He knocked on the door again and waited, tapping his foot impatiently on the wood floor. Standing there, he looked around at the work she’d done on the place since he’d been in town last. There were rows of houseplants sitting along the sundeck in containers, mostly stuffed with red, white, and blue asters, their big and bold blossoms making a colorful statement. She’d put out a carved jack-o’-lantern with a crazy Igor-like face. It was so like her to remain grounded in the middle of madness.
The door popped open and she stood there, her hands on her hips, a rebellious attitude at the ready. “Yes, I got your texts, but I’ve had a rough week and I really, really, want to be left alone tonight. Is that so hard to understand?”
Mitch looked her up and down and noted she’d been crying. Just as ready for a battle as she seemed to be, he fired back, “It takes five seconds to reply to a text. If you didn’t want anyone, me, to come check on you, then you should’ve texted back.”
“Yeah. Well. Silly me. I’m not up on my text etiquette.”
“So the snotty attitude is back again?”
Instead of closing the door in his face as he’d expected, she opened it wider. “Okay. Fine. Let’s do this and get it over with, once and for all. Come on in. Would you like something to drink?”
A little stunned at the change of heart, Mitch stepped inside her living room. “A beer would be great.”
Raine went into the kitchen, brought back two bottles of nut-brown ale, handed one off to him.
She took a seat on one end of the couch as far away from him as possible and tucked her feet under her to get comfortable. “Go ahead, have a seat.” She deliberately took a deep drink from the bottle.
“Such a sweet invitation, but I don’t think so. Something tells me I won’t be around here all that long.”
“Suit yourself. So you were worried about me? Wow. Why?”
“Because I haven’t seen you since that night at the gun range. You said you wanted to talk. Now it seems you’ve changed your mind and decided to go into avoidance-mode.”
She took another drink of beer, hoping to find courage in the alcohol. “You’re right. I do need to tell you something, something I should’ve told you a long time ago.”
“Unless it explains why you hate me so much, what’s the point?”
“It does. Well, partly.” Raine took another deep drink. “I’m just gonna say it. You left out of here right after graduation. I mean we went through the whole commencement thing, walked across the stage at noon to get our degree, and by six o’clock that night you’d packed your bags and were gone. Is that a fair statement?”
“What was the big deal, Raine? You knew what my plans were all along. I told you about them for six months before it happened. I told you what I’d decided to do with my life. Not only that, two nights before graduation I reminded you about everything. After all this time, I still can’t figure out why you’re so upset about it. We said our goodbyes the night before we graduated.”
“That’s just it. I didn’t realize you were serious about leaving town and heading off on the first salvage boat that hit Sugar Bay. I didn’t realize you planned to take off and be gone for a year before I’d see you again.”
She took a deep breath to calm down. “Which I suppose is my fault. You did tell me your plans in detail and I, like an idiot, thought you were just blowing off steam. It never occurred to me you really intended to go through with it and be gone for good. But when you left on that salvage ship, what was the name?”
“The Outlander.”
“When you left on The Outlander, when you sailed out of port, I was pregnant with your baby. There, I said it. What a relief! It’s finally out. The day you left town without a backward glance, I was two months pregnant.”
Mitch was so stunned he had to grab the nearest chair for support and then folded himself into the cushion. “And you never bothered to mention this after a dozen years? So where’s our child?”
“Ah. That. Because luck always seems to be on your side, I had a miscarriage at eighteen weeks.”
Rage built so fast he was unable to sit. He got to his feet again, closed the distance between them. “Luck? What a horrible thing to say to me! And so unfair. You can talk to me like that when I didn’t even know. How was I supposed to know, Raine? How? Telepathy? I'm not a mind reader.”
“Well, listen to you. You’re outraged and taking on the role of the wronged party because you’re the one who left town and didn’t hang around to know. Am I right? I didn’t even have a way of contacting you. And as I recall, you didn’t even bother with a postcard until six months after you’d been at sea. I opened the mailbox one day right before Thanksgiving and there it was. Some card with a picture of Madagascar and on the back was your brief but cheery update about how great you were doing.”
