“What happened? With Stewart?” I fight the question, hating the words as they leave my mouth. But I need to know. I need to know what tomorrow will bring. Sleep will come soon enough and wash over the reality.
“He had work to do.” He glances at my face. “He’ll be back tomorrow.”
I can see his pain through his eyes and it strikes me suddenly that I’ve never seen him this way. Worried. He reaches for my hand and squeezes it. I have never felt more helpless. I want to hold him, to push that darkness from his eyes. I want to go to Stewart, to make him look me in my eyes and to ask him what he is thinking, where his mind is taking him. But I would probably be disappointed in the answer. His mind has probably already left this problem and is attacking ones that are in his control. In the office, on the phone, on his computer at home. I lean back and close my eyes.
I wake once to voices, arguing softly, and open my eyes enough to see a nurse, speaking heatedly to Paul. The second time I awaken, the room is dark. I turn my head and see Paul, in a chair, his head to the side. I let my eyes adjust to the room, the pain present enough for me to reach for the remote, press the button on its front.
I am grateful for the silence. For the ability to think without being observed.
I have lived in this fairytale for so long, it is hard to imagine an alternative. But this feels like the time. The time to pick a path, abandon the other and move forward. I look at the man asleep next to me, the room’s shadows highlighting the strong features, his large frame uncomfortably sprawled over the hospital’s narrow recliner. It is no surprise that he is here, that he won the battle against the nurse and sleeps beside me. Paul has always been here for me. He is my rock and loves me unconditionally, no matter what kind of crazy quasi-relationship we have had for the last two years.
I glance up, at the ceiling, letting out a painful breath and thinking of Stewart. Also, not a surprise that he is absent. Our entire relationship has been squeezed in between stretches of absence. His passion for work is one of the things I love about him, but it has always been a competing piece—the fourth person in this triangle. And I’ve always known where I stood in that order—behind that passion, peering over its shoulder and waving my hands for attention.
At this point, this juncture, the decision should be easy. Paul is right here, just waiting for a shot at my entire heart. He has been waiting for it ever since that day under the pier. I was just too distracted by Stewart, emotionally tied to him, to see Paul in the role he should have been in.
I reach out for him, then clear my throat, coughing slightly, and Paul instantly moves, waking, his hand swinging out and hitting a lamp. He shoots to his feet and stands, still, his body tense, listening in the darkness. I softly say his name and he steps forward, gently reaching out until his hands find my body. “Are you okay Madd? Do you need the nurse?”
“I’m fine.” I whisper. “I just... Paul—I just wanted to say that I love you.”
He stills, his breath stopping in the quiet room. “I love you, too, baby.” He says gruffly, kneeling beside my bed and holding my hand. “God, I love you so much.”
“Forever and always,” I whisper.
He surprises me by crawling into the bed, the narrow width barely accommodating us both. He moves cords and lines with heartbreaking tenderness, turning me on my side and wrapping his arm around me. I relax, my lids heavy. At this moment in time, there is not a more perfect place I could imagine. Not another man on Earth who I want holding me.
“Forever and always.” Paul whispers.
And, in that brief moment, I feel guilt over Stewart and my heart’s abandonment of him. Then, pure happiness washes over me and Stewart is forgotten.
DANA
I wake two hours early, rolling out of bed with a purpose. It is the first day in almost a decade that I have my boys back. Thanks, in no small part, to Madison. The same Madison who I, in a brief moment of creativity, dart-boarded last week after too many margaritas. But that was before. Before she almost died, and Stewart called me, and I got to hug Paul and look into both of their eyes. Before I found out that she wasn’t ruining their hearts through a shredder for her personal enjoyment. I almost, just a teeny bit, feel some affection for the woman.
I dress for work, pulling on a Jones New York suit and sling-backs, pull my hair into a low bun and leave my contacts in their case, sticking with glasses and minimal makeup, and jog out the door at 5:45 AM, two bananas and an apple in my purse, a giant mug of coffee in my hand.
