The taxi driver drove Mimi and Meg to Dallas. When they finally made it to The Omni Hotel, they were both exhausted and in desperate need of a shower and a rest.
What everyone said about the Big D was true. Everything was bigger. It looked like every building sparkled.
“Well, I can totally see what makes Texan men attractive,” Meg said as she flopped on the bed, pulled off her boots, and rubbed her sore feet. “That guy at the front desk was gorgeous.”
“Was he? I didn’t notice,” Mimi mumbled. She began unpacking her clothes and putting them in neat piles into the bedside drawer. She looked out at the view. Dallas was spectacular, but it wasn’t the place Joel had grown up. He hadn’t connected to the big city. He always said that he enjoyed the wide open spaces.
“Have you heard anything from Austin?”
“Nothing. I have checked my emails a thousand times. I guess I find it pretty rude. I mean, his brother is gone, and still he won’t make proper contact. I totally understand why Joel gave up…I still want us to go to the ranch, Meg. I told him we will be in town. If he sends us away, he sends us away, but I need to at least see the ranch.”
“Fine by me. We need to sort out a rental. By looking at the map, it’s quite a drive from here.”
“We can do that tomorrow.”
“You did bring your driver’s licence with you, didn’t you? Both parts?”
“Yup. I got everything we need. Good thing you asked me this before we left England,” Mimi teased.
“You know what I’m like.”
“I do. Right, you are the navigation expert. How about I drive and you co-pilot?”
“That’s fine, but you know that you are driving on the other side of the road, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know that, Meg. I drove a lot last time I was in the States.”
With Joel, when he was alive.
Mimi remembered how nervous she had felt when she set off for the first time on the righthand side of the road. It was after she and Joel had left Yosemite and headed to Monterey Bay.
She was a great driver in the UK, zipping in and out of traffic in her Fiat 500, but the American road was a different beast. Suddenly everything seemed bigger, meaner, and fiercer!
Her fingers felt clammy on the wheel. She remembered wiping her hands on her jeans several times before she pulled away.
“Just drive the same way you do back in London, only remember you are on the opposite side. Breathe and relax,” Joel had said.
That was a good day. After she set off, she suddenly became more confident with every mile she drove. She pressed harder on the accelerator, Joel’s hand resting on her knee. They were singing along to country songs and enjoying the road. When they had reached the Plaza, she was happy to pull into the valet parking and hand over the keys. Her shoulders felt stiff from how nervous she was, her eyes heavy from concentration. After they checked into the hotel, she took a shower and Joel crept in with her.
She loved how his strong hands felt on hers, the way he was so firm but so gentle. She loved the way he would run his fingers through her long dark hair and pull her in for a passionate kiss. The sound of his Texan accent when he whispered in her ear made her knees buckle.
It was on that trip that Joel had bought Mimi a little shell bracelet. It was tacky and they had laughed about it, but now she wore it as if it were the most precious item. She treasured it and hadn’t taken it off since Joel’s death.
***
Mimi and Meg drove out of the big city. Suddenly the roads became wider and the air was cleaner. They had picked up their rental and headed off to find the ranch. Mimi loved that Meg was with her on this journey, but she wished it was Joel sitting next to her. As the days since losing Joel went on, she found herself thinking of many different memories. Little things that she had forgotten came back to her. She brushed her fingers over her rings and spoke to him all the time. She wondered if widows ever took their wedding band off.
Three hours into the drive, Mimi was feeling tired and frustrated until Meg shouted, “That’s it, right there up on the left.”
Mimi looked across at the picturesque mansion sitting among rolling meadows. It was brimming with character and charm. She was instantly taken in by the rustic feel of the area. She saw cattle and horses on the land. This definitely wasn’t some rundown shack.
“Mimi…did you expect this?”
“No, no I didn’t. It’s beautiful. I’m confused as to why Joel would ever want to leave a place like this.”
They drove up the driveway. The crackling under the tires sounded like popcorn popping in a microwave. When they came to a stop, Mimi stepped out of the car, lifted her sunglasses, and rested them on her head.
So, this was her husband’s childhood home? This was where he learned to walk and talk. It was where he belonged to a family she had not met. A sharp pang of sadness hit her once more. She didn’t understand why Joel had never brought her to this place. Anybody would have been proud to call this home.
There was a light breeze. She inhaled the farm-scented air. She was trying to take in every single detail. Her thoughts were running away with her, and she suddenly felt overwhelmed about being in Texas, about trying to find out information about her husband, things she should have known. She wouldn’t admit, not even to Meg, how much that bothered her. She decided to keep her feelings on this matter to herself.
“So, do you want me to wait in the car?” Meg asked.
“No, you can come with me.” The sunlight bounced off the bonnet, making it difficult for Mimi to look at Meg. She held her hands over her eyes.
“Mimi, I’ll go if you really want me to, but I think you need to meet Joel’s brother without me, at least for your first introduction. You don’t know this guy or how he really feels about Joel. You being here is going to shake things up inside for him, whether he shows you that or not. They may not have been on talking terms, but they were still brothers.”
