmas, that sense of being lost was even worse.
There was a knock at the door.
Mikaela turned so fast she stumbled. Her right leg was still weak, and it couldn’t keep up with such quick movements. She clutched the windowsill and hung on to avoid falling onto that ugly speckled linoleum floor.
Liam stood in the doorway. He looked awkward and uncertain, his tall, lanky body tilted to one side, his too-long hair falling across one eye. Quietly he closed the door behind him. He moved into the room but stopped short of her.
She could see the uncertainty in his eyes; he didn’t know where he stood with her. And how could he, now that he knew everything she’d hidden from him? She felt an overwhelming shame. She’d hurt him so much …
“Hello, Liam.” She wanted to say more, but she didn’t know where to start; she didn’t know if there even was a beginning that could take them where they needed to go.
He looked at her, still unsmiling. “Rosa tells me that you’ve regained a huge chunk of your memories.”
She let go of the windowsill and limped toward him, holding her weakened right arm against her suddenly upset stomach. “Yes. There are still a few blank spots, but a lot of it’s back.”
“That’s great.” There was no enthusiasm in his voice, just a dull flatness that didn’t sound like him at all.
She gazed up at him, noticing the network of lines that had gathered around his eyes. They were new lines, etched on by the trauma of her injury.
I love you, Liam. Those were the words he needed to hear. She could have said it, easily in fact. She did love him; she always had. But it was a watery version that had more to do with comfort and friendship than passion.
If only Julian were simply the first man she’d loved. That would have left room in her heart for falling in love with Liam. Hardly anyone stayed with their first lover anymore.
But Julian was more than that. She’d always called it love, what she felt for him; now, standing here with her husband, she saw what it truly was: obsession.
First love was like a sweet song that turned you weepy and nostalgic. Obsession, she knew, was different; a dark and secret need that never mellowed into something pretty. A first love could someday let you go. An obsession, she was afraid, held on to your throat until you died.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Liam,” she said softly.
He smiled. It was sad and tired, that smile, worn as thin as ancient blacktop. “I don’t know what to say to you anymore, Mike. It’s like … treading water in the deep end.”
“Liam—”
He held up a hand. “Let me finish. I’ve got some things that have to be said. You could have told me more of the truth, you know. We might have had a chance if you had.”
Mikaela turned away from him and limped toward her bed, climbing in, pulling the sheets up to her chin—as if a little layer of cotton and acrylic could shield her from the emotional punch of his words. “I know.”
A flash of anger darkened his green eyes, but was gone almost before it began, replaced by a resignation that tore at her heart. “Don’t you know what it was like for me … loving you all those years, knowing it wasn’t enough for you, and needing so goddamn badly for you to love me back?” He sighed. “I love you, Mike. I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you …”
“I only did it because I knew you,” she said. “I knew what it had been like for you, growing up in Ian’s shade. I didn’t want you to always wonder about Julian. I thought … if you didn’t know who he was, you’d be able to forget I’d been married. Same with Jacey—I thought Julian would be too … big for a child to ever forget, and she needed you as a father so much.”
“I know all that, Mike.” He said her name softly, on a sigh. “I just want to say this: no more lies. That’s all I’m asking. While you were sleeping, I woke up. Before, I could hold on to the illusion that someday it would change. I kept thinking I could love enough for both of us, but I couldn’t, could I?” He touched her face with a gentleness that made her want to weep. “Maybe you were right to hide the past from me. When I didn’t know, I could pretend not to see the little things. I let you have your secrets and your silences and your sadnesses. Can you imagine what those silences would do to me now? I’d constantly be wondering, Is she thinking of him?”
She could feel the tearing of her heart, and the pain of it was worse than anything she’d ever imagined.
She’d planted the seeds of that pain herself and fertilized them over the years with her own obsession.
He leaned toward her and held her face in his strong, steady hands, and very slowly, he kissed her. In that one, tender touching of lips was all the heartache and desperation and joy of a deep and lasting love.
While she was still gasping for an even breath, he turned and left the room.
It was three o’clock. An hour until the kids would be here.
Mikaela lay in bed, staring dully at the television tucked up into the corner of the ceiling. In beautiful black-and-white images, It’s a Wonderful Life unfolded.
It was nearing the end now. George Bailey—Jimmy Stewart—had just realized what the world was without him, and everything he’d always w
anted and longed for had changed. He was tearing into that drafty old house now, breaking off the banister …
As always, Mikaela was crying, but this time she wasn’t crying for George Bailey; she was crying for herself. When the townspeople started showing up with their money to save the savings and loan, she automatically looked for Liam, to tell him that his favorite scene was on.
But there was no Liam beside her, no Christmas tree in the corner, no children rattling packages under the tree and whining that they’d seen this movie a billion times.
She threw the covers back, got up, and walked to the closet. There, sitting forlornly beneath a row of empty hangers, was a small brown leather suitcase. She reached down and picked it up with her left hand—the right one was still too weak to use—and dragged it to the bed, flipping it onto the mattress. Then she unlatched the small brass closures; the suitcase twanged open.
She ran her fingers across the clothing. It had to be Liam’s doing, this artful arrangement of her favorite things. A black broomstick skirt and white turtleneck, with a matching tapestry vest. The silver concho belt she always wore with the skirt. A pair of black riding boots. Bra and panties. He’d even remembered her favorite gold hoop earrings—the ones that dangled a pair of cherub angels. And all of her makeup, even her hairbrush and perfume.
She couldn’t help thinking how it must have been for him as he’d stood in her huge, walk-in closet, choosing clothing to go in a suitcase that might never be opened …
She would have grabbed anything to get out of that closet, stuffed mismatched clothing in a brown paper bag.
But not Liam. No matter how much it hurt, he would have stood there, thinking, choosing, touching. She imagined that if she looked closely enough, there would be tiny gray tear spots on the white cotton of the turtleneck.
She stripped out of the flimsy hospital gown and tossed it onto the molded pink chair. It was difficult to dress herself—her right hand was barely any help at all—but she kept at it, pulling and tugging and strapping and buttoning until it was done.
Then she went into the bathroom and wet down her hair, combing it back from her face. There was no way she could put on makeup with her left hand, so she settled for pinching her cheeks.
Kristin Hannah's Family Matters 4-Book Bundle: Angel Falls, Between Sisters, The Things We Do for Love, Magic Hour Page 24