Sixteen minutes later, I step through the hospital doors, and smile brightly at the receptionist. Three minutes later, I am escorted to her room.
“She will still be asleep,” the silver-haired woman explained in a hushed voice that was practically screaming. “But you can sit in there until she wakes up. Her notes say she was coherent and speaking late last night.”
Late last night. After Stewart left, his phone already to his ear. She must have woken after I left at nine. Hopefully Paul was here. By the look on his face, he had had no intentions of going anywhere. I gently press on the door and tiptoe inside.
My heart physically swoons when I see them. A tall frame hugging her small body, crammed in a narrow space that should be uncomfortable but looks perfect. His head nestled in her hair, his arm across her body. Her eyes closed, a small smile on her face, her feet tucked back between his legs. I hesitate in the doorway, then step backward, pulling the door gently closed.
I make my way back to the receptionist area and veer right, following the path to the cafeteria, pulling my cell from my pocket as I walk. I dial Stewart’s cell.
“Hey.”
“Hey. I’m at the hospital. Just wanted to check and see if you were coming by.”
He sighs, heavy into the phone. “I can’t now. I have...” there is the rustle of papers and I hear him speaking to someone else. Then he is back. “Is she stable?”
“Yes.” I can’t stop the smile from entering my voice. “She was speaking last night. Coherent. They haven’t woken her yet this morning.”
He exhales loudly and all background noise stops for a moment. “That is so great, Dana. That... God, I can’t describe how that makes me feel. Have you told Paul?”
“He stayed the night.” I wait to see his reaction before I say anything more, the silence long before he finally speaks.
“That’s good. I’m glad someone was there when she woke up. Do you know... if she asked for me?”
“I don’t know. But today... she needs to know the connection between you two. She won’t understand otherwise.”
His voice is suddenly abrupt. “I know. Just... handle it. However you think best. Let her know... if she asks... that I love her.”
“You love her.” I wait a moment. “That’s it?”
“That’s all I can do.” He says quietly. “She’ll understand. It’s one of the things I love about her.”
He hangs up the phone, his voice echoing in my head. I love her. One of the things I love about her. The silly grin, one I’d been wearing since I walked in and saw Paul cuddling with her, drops.
I sit in an uneven chair and eat rubbery eggs, staring at today’s paper and trying to think. I woke up delusional, thinking that this would all turn out easy. I had thought, after talking to Stewart yesterday, that he understood. That he would walk away without looking back. Leave Paul to his happiness. Move on. I didn’t factor in the fact that he still loves her. That love doesn’t have an off switch. God, I knew that better than anyone. I still pine for my ex-husband, who happily lives his new life with his new wife. I go to bed each night wanting that impossibility. Who was I to think that he could, with one simple decision, step away and wash his hands of any emotion?
I take a sip of coffee and watch the clock tick, dreading the morning and all that it brings. I need to get to work. It is tax time, a deadline approaching that cannot be missed. But I don’t know my younger brother well enough to trust that he will handle this correctly. Hell, I don’t ev
en know how to handle it correctly.
It is one, giant ball of screwed up. Paul is ecstatic at the fact that she’s alive. At the fact that he might have her all to himself. Stewart is brooding, back in his office of solitude, still tossing out emotions like shedding skin, the fresh new skin just as love-affected as what is falling off. I am being greedy, like an underfed vulture, swooping down, excited about the carnage and what it could mean for me. My two boys. Back in my life. Egos pushed aside in a time of need. And the woman who it all centers around—she is the biggest unknown. How she feels. Who she wants. Stewart has stepped away... but what if she chases him? What is she chooses him? Paul... I can’t imagine what that would do to him.
I push back from the table and carry my tray to the trash, accidently dumping my fork in, watching as it slides down into a mountain of yuck. I debate reaching for it, then glance around casually. No one is looking. I stack the tray on top and heft my purse over my shoulder, heading back to her room.
