Till Death Us Do Part

by Cristina Slough

  “Yes. He was told this morning. I think he wasn’t told straight away because of his condition. They wanted to make sure he could take the news that you’d been hurt.”

  “My parents are here,” Mimi said, swiftly changing the subject.

  “I bet you were glad to see them?”

  “Yes. I didn’t realise how much I missed them. I was so swept up by everything.”

  “I think anybody could forgive you for that.”

  “How’s Jake?”

  “He’s good. He misses you. Keeps asking where you are and stuff.”

  “What have you told him?”

  “I told him that…” Austin was interrupted by a nurse who walked into the room.

  “Mimi, there is a phone call for you.” She handed her the handset.

  Mimi held the phone up to her ear, fully expecting to hear her sister’s voice. She’d wanted to come out too but in the dead of the night, things had been too rushed for her to make the trip from Yorkshire to London.

  “Baby,” the voice said.

  Joel.

  His voice was as smooth as butter, like a song she had known and could recite all the words to but had not heard for a long time.

  By the look on her face, Austin knew who was on the other end of that phone. He respectfully stroked Mimi’s hand and drifted out into the hallway. This time he wasn’t going to leave. He decided he needed to face things head on. He decided he needed to finally face his brother. The time had come.

  Mimi’s bottom lip began to tremble. She was overcome with emotion.

  “Mimi, are you there?” he asked

  She started crying. A lump got caught in her throat that was making it hard for her to speak.

  A sharp feeling of guilt stabbed her.

  She imagined him in a land faraway, expecting her to be there waiting for him.

  “Joel,” she finally managed to say. Her head was spinning and suddenly she couldn’t see the room clearly because of the tears filling her eyes and spilling down her face. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I told you I was coming back. Remember on our honeymoon? I made you a promise.”

  How could I forget?

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “I mean, I was the one fighting a war and it seems you are worse off than me,” he half joked.

  “I’m fine. Joel, what happened to you? They told me you were dead.”

  “I can’t say over the phone. I’ll tell you everything when we are together.”

  “This is real?” She thought of how Joel had been a ghost to her. She was haunted by memories, dreams so dark and vivid. A series of events had led her to this moment where his voice was real and he was keeping his promise; he really was coming home to her.

  She cradled the phone tightly, hanging onto his every word. She wondered if he could hear the guilt in her voice. What if he knew she had slept with his brother? And what reasons would he give her about not telling her about his son? There were so many questions unanswered. A lie hanging between all of them, making her loyalties constantly sway.

  “You kept me alive. It was all about you, getting back to you. Keeping my promise. I promise you, Mimi, from now on, I’m staying with you.”

  She took a deep breath, her heart pounding, her voice trembling. “There is so much to talk about,” she managed to say.

  “Mimi…I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”

  They knew the secret was out. Neither of them addressed it, not over the phone. It was something that needed to happen in person, when they were together, a time she thought would never come again.

  ***

  Later, when Austin sat sipping his fifth cup of coffee in the hospital cafeteria, he caught sight of a woman bearing a striking resemblance to Mimi, only much older. There was no doubt the woman was her mother. She’d caught him staring at her. It was as if there was a magnetic pull between the two of them. He knew who she was, and she knew who he was.

  When she headed toward the table, he stood up. There was a moment of silence between them.

  “You must be Mimi’s mom?”

  “And you must be Austin?” He was relieved that she didn’t label him as Joel’s brother. It told him that Mimi had confided in her. She knew.

  “I’d thank you for looking after my daughter, but it’s not as if she is in the best shape.”

  “I’m sorry…I know this is all my fault. The accident, the...”

  “I don’t blame you. This is just how things were meant to happen. The most important thing is that she is alive and she will recover. Nothing else after that really matters.”

  “I think it matters,” he answered, his eyes fixed on hers.

  Kanchana slid into a seat and invited Austin to sit next to her.

  “I was with my daughter when we had been told your brother had been killed. I saw the way it destroyed her. I was with her in the nights that followed. I wish I could rescue her from the pain. No matter what I said or what I did, it could not offer her any comfort. When she decided to come here to Texas, I was upset because I was the one that wanted to fix her. However, I put my feelings aside and put hers first. Deep down, we both knew that this was a journey that she had to take. It was you that seemed to put her back together. You gave her hope in her life, in her heart.”

  She remembered how unneeded she had felt. She had shared her feelings with Simon, and as usual, he had told her she was being too harsh on herself, too sensitive. She knew that Mimi was a strong girl, but she had never truly known how strong until now.

  “Do you have feelings for my daughter?” The question came out of the blue. Asked so boldly and directly, it had taken him off guard.

  He didn’t have time to think about how to answer the question when suddenly he blurted the words out. “I’m in love with her.”

  He almost felt embarrassed by how he let his feelings so out in the open.

  “You hardly know her.”

  “I know her enough.”

  “How so?” she asked. He could feel her eyes burning into him. Suddenly, he felt hot. It was as almost as if this were some kind of test.

