Broken (33 page)

Michael's expression changed drastically. He leaned
back in the bed. His eyes were examining me.

"I thought you'd like to know that I found her
and she is safe with her mother now," I continued. "If you even
care."

Michael was silent. He stared at me.

"She humiliated me," he growled. "She
stayed with you all day and all night. She never came home. Thirty-six hours of
pure humiliation!" Michael tried to calm himself down before he continued.
"How could I ever let her go out there again? How was I supposed to let
her go out again at night? Don't you think I knew what you two did? Don't you
think I could smell it on her skin? I had to lock her up to prevent it from
happening again. She was nothing but a lying bastard. And so are you. Cheating
and lying to your families."

"And what about
Luyu
?
What's your excuse for putting her in that dreadful storage room on the
boat?" I asked through clenched teeth.

Michael looked at me but didn't answer.

"Did she cry for her mother?" I asked.
"Did she look too much like her for you to be able to look at her without
thinking about
Aiyana
, about what she had done to
you? Was that why
Luyu
needed to be punished as
well?"

Michael stared at me still in silence.

"You know what? I don't even care," I said.
"There is no excuse for what you've done. None."

"So why are you here? Why have you come?" he
asked. "You know I'd beat your sorry ass up if I wasn't hurt."

"I am here to tell you my demands. Our
demands."

He laughed maliciously. "You have no right to
come here and demand anything from me. You're the one who took everything away
from me." His head turned red with fury. "You stole my wife,
goddammit!"

"She wants a divorce."

"Never!" Michael exclaimed. "I'll never
give her that. She is my wife till death parts us. She needs to realize that
she has made a promise to me. We have a daughter."

"You give
Aiyana
a
divorce and you stay the hell away from both of them," I said ignoring his
arguments. I stepped closer pointing my finger at him. I was pleased to see
that he felt threatened by me. "I want to keep the police out of this for
many reasons. But mainly because I don't want them to find out about us. I have
promised
Aiyana
and her family to do everything
possible to protect the secret. But if you ever come near either
Aiyana
or
Luyu
again I swear I
will tell the police what you did to those poor girls. If you as much as call
them or I spot you in an area near them I will take the risk of spilling the
secret of the fountain to get you punished. Do you understand?"

Michael was biting his lip with clenched jaws. I could
tell how badly he wanted to jump me and give me a beating.

"They were your family for crying out loud,"
I said. "They loved you. And you destroyed that. You don't deserve any
better."

"If I can't have her then no one should," he
said.

"You did have her. You had a wonderful life with
her. A life I envied you every hour of the day for ten years. Now you have to
live with the consequences of mistreating her, both of them. Every day you wake
up alone in your house you'll be reminded of what you've done. Every hour,
every day you spend in solitude you just remember what you had."

 
Michael
kicked the food-tray causing it to fall on the floor with a loud noise,
scattering scrambled eggs and toast. "Get out!" he yelled. "Get
the hell out of here!"

I didn't move. I wasn't intimidated by him. I wanted
to show him that. "I expect the divorce papers within a month or I will
take action. You can send them to my clinic. You have the number. They'll give
you the address."

"Get out!" he yelled again.

I chuckled and smiled. "That's a deal then,"
I said and opened the door.

As soon as I had closed it behind me I heard the sound
of the tray hitting the wall. Then Michael started screaming in a fit suited
for a five-year old. Nurses started running toward his room. I greeted them
with a wide smile.

Chapter 40

Days
passed with much
joy and happiness in the house. Even
Sarah seemed to revel in it.
Nadie
helped her in the
kitchen and they shared recipes and secrets and we enjoyed the fruits of it
immensely at the dinner table.
Luyu
and William clung
together like Siamese twins and by the look on William's face I could tell that
he had found his own private Paradise.
Wyanet
gave
him guitar lessons and soon I realized that he had inherited my musical skills.
Even his singing turned out to be better than mine was at his age.

"Maybe he'll be the next
Howahkan
,"
Wyanet
said
while teaching him the secrets to playing the flamenco with its fast paced
rhythm.

I was truly pleased to see him thriving, only one
thing seemed to be constantly bothering him and growing into a pain obvious to
anyone who knew him well. The absence of his mother.

It hurt me like crazy to watch him in this kind of
agony and I started wondering what was best for him. Sarah had said it once.
The not knowing was the worst part. He grew more worried about his mother every
day. Even if he enjoyed the company of
Luyu
I could
tell that he was hurting.

I kept postponing it day after day telling myself that
he was fine, that it was only natural for a boy to miss his mother, that it
would be worse for him to see her if she was really sick. But deep inside I
knew it was only a matter of time before I had to do something, before I had to
act. I wanted desperately to postpone it. I didn't want to think about Heather
in the middle of my happiness. Part of me was still angry with her for leaving
us, for cheating on me and bringing this disease into our home. I didn't want
to think about her and I certainly didn't want to see her, especially not since
I knew that I probably had the cure for her illness running in my veins. But
again that was so uncertain. I still didn't know if it was possible. I knew I
might end up killing her instead. I guess I was trying to avoid having to make
the decision.

