Angel Falls (11 page)

Once he had the pillowcase in his hand, he could see plainly that it was stuffed full of something. He felt strangely detached as he walked back into his bedroom and sat down on his big, king-sized four-poster bed, dragging the pillowcase up beside him. He stared
down at it for a long time, weighing the danger, knowing that sometimes there was no way to undo what had been done, and that some secrets were composed of acid that, once spilled, could burn through the fragile layers of a relationship.

Still, the lure of finally
knowing
was too powerful to resist. For years he had longed to tear the lid off her jar of secrets. He’d always thought that if he knew her pain, he would understand. He would be able to help.

These were the lies he told himself as he turned the pillowcase upside down and watched as photographs, newspaper clippings, and official-looking documents, all bent and yellowed, fluttered onto the comforter. The last thing to fall out was a wedding ring with a diamond as big as a dime. Liam stared at it so long his vision blurred, and then he was seeing another ring, a thin gold band.
No diamonds, Liam
, she’d said softly, and though he’d heard the catch in her voice, he’d paid it no mind. He’d thought how nice it was that she didn’t care about such things.

The truth was she’d already had diamonds.

Turning away from the diamond ring, he saw a photograph, an eight-by-ten full-color glossy print. It was half covered; all he could see was Mikaela in a wedding dress. The groom was hidden behind a carefully cut-out newspaper article. He wanted to pick it up, but his hands were shaking too badly. He thought, crazily, that if he didn’t touch it, didn’t brush away the newsprint, the man in the other half of the photo wouldn’t exist.

He hardly recognized Mikaela. Her wavy black
hair was drawn up in a sleek, elaborate twist that glittered with diamonds, and makeup accentuated the catlike tilt of her brown eyes, turned her pale, puffy lips into the kind of mouth that fueled a thousand male fantasies. The sleeveless gown she wore was a soft, opalescent white—completely unlike the conservative cream-colored suit she’d worn for her second wedding. There were oceans of pearls and beads sewn into the silky sheath, so many that the dress appeared to be made of crushed diamonds and clouds. Not a thing of this earth at all.

She, his
wife
, was a woman he’d never seen before, and that hurt, but the pain of it was nothing compared to the way he felt when he looked at her smile. God help him; she’d never smiled at Liam like that, as if the world were a shining jewel that had just been placed in the palm of her hand.

Slowly he reached for the picture and picked it up. The newspaper clipping fell away and he saw at last the groom’s face.

Julian True
.

For a dizzying moment, Liam couldn’t breathe. He could actually
feel
the breaking of his heart.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, not knowing if the words were a curse or a prayer.

She’d been married to Julian True, one of the most famous movie stars in the world.

“Daaaaad! Dinner’s ready!”

Liam rose unsteadily to his feet and walked away from the pictures on the bed. Closing the door behind him, he moved forward only when he heard the muffled click of the lock. There was no point in staying up here. The things he’d seen wouldn’t change; he’d carry those burning images in his heart forever.

He clung to the slick oak banister and went down the stairs, drawing a heavy breath before he turned into the dining room.

Bret was already at the trestle table, looking dwarfed in the big oak chair that his grandfather had crafted by hand. Jacey sat beside him, just now putting the checkered red-and-blue napkin in her lap. “Hi, Dad,” she said with a smile.

She looked so much like Mike that he almost stumbled.

Rosa came around the corner, carrying a glass bowl of salad, with a bottle of dressing tucked under her
arm. She paused when she saw him, then she smiled softly. “Good, good, you are here. Have a seat, Dr. Liam,” she said as she plunked the bowl onto the table and took her own place.

As usual, no one looked at the empty chair at the opposite end of the table.

Liam made it through dinner like one of those Disney robots. He forced his dry mouth to smile. He could feel the way Jacey and Rosa were staring at him. He tried to act as if this were a normal dinner—at least as normal as their meals had become in the past month—but he was weary and the veneer had worn thin.

“Dad?”

He looked up from the chicken enchiladas, realizing that he’d managed to push them around on his plate into an unappetizing pile of orange mush. “Yeah, Jace?”

“Did you find that dress for me?”

“Yeah, honey. I found it. I’ll give it to you after dinner. Maybe you and Grandma can practice fixing up your hair.”

She smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”

Dad
.

The word had a hook that drew blood.

Jacey had called him that almost from the start. She’d been a little bit of a thing back then, a baby-toothed four-year-old with jet-black pigtails and ears that seemed so big she’d never grow into them.

He could still remember the day Mike had shown
up in the clinic, carrying Jacey. It was only a few months after Liam’s father had died, and he’d been trying to find an excuse to talk to Mikaela again.

Jacey had had a dangerously high fever; convulsions racked her body. One minute she was stretched taut and shaking, and the next, she was as limp as a rag doll, her brown eyes drowsy and unfocused.

“Help us,” Mikaela had said softly.

Liam had canceled his nonemergency appointments for the day and rushed to the ER with them. He’d stood in the OR, watching as the surgeon gently sliced through Jacey’s abdomen and removed her burst appendix. His was the last face she saw before the anesthesia took her, and the first one she saw when she woke up in Recovery. He transferred his patients to Dr. Granato and spent the next three days in the hospital with Mikaela and Jacey; together they watched the Fourth of July fireworks through the rectangular window of Room 320.

He’d sat in the hospital cafeteria for endless hours with Mike, listening to her ramble from topic to topic. At some point she’d looked up at the wall clock and started to cry. He’d reached across the table, past the remains of her uneaten meal, and taken hold of her hand.
She’ll be all right
, he’d said.
Trust me …

She’d looked up at him then, his Mike, with her brown eyes floating in tears and her mouth trembling.
I do trust you
.

