The Secrets Amongst the Cypress

by Cradit, Sarah M.

  “We can ask him,” Finn replied. “But if Aleksei wanted to see her, he’d tell us.”

  “He turned away from her because he felt responsible for the rest of us. And we let him. We wanted Aleksei to feel capable of deciding for himself, but I’ve been sick about it ever since.”

  “I know.” Finn, in fact, had thought about this a great deal since they’d left Ireland. He wasn’t ready for his son to start dating, but he was less interested in him having his heart broken. “Let’s talk to him.”

  “Okay.”

  Ana went silent, and together they listened to the building storm. When she broke the quiet, she said, “We have to stay close to Amelia and Jacob. Those weren’t only pretty words we spoke when we found them. I’ve never felt a greater call to anything.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir, darlin’,” Finn replied. “I have a strong sense they’re about to become an important part of our lives.”

  “I never had many girlfriends growing up. I didn’t miss the absence of them because I had Nic and Oz. And Amelia and I, we were always friendly, but hardly close. More so maybe than the other cousins, but not much.” She propped herself higher on the pillow, and as she did, her hair fell back over her shoulders in a way that stole Finn’s breath. Oh, how he had missed her. Wished for moments when it was only them and their solitary stress revolved around what to choose for dinner. “When I reminisce about her now, I think, this is the woman I could tell everything to.”

  “I’m happy to hear that,” Finn said. “I think Jacob and I also have a lot in common. We both married crazy Deschanel women, for one.” He dodged a punch that didn’t come.

  Instead, Ana rolled over the top of him, letting the tips of her hair tickle his forehead, cheeks, chin. Her hand snaked between them, squeezing. “Crazy? I never heard you complain about crazy before.”

  “Oh, no,” Finn agreed, lacing his fingers around the small of her back as she fumbled with his boxers. “And you never will.”

  XL

  Jacob couldn’t take credit for the house. While he and Amelia slept off the journey for the past week, Colleen had arranged to have the home completely cleaned and made ready for their arrival. Jacob’s role had been to ensure there was nothing in the house that might be upsetting or triggering. He hadn’t found anything like that. Only the best of his memories.

  When Amelia sashayed in the door, her face lit up. It was all the validation Jacob needed to know he’d made the right choice.

  Miss Kitty jumped into Amelia’s arms before she could say a word. “Aw, how I’ve missed my sweet girl!” she cooed, planting kisses all over the kitty’s white fur. She lifted her, inspecting a newfound pudge. “But I think my mother might have spoiled you a wee bit much.”

  “No one ever accused Colleen Deschanel of treating her cats any different than her humans,” Jacob said, smiling. “Looks good, yeah?”

  Amelia set the cat back down on the oak floor and checked around. “We’ve had so many memories here. Good, bad. Mostly, good, right?”

  “Those are the only ones that matter to me,” he answered, handing her a beer. “The worst of it happened away from our doorstep.”

  “Thankfully,” Amelia agreed. She took a long swallow of her beer. “We’re only a few blocks from Ana and Finn. That gives me comfort, too.”

  “Me too. And actually, I invited them over to dinner tomorrow night.” He braced himself for her reaction but couldn’t say why. Jacob hated the eggshells still littering the path between them.

  “Did you?” She finished off her drink and smiled. “Good.” Glancing around the house, she appeared as if searching for something else to comment on. They never had, not once in their entire relationship, ever worked so hard seeking something to talk about.

  Jacob sensed she was afraid, but of what?

  Of him?

  Of being alone with him?

  “Blanca.”

  “Yes?” she called but continued her casual perusal of the house that had not changed since she’d left.

  “I love you.”

  He didn’t know if these were the right words, or the wrong words, just that they were the only words.

  Amelia set the empty bottle on an end table and slowly turned. As her face came into view, he saw now the distress painted in the rosiness of her cheeks, and the sad, wide arc of her eyes. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

  Jacob set his own drink aside and approached her, slowly but less tentatively than he had in recent days. “Amelia, how on earth could I ever be angry with you?”

