Milan wanted to argue the point. He didn't care that Sheriff Acker didn't find the information significant enough to share. He would have liked to have been informed. This whole day of worrying and wondering could have been avoided.
Ned changed the subject. "So, is that the only thing you found out here?" He pointed to the medallion.
Milan answered, "So far. I haven't had a chance to really take a look around yet. I'll let you know if I find anything else."
Acker looked up at the manor. "What kind of condition is she in on the inside? I would imagine that years of neglect would have done pretty significant damage."
"I don't know. However, it looks, I'll take care of it and make it right." Milan didn't take the bait. He knew the sheriff was trying to worm his way inside the house. He wasn't going to allow that to happen again. The last time the sheriff stepped inside the house, Milan's life was in shambles. He couldn't and wouldn't let him in to judge him again or to accuse him of wrongdoing again.
"I'm sure you will. Make your family proud." Ned took in the damage in the yard and on the house. "A lot has happened since you've been gone, Milan, but as you know, some things always stay the same."
Milan didn't understand what that was supposed to mean and he didn't care to find out. When he'd asked Ned to meet him at the manor, he'd expected that he would be able to offer insight into who could have defaced Paulina's grave, not that Acker only agreed to meet him, so that he could get a look at the property and re-investigate him.
"I'll tell you what - I'll see what I can find out about the headstone incident and get back to you. I have to be honest with you, I don't have a lot to go on. The Johnson boy, I'm afraid, won't be much help. We've been keeping an eye on him and, as far as I know, he hasn't been anywhere near here in the last few weeks at least. I'll let you know what I find out." The sheriff put his cap back on his head and walked out toward the front gate.
Milan watched him walk back with a smug grin on his face. He figured Ned had no intention of investigating the vandalism. By inviting the sheriff back into his small world, Milan knew that he'd offered an open invitation to look into the suspicious circumstances of his wife's death.
Ned nodded before slowly driving off. Milan remained in his yard, watching and waiting for him to be out of sight before he tried to make another attempt to enter the house.
"Here we go." Milan said, looking up at the house. "I can do this."
His legs felt like boulders as he ascended up the stairs. His willingness to go on was fleeting. There were so many reasons not to do this and one very big reason telling him that it had to be done. Deciding which reason would lead him wasn't that difficult to do, but building the courage to listen would have to be taken one step at a time.
He opened the double doors wide, allowing the stale air to escape in a flurry. This time, no small critters scurried out. Standing in the foyer, he held his breath, bracing himself for an all out attack on his psyche.
Milan's ears perked up. Had he heard creaking above him, he wondered. Did he see something? Was there someone else in the house?
Lying his back up against the wall to collect his bearings, he took a few slow, deep breaths and told himself that he was imagining things. There was no one in the home. Looking around, he could easily see that the house was exactly as he'd left it, except for the mounds of dust that had collected in every crevice and every corner that the eye could see.
Guilt overcame him as he looked around at what used to be the grandest home in all of Brimmer County. He hated that he'd let it fall apart like he had. He wished that there was something he could have done differently, but he would only be able to add this to the host of other items he harbored guilt over.
The electricity had long since been shut off. The stench in the air was enough to make him ill. His first order of business was to air out the home and open all of the drapes to allow what remained of daylight to shine in, so he could see how much work he had ahead of him.
Across the street, he could see the peering eyes of Mrs. Johnson and another woman, one he didn't recognize, watching him as he moved about, inspecting the home. He didn't care. He felt it better to let them watch him, so they could see that he'd returned to make things right, not to cover up a hideous crime, like they thought.
Sweat poured from his body as he removed item after item from the home and placed it into the yard. Every item his mother and grandmother ever collected still remained in the house. Decades of life lived in this home, afforded every inhabitant every opportunity to amass large collections of memorabilia from the time spent traveling the country and going abroad. Every item held a special memory of the lives that were lived in the manor.
Milan could detail where every item was purchased and the circumstances surrounding the purchase, even if he had not been there himself. The stories that were told over the years lived in his heart. They were as much a part of him as he was a part of them.
Although the grand home frightened him on many levels, it also gave him pause and a sense of belonging at some point in his life. When he'd been handed the deed on the night he married Paulina, he promised to keep the home just as those before him had. He had plans of raising a family in this home and someday passing it along to his son or daughter.
Paulina had fallen in love with Merced Manor from the first moment she saw it. For her, it was akin to the grandest castles in Spain. She used to dream of one day visiting a castle, so when the opportunity to not only live in something substantial like the manor was given to her, she couldn't have been more grateful. The home and the marriage were dreams come true for her.
After several hours, Milan had barely touched the surface of what needed to be done. He looked around, saddened by all the memories that were never made in the home. He and Paulina never had the opportunity to welcome a child or to host an event like the ones his family had held over the years.
The time they spent in the home was divine, for him. He had a beautiful wife. He would rush to get home to her every night and she would watch for him, out the window, so anxious for him to arrive. At the time, he believed that the life they lived was ideal. He believed her to be happy. It wasn't until the night it all had ended that he was met with a very harsh reality. One he still couldn't bring himself to admit happened and he doubted he ever would.