Mimi patted her hand on her back jeans pocket, checking she had her mobile with her. “Keep your phone on you in case I need to call you, please.”
Moments later, she began walking up the gravel path, her ballet flats crunching with every step.
She walked up to the front door. It was wide open. She didn’t want to go inside, but she couldn’t resist taking a peek. She was shocked. The place wasn’t basic, like Joel had told her. It was huge and it screamed wealth in a very cowboy Texan style.
“Hello…?” Mimi shouted.
Silence.
She walked around to the back of the property, where several horses were grazing. Suddenly, her heart skipped a beat.
Joel.
He was exactly the same height. He had the same emerald green eyes, but it was when he spoke that she suddenly couldn’t catch her breath. He was so like her husband yet so different.
“Are you Austin?” Mimi asked, her voice shaky.
He turned around to face her. He was dressed in a checkered shirt and jeans, wearing a belt with what looked to be a real gold buckle. His Stetson cast a shadow over his face.
“You must be Mimi,” he said. His voice was just like Joel’s. If she closed her eyes and just listened to that voice, she would think it was him.
“Yes, I’m Mimi. I emailed you to let you know I was coming.”
“Yeah, I got that,” he answered bluntly.
So why didn’t you reply?
He turned his back to her and picked up a rusty pitch fork from the long grass. Mimi felt out of her depth. She wanted to turn back and run, but she was here to find out more about Joel. She hoped that Austin would invite her in, but he didn’t even so much as look in her direction.
“I’m here to talk about Joel.”
“You came to the wrong place and the wrong person. Joel and I haven’t spoken for several years, so you’re shit out of luck with me.”
“I know you stopped talking, but you shared this home and your childhood together.”
“Until he left and left
me to deal with everything, yeah we did. Look, ma’am, I’m sorry for your loss and all, but really, Joel and I…well, there is nothing to tell you. I’m sorry, but you wasted your time coming all this way. Now, enjoy Texas, but I’d like you to leave.”
“Firstly, my name is Mimi. Don’t call me ma’am. Secondly, your brother is dead. I’m his wife. Don’t you think you could just spare a couple of goddam hours to talk to me?”
“No. I contacted you to pass on my condolences, but that’s where it stops. I didn’t invite you here and I’m certainly not travelling down memory lane to visit my dear brother.”
“Joel was right about you. Now I get why he stopped bothering with you,” Mimi snapped, tears springing into her eyes. She was trying desperately not to cry, and she didn’t want him to get the better of her.
Austin smiled a sarcastic smile. It infuriated Mimi further. She felt humiliated and completely disrespected, and moreover, deeply offended that Austin would act this way when his brother was dead.
The sun was low and it would soon be dusk. She found herself stuck. She didn’t want to just turn around and leave even though he had asked her to.
“I know you don’t know me. And you owe me nothing, but I am asking you to please talk to me. I feel broken inside. Again, that’s not your problem, but Joel was your brother and you shared this place together, a childhood. You are the only person on this planet connected to my husband, so I am begging you to please just give me some of your time.”
“Even if I did, it wouldn’t bring him back to you. Just leave, Mimi. Take the memories you have of Joel and leave. Trust me; it will be much better for you that way.”
“Do you know he was captured? Some son of a bitch captured him and took his life. I don’t know who that faceless asshole is. The Corps won’t give me any information, not a damn thing, and trust me, I’ve tried. So I have no idea how my husband actually died and there is no body, so I don’t get to say my goodbyes and give him a funeral. Right now, you, his brother, are the only person that can tell me anything and you won’t give me that?”
“I can’t give you what you want, Mimi.”
“You mean you won’t.” Mimi knew she had lost the battle. She squeezed her eyes shut and listened to his voice. They may have looked alike and sounded alike, but he wasn’t even close to Joel, not one bit.
Mimi managed to turn her back and take the hardest few steps in life she had ever taken.
She walked back to the car. Meg had the seat all the way back. She’d obviously drifted into a light slumber but startled upright when Mimi sat in the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her.
“Mimi…are you okay?”
“No, I’m not.” She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. She sobbed. Meg put her arms around her and let her friend cry. Her lips quivered. It felt like she was losing Joel all over again.
“It’s like I am not allowed to have him. They took him from me, Meg. That coldhearted murderer. The Marines, he gave his life to them and they won’t tell me a thing, and now his own brother is turning me away. What have I done to deserve this?” she howled.
“Mimi, behind you, honey.”
She turned her face to see Austin staring at her through the window. She quickly wiped her face with her hands and opened the door.
“Can we talk for a minute?” he said coyly.
“Shoot.”
“Alone.”
“She’s my best friend. Anything you want to say to me you can say in front of her.” Mimi leaned her body forward, staring at Austin.
“Look, Joel and I, there is a history. A complicated history. So much happened.”
“I know,” Mimi sniffled.
“You don’t know or else you wouldn’t be here. Look, come back here tomorrow, around noon, and we’ll talk.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Mimi. You may not like my side of things, but if it will help you move on with your life, then fine.”