“You could've told me instead of carrying around all this resentment toward me…for years. So don’t deny that part of it. I’ve been back in town for holidays off and on since I owned my own boat. You could’ve picked a dozen times, maybe more, to lay into me about this. But you chose to keep it to yourself and to keep building up the hate toward me. That’s what’s unfair!”
“I did, at one time, intend to ‘lay into you’ about it. But after the fact, what would’ve been the point?”
“I’ll tell you the point. Honesty. How many times did I ask you what was wrong? Why you were so frigging angry. I might not have been here for the miscarriage, but I damn sure gave you the opportunity to be upfront with me. Not only that, you could’ve told me before I left. Two months? You had to have known or at least suspected. What were you waiting for back then?” he shouted.
Her temper could match his. “And thank God I did keep it to myself. If you’d have known, you might’ve stayed around a place you obviously hate to marry me. If I’d told you back then, you’d have surely resented me. You’d have ended up resenting the child. Every day you spent confined on this island, you would’ve hated your life here. So don’t even try denying that.”
He couldn’t because that much was probably true. “Did your mother know?”
“Hard not to. She and my grandmother were completely supportive. Dr. Whitten knew because he treated me. After it happened I spent a few days with my cousin in Key Largo and then came right back to town, picked up my life at the taco shop as if nothing had happened. And later, I told Livvy after the fact. I needed someone to talk to and she was it.”
Mitch felt like he’d taken a punch to the face. “Livvy knew?”
“Yes. I think it’s the one thing that put us on the path toward a real friendship.”
He rubbed the pain in his forehead. “But your world had obviously turned on its end when you lost the baby.” He narrowed his eyes as if he’d just thought of something. “That’s why you left the room the other day at the restaurant.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Because I mentioned that my mom and dad were the only ones there who knew what it was like to lose a child. My God, Raine, I’m truly sorry.”
He paced a couple of steps away as if he meant to leave it at that, but then he turned back. “Look, is there any way we can get past this and stop yelling at each other every single time we get within five feet? I loved you once.”
“See, that’s what I don’t understand. You say you loved me. But you left me as though you couldn’t stand looking at anyone in this town for one more day. That included me, Mitch. I’ve tried to come to terms with how someone does that, to reconcile that kind of declaration of love, and then walking out as if three years together didn’t matter. But I just can’t do it.”
She went over and picked up her wallet, dug out the image she’d spent too many hours studying. “Here, I’ve carried this around for way too long. I think now it’s your turn. This is an ultrasound of the baby at sixteen weeks. That’s about four months. It was a little boy. After I got home from Dr. Whitten’s office that afternoon, I decided to name him Taylor…after his father.�
�
“My middle name.” Mitch stared at the black and white image on the sonogram and his heart cracked. He’d been a father and hadn’t even known about it. There’d been loss but he’d been shut out.
“Yes.” She bit her lip to keep from crying, but the tears ran down her face anyway. “About two weeks after that, I started having stomach cramps in the middle of the night. My mom called Dr. Whitten and he met us at the hospital. But it was too late. After he told me what had happened, I persuaded my mom and Dr. Whitten to call Daniel Shugart at the funeral home. I begged them to let me have some kind of service for Taylor. Daniel pointed out that they don’t usually do that for a miscarriage, certainly not one that happens at four and a half months. But I threw such a fit about it, that my mother and grandmother piled on and helped me convince Daniel to do it. I know it may seem like a silly teenage girl kind of thing…”
“No, it doesn’t. I wish I’d been there for you.”
She smiled. “I can see that now. I remember the service that day. The rain poured down in buckets as if even heaven was in tears. At least that’s the way I looked at it. I stood there under my umbrella thinking it was all a nightmare. But it wasn’t. We buried Taylor in the family mausoleum where my grandfather had been laid to rest. Later, we put Danny there when we received his body back from Afghanistan. And now a few rows over, Livvy and Ally and Blake rest nearby. At least now, maybe Taylor won’t be quite so alone.”