  She hung her head. “For not being strong enough to fight what’s happening to me. I’m a doctor. I know what I’m supposed to do, and I don’t know why I can’t.”

  “You can,” he insisted, running his hands over her arms. “And I know that because you have. I don’t have your education on the matter, but I understand we’re not meant to get over the worst of our lives in a heartbeat. It took me years to unwind the awful abuse my father inflicted, and sometimes I think I still am. Strength is moving forward, it isn’t forgetting.”

  “All I want,” she cried, letting loose the tears he knew she’d kept at bay for his sake, “is to be your wife, Donnelly. We hardly even got to enjoy it before our happiness was taken from us.”

  “Nothing was taken from us,” Jacob pressed. “Nothing, Blanca. Listen to me, we are changed, but everything we go through, good and bad, does that. No one can take from us what we aren’t willing to give. And I’m sorry, but Baldur may have set us back, but he left with nothing.”

  Amelia’s eyes widened at the anger in Jacob’s voice. “You took a life. For me.”

  “A life I wish I’d taken the moment I laid eyes on him,” Jacob hissed. “I would do anything to go back to when I saw him with his hands on you in that glen.”

  Amelia waved her arms across the room, gesturing to years and years of a life built together. “How do we move on from that, though? How do we pretend we’re the same people?”

  “We don’t,” Jacob said, lacing his hands under her mane of white hair, at the nape of her neck. “We move forward. If we can endure growing up together and not killing one another, I think we can get past anything.”

  Amelia sniffled, laughing. “You were pretty insufferable in your formative years.”

  “Can’t say you were a real walk in the park, either.”

  Amelia threw her arms around Jacob’s neck and pressed her face to his cheek. The act was desperate, but he also knew, utterly real. “I want so badly to be close to you again… to be… intimate.”

  Jacob knew this feeling all too well. How many times over the years had they used their heated, passionate moments in the bedroom to heal a wound, or mend a fight? They had never needed anything but each other, and that had never been truer than now when intimacy wasn’t yet an option. “I don’t need you to be ready until you are,” he whispered against her temple. “I only need you. You’re my best friend, Blanca. You were before I ever knew I could love you as more.”

  Amelia’s sobs erupted in an unstoppable wave, and she buried her face against his chest. He held her like that, in the room where they’d shared the best moments of their lives together, whispering promises of better times.

  “I’ve loved you forever,” he told her.

  “Then love me forever,” Amelia answered, and wrapped herself deeper into his arms.

  DAY

  SEVENTEEN

  XLI

  The toast was unanimous: new alliances. New beginnings. A united family.

  And that’s what they were now: a united family. Amelia and Ana chatted in the natural way of lifelong friends, and Jacob and Finn already had the role of incorrigible husbands down to a science. Finn wondered at how easily they’d fallen into these roles, with people who had been only casual members of their life before. But he also cherished it.

  To make situations even better, Aleksandr was spending the weekend with his grandfather, building a relationship neither Ana or Finn ever th
ought would be possible given the man’s unfailing pragmatic view on the world.

  Maybe normal wasn’t so far out of reach, after all.

  “Nicolas is back,” Amelia said, passing the okra to Ana. “Did you know?”

  “I heard,” Ana said. “But not from him. He’ll dislike what I have to say about that oversight.”

  They both laughed. Jacob sent a questioning look to Finn, who shrugged. Even now, he didn’t understand the nature of the relationship between Ana and Nicolas… probably for the best.

  “I saw Katja today,” Amelia continued. She smiled at Finn as he refilled her wine glass. “Sebastian has grown so much. He might be Aleksei’s size and age if you’re looking for someone for him to pal around with. They both have that abnormal growth spurt in common. Maybe they could bond over that.”

  “What about Stella?” Finn asked. “Wasn’t she the twin who disappeared?”