As Mimi drove away from the ranch, she opened the window, letting the air run through her hair. Her mind raced. The way Austin spoke sounded like he was giving her some sort of warning.
She heard Meg take a deep breath. “How much did Joel tell you about his life? It just sounded like he had something to say. What, I don’t know.”
“I got that impression too.” Mimi was careful not to let her feelings spill out. She wasn’t ready to admit that she was worried Joel could have been holding something back from her.
She continued driving and didn’t utter another word until they arrived at a small bed and breakfast about thirty minutes away from the ranch.
When Mimi and Meg checked in, they both changed and sat on the two single beds. The room was aglow with sweet oil lanterns, giving it a cosy woodland feel.
The long car journey that day had left them both exhausted. Neither of them wanted to have a deep conversation, and it was evident between them that they both felt this emotional journey needed to take a break for the evening.
Mimi dressed in a white vest and grey PJ bottoms that were at least two sizes too big. She pulled the drawstring in as far as it would go so that she was able to keep them sitting just below her belly button. She turned on the old box TV. It was strange to think that just ten years ago, this television set would have seemed fitting with the times, but now, as technology had rapidly moved on, it looked almost antique.
Meg had fallen asleep almost straight away. Mimi was wide awake. She couldn’t remember the last time she had fallen into a restful sleep, even before Joel was killed. At night, her thoughts whirled around her head. She thought of a thousand different things. Had she emailed a client back? Had she paid her credit card bill? Where was Joel and was he all right?
Tonight, she was left with thoughts of Joel and Austin. They were brothers, they had once been close, but something had happened to them, something that split them in half. She thought of Larna. She couldn’t ever imagine not speaking to her sister.
Mimi had asked Joel so many questions about his family and how he grew up. He answered her, but suddenly she realised that he didn’t stay on the subject for very long. At the time, she put this down to the fact being a Marine was everything he was. She didn’t know what it was like to lose a parent like he had, but here, in the darkness of the night, having now met Austin, she was left feeling confused and worried.
Mimi was never the greatest fan of secrets in relationships. She felt they could destroy trust. She had seen many of her friends go through this.
When she finally closed her eyes, for the first time, she didn’t see Joel’s face. She saw Austin’s.
Chapter 7
The next day, Mimi and Meg were up early. They wandered through a small town called Willow Creek. It was as quaint as its name suggested, with a selection of adorable shops. They passed a flower shop. The perfumed smell of roses spilled onto the pavement.
A small stationery store caught her eye. Mimi walked in alone while Meg went to grab something to eat. A large woman with thick glasses looked up at her and smiled.
“Let me know if you need anything,” she said, and then carried on scribbling some notes into a pretty notebook.
Mimi loved stationary. Over the years, she had collected tons of cute items, from pens to Post-it notes in the shape of hearts. When she had sent care packages to Joel, she always made sure that her letters were written on the finest of paper. She had handwritten everything, feeling it was much more personal. There were times when he had Wi-Fi and they were able to communicate by email, but on the nights that were particularly hard and lonely, she always wrote him a letter and filled her packages with anything she thought he would like.
The last letter she had written him was still sitting back at her flat in Finchley. She couldn’t remember what she had even written, and it saddened her to think that he would never open that envelope and would never read her words.
“That there is handmade by me,” the lady in the shop said, peeking over the tops of her gl
asses.
“It’s beautiful,” Mimi said. She was holding a leather-bound cream journal.
“It’s just waiting to be written in.”
“How much is it?” Mimi asked, expecting it to be expensive.
“Twenty-five dollars,” she replied.
“Wow…okay, well, I’ll have to take it.” She set the journal on the counter and pulled out her purse to pay.
“What will you write in it?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Mimi sighed.
The lady looked down at Mimi’s left hand. “Keep it away from your husband. A man can be pretty curious when it comes to his wife’s journal.”
Mimi almost opened her mouth to tell her that she was a widow, but she stopped herself. She didn’t want to stand there and have a pity party. She had enough of that back home. She just wanted to feel normal and at least pretend that all was well with her, even if inside she was a train wreck.
“Well, thank you for stopping by. Whatever you write, make it a good one!”
“I will. Thank you.”
Mimi left the shop, clutching the brown paper bag holding the blank journal, looking up and down the road in search for Meg, but she couldn’t see her. Just as she headed back to the car, she saw the back of a man that was familiar to her.
The man was loading the back of his truck with supplies of animal feed. She stood in the distance watching him and hoping he wouldn’t notice she was there, because if he saw her, she wouldn’t know what to say. He was tall and muscular and there was something in his eyes that said he was dark and moody. She hoped to later find out more about her brother-in-law.
***
A couple of hours later, Mimi had showered and was preparing for her meeting with Austin. She dressed casually in a pair of dark jeans and a loose white shirt. She tied her long hair in a ponytail. Meg felt Mimi needed to do this alone and opted not to come. She would, of course, be waiting in the wings for her, ready to wipe any tears should there be some.
“Let him do all the talking. Hear what he has to say, and then ask as many questions as you need to. Remember, I’m right here waiting for you,” Meg said.
Till Death Us Do Part Page 5