I turn a corner and run into Paul, his hair messy, a white v-neck pulled sloppily over board shorts. His hands coming out, an apology tumbling from his mouth, and then a smile breaks over his face when he sees it’s me. God, I’ve missed his smile. I’ve missed that dimple in his cheek, his carefree eyes, the sparkle in them when he is happy.
“Hey sis.” He wraps his arms around me, squashing my purse to my chest in one tight embrace. “Did you hear? She’s awake.” He releases me, stepping back. “She’s back—just like before. No damage.”
I smile at him. “I heard. The nurse told me. I was just coming to you now.”
“You haven’t really ever met her... the nurse is cleaning her up now—but I know she’ll want to meet you. Can you stick around for a bit?”
I hate to burst his bubble, hate to do anything to dampen the smile that stretches across his handsome face. Maybe I should wait. Let him enjoy her survival a little bit longer. But I don’t. I’m too much of a busybody—too much of a meddler to let this go. “You need to tell her, Paul. About you and Stewart.”
He scowls, the look instantly taking me back in time. Him, six years old, mad over a broken toy. Him, eleven years old, when I refused to let him surf in a storm. “Stewart’s gone. Why does it matter?”
“Stewart will never be gone, Paul. He’s your brother. She needs to know that—needs to have all the facts so that she understands the situation and makes the right decision.”
“Decision?” There is panic in his eyes for a moment. “I thought Stewart was stepping back. Letting her go. She loves me.”
“You can’t start a relationship with a secret. Let me talk to her. Explain everything. Allow her to come to grips with it.”
He leaned against the wall, his features tight. “I don’t want to lose her, D.”
I nod. “I know.”
“She’ll choose me, right?”
I meet his uncertain gaze. “I don’t know her, Paul. But I know you both. And Stewart isn’t at a place in his life where he can fully commit to a relationship. I’m sure she knows that.”
His face darkened. “I don’t want her to choose me because she can’t have him. I want her to choose me because I am who she wants. That’s what’s important, her happiness.”
I squeeze his arm. “Let me talk to her. The ‘brother’ thing is going to be a lot for her to take. Go get some breakfast.”
He doesn’t move, staring straight ahead, a lost look on his face, and I leave him there, my heels clicking on the linoleum floor, my mind sorting through how to break this news to a stranger.
The nurse pats my arm with a smile, her gray eyes warm and friendly. “I’ll be back in an hour to check on you. Page me if you feel any pain.”
“When can I go home?” My throat still is on fire, the words coming out scratchy and raw.
She wrinkled her brow. “Probably tomorrow, but the doc will have my hide if she knows I told you that. Let her tell you.”
“I feel fine now.” It’s a lie. My head is killing me, I feel bouts of nausea, and every breath feels like I’m rubbing sandpaper down my throat but I am ready to leave. I’ve only been conscious for an hour and I’m already sick of this place. I want my bed, the sound of waves and the smell of salt air. Paul’s arms around me, his breath on my skin, a warm mug of his lemon tea.
“We still need to monitor you for a while. You’ve pulled out strong, but with the brain... nothing is certain.” Her smile softens her words and she grabs my chart and heads for the door, maneuvering around someone as she exits. I look up, expecting Paul, and am surprised by the tall woman who enters, dressed in a black suit, her stern outfit out of place in this world of white. She moves confidently into the room, her eyes on mine, and extends an arm, my own raising out of habit, shaking her hand as I wonder who she is. An insurance rep? Hospital administrator? Her face is familiar and I study it, trying to place where I have seen her.
“I apologize for coming in so early, but I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Dana. I’m Paul’s sister.”
I blink at her, our hands still clasped, the handshake reaching an awkward length of time. She releases it and sits in the chair closest to the bed, my mind playing a frantic game of catch-up, ignoring her familiar features while trying to process her words. Sister?
I swallow painfully, my mind piecing together what I know from the little Paul has shared about his past. “Sister? I thought that...”
She grimaces, her expression pained. “You’re thinking of Jennifer. She passed away when Paul was a teenager.”
“A car accident.”
