The Family You Choose (3 page)

"Honestly, I don’t know why you ever need to
see Miranda again," Mitch said.

"Jesus! It wasn’t her fault, and you know it.
She was trying to protect you."

"Right—from Alex."

"Seriously?" Martin finally said. "Why didn’t
they want you to go to the police?"

"I don’t know." Emily still hadn’t figured
out everything with Miranda, Alex and Michael. "Alex is very
protective of Michael, no matter what he does."

"That’s just...messed up," Martin said. "But
why did this Michael attack you in the first place? Is he that
crazy?"

Emily involuntarily tightened her grip on her
cup as she remembered taunting Michael about what he’d done to
Jessie. As disgusting as she’d thought it was when she first found
out, what Joe Welles had done to Zainab made Emily snap when she
finally met Michael. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to confront
someone known to be dangerous, but she couldn’t honestly say that
she wouldn’t do it again, whether Mitch and Miranda were in the
room or not.

"Yeah, how did that start?"

Emily closed her eyes, trying to think of
what to say that wouldn’t lead back to Jessie. "I—he’s a pig, okay?
Miranda—Richard—told me about something he’d done, and I was
pissed. I told him that he probably had to get girls—I mean,
women—slap happy drunk not just to get some action but to get a
rise." She took a deep breath. "And that’s when he decided to show
me I wasn’t entirely correct."

Mitch put his hand through her shiny hair.
"I’m sorry, baby."

Emily rubbed her cheek against his hand.
"It’s okay. And remember, he had trouble standing up by the time
you guys rescued him. But please, Miranda was so broken up by it.
It wasn’t her choice, okay? Lay off of her."

Mitch nodded after a moment. "Fine."

Emily smiled. "And you’re going to be very
nice to her from now on. Remember," she said, shaking her head
teasingly, "you wouldn’t be married to me if it wasn’t for
her."

Mitch grinned. "You’re right. I guess I owe
her everything then."

"Wow, would you look at the time?" Martin
said, though there wasn’t a clock in sight. "Dinner was great, but
I really should be going!"

Emily and Mitch giggled conspiratorially.
"Alright, man." Mitch shook Martin’s hand. "Sorry if tonight was
weird."

Martin kissed Emily on the cheek. "Yeah,
well, you guys will have to make it up to me sometime."

"Oooh," Emily said, rubbing her hands
together. "I’m feeling a batch of cupcakes coming on."

Martin’s eyes widened. "Cupcakes?!? Oh,
wow—can they be lemon?"

"Lemon it is!" They laughed as Martin walked
out the door. They spent a few more minutes kissing in the café
when Mitch decided it was time to leave. "I think we’re still on
our honeymoon, Mrs. Graham."

"Gonna carry me over the threshold
tonight?"

Mitch winked. "Whatever it takes."

Miranda had a recurring dream. She was
sleeping in a bed in a small room when her beautiful, blonde,
green-eyed mother walked in and sat on the bed with her. She was
wearing a black dress. They would talk for a few minutes and
sometimes her mother would stroke her hair or tickle her, but she
was always smiling. In the dream Miranda knew her mother was happy
to be with her. As Miranda grew, the conversations were different,
but they didn’t matter. The dream always ended the same way. Her
mother would kiss her goodnight and tell her that she loved her,
then turn off the light and close the door.

Sometimes Miranda would wake up crying for
her mother, even now, although not as loudly as she used to.
Sometimes she would wake up but close her eyes tightly, to try and
hold onto the dream. Because Miranda didn’t remember her mother
except for that dream, and she couldn’t be sure if her mother’s
hair had really been that thick or her eyes that green. The only
thing she could be sure of was that her mother had loved her, but
that wasn’t something she remembered, it was just something she
knew.

Miranda’s first real memory was a rainy day
in a tiny garden. There were drops of rain on white honeysuckles. A
sad older woman with white hair and green eyes smiled as Miranda
put the flower to her mouth and sucked out the nectar. She
remembered thinking that it was the best thing ever, and that now
everything would be alright. But she didn’t remember what had been
wrong in the first place.

