Enraptured (23 page)

His eyes met mine.
“Yeah.”

I sighed as I took him into my arms. I couldn’t fault him for his logic. Deep inside of me was the hope that once he heard his newborn babies crying, he’d claw his way back to consciousness.

I said no more about Alex’s plan.

I also said nothing about the letters. I wasn’t ready to share them yet, and he wasn’t ready to read them.

We both had to fight our battles in our own way.

Being on bed rest is a strange form of time travel. Time passed slower than usual, yet days bled into each other where I could barely keep track of how long I had been confined to my bed. Of course, thanks to the lure of Drew’s letters, I managed to escape those confines at least once a day. As it turned out,
there were 25 years of letters to wade through. They could have very well been a book themselves.

And while I knew about the events that would take place over Jonathan’s eleven-year lifespan, watching Drew devolve with every single one was painful to read. The glimmer of hope dimmed with each passing letter, addressed to whoever might have inspired him to pour his soul on the page.

His letter to his mother upon her death was particularly heart-wrenching.

I hate that Jonathan will never get to know you. I hate that I never got to know you. Most of all, I hate that Alex did. Why did you open your heart to him and not to me? What was wrong with me?

There was a letter to Alex after Nina died.

It is hard for me to feel sympathy for you, little brother. Anyone who saw you together knows what kind of love you shared. It is the only hint of love I have ever seen in this empty house and this bankrupt family. You had her for mere moments, but she left a love to last a lifetime. Once again I find myself jealous of you, and your freedom to pave your own path and set your own rules. It wasn’t that you lost love. It was that you had it at all.

Then there was the letter addressed to Alex, written after Elise confessed her affair. Rage would have been understandable, but once again Drew would surprise me.

I remember back when we were kids, and Father decided to take us to one of the bookstores he had acquired. I asked for a comic book, of course. He said no, of course. That evening when we were alone in our room, you produced that coveted book with a sly look on your face. I didn’t have to ask you if you had stolen it. I knew, just like I knew almost everything about you from the time you were born. After Elise told me about your affair, I didn’t believe her. She’s a liar and an opportunist and always has been. She’ll never forgive me for trapping her in her ivory tower, even though it was everything she thought she always wanted. Needless to say, I’m used to her games and her bullshit.

However when I looked in your face, I knew it wasn’t bullshit. You didn’t have to tell me the truth. I just knew.

You want to know what’s worse than knowing your brother slept with your wife?

Knowing that means you no longer
have a brother.

Subsequent letters were filled with an aching loneliness that leapt from the screen. I could tell that he began drinking in earnest after the affair, so his words were angry and bitter. Yet I still heard the echo of that lonely little boy trapped in his empty room.

Malcolm Fullerton died within a year of his wife. Drew had some choice words for his father upon his demise.

Well, Old Man, you enjoyed quite the sendoff didn’t you? A church filled to overflowing, enough flowers to build a float, and a bunch of empty, meaningless words spoken over you that you can’t even hear.
Monumental, just like your image. Empty, just like your life.

Seeing you lying in that coffin
in your finest suit and all I could think about was how much I wanted your eyes to open so I could finally tell you what I really feel. We talked almost every single day for nearly thirty years, but we never said anything that was worth a damn. Now that the last grain of sand has finally fallen through the hourglass, my last opportunity has slipped right through my fingers and all I feel is regret. Not sadness. Not grief. Just crippling, soul-crushing regret.

So what would I tell you if I had the chance?

I’d tell you what a heartless bastard you were. I would tell you how I spent almost three decades learning to loathe myself because I came from the likes of you. I would tell you how much I hated you for terrorizing my mother and alienating my brother. You are a titan of business, but you are a shit of a father. You took the one legacy that meant anything, the legacy of family, and crushed it under your insatiable greed.

You taught me to see my wife as an accessory instead of a person. You taught me to see my son as an obligation instead of a gift. You taught me to stay in a marriage for all the wrong reasons, destroying what little childhood my baby boy could possibly have. In your efforts to teach me that I could have everything I wanted, you never taught me to want all those things that I had.

In the end you turned me into you.

For that, I hate you most of all.

My sadness lingered long into the night. Alex was late coming home, which made the loneliness more acute.

I finally gave up on sleep around midnight. I padded through the darkened hall toward Drew’s study. Whenever I read his letters, even the angry, painful ones, I felt as though he was in the room with me, sitting next to me, his hand in my hair, his voice quiet as he confessed his innermost feelings.

My steps slowed as I approached door of the study. It was slightly ajar, with a sliver of light coming out from under it. I knocked gently before I pushed the door open a little more. There sat Alex on Drew’s leather sofa, staring into a crystal tumbler filled with Drew’s finest scotch.

His eyes were bloodshot as he looked up at me. “You shouldn’t be out of bed,” he chastised softly.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said as I walked to the sofa.

“Join the club,” he murmured as he took another drink.

I glanced over the printouts spread out over the coffee table, with highlighted and underlined information. “No luck, I guess.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do,” he finally admitted as he collapsed against the cushion. “That fucker De Havilland covered his tracks. In fact, there’s nothing that ties him to Drew or Drew’s business. I have donations from FEI to both EAL and De Havilland himself, and then I have all the gifts that he offered Drew, such as trips and perks. But honestly there’s nothing whatsoever that legally ties De Havilland to Teton Tech or De Villa Rojas. I can’t even find an office memo with his name in it.” He sighed. “Without an eye witness to verify he had vested financial interest in either endeavor, I really don’t know how we can take him down. All it amounts to right now is some friendly, albeit bad, advice. He skates free.”