The longer he remained in the house, the harder it was to continue on without crying. Every item he touched, told so many stories. Milan worked feverishly to clear it out of the house. He hoped that if he left the items outside, someone would carry them away while he wasn't looking.
He had what he wanted from the house and it was taken away. At one time, he lived with security and honor. Now, what remained was a shell of the man he used to be. Milan - the Milan he'd worked hard to become - vanished in an instant and was replaced by someone who buried himself in work and avoided all physical contact and emotional connection because he'd allowed his heart to become hollow and deathly afraid of any connection with another human being.
At forty-years-old, his options for love and romance should have been open, but he shut himself off. He denied himself pleasure. Without his beloved Paulina, he wanted nothing. As visions of her swept through his mind, this time more urgent than ever before, he could no longer go on. His eyes stung from the tears he'd fought so hard to resist.
"I can't." He called out as he violently dumped out drawers from a credenza, sending all of the contents - precious heirlooms - crashing to the ground.
"Why?" He screamed, kicking over a cabinet that his grandfather purchased on one of their last trips to Maine one summer. The glass doors shattered, scattering all over the cherry wood floors.
Brushing his tears away with his dust covered hands, Milan yelled a guttural yell, every ounce of his pain, thundering through the walls and outside, startling the ladies who sat on the Johnson's front porch.
They shook their heads and clutched their hearts. Although they had anticipated a breakdown, they hadn't
figured that it would be one with such sorrow behind it. Mrs. Johnson's throat welled with emotion. She understood loss. She'd buried her beloved husband the same year that Paulina died. She knew the pain, Milan felt, but still wondered if he wasn't a bit tinged with guilt over all that had taken place.
As Milan pounded his fists on the plaster walls, his hands began to bleed, but that didn't matter. He needed to feel something other than heartache, he told himself. He continued pounding the walls and screaming and sobbing until he was completely spent and thought that he might finally succumb to the darkness.
He opened his eyes, seeing the devastation he'd created with his two hands. His anger would add weeks of work to the already daunting task ahead of him. Plaster from the walls had crumpled to the floor. Papers and fine porcelain and glass littered the floor in the formal living room. He'd destroyed a room that his wife adored because she was gone. He knew it didn't make sense and knew he would have to be the one to put it back together again.
An envelope caught his attention. Milan reached for it, trickles of blood falling onto it. The return address was from a doctor's office in Nashville. He wasn't familiar with the clinic and, as far as he knew, neither he nor his wife had any reason to see a doctor in Memphis. It was addressed to his wife, but listed her maiden name and not her married name.
"What is this?" He asked, opening it.
He gasped as he read it.
Why didn't she tell me?
He read it again, wiping his eyes, believing he'd read it wrong. He hadn't.
"What?" His breath quickened. He could feel his chest tighten. This didn't make any sense. He thought Paulina told him everything.
He rifled through more paperwork, looking for anything else that could explain what he was seeing, but found nothing. Again he looked at the papers, barely able to focus because his anger and his trembling hands were working against him.
Fresh tears spilled from his eyes, burning as they slid down his face. "Why didn't she tell me? Why?"
He threw himself back on the ground, holding his stomach as if he'd just been kicked in the gut. He remembered the date because it was shortly before Paulina died. She'd told him that she was going to meet some friends for lunch and that she would meet him in town at a small restaurant on the outskirts of town. He didn't question her. He had no reason to.
When she arrived, she looked troubled, but he assumed it was because she'd been running a little late. She was the kind of woman who worried about things like that. She always wanted to be amply prepared and fussed over things that others would just take for granted, but that's one of the things that he loved about her. She cared about others so deeply and never wanted anyone to feel sad or disappointed. Paulina was a nurturer.
Milan recalled what they ate because Paulina made a point to ask the chef how to prepare the meal. Since moving to the States, she'd developed an obsession with learning local cuisine and experimenting with different seasonings; hence, the gardens that extended beyond the iron gates behind the house. Those were her gardens, separate from the ones Milan's mother and grandmother had kept.
As he thought about that night, nothing that occurred that night would have led him to believe that something else was going on. They told each other everything. That was a promise they'd made early in their relationship - no secrets, no lies. The idea of ever doing anything to betray her, never crossed his mind. He knew that first moment that he saw her that he would breathe his last breath doing something to make her happy. Her happiness was his happiness. Nothing else in life mattered, except for her.
A new rush of tears overtook him. He clutched the documents, spilling his heart out onto them. Nothing in life had prepared him for this moment and he had no idea how to cope. Right now, he could do nothing more than to succumb to the horrific pain and experience a new, different sort of loss.
He rolled on the ground, barely able to breathe through his sobbing. He didn't even notice that he was no longer alone. He hadn't heard her come in and hadn't seen her standing there, looking down at him, broken up over what she was witnessing, torn between leaving quietly or remaining by his side to help him pick up the pieces of his life as best she could.