  “My mother has our best resource on it,” Amelia said, with a sad look. “And Quillan Sullivan is still missing as well. But Mom says one good thing has come out of that situation, at least.”

  They all looked up.

  “The Sullivans are finally willing to accept who they are, and that they share our gifts and our ancestry. Mom even thinks there might be a Sullivan on the Council when a spot opens up.”

  “Wouldn’t that be something?” Ana said, taking a bite of salmon. “And Oz? Now that Nicolas is back, is he still out at Ophélie?”

  “I don’t know, but Ashley is staying in his house. And Oz and that Empyrean girl he’s been hanging with…”

  “Lucia,” Finn answered.

  “Yes, Lucia,” Amelia agreed. “They’re still focused on teaching the Empyrean children who didn’t run away and waiting for the others to return.”

  “Those kids are long gone,” Finn said.

  “Probably,” Ana said. “But I’ve never known Oz to walk away from a lost cause.”

  They spent the next hour sharing similar stories, catching up on what the family had been up to while the four had been away. It had all the makings of a casual family dinner, but beneath the surface, they were each thinking of the world beyond.

  After the dishes had been washed, Ana declared she and Amelia were going for a walk. They were gone before the men had a chance to ask if they could join.

  “What do you suppose that’s about?” Finn asked, handing Jacob a dish to put away.

  “I don’t know,” Jacob said. “But I think Amelia needs someone to talk to about everything. Anybody who’s not me.”

  “Ana, too,” Finn replied. “I guess I can relate. Once Ana came into my life, I never had much chance to catch up to the changes. You and I, we both grew up like any other normal kid.”

  “I was an orphan,” Jacob said with a short laugh. “But I get where you’re coming from. And it’s fine. I wouldn’t trade normal for a life without Amelia or her family, but sometimes I do need a sanity check.”

  “Right. Exactly that.”

  Jacob leaned against the counter. “Life was somehow easier when it was her and not me. When I was just the understanding man in her life, not the one turning the tricks. Does that make sense?”

  “Oh, it does,” Finn said, grabbing two beers from the fridge. “I totally agree.”

  “They had their whole lives to be who they are, and we’ve had, what, weeks? Months?” Jacob took the drink offered and shook his head. “I don’t know. We are who we are, though, I guess.”

  Finn tipped the neck of his beer toward Jacob’s. “So it seems.”

  “What about your brother?” Jacob asked. “Can you talk to him about it?”

  “It’s complicated,” Finn said, and they both laughed. “He and Ana have a past, and he did some things… things that are hard to forgive. I know he’s not a bad man, at heart, and he seems to have something good with Anne. But it’s not the way it was when we were younger.”

  “Amelia said he’s moving here?”

  Finn shrugged. “Who knows? Anne is moving into the house she inherited as part of the Deschanel Trust, and he says he’s staying. For now. He’s good with Aleksei, so I suppose that’s something.” Finn finished off his beer and cocked his head, looking at Jacob. “What about you? Do you have any siblings?”

  “Aye, I did,” Jacob said before he remembered to squash his Irish lit. “But my Pa killed ’em.”

  “Holy shit,” Finn said. He reached, wordlessly, into the fridge to fetch Jacob another beer. Sensing Jacob would rather forget than remember, he asked, “Do you fish?”

  “Not well.”

  “Want to learn?”

  Jacob looked down, smiling to himself. Finn couldn’t read his thoughts, but he thought maybe they matched his. “Yeah, man. That would be cool.”

  XLII

  They strolled in silence down St. Charles at dusk. Having spent their lives in New Orleans, in the Garden District, both women instinctively knew this was a sacred, magical time of day along the avenue. The fireflies danced along the branches of the trees, and gaslights began their flicker for the long night.

  Ana didn’t know where they were headed until they got there. Audubon Park was beautiful this time of day, and she said that, as they passed through the gates. “Oz and Adrienne used to come here. There’s an oak somewhere near the front of the park. It was their tree.”