He reached to wipe her tears away. “Raine.”
She held onto his hand and kissed the palm. “I don’t blame you anymore. I can’t. I can’t go on carrying around all this anger inside me. It’s too heavy and too much work and takes way too much energy. And I’m sick of looking at myself in the mirror for doing it.”
Mitch plopped down on the sofa and took her into his arms. “Stop beating yourself up.”
“There’s something else. I spent hours rereading some of your cards and notes from high school. I think I might’ve misunderstood your words. You were telling me how much you loved the sea, how much it meant to you and I thought you were declaring your love for me. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, God, Raine, don’t think like that. I did love you. Do. I loved you in every way a teenage boy loves. We were so very young. I didn’t leave because I wanted to get away from you. I left because I wanted what all young men want. Adventure. To see the world. To experience more than Indigo Key had to offer. It wasn’t about you, Raine. It was an emptiness inside me if stayed here.”
“I know that now.”
“I wish you’d told me. I wish…things could be different between us. Not back the way they were, but—”
She put her fingers up to his lips. “Stop. We can’t change history, Mitch. What happened, happened, and there’s nothing either one of us can do to change it.”
When Mitch made the trip to the cemetery he didn’t go empty-handed. He pulled up to the same gates where his family had said goodbye to Livvy and her family less than a week earlier.
He shoved out of the pickup, grabbing the flowers he’d bought at the florist from the passenger seat. He headed toward the aboveground vault belonging to the Indigo line. He stood for a few minutes before placing part of the bouquet of lilies at the feet of the sculpted angel, the one raised on a pedestal with her arms outstretched in welcome. He knew she’d faithfully watched over those he’d lost over the years.
Too many, he thought now. But someone was missing.
Downhearted, he lumbered among the headstones toward the other side of the graveyard where the vaults were newer. As he approached the Manning family crypt, he tried to blank his mind and tamp down his emotions.
It had been there since the sixties, ever since Diane and Douglas Manning settled on island in 1962. The couple had bought a larger plot after Douglas Manning, Raine’s grandfather, had dropped dead of a massive coronary inside his taco stand.
Next to Douglas, Danny’s name had been etched into the marble headstone. But it was the other simple words Mitch studied. His eyes drifted to the name carved next to Danny’s that had been there for a dozen years without him even knowing it existed.
He’d had a son. Baby Boy Taylor.
Mitch didn’t plan it, but he dropped to one knee on the grass. He ran his fingers over the lettering as his eyes began to water. His vision blurred. It was impossible not to feel loss, a loss he’d known about for exactly one hour. There on bended knee, he struggled with his emotions, all the while trying to figure out how he’d tell his folks about another grandchild, dead in the ground before they even knew anything about him.
On board The Black Rum Mitch was in such a foul mood, the crew deliberately avoided him. Around seven that night, Walsh had had enough. He pounded on the door of Mitch’s private quarters just to see if he could get a response. The fact that he couldn’t pissed him off. If Mitch intended to ignore him, he decided there was only one thing left to do.
Stationed in front of Reiner’s cabin door, Walsh pulled out his cell phone and thumbed through his contacts. Since he considered Mitch like a brother, Walsh figured that if one family member couldn’t get the job done, maybe three would have better luck.
Fifteen minutes ticked by before Walsh looked up and spotted Garret and Jackson making their way down the narrow passage to Mitch’s cabin.
Walsh greeted them with a curved grin and a wink.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jackson asked. “Did he take a swing at Hugo?”
“Not yet.” Walsh thumbed a fist toward Mitch’s room. “I’ve never seen him like this. It’s like he’s possessed. What happened on shore?”
Jackson leaned back on the wall, lowered his voice. “Damned if I know. He went to find Raine and never came back to the meeting.”