When she was a little girl she had often
asked Alex about the garden. Alex would smile and say that someday
he’d take her there again. But she could tell it made him sad like
the old woman, so she stopped asking by the time she was twelve.
Now, every once in a while, she remembered the garden and the old
woman and made a note that she’d have to ask Alex to at least tell
her where it was.

Miranda’s first memory of Alex was from when
she was five. She remembered that she was wearing a light beige
dress with small pink flowers and a sash that tied in the back. He
was sitting on a chair in a living room, across from the old woman,
who was sitting on a couch. The couch and the chair had flowers,
just like her dress. Those were the things you noticed when you
were five.

She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. She
thought he was the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen. His hair
was darker back then, and he had been wearing a dark red sweater.
Burgundy. She had taught herself that color, because it was Alex’s
favorite, and it became her favorite on him. She loved the way it
made his brown eyes stand out.

She had walked over to the old woman and
taken her hand, then looked down at the floor while she talked. She
didn’t remember what was said. But she did remember Alex’s voice.
"Would you like to come and live with me?" he’d asked. And then
she’d looked up, and she remembered that she’d smiled. He smiled
too; he hadn’t been smiling before. Even as a small child, she knew
that they were going to love each other forever.

She remembered hugging the old woman goodbye.
She didn’t remember because she wanted to. She remembered because
she couldn’t forget. It was a forever goodbye, which she knew even
though no one had told her. She remembered that she cried, and that
she had cried in the car. But Alex had said that she could use the
phone at her new house to call the old woman whenever she wanted
to, and they stopped to get some ice cream before he took her to
her new home, her forever home.

Years later, she’d put it together. Her
mother had died. The old woman was her grandmother, and Alex, her
mother’s friend, had come to take care of her. But that wasn’t what
was important. What was important was that she had loved Alex from
that day forward.

Miranda knew that he loved her too, but she
knew that it was different because his love always came with
distance. For all the times that he would read stories to her, or
take her on day trips to the circus or the aquarium or to museums
with Richard, Michael and even Jessie, for all the times he’d ask
her about her life and truly wanted to know, there were just as
many times when he would push her away. There were the boarding
schools she used to plot frequent escapes from (which was how she
knew how to help Jessie, when that time came), the frequent trips
overseas that she couldn’t go on, the obvious hints about the women
in his life and, always, the distant look of regret.

Miranda knew that people didn’t always like
Alex, but she loved him completely and she knew that he loved her
too. It had never been a crush; Miranda had always been very
serious about it, and hadn’t become any less so as she got
older.

She was one long, never spoken question…What
if? Why not? The words may have grown more sophisticated with age
and the sentences might have been a little longer, but it was still
the same question. He was one to reply in short, sorrowful answers;
and with age, it seemed his answers had gotten shorter. But she
would not give up, because she knew that the fact that he couldn’t
say that he loved her didn’t mean that he didn’t want to.