“And the money?”

“Hadn’t been transferred yet,” he answered. “That was supposed to be my job.” He rubbed his eyes with both hands. “Fuck!” he exclaimed. “I’m letting him down, Rachel.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re doing everything you can possibly do.”

“And FEI, and everything he has worked so hard to build, is going straight to hell anyway.” He sighed. “I guess they were right to kick me out of the company. Score one for the old man.”

“Stop it,” I admonished. “There’s more to a legacy than a business. If Drew were here right now, and you asked him which was more important, taking down one of his enemies and saving his business, or keeping his wife together so she can give birth to healthy children, which do you really think he would choose?” His eyes met mine. “The Fullerton legacy is about family.
Maybe not thirty years ago when your dad was running the show, but today. With us. Love is your strength, honey. It always has been.”

A tear slipped from the corner of his eye and I captured it with my finger. I reached for a hug and he returned it, strong and sure.

The following week I had my next ultrasound and examination, which indicated I had dilated two centimeters and effaced nearly 50 percent. Dr. Rombach admitted me into the hospital to keep me on the strictest bed rest in order to make it just a few more weeks. It was the very same hospital where my Drew lay in a coma, but there was no fudging these new rules. I had to stay in bed whether I liked it or not.

I knew I would go out of my mind twiddling my thumbs, so I called Harrison for a special favor. Within
four days I had a physical book of all of Drew’s letters, printed out and bound in leather. I actually had him print three, one for Alex, one for Jonathan and one for me, but I wasn’t ready to share my treasure just yet. It was my time alone with Drew and I was fiercely protective of it.

After Malcolm’s death, Drew split his animosity between Alex and Elise.
He was angry at both of them for their betrayal, of course, but I think he was even angrier that the two people he thought he would have in his corner no matter what, his wife and his brother, had left him even lonelier than before.

I saw that same keen longing for family and connection that I saw in Jonathan’s hopeful eyes.

He had all but given up on it until a letter dated June 2011.

Dear Rachel
, it read:

Not many people have managed to surprise me, but you, dear Rachel, continue to do exactly that. Because of you, a miracle took place on a Santa Monica Beach today. I saw years of pain and disappointment ebb from my son’s eyes.
He was a kid again. And not just any kid, a happy, beloved child. Your manner with him, your loving and firm devotion, is transforming him before my very eyes. Every moment of every day in the last nine years, I have wondered if my son was doomed to share my lonely fate, trapped within my shiny gilded cage. But there you are, throwing open the door.

Maybe one day you might even find the key to mine.

I thought back to that day at the beach, our first foray as a family.
He had once mentioned it as a turning point in our relationship. Now I had the physical proof.

His letter to me was the first that was not laced with disappointment and regret. It was evident by the following letters addressed to me that I became a symbol of hope.

Dear Rachel,

I finally kissed you today. Those lips I had dreamed about for months were finally mine for the tasting. I felt the shudder run through your body as you submitted yourself to me. I know you want me in a way that scares you. And I know you haven’t figured out if I am worth the risk. You and I both know I’ll never be worth a woman like you. I can only pray for a lapse in your senses, when you take me behind those frightened, sad eyes and into your soul.

Let me breathe life into you the way you breathed it into me.

A tear splashed upon the paper. I let it stain the page.

Christmas, 2011.

We made love last night under the glow of your special tree. It was magical, like any Christmas gift should be. I lost myself in you just like I have wanted to do for months. And just as I expected, with one touch of your skin I was renewed. I saw the man I want to be mirrored back to me through your eyes. It is a man you brought to life with every kindness, and every standard you forced me to meet.

I know now you weren’t here to fix Jonathan. You were here to fix me.

I have told you repeatedly that you are mine, but that is only because I can’t admit the more terrifying truth. I am yours, darling Rachel. And I will be until the day I die.

It wasn’t a part of the plan, but neither were you.
You are so much more than a laundry list of qualities, or a tragic back story. That had been what I wanted. You, my love… you have given me all those things that I needed.

When I think back to all the things I’ve done
, I rarely bother with regret. I make no apologies for my life, or my purpose. Everything I did, for whatever reason I did it, ultimately brought us to you. You have repaired our fractured, broken family, and that was worth any cost.

I pray one day you forgive me.

I pray twice as hard you’ll never leave.

By January of 2012, he was writing once again to his father.

Well, Old Man. You were right all along. Love does not belong to men like you and me. It is a distraction, a liability. I used to curse you for the loneliness I felt. Now I see you were just preparing me. A powerful man truly has no friends. Lovers only weaken you with a conscience. Family destroys you with disappointment and ultimate loss. The only thing that matters is the game, and doing whatever it takes to win it.

I was both brokenhearted and angry when I closed the book. Had he just talked to me the way he poured his heart out in those letters, perhaps I would never have left. I would have been just as angry. But had he let me into his heart even a little bit, I think I would have at least understood why he did the things he did.

It could have changed everything.

Now I was angry for all the time we lost. I was angry for all the needless heartache. That was time we could never get back. It had never seemed like more of a waste.

I couldn’t even crack the book for the next week.
I detoxed on mindless TV instead.

Alex was a frequent visitor. He split time between my room and Drew’s.
It was ironic, really. Decades ago, Drew had begun writing letters as a safe way to express his thoughts and feelings. He could say anything at all on the page, and those people he addressed the letters to couldn’t reject it because they couldn’t hear it. Now Alex likely spoke to his comatose brother for the same reason. Drew’s hospital room became a sacred confessional where he could say all those things he never found the courage to say when Drew was aware.