That had been the beginning.

Jacey had called him Dad for so long, he’d forgotten
that there was another father out there, another man who could lay claim to both his wife’s and daughter’s hearts.

“Dad. DAD.”

Bret stared at him. His little face looked unbalanced with the one black eye. “You’re gonna take me to basketball tryouts aren’t you?”

“Of course, Bretster.”

Bret nodded and started talking to Jacey about something. Liam tried to pay attention, but he couldn’t do it. A single sentence kept running through his mind.
She was married to Julian True
.

When he looked up again, he saw that Rosa was staring at him, her dark eyes narrowed and assessing.

“Do you have something you want to say to me, Rosa?”

She flinched, obviously surprised by his tone of voice. He knew he should have softened his tone, pretended that everything was okay, but he didn’t have the strength.

“
Sí
, Dr. Liam. I would like to speak to you … privately.”

He sighed. Perfect. “Sure. After the kids are in bed.”

Liam knew that Rosa was waiting for their “talk,” but he wasn’t ready yet. He’d spent almost an hour reading to Bret, then kissed Jacey good night and taken a long, hot shower.

Jacey was bunkered in her room now, probably talking on the telephone to one of her many friends and trying on her mother’s dress. Liam hadn’t gone to
her, afraid that if he saw her wearing that beautiful gown, looking like her mother, he’d lose it.

Right now he wanted to hole up in his own quiet space. Christ, he’d give almost anything to be able to go downstairs, sit at the piano, and play the hell out of some sad bit of music.

He wanted to be angry, to scream and rail and feel honest-to-God outrage. But he wasn’t that kind of man. His love for Mikaela was more than just an emotion; it was the sum total of who he was.

This one thing he knew above everything else. He loved Mikaela too much. Which in its way was as bad as loving someone not enough.

Slowly he went downstairs.

The piano stood in the empty living room like a forgotten lover.

Liam closed his eyes and remembered a time when music swirled through this room every night … He could almost hear the squeaky joint of the bench as Mike sat down beside him.

Tips are welcome
, he’d say, just as he’d said a thousand times on a thousand nights.

Here’s a tip for you, piano man: Get your wife to bed or miss your chance
.

When he opened his eyes, the room was empty and silent.

He’d never thought much about silence, but now he knew its every shape and contour. It was a cheap glass jar that trapped old voices and kept them fresh.

He went to the piano and sat on the antique bench
with its needlepoint seat. With one finger, he plunked at a single key. It made a dull, thudding sound.

Mrs. Julian True
.

“Dr. Liam?”

He jumped, and his hand crashed on the keys in a blast of discordant sound.

Rosa stood in the archway that separated the great room from the dining room.

Liam didn’t want to talk to his mother-in-law right now. If she opened the door to intimacy, he might ask the question that was killing him:
Did she ever love me, Rosa?

And God help him, he wasn’t ready for the answer.

“
Lo siento
, I do not mean to bother you.”

He studied her, saw the nervous trembling in her hands, the almost invisible tapping of her right foot, and he was seized by a sudden fear that she knew what he’d found, that she’d talk about Mikaela’s past now, tell him more than he wanted to know. He got slowly to his feet and moved toward her. In the pale, overhead light, she looked incredibly fragile, her wrinkled skin almost translucent. A tiny network of blue blood vessels crisscrossed her smooth cheeks. “Yes, Rosa?”

She gazed up at him, her dark eyes steeped in sorrow, and he knew that she understood the pain of a broken heart. “The anniversary … it must be very hard on you. I thought … maybe, if you do not think I am sticking my old woman’s nose where it does not belong, that we could watch a movie together. Bret
has loaned me his favorite:
Dumb and Dumber
. He says it will make me laugh.”

The idea of Rosa watching
Dumb and Dumber
brought a smile. “Thank you, Rosa,” he answered, touched by her thoughtfulness. “But not tonight.”

“There is something else wrong,” she said slowly, eyeing him.

He tried to smile again. “What else could be wrong? Love will reach my wife, won’t it, Rosa? Isn’t that what you’re always telling me, that love will wake her up? But it’s been four weeks and still she’s asleep.”

“Do not give up, please.”

He looked at her for a long, desperate minute, then he said softly, “I’m falling apart.”

It was true. His wife was hanging on to life by a strand as thin as a spider’s web, and now suddenly it felt as if his whole life was hanging alongside her.

“No, Dr. Liam. You are the strongest man I have ever known.”

He didn’t feel strong. In fact, he’d never felt so close to breaking. He knew that if he stood here a moment longer, feeling Rosa’s sympathy like a warm fire on a cold, cold night, he’d ask the question:
Did she ever love me, Rosa?

“I can’t do this now.” He shoved past a chair, heard it squeaking and crashing across the floor. When he spun around, he found himself staring into the silvered plane of an antique mirror. The network of lines around his eyes had the ridged, shadowy look of felt-tipped etchings.

Laugh lines
.

That’s what Mike had called them. Only Liam couldn’t now recall the last time he’d laughed.

The image blurred and twisted before his eyes, until for a flashing second, it wasn’t himself he saw. It was a younger man, blindingly handsome, with a smile that could sell a million movie tickets. “I need to go to the hospital.”

“But—”

He pushed past her. “Now,” he said again, grabbing his coat off the hook on the wall. “I need to see to my wife.”

The emergency room was bustling with people tonight; the bright hallways echoed with voices and footsteps. Liam hurried to Mike’s room.

She lay there like a broken princess in someone else’s bed, her chest steadily rising and falling.

“Ah, Mike,” he murmured, moving toward her. It was beyond him now, the simple routine he’d constructed so carefully—the potpourri, the pillows, the music.

He stared down at her.