“Ah.” Garret rocked back on his heels. “He must have found her all right. And it didn’t go well. If we want him to talk, we should get him drunk. That usually works.”
“Gotta get him to come out of his cabin first,” Walsh said. “Although he does have his own liquor cabinet in there.”
“I could pick the lock,” Garret pointed out. “But it is his personal space. He should be entitled to his solitude when he needs it. How long’s he been in there?”
“He came back in a bad mood over four hours ago,” Walsh answered.
“Then he’s had plenty enough time to pout,” Garret reasoned. “I know how to get a rise out of him. Watch the master.” He rapped on Mitch’s door while Jackson and Walsh stood back to take in the scene. “Hey, you in there, Raine told us what a total piece of shit you are.”
The insult worked its magic. The door flew open and Garret rushed past his brother. The two struggled in arm locks until Garret tossed Mitch back against the wall. He smelled whiskey and cut his eyes toward his audience. “Looks like the boss man has already been hitting the sauce.” He picked up an almost empty bottle of scotch, and held it up so the others could see.
“Kiss my ass,” Mitch slurred. “Now get out!”
“What the hell’s the matter with you? Now’s not the time to fall to pieces like this.”
Mitch staggered over to the bed, put his head in his hands. Quietly, barely above a whisper, he muttered, “Please, get out. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Walsh and Jackson stepped further into the stateroom, but it was Jackson who sat down next to his brother and threw an arm around his shoulders, if for no other reason than to hold the man up. “Did Raine do a number on you?”
Mitch let his head fall back against the headboard. “What did she tell you?”
Garret traded furtive glances with Walsh and took a seat in one of the chairs. “Let me guess, she finally told you why she carries all that hate inside her.”
Mitch finally looked up. “But you said…didn’t you talk to her?”
“Oh, that. It got you to open the door, didn’t it?” Garret reached back, took out a bottle of water from the compact fridge and handed it off to Mitch. “Drink this. You said if she ever gave up her sec
ret, we’d be the first you’d tell. So start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”
Hearing his words thrown back at him, Mitch drank half of the water to quench a dry throat. “Close the door,” he mumbled. He pointed a finger at Walsh. “Is Hugo secure?”
“That old man ain’t going anywhere. He’s locked in his cabin, good and tight,” Walsh promised. After closing the door, he went over to Mitch’s miniature galley and started a pot of strong coffee. “So what happened?”
Once Mitch opened his mouth the story came tumbling out in a mix of anger and guilt. He left nothing out as he recounted each painful detail. By the time he was done, tears dribbled down his cheeks.
Shock brought on silence that collapsed around the men like the ceiling had fallen in. The sway of the boat didn’t help. Each one felt a little sick at his stomach.
When Mitch tried to get to his feet, Jackson held him in place. “Let me get this straight. You were just beginning to start things back up with Raine again when she brought out the big guns from the past. Now you’re hurt and pissed off about it. Royally.”
Garret let out a laugh. “Do we need to remind you that you love this woman? You said so yourself not three nights ago.”
“What’s your point?” Mitch asked. “She could’ve contacted me, let me know what was going on.”
“Really?” Garret took a beer from the fridge, twisted off the cap, sat back. “I’m just curious. How was she supposed to do that exactly? You left end of May, right? I didn’t even know where you were until you called Mom around the Fourth of July. Remember? That summer everyone in town must’ve asked me five times a day where you were, including Raine. I didn’t know what to tell her. I didn’t know what to tell anybody.”
Jackson nodded. “I remember that. I came home from school for a week in between summer classes. Mom was worried sick. We knew you hadn’t been shanghaied because you’d packed up most of your belongings, clothes, and other stuff. You just up and left without a goodbye to anyone. In other words, if your own family couldn’t find you, then how the hell was Raine supposed to know how to reach you?”
The Indigo Brothers Trilogy Boxed Set Page 61