That was how she knew that Mitch and Emily
could be together because, despite everything that happened after
they’d met, they loved each other; even if they’d been too stubborn
to admit it, nothing, other than their stubbornness and pride, was
separating them. Such things were surmountable. So, Miranda knew,
it wasn’t anything real that was keeping Alex from her. She just
had to convince him of that.

~~~

Miranda knew she didn’t understand all of the
obstacles between Alex and herself. Some of them she wasn’t aware
of. Others she didn’t care about. Michael Abbot was an obstacle of
the latter kind.

Michael, unfortunately, came in a package
with Alex. He had actually lived with Alex before Miranda did. She
remembered Alex introducing them as she walked in to her new home.
He was two or three years older; tall and skinny. She never forgot
the way he looked at her with his very dark brown eyes. It had
scared her even at the time. It wasn’t a jealous look. It was as if
he recognized her, but she'd never seen him before. "So you’re
Miranda?" was all he said.

Michael's parents had died too. His father
Stephen had been Alex's best friend. There was a picture of Stephen
on Alex's desk in his study, where Alex spent most of his time when
he was at home. Stephen, Miranda thought, didn't look very much
like his son. He had red hair and he was smiling like he was happy.
Michael never smiled that way. Miranda thought that Michael must
look like his mother, Annabelle, but Alex had very few pictures of
her.

Five years later, Alex thought it might be
best for everyone if Michael went to boarding school. Miranda, then
ten years old, had been so excited that she would have Alex all to
herself. Unfortunately he was home even less frequently and the
very next year he decided to send her away to school as well. She
told herself that the reason was primarily for the education, while
Michael had been sent for everyone’s safety.

Things broke when Michael was around. Some
things were trinkets while others were quite valuable. The games
Michael liked to play usually ended in tears for Miranda, whether
his big cousin Richard was there to watch or not. He liked to call
her names, usually the little, childish names kids call each other,
although he used a word once that marked the only time Miranda ever
saw Alex angry or raise his voice. Apparently it was the only time
Michael had seen it too, and he made sure never to see it
again.

Richard wasn’t like Michael. He was taller
and quieter, and all of the adults knew he could be trusted to
watch Michael and Miranda. He was kind to Miranda and she liked it
when he told her about things he had read or places he had visited.
She liked it when he was around in general, and not just because
Michael listened to Richard and was always a little nicer when
Richard was there.

Richard was like a smaller version of his
father Jim, Miranda thought. They were both tall, thin and wore
glasses. They were also both serious people. Jim didn’t say much,
but whenever he did he was always kind and patient. Even Michael,
who didn’t seem to like most adults, liked being around his Uncle
Jim. Miranda concluded that the Hendrickson’s must be very nice
people, and that the same wasn’t true of the Abbots.

Miranda didn’t have a chance to like or
dislike Richard’s mother Lucy Bartolome. She was almost never with
him. And when she was around, she never seemed to spend much time
near Richard, her own son. Some adults were like that, Miranda
knew. But she also didn’t spend much time near Jim.

Later that year, Jim Hendrickson passed away.
Miranda and Michael sat on either side of Richard at the funeral.
It was the only time she saw Richard cry for many years to come. It
made Miranda want to cry that he never mentioned his father again
after that day. It even made her feel bad for Michael, because
Uncle Jim had been kind to him too.

What brought happiness back to her was when
Richard’s other cousin, Jessie, was born. Jessie, Miranda decided
from there on, was going to be her sister. She insisted on holding
the baby at the christening and, with Richard hovering behind her,
walking her around like a big doll.

Miranda insisted on frequent play dates with
Jessie, most of which were supervised by Jessie’s pretty, young
mother, Josie. Miranda thought she was the prettiest, nicest woman
she’d ever met. When they would sit and drink tea—real or
pretend—with Jessie, Miranda really did feel like she was the big
sister in this perfect little family. Even Michael was well behaved
around Josie, and Miranda was sure it was because he thought she
was pretty, too.

As much as she loved Richard, Josie and
Jessie, she did not like Josie’s husband and Richard’s uncle, Tom.
Richard and Michael were always a little quieter around him, and
she saw Michael make a mean face one time after Tom left the room.
It was one of the few times she didn't think Michael was being
bad.

But Tom couldn't have been all bad, Miranda
thought, because Josie was so nice. She wouldn't be married to
anyone bad. And Jessie was so sweet—how could she have a bad
father? And yet...Josie was quiet around Tom, too, and she always
asked Richard or even Michael to take Jessie if Tom walked into the
room.

Miranda did not like Tom, but Alex did. Alex
was everything to her, and if he liked Tom...well, maybe he knew
something about Tom everyone else didn't. Of course, Alex must have
been smarter than Michael, and Josie was so much younger than the
other adults. That must be it. But...then why did Richard dislike
him so much?

Miranda made up her own mind about Tom when
she was nine. She had been playing outside with Michael and
Richard. Michael had pushed her so hard that she had fallen and cut
her knee. By that point in their lives, he didn't even pretend that
it was an accident, although he mumbled "Sorry" for Richard's
benefit. Alex wasn't home just yet, of course. Miranda always
seemed to have the most accidents when Alex wasn't home. She had
scowled at Michael and stumbled into the house. She had heard
Richard yell at Michael, but she didn't care. She just wanted to
clean up and get a bandage on her cut.