  “Does anybody have the actual words to explain? It was the moment I met her. She’s got such a way about her, a way that I wouldn’t be able to describe to you. I guess I feel like she feels familiar, like I have always known her.”

  Kanchana nodded. She knew how people have always spoken about her daughter. She loved both of her daughters equally. She knew Mimi was a people magnet, never short of friends and never short of people who wanted to be with her, and yet, she only ever allowed a select few in.

  The smell of hospital food began to filter through the air, burnt toast and the fumes of overcooked meals. Slowly, people started to drift in, visitors with heavy, tired eyes and doctors floating like zombies from the graveyard shift, taking in a hot meal before they clocked off.

  “This should all be a miracle. Your brother is alive and he is coming home to his wife. Yet it isn’t because something has changed in my daughter since she met you. I’ll always support her choices. I’m her mother, and I’ll always be there for her.”

  “I know I can give her a good life,” Austin said with conviction.

  “Perhaps you will,” she continued. “I know she can’t come home for a while. Back to England, I mean. So it will be up to you to prove that.” She raised her eyebrows.

  “I’ll do that. And if she wants to leave with Joel, it will break my heart, but I will still make sure her needs are taken care of.”

  It was in that moment that Kanchana knew Austin really did love her daughter. He was willing to let her go, if that’s what she wanted.

  “I need to get back to Mimi. I trust you know about Joel’s arrival back to the States?”

  Austin lowered his eyes and nodded. “I know.”

  “Thank you for talking to me, Austin. Maybe we will meet again.” She extended her hand out to his and they shook.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  Chapter 23


  Joel

  Coming Home

  Joel crossed the gravel driveway, his boots crunching over the stones. Everything looked the same. It was just as he had remembered it. He felt the warm breeze blow over his skin. The smell of his childhood hung in the air, and it was no longer welcoming. He yanked at his jacket and pulled it off because of the sudden wave of heat flushing over him.

  He stopped midway up the path. There, in front of him, was the ranch, the sunlight filtering through the trees, the horses and cattle grazing the fields that surround the house. This had once been his territory, the place he called home, but in the years since he left, he had never found home in a place, only in his wife.

  Whenever he thought of Mimi, his heart grew, and it gave him the determination to fight any battle, any emotion, so long as it meant she was there waiting for him at the end of it. It had been ten days since he was last able to speak to her. When he found out she had been in a car accident, he was desperate to get back to her, even if that meant he would put his own life at risk.

  She had sounded different on the phone. Her voice belonged to her, but her pitch sounded cool, not like the warm, loving Mimi he was used to. His heart had sunk, but he tried to reassure himself that it was just the shock. Then, there was the nagging doubt at the back of his mind that his brother had poisoned her thoughts against him. He was unsure if she knew about Jake.

  He knew it was selfish, keeping this information hidden from her for all this time. With Mimi, he felt like he had made a brand new life. He didn’t want the tragic events from his feud with his brother and a child he was too young to have to be woven into their future.

  She had never pressed too hard for the details. He was able to pacify her curiosity by blaming his younger brother for not wanting any contact. He had lied to her by saying he tried to reach out to him, but it was clear the door would never be able to be re-opened again. He never imagined that fate would have brought him back to the beginning. Never did he think, in Mimi’s grief, this is where she would have turned.

  He glanced up at the porch and saw her. She was as beautiful as the day he left her, but for the first time he felt afraid, petrified of the strength of emotion he felt. She slowly moved down the steps.

  They said nothing. They were caught up in a moment of disbelief. It was as if this was another one of Mimi’s vivid dreams and she fully expected to wake up, only it wasn’t not a dream. It was real. Joel kept his promise and he really had come back to her.

  He reached out his arms and she slowly moved toward him. She fell into his arms, unsure of what she should be thinking or feeling. She couldn’t control the tears that fell.

  He said nothing. Instead, he wrapped his arms tighter and tighter around her slender frame. She was so fragile, like a bird that lost her way. Her head spun as he gently kissed her forehead.

  ***

  Mimi

  She looked deeply into his eyes, the eyes she believed to once be so true and sincere. Her heart beat fast, and all of her doubt fell away for a few seconds. She didn’t want to believe he was capable of keeping such a secret. When she thought he was dead, it was easy for her grief to push him aside, but now, as she was cradled in his arms, she just wanted him to be the man she said I do to.

  She had felt in the days after he’d first gone missing that part of her had died every day she waited for him. There was a connection between them that was so powerful. Today she was a step closer to finding out the truth. There was a chance she could get past this. They could work through the web of lies together, finally exorcising the demons of his past.

  But then there was Austin. He had been the one to pick up the tiny pieces of her broken heart. She tried to learn to live without Joel, but it only ever seemed to be possible if she had Austin’s arms to fall back into.

  She had no idea what she felt or who she was the day her heart failed her. That day it felt as if it had been torn apart and she’d given a piece to Joel and a piece to Austin. It left her with no direction to follow. And as she inhaled the familiar scent of her husband and felt drunk on emotion, she knew everything in her life was riding on Joel’s version of the truth.

