Angel Falls

Rosa’s smile faded. “Let me tell you something else I know. When you hide things away, and keep them secret, they have a … power. Take your life apart, Mikita, look at it for once … and maybe you will be surprised at what you see. ”

Chapter Twenty-six

Mikaela counted the moments until she could see her children. After Rosa left, Mike had spent an hour with the physical therapist, trying to relearn how to gracefully use a spoon. Who would have thought it would be so damned complicated to stick a spoon in a bowl of oatmeal and get the gruel to your own mouth? At one point, she’d wanted to hurl the whole breakfast at the wall. Then she’d remember why it was that men had temper tantrums and women didn’t: cleanup.

Now it was nearly noon. She stood at the small window of her room, staring out at the parking lot below. The outdoor Christmas decorations were in place. Multicolored bulbs twined around the street-lamps. At night, she knew, the sparkly lights transformed even this ordinary parking lot into a winter wonderland.

It saddened her, this evidence of the coming holidays. Usually she was a Christmas addict, a whirling dervish who maniacally put up decorations and gathered her children around her on the sofa for the yearly viewings of It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. This year all she felt was a yawning, aching sense of loss. She couldn’t get a true sense of where she belonged anymore, and somehow, at Christmas, that sense of being lost was even worse.

There was a knock at the door.

Mikaela turned so fast she stumbled. Her right leg was still weak, and it couldn’t keep up with such quick movements. She clutched the windowsill and hung on to avoid falling onto that ugly speckled linoleum floor.

Liam stood in the doorway. He looked awkward and uncertain, his tall, lanky body tilted to one side, his too-long hair falling across one eye. Quietly he closed the door behind him. He moved into the room but stopped short of her.

She could see the uncertainty in his eyes; he didn’t know where he stood with her. And how could he, now that he knew everything she’d hidden from him? She felt an overwhelming shame. She’d hurt him so much …

“Hello, Liam. ” She wanted to say more, but she didn’t know where to start; she didn’t know if there even was a beginning that could take them where they needed to go.

He looked at her, still unsmiling. “Rosa tells me that you’ve regained a huge chunk of your memories. ”

She let go of the windowsill and limped toward him, holding her weakened right arm against her suddenly upset stomach. “Yes. There are still a few blank spots, but a lot of it’s back. ”

“That’s great. ” There was no enthusiasm in his voice, just a dull flatness that didn’t sound like him at all.

She gazed up at him, noticing the network of lines that had gathered around his eyes. They were new lines, etched on by the trauma of her injury.

I love you, Liam. Those were the words he needed to hear. She could have said it, easily in fact. She did love him; she always had. But it was a watery version that had more to do with comfort and friendship than passion.

If only Julian were simply the first man she’d loved. That would have left room in her heart for falling in love with Liam. Hardly anyone stayed with their first lover anymore.

But Julian was more than that. She’d always called it love, what she felt for him; now, standing here with her husband, she saw what it truly was: obsession.

First love was like a sweet song that turned you weepy and nostalgic. Obsession, she knew, was different; a dark and secret need that never mellowed into something pretty. A first love could someday let you go. An obsession, she was afraid, held on to your throat until you died.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Liam,” she said softly.

He smiled. It was sad and tired, that smile, worn as thin as ancient blacktop. “I don’t know what to say to you anymore, Mike. It’s like … treading water in the deep end. ”

“Liam—”

He held up a hand. “Let me finish. I’ve got some things that have to be said. You could have told me more of the truth, you know. We might have had a chance if you had. ”

Mikaela turned away from him and limped toward her bed, climbing in, pulling the sheets up to her chin—as if a little layer of cotton and acrylic could shield her from the emotional punch of his words. “I know. ”

A flash of anger darkened his green eyes, but was gone almost before it began, replaced by a resignation that tore at her heart. “Don’t you know what it was like for me … loving you all those years, knowing it wasn’t enough for you, and needing so goddamn badly for you to love me back?” He sighed. “I love you, Mike. I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you …”

“I only did it because I knew you,” she said. “I knew what it had been like for you, growing up in Ian’s shade. I didn’t want you to always wonder about Julian. I thought … if you didn’t know who he was, you’d be able to forget I’d been married. Same with Jacey—I thought Julian would be too … big for a child to ever forget, and she needed you as a father so much. ”

“I know all that, Mike. ” He said her name softly, on a sigh. “I just want to say this: no more lies. That’s all I’m asking. While you were sleeping, I woke up. Before, I could hold on to the illusion that someday it would change. I kept thinking I could love enough for both of us, but I couldn’t, could I?” He touched her face with a gentleness that made her want to weep. “Maybe you were right to hide the past from me. When I didn’t know, I could pretend not to see the little things. I let you have your secrets and your silences and your sadnesses. Can you imagine what those silences would do to me now? I’d constantly be wondering, Is she thinking of him?”

She could feel the tearing of her heart, and the pain of it was worse than anything she’d ever imagined.

She’d planted the seeds of that pain herself and fertilized them over the years with her own obsession.

He leaned toward her and held her face in his strong, steady hands, and very slowly, he kissed her. In that one, tender touching of lips was all the heartache and desperation and joy of a deep and lasting love.

While she was still gasping for an even breath, he turned and left the room.