Chapter Seventeen
Julian sat by Kayla’s bedside, spoon-feeding her the stories of their life together. Finally he understood how momentous a blink would be—right now, he’d take any sign of life.
Her skin seemed to have gotten paler in the past twenty-four hours.
“Hey, Kay,” he said softly, scooting toward her. The chair legs made a horrific squeaking sound on the linoleum, and he was glad for the noise. Anything was better than this godawful silence.
He closed his eyes. It made it easier to slide into the past. In darkness he could remember the girl he’d fallen in love with. “I was thinking about the day I asked you to marry me. Do you remember that?”
It had been late in the autumn. The air in Sunville had been crisp and cold, and with every indrawn breath came the pungent scent of ripening apples. He hadn’t really meant to return to Kayla. When he had left her, after the movie finished shooting, he’d thought she was simply another notch in his bedpost, not unlike the French gymnast he’d slept with while he was in Paris shooting Bone Deep. But every hour away from Kayla had felt like a day, every day a month. To his shock, he’d found that he missed her.
And so he’d returned to that flea-bitten spot on God’s ass. He’d waited until it was closing time at the diner, until she was alone, and then, very quietly, he’d gone inside and stood by the jukebox …
“I’ll always remember the look of you, standing by the lunch counter, the way that ugly orange uniform clung to your body. The way my name sounded wrapped up in your voice …
“I could tell you were afraid to hope that I’d come back for you. I knew you were thinking about the price tag that came with a man like me. You said, ‘I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you came to find out.’”
He almost smiled. “I remember wishing I was the kind of guy who would have come back to ask that question. I knew I should turn around and walk away, but I could feel it sparking between us again, that passion. I’d never been so scared, and somehow you knew that.
“I tried to tell you the truth about me. I told you I was no good for you, that I’d never been faithful to a woman in my life, but all you did was smile. So I told you everything, that I’d gone back to Hollywood and started reading scripts and doing interviews and talking to people … but I woke up in the morning and I thought of you. I went to bed at night, and I thought of you. I screwed other women, and I thought of you.
“I knew it would hurt you, but I told you anyway. I thought maybe it would keep me from saying the rest of it, that maybe you would throw me out and I’d have to leave you again. But you just stood there, smiling up at me, waiting.
“Do you remember what I said next?
“‘I don’t want to love you, Kayla.’
“I knew you heard the word that mattered—don’t—but next to love, it seemed to have no power at all. I pulled the small velvet box out of my pocket and handed it to you. When you saw the diamond ring, you started to cry.
“I knelt down on one knee—remember that? It was the only time I’ve ever done that in my life. I knelt down and begged you to marry me. You took the ring and slipped it on your finger.
“I meant to say something romantic, but what I said was ‘If you’re smart, you’ll say no.’”
He touched her hand. “I knew I would hurt you, Kay. Sooner or later. And I’m so damned sorry …”
The door creaked open.
He heard the familiar cadence of Liam’s footsteps. “How is she today?”
Julian shrugged. “The same.”
Liam popped a tape into the player—Air Supply’s “Lost in Love”—then took his usual place on Kayla’s other side, standing close to the bed. “Heya, Mike.”
Julian envied Liam, who was able to sit here for hours, talking to his wife, holding her hand, believing in a happy ending, even as they saw how she was fading into the sheets.
Julian gazed down at Kayla, his thoughts turning again to the day he’d asked her to marry him. “I hurt her,” he said softly, realizing a second too late that he’d spoken aloud.
“Why?”
After last night, Julian felt a strange kinship with Kayla’s husband. Liam was the only one in the world who knew how it felt to sit here, hour after hour, praying for a miracle. “There’s something wrong with me. I don’t love for long. I wanted Kayla, wanted her like I’ve never wanted a woman before or since. I was so goddamned in love with her …”
“I think maybe ‘in love’ has the shelf life of whipping cream. No matter how you handle it, it goes sour. But if you’re lucky, you get past ‘in love’ and end up just loving someone.”