  Later that afternoon, after the tears had finally dried up and the shock of seeing each other had mellowed, they went for a walk through the land surrounding the ranch. Mimi stopped halfway through, her breath becoming short. The heavy weight of the accident’s wrath reminded her that she was not in the fighting shape that she was just a few short weeks before.

  They sat among the overgrown shards of grass. She felt the coolness of the damp soil on the palms of her hands as she gently lowered her body to sit. The sunlight was beginning to disappear, marking the end of a long day, the warmth giving way to the gentle chill of the dusk setting in.

  There were so many questions that she wanted to ask, each thought aching for the truth.

  As she glanced at Joel, he had a faraway look in his eyes. Both of them knew the words that should be spoken, but neither of them broke the strained silence between them.

  “What happened out there? They told me you were dead,” Mimi whispered.

  “In truth, I should be. Mimi, that day will never leave me. It was as if I was alive and then I was dead…only I wasn’t. I know that makes no sense.”

  “It sort of does,” she said, her head resting on her knee.

  His hand lay flat on the grass. She longed to reach out for it. Before, it would have been the most natural thing in the world. Now, the distance between them and the truth that had risen to the surface had made the simplest gesture tangled with doubt. Only the sound of chirping crickets filled the brief silence.

  Mimi’s voice was quiet and low when she said, “I know Jake is your son.”

  “He told you,” Joel said in a tone that could have easily been mistaken for anger.

  “I’ve tried to think of a thousand different reasons why you never told me. I have given myself a million more excuses, but the truth is…you lied to me.”

  She heard Joel inhale deeply. She felt her anxiety rise to the surface once more.

  “I thought about telling you so many times,” he finally said.

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I was selfish, I guess. I wanted to leave all of this behind,” he said, throwing his hand backwards.

  “You have a son. A smart, wonderful, little boy called Jake.”

  “I know his name,” he said quickly, almost trying to defend himself.

  “We talked about children of our own, so would you have just up and left them and me?”

  “God no, of course not. I would never, ever leave you.”

  “But you could leave behind a little boy and never give him a chance of knowing his real father?”

  “Sara was sleeping with both of us. He could have been either of ours.”

  Blood rushed to her ears. She twisted her body and faced Joel, looking squarely at him.

  “You knew he was yours. DNA results don’t lie, do they?” He gave her no answer to her question. “How could you?” she said. Tears started to sting her eyes.

  “I was so young. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea what I was thinking. It has nothing to do with us.”

  Mimi felt her grip tighten. The surge of emotion felt too much to handle.

  “Did you ever really love me?” she asked.

  “What? I loved you and I still love you. Mimi, you are my wife. It was you that gave me the fight to survive.”

  “Is that so?” she said, the knot in her stomach pulling tighter.

  He reached his hand out to hers. Their fingers intertwined. There was so much doubt between them. Mimi wished she could just push all of her hurt away, but she couldn’t.

  No matter what direction she took, it would still leave her with a hole in her heart. There would be no happily ever after in any of this, mainly because of a boy named Jake. The people he should have trusted most in the world lied to him. Whether it was for the greater good, he’ll never be given th
e chance to grow up knowing who his real father is.

  “There is so much to talk about,” Joel said.

  “I can’t imagine what you must have seen out there.”

  He stayed silent. The house of cards that was their life had all come tumbling down. Mimi tried to push deeper, but his expression was haunted. By what, she was not sure—the war he had just returned from, or the past that was threatening to ruin their future.

  When Joel had left for his second deployment, she knew he would come back to her a changed man. She knew what he would see and experience would alter the psychological and emotional mind of any human. She had spent many nights wide awake thinking about her husband in combat. She tried to give him comfort and security in the handwritten letters and the thoughtful care packages.

  The extended absence between them was survived by the promise he was coming home to her. He had kept that promise. Now, there were so many other layers.

  Joel no longer had to deal with the fear of car bombs, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, and mortars. Not only was he taking the psychological beating of the war, it was now about a battle that remained with his brother. The price was bigger, because if he lost Mimi to this, he would rather have taken a bullet to end his life.

  If somehow Mimi could get past everything, she had no idea if Joel could get past her sleeping with Austin. She also wondered if she could get past the feelings she had for two men, two men that were brothers.

  “When I was a kid, my dad took me out hunting.”

  “You killed an innocent animal?” Mimi gasped.

  “Yeah. It’s the Texas way, Mimi. I know how you feel about animals, but it’s just the way things are around here. It was the first time. I knew what it was like to watch the life drain out of something.”

  “What was it you killed?”

  “A deer. Actually, hunting is considered to be a bonding session between father and son. My father never offered to take Austin. I don’t know why. He had my mother’s love. I didn’t. It was as if both of us belonged only to one parent. Austin belonged to my mother and I belonged to my father. I just went with it. Austin hated that my dad and I were close. On that hunting trip, I actually asked my father why Austin wasn’t invited. He told me it was because he wouldn’t be able to take it. At the time, I looked at that like I had one up on him, I was the braver one.”