  “That one.” Amelia pointed to an old oak with a long branch sweeping the ground like a seat. “Oz told me a lot of things when he visited me during those long months of emperilment.”

  “That’s right,” Ana said, nodding. “It must have been a very confusing time for you.”

  “I don’t know if it was more or less confusing than how I feel now, but I’m glad it’s over.”

  “Adrienne was a beautiful soul,” Ana said, moving toward the branch. “But she wasn’t like us. She wasn’t strong. Was she?”

  Amelia ran her hand over the soft bark. “Why are we here, Ana? I enjoyed the walk with you, but I know we didn’t come out here for small talk. Neither of us have ever been very good at it. And I’m an empath. I can sense your anxiousness.”

  Ana laughed. “It’s a wonder we weren’t always closer, Amelia. We’re so much alike. I suppose we were when we were little.” She breathed in the fresh, floral air. “We have another thing in common.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ve been to hell and survived it,” Ana answered. She fell into the arm of the branch, enjoying the light feeling of surrender that came over her. “Our men have, too. They watched us suffer and were helpless to stop it. That’s a whole special section of hell. But we can’t talk to them about it, can we?”

  Amelia frowned. She turned toward the sound of ducks coming off the pond. A hundred wings flapped in a flutter. “No. And I hate it. I’ve never not been able to talk to Jacob. You’d think this would be no different. We were both there.”

  “You may have been in the same room, but Jacob, much as he may have wanted to, was unable to take your place. As Finn couldn’t take mine,” Ana said, gesturing to Amelia to accept a seat next to her on the branch. “It kills them. I think it frustrates them, too, that we don’t talk about it, but it hurts them more when we do because they’re reminded of it over and over again, and of their own perceived inadequacy.”

  Amelia started to rebut, then slowly nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. They blame themselves, which isn’t true or fair at all, but when they do, it makes the subject even harder to talk about.”

  “And we have to,” Ana insisted. “We have to, Amelia. Madness runs in our family, especially among the women. So does stubbornness. We’re notorious for letting our emotional wounds fester until they become something worse. We can’t let that happen. For our sake, and for theirs. I have a son to protect as well. If you’re being honest with yourself, you will more than likely have a daughter to think about soon.”

  Amelia’s hand slid to her stomach. Ana guessed she was thinking about the child she’d lost. They could talk about this. It was t
ime to stop bottling their horrors. “I think, maybe, that’s what’s been hardest for me in moving on. We’re natural caretakers, women, and we always think of others first. I’ve neglected to take care of myself, and I know, from my training, that self-care is more important than anything else.”

  “The way you can help him is to get better. This is how I can help Finn, too. They’re helpless, Amelia. No, I don’t mean they’re incapable. We married two of the most capable men in the world, as far as I’m concerned, but they’re helpless about this matter. If we want to protect them, we need to shield them from the worst of us. We need to experience it. We have to. But we must do it on our own.”

  “They think they have to protect us,” Amelia conceded. The words seem to come to her as she said them, a slow blanket of realization. “But they can’t. Not from this. But we can save them.”

  “In shielding our husbands, we also protect ourselves,” Ana agreed. “I don’t know what’s next for us, but neither of us are completely ready for it, in the state we’re in. We’re angry at the world, at ourselves. And maybe we should be. But it isn’t helping either of us.”

  “No,” Amelia said, looking down at her hands. “And I’m sick of it. Tired of feeling like a victim of the universe’s cruelty instead of being in charge of my own destiny.”

  “Then let’s change that.”

  Ana held her hand out. Amelia took it.

  “We’re sisters now,” Ana said. “For better or worse. Though, more than likely, the latter.”

  Amelia smiled. “Heaven help the asshole who tries to cross us.”

  Ana laughed. Letting loose was good… uplifting.

  “There’s something else on your mind,” Amelia pressed. “Sorry. Habit.”

  Aidrik. Could Amelia really be the one with whom she could finally share this secret?

  Yes, she decided.

  DAY

  EIGHTEEN