“Yes. I’m his older sister. I was at college when that happened. Paul probably hasn’t mentioned me—he cut all contact with the family when she died.”
I nod, a faint recollection of a second sister entering my head. Paul has always been so dismissive in discussing his family, the still-raw pain of his sister’s death causing some degree of anger, his reason for the separation from his family not given. It is the one area of his life we don’t discuss, the topic a touchy one that turns my cheerful love into a brooding, depressed man. Early in our relationship I pushed the issue, thinking he needed to talk about it. But it put him in such a dark place that, ever since then, I have avoided the subject.
“Is Paul aware that you’re here?” I ask carefully, trying to understand her presence.
“Yes, I was here last night,” She smiles, “We’ve reconnected, something I am grateful to you for.” Her face pales and she covers her mouth. “That sounds horrible—I didn’t mean—”
I wave her off with a weak smile. “I understood what you meant. I’m glad that you are on good terms again. Family is important.”
Her face stills and she squares her shoulders. “Yes. And that is why I wanted to speak to you. Alone, I mean.”
I tense, the look on her face, the stiffness of her body. Something is coming, from a stranger whose name Paul hasn’t even mentioned in the last two years. I suddenly wish I had pressed him harder over the reason for their strife.
She doesn’t mince words, or cushion the situation. “I am the oldest of three. Paul is my youngest brother. Stewart—your Stewart—is my other brother. Paul and Stewart have been estranged, but are brothers.”
I watch her eyes, note that they are brown, not the brilliant blue of my boys. My brain, still sluggish, wonders where the brown came from, if it was the paternal or maternal gene that produced that color. If Paul and my babies would be icy blue or chocolate brown-eyed. Her eyes sharpen, look at me critically, and I realize she is waiting for something. A reaction. I flip back through her words, piecing the sentences together, the structure unnecessarily complicated, the final words suddenly sharpening into focus, my brain comprehending the situation in one, delayed moment. Brothers.
I control my features, my words carefully chosen as my mind tries to figure out the proper response, tries to figure out what this woman wants me to say. I have no articulate response.
I am in love with brothers. My unwinnable situation
is more fucked up than original perception would lead you to believe. I still love them just as much, my attraction almost more understandable now that the reasons for their similarities are known. I swallow, and try to speak, try to say something that this woman will respect.
“What do you suggest I do?”
It wasn’t the reaction she expects, her visible reaction one of surprise. “Me? I’m not involved in your relationships. I just wanted you to know the reason... Stewart—”
“...is leaving me.” I finish the sentence for her, laying back onto the bed, looking up at the ceiling. It’s not a surprise. Circumstances dictated him to choose between a full-time relationship and a full-time commitment to work, and work won. It is his obsession, his passion. I was his release, his outlet. I know he loves me. I never doubted that fact. And I was okay being second, because I had Paul. Paul, who has never placed anything before me. Paul, who would put down his surfboard in a moment if I asked him. And I wonder, briefly, if Paul played a role in Stewart’s decision to walk away. If I lost purely to his drive, or if his family was also a factor. And I hope, for whatever reason, that Paul was part of the reason that Stewart backed off.
“Yes. It’s not that he doesn’t care for you—”
I turn to her, stopping her rushed words, her worried eyes. “I know. You don’t have to explain. Stewart’s work is who he is. Paul being brought into the situation makes the decision easy for him.”
She looks at me carefully. I can see the confusion in her eyes. “So...you’re fine with this.”
I swallow, folding over the hem of the blanket. “This situation...it’s always had an expiration date on it. In a way I’ve been preparing for this for a long time. The fact that they’re brothers...” my voice fails for a moment, the rasp too strong, and I reach for the glass of water, taking a sip before continuing. “Stewart’s relationship with Paul is more important. Have they spoken?”
She nods. “They haven’t reconciled, but I think it is possible. They’ve both held a lot of anger toward each other for the last ten years and I think this situation... it’s caused them to let that go. Not that Stewart really has time for family, but...” she smiles. “Paul is feeling very grateful to Stewart right now.”