Milan let the documents slip out of his hand as he used the back of his hands to scrub the flood of tears off his face. A slow exhalation of air startled him, but he couldn't see clearly through his fog of emotion. He thought he saw a figure - a woman standing in the doorway, looking at him. He gasped, nearly choking on his fear.
"Who is that?" He yelled, rubbing his burning eyes.
The petite figure stepped forward. He rubbed his eyes with his shirt, trying to make out who she was.
"Who are you? Why are you in my house? Leave me alone!" Rage coursed through his veins. He didn't need a witness to his demise. "Get out!"
She bent down to retrieve the discarded papers, reading them. She gasped, then, whispered, "You've come home. You are home, Milan. I'm here now. I am here for you."
Chapter 5
"SARAH?" MILAN THOUGHT he recognized the voice.
"Yes, Milan. It's me. I'm here." Sarah soft voice always comforted him as a child. She had been such a huge part of his life when he was growing up. Although she was technically the cook, no one ever treated her as if she was just hired help. Sarah was a part of the family. She took care of the home, along with several other people, but she was so much more.
"What are you doing here?" Milan blinked feverishly to clear the dust, dirt, and tears from his eyes.
"You need help, Milan." She stepped forward, using a tissue to reach down and wipe his face.
His shoulders tensed as she touched him.
"Milan, it's me. It's going to be okay now. Let me help you. There's too much work here and, if what the busybodies across the street say is true, you can't possibly handle all of this on your own. You don't know this house like I do. I know every square inch of it. After nearly forty years of living and working here, I think I probably know the house better than you ever will." She held his face in her outstretched arms. "You are a mess. Why don't you get cleaned up? Is the water running here? Have you called the county about the electricity?"
Milan shook his head. In all the emotion of the day and the added distractions, he'd forgotten to call the utility companies and have services restored. She looked up at him, shaking her head.
"You can stay with me until you get things back in order here. You don't need to be alone in the dark here with no running water. Your grandparents would scold you right now if they could." She smiled, patting his arm. "Now, come with me. This isn't up for debate."
He laughed for the first time since he'd been asked to return to River's Bend. Sarah was right. In his haste to be rid of the property, he'd forgotten to think practically. Grabbing the now discarded forms, he tucked them into his pocket and grabbed his bag, following Sarah outside.
"What was your plan here?" Sarah pointed to the discarded items scattered on the porch and in the yard.
Milan shrugged, embarrassed to admit that he didn't have a plan.
"Okay, well, it should be okay until morning. Let's get going. You can follow me. I still live in the same cottage on Banner Road. I'll get you a good meal and you can clean yourself up and make yourself look like the handsome man I remember." She winked and walked out to her car.
Milan locked the doors and contemplated whether or not to put everything onto the porch. As much as he thought he wanted to get rid of everything, he didn't want people rifling through his stuff either. Not yet.
* * *
"THEN, WHAT?" SARAH set another full plate in front of Milan. "Eat."
Milan hadn't eaten like this in years. He'd forgotten how much he loved Sarah's cooking. She solved all of his childhood problems with a heart-to-heart conversation and a mug of one of her home brewed teas.
"I am eating." He answered. "Thank you. You didn't have to do this for me. I was prepared to stay at the manor."
She squinted her eyes at him, knowing
that he hadn't thought much beyond getting inside of the house. "No, you didn't and that's okay. I'm sure you've had a lot on your mind. Now, tomorrow, we can gather up some cleaning supplies and I'll get right to work, while you see about getting the utilities turned back on." She clapped her hands, indicating that the problem she knew Milan would make of it was solved.
Milan didn't have the energy to argue. His head hurt. His throat hurt. Every muscle in his body ached and he longed for a night's rest.
"Sarah, you really don't have to bother. It's my mess to clean up. I can hire a cleaning team to come out from Nashville and get the job done in just a matter of days." Milan said.
"What, and have strangers going through your mother's heirlooms and all of Paulina's belongings? Is that what you want? I can help you. I'm not doing anything that can't be rescheduled." Sarah tried to persuade him to listen to her.
Milan considered for a moment. Truth be told, he was worried that more secrets would come out. The documents from the doctor's office proved there was so much he didn't know about his wife and he wanted to find out for himself. Sarah would have no idea what was important to him and what wasn't.
"I can do it myself at first, then, if it gets to be too much, I'll hire a team to help me." Milan yawned.
"No." Sarah took Milan's empty plate and placed in the dishwasher before walking out of the kitchen, leaving him alone while she went to prepare her spare bedroom for him.
Milan went through a mental checklist of all the things that he had to get accomplished. His focus was waning. As hard as he tried to not think about the information he'd discovered, he couldn't keep the anger at bay. Just when he thought his well was full, something else pushed him further and further into his sadness.
Sarah placed her hands on his shoulders. "Milan, you should rest. Don't push yourself too hard. Take the time you need. I promise it will get better."
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