“That’s how you love her.”
“Yes.”
Julian knew his next question would wound Liam, but he had to ask it. “Did she love you that way?”
Julian saw that Liam wanted to lie to him, to say certainly, absolutely, with all her heart; he saw, too, the moment Liam lost that battle.
He gave a lopsided, half smile. “Ironically, I think she loves me … but I don’t know now if she was ever in love with me.” Liam paused, then asked, “Have you ever had a family, Julian? I mean, a real family that lasts through good times and bad … the kind that keeps you out of the deep end?”
The question stung. He’d always wanted a family, but a family was give-and-take. He had always specialized in take-and-take. His only chance had been Kayla; if he’d held on to her, he might have known what it felt like to belong to a group of people who loved you no matter what, who cried when you failed and cheered when you won.
Julian patted his pocket, looking for a pack of cigarettes, then remembered he was in the hospital. Liam was staring at him now, seeing him. Julian felt as if his insides were splayed out on an operating table for Liam to see, and like a smoker’s lungs, they were black and ruined.
Julian didn’t answer. Finally, Liam pulled up a chair and sat down. For the next hour, they took turns talking quietly to Kayla.
After a while, Liam looked up at the clock. “Well, I have to get going. The kids’ll be home soon.” He stood up and stroked Kayla’s cheek. “Heya, babe. I’ll be back tomorrow.” Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead, murmuring a word that Julian couldn’t make out.
Liam was almost to the door when Julian asked, “How do you do it?”
Liam glanced back at him, his hand on the door handle. “Do what?”
“How do you keep believing she’ll wake up?”
“I love her.”
Julian frowned. “I know. But how do you do it?”
Liam’s gaze flicked over to his wife. “I have to.”
Julian watched Liam leave the room. Without Liam there, the silence felt awkward. He moved closer to the bed, picked up Kayla’s limp hand, and squeezed it hard. “How is it I can remember falling in love with you, and have so little memory of the end? Our love affair is clear as glass, but our marriage, our life is … gone. All I remember is the day you left. I don’t even remember trying to stop you. Did I? Did I ever say, ‘Don’t leave me’? Did I know what I would become without you?” He sighed. “Jesus, Kayla, did I even care?”
She hears him call her name.
She tries to reach for him, but there is nothing beside her. She feels the panic building again, swirling around her.
Pictures twirl through her mind like images in a child’s viewfinder, and when they stop, she is somewhere else. A house.
She tries to say something, to call out, but there is something wrong with her throat. In the distance she can hear a moan. It is her … or maybe not …
She is in Hollywood now, in their home, waiting for Julian. She is staring out the window; all she can see is gray. Gray trees, gray flowers, gray sky; the only color is a black crow sitting on a branch, cawing down at her.
No, it isn’t a crow. It is her baby’s cry. She instinctively turns to go to her daughter, but she hears the nanny’s footsteps. She hesitates, afraid to intrude on the older, sour-faced woman who seems to know everything about taking care of baby girls.
She is tired of this life filled with laughter and drugs and sex that happens in other people’s beds. Tired of thin, beautiful women with vacant eyes who never carry photos of children in their wallets. She is lonely, more now than ever. Since Jacey’s birth, Julian is distant. He never holds his daughter or talks to her. Instead he hires other women to do the chores that Kayla longs to do herself.
How can it not have changed him, this bringing of a child into their lives? It has transformed her every cell.
She stands in the shadows of the living room, beside the ornate gas fireplace that holds the sounds and color of fire, but none of the heat.
When Julian gets home—late, as usual, and smelling of another woman’s perfume—she sees how old and tired he looks, and she wonders how long he has looked this way, how long she has overlooked his deterioration. The drugs and alcohol have left marks on his skin, on everything, even the way he moves, all slow motion.
“Jules?”
He turns to her, smiling before he even sees her. “Hey, baby.”