One afternoon I spoke to
Aiyana
in the living room and she encouraged me to find Heather and bring William to
see her. "It's his right to see his mother," she said.

"But wouldn't it make him worry even more? Plus
Heather specifically told me that she didn't want to see me ever again or
William. She told me to tell him that she was dead. I don't even know if she'll
see him if I bring him."

Aiyana
put her hand on my arm. My skin shivered. I loved her touch. Loved every little
feature of her. I adored her. Everything she did, everything she said. Even
when it wasn't what I wanted to hear.

"Let him see her. No mother can refuse to see her
only child. She might even be lonely, missing him terribly but not wanting to
swallow the pride it takes to come and visit."

"You think?"

She nodded. "You know how to find her?" She
asked.

I sighed. Played with her fingers in my hand. Caressed
them. Then I lifted them to my lips and kissed each and every one of them.
"I think I do," I said. "I think she is with the one person who
has loved her since she was a young girl. The same guy who took her to the
prom, the same guy who never married someone else once he realized that Heather
didn't love him the way he loved her and that she was about to marry someone
else. The guy who has secretly admired her ever chance he got since. The same
guy who has dreamed about her, that she would one day knock on his door and
tell him that we had broken up and until then he has been amusing himself with
young women with whom he had no intentions of keeping."

"I see him through your thoughts," she said
with a light laughter. "Jim?"

"Exactly. That's the only person I can imagine
she has stayed with all this time. But she hasn't told anyone I suspect. Her
parents don't even know where she is. I know she hasn't been using her credit
cards. I have checked them and there have been no transactions since she left.
So I figure that she has to stay with someone who takes care of all that for
her. Jim would do just that."

The sky was on fire the next morning as William and I
drove off. It was Sunday so he had no school and I had no work. I hadn't really
planned much and only told William that we were going to visit an old friend of
mine. I didn't want him to be disappointed if Heather didn't turn out to be
there after all. I didn't want to call Jim and check first either since I knew
he would lie to me for Heather's sake. Because she had told him to.

The rising sun made the city look like it was burning,
so bright was the light hitting the windows and buildings. I stopped for coffee
at a gas station since I had been in such a hurry to go right after I returned
from my hunt that I hadn't had time to have my morning coffee that Sarah
usually made for me. It wasn't because we were in a hurry per se. Heather and
Jim had no idea that we were on our way. I guess I just wanted to get going
before I changed my mind.

William was eating a sandwich Sarah had made for him.
"Well I guess you don't need anything," she'd said to me. "Since
you've been eating all night, killing those poor animals out there in the
swamp."

She joked about
Aiyana
and I
being jaguars. I guess it was her way of coping with this big unbelievable
thing, this secret that she had to keep. It was really a relief to me now that
everyone knew where I was at night. Where
Aiyana
and
I were. It made life so much easier on us. No more secrets, no more lies, no
strange explanations or disapproving looks from Sarah. No more sneaking around.

William fell asleep as we left St. Augustine. Since
Jim's father died four years ago and his mother shortly after, Jim had taken
over his old childhood home. You could say that he never really left home. It
wasn't a house really, more like a big ranch located in the middle of a great
forest south of St. Augustine not far from Lake George.
 
He had horses and cattle on the ranch.
It was a dream of a place for a young boy like William who thought cowboys were
the coolest in the world - after jaguars, naturally. So as we entered the ranch
and drove up the long road leading to the main building I woke him up.

"Look at the horses on your right," I said
and pointed.

He blinked his eyes and stared out the window with
great anticipation. His eyes grew wide as he saw the horses start galloping in
the pasture next to us because the sound of the car had startled them. The main
building appeared in the distance and I felt my heart drop.

What if she isn't even there? I thought. What if he
won't let us see her? What if she refuses to see William? I knew it was early
on a Sunday but I also knew that Jim was an early riser. They had to be in his
family he once explained to me. They were hunters and fishermen and wildlife
people. They never slept in. So I knew he would be up. I just didn't know what
to say to him, how to persuade him to let us see her.

If she was in fact here.

No. She had to be. There was no other place I could
imagine her running off to. This was it. If there was ever going to be a chance
to see her again, this had to be it. I smiled at William in the rear-view
mirror. He looked at me suspiciously.

"What's wrong, Far?" he asked.

"Nothing. I’m just smiling at you. It's great to
be on our own, just the two of us. Two guys out on a road-trip."

"Then why are you worried?" He asked.

I shook my head with a smile. I couldn't hide anything
from him anymore. He saw everything, noticed every little change in my face, in
my eyes. "I'm not worried," I said to shake it off. "Just been a
while since I last saw this friend, so I’m a little excited I guess."

William shrugged and went back to staring at the
horses. Splendid animals, majestic, grandiose. Running with their head held
high, ears turned frontwards and their tails lifted. They were almost dancing
as they slowed down once they realized we weren't posing any threat to them.

The main building came closer. The gravel underneath
the car crunched loudly. I tried not to think about what I would say to her if
I got the chance, or how I might behave around her. I knew only that I had to
see her. I had to bring William to her to be with her while there was still
time. I couldn't truly think of her death. It had the fullness of devastation,
of disaster.