As he gets closer, she can see the red cast to his eyes, the way his nose is running from too much cocaine. He moves unsteadily, a marionette with broken strings, and it breaks her heart, seeing this so clearly.
She takes his hands in hers, trying not to notice the way his fingers are shaking, the dampness in his palms. “We have to talk, Jules.”
She sees the flash of irritation in his eyes. Even though he tries to hide it, she sees. “Not again, Kay. Jesus, not again … I know I missed the kid’s birthday party. Let’s not rehash it forever.” He pulls free and goes to the bar, making himself a cocktail, drinking it too fast. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Baggie of cocaine.
She watches him snort the drug, and there is no word to describe the depth of her sadness. She turns away from him. “We have to change our lives, Julian.”
“I know, baby,” he whispers, kissing her cheeks, her eyelids, cupping her face in his hands. “And we will.”
It is the answer he’s given her a dozen times, but it’s not good enough anymore.
“I can’t watch you kill yourself, Jules. I … love you too much for that. And I can’t let Juliana grow up in this world. I want her to know how it feels to be safe.”
He frowns. “You mean it this time.”
She turns away from him and goes back to the big picture window. It is funny, she thinks, how fast a life can change. One minute, one set of words that really say nothing at all, and you see what you hadn’t seen before.
She feels him come up behind her. The window reflects his faded image. “You meant what you said in Sunville,” she says dully. “You didn’t really want to marry me.”
“I didn’t want to lose you.”
She wonders if he sees the continent that separates her question from his answer.
She can’t raise Juliana in this world. No matter how much she loves Julian, she can’t do this to her daughter. If there’s one thing Kayla knows, it’s the pain of a father who can’t be bothered to spend time with his child. “I’m sorry, Julian,” she whispers, feeling the tears fall down her cheeks.
His arms circle her, holding tightly. “I love you, Kayla, but I can’t give all this up. It’s who I am.”
She touches his face. “I love you, Julian, more than …” She can’t finish. There is nothing big enough to compare to her love for this man. “I wish we were old and gray and all of this was behind us,” she says at last. “I wish we were sixty years old and we could sit together by the fire with pictures of our grandchildren between us … and laugh about these times. I wish …” Her voice gets caught in the ache spreading through her insides, and she can’t say more.
It is too much for her, these memories. She closes her eyes and sinks again into the sweet, blessed darkness …
At dinner that night, Liam tried to smile and make conversation with his beloved children, but all he could really hear were the tinny silences that collected between his sentences. As he helped himself to another serving of rice, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the hollowed silver surface of an oversized spoon.
The fear hit him then; it was like plunging into Angel Lake on winter’s deepest night.
His hand started shaking. The silver spoon rattled against his pewter plate.
“Daddy?” Bret said, wide-eyed. “Are you okay?”
Liam dropped his spoon and held his hands out. If anyone was surprised by the suddenness of his action, there was no sign of it. “Let’s hold hands,” he said.
Around the table, they reached out for one another. Liam felt Bret’s small hand slip into his; then Jacey took hold of his other hand. Rosa reached out at the other end.
In their gentle, trusting touch, Liam felt it return, the faith he needed.
“Let’s pray. Rosa, will you do the honors?”
Across the table, she was watching him. He could tell that she understood. She nodded briefly and closed her eyes, bowing her head. Her lovely, lyrical voice was like music in the silence. “Heavenly Father, we thank You for the four of us at this table, for the love we share and the strength we find in each other. We thank You for Mikaela’s continued life, still as it may be. We know You are watching out for her and protecting her and blessing her with Your presence in the darkness of her sleep. Once again, we offer You our humble prayers that she will soon come back into the loving arms of her family. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.”
Liam opened his eyes and looked at his children. “I love you,” he said softly.
It was like that these days. The best of times were quiet moments like this one, tucked into the corners of what passed for everyday life. They were learning, each of them, to notice the things they’d once taken for granted.
And to be thankful for the life that was left.