When We Collide (4 page)

I stood there wishing I would have at least been
brave enough to give her a reason, that sometime over the years I
would have explained that it had nothing to do with her or Dad or
Blake.

She would have understood.

She finally pulled away and wiped beneath her eyes
before she reached out a shaky hand to touch my cheek.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” Her eyes were serious,
filled with disappointment and brimming with relief.

I resisted the urge to look away.

Instead I nodded and choked over the words, “I’m
glad I’m here, too.” At least it was partially true.

She smiled and turned to head back into the house.
“Come on then.”

I wasn’t so foolish to believe that would be the
last I’d hear about my absence, but for now, it would have to be
enough.

Inside, my Aunt Lara lay dying, and this trip wasn’t
about me.

I went around to gather my things from the back of
the SUV. Blake appeared at my side, his wary smile from before now
welcoming.

“Here. Let me give you a hand with that.”

I paused to look at my brother, six years gone, now
a man, a father.

Blake had never been one for grudges. Our battles
had been fought with fists and curses, the fight almost always
forgotten by the next morning.
Spats
, my mother had called
them. I wished it could be that simple now.

“Thanks, man,” I said, tugging the large suitcase
from the back of the SUV.

“Not a problem.” Blake leaned into the cargo area
and dug out the smaller suitcase and laptop case.

I followed Blake up the same steps I had taken a
million times.

I glanced over my shoulder and up the road toward
the playground that remained just out of sight, wondering if
she
still snuck to that secluded spot and if the memories of
what had taken place there affected her as much as they did me. Did
she feel drawn there, the way I did now? Or maybe I’d just always
been drawn to her.

Shaking myself from the thoughts, I turned back to
follow my brother inside. My feet faltered halfway through the
front door. My guilt amplified when I set my eyes on the people in
the living room.

I knew them only from pictures, Emma and Olivia,
Blake’s two little black-haired, round-faced girls. They were on
the floor on their bellies, Emma coloring, Olivia scribbling. Their
mother, Grace, sat on the edge of the couch, watching over them.
Her mouth twisted up into an obligatory, faked smile when she
looked up at me. I had known Grace for years, had grown up with
her, graduated in the same high school class.

Her expression told me how little she thought of me
now.

I don’t think I’d ever known a more awkward moment
than when my brother had to introduce me to my two- and
four-year-old nieces who I had never met.

“Hey, Olivia, Emma. Come here. I want you to meet
someone. This is your Uncle Will, my brother.”

The oldest regarded me with cautious curiosity and
the youngest with outright fear.

Apparently expensive gifts sent on birthdays and
Christmases didn’t make me any less of a stranger.

I rushed a hand through my hair and averted my eyes,
never feeling more like an outsider than I did now. I’d missed so
much, what felt like a lifetime. How could I have been such a fool
to allow my past to chase me from my family?

“Your father is already asleep,” Mom said from where
she stood in the middle of the living room, looking just as unsure
about me being there as I felt. “He’s still working the early
shift. Why don’t you get settled and then you can go in and see
your Aunt Lara?”

Nodding, I started up the stairs to my old room.
Blake’s footfalls echoed on the wooden staircase behind me. I
nudged the door open. The hinges squeaked from disuse. Flicking on
the overhead light, I stood aside and allowed Blake to enter ahead
of me.

He dumped my things on the floor and cast a cautious
glance around my room. “Everything’s pretty much the same in here.
Mom couldn’t bring herself to change anything.”

If it weren’t for the lack of dust, I would have
wondered if anyone had stepped foot in it since I’d left. The same
worn blue and green plaid bedspread was draped over the full-sized
bed, posters of cars tacked to the walls, the shelves cluttered by
academic trophies.

Blake suddenly laughed. His eyes glinted with the
same old amusement that had always come at my expense.

“God, you were such the little nerd.” Blake grinned
in my direction, and I smiled in spite of myself at the memory. “It
was so easy to piss you off. You’d come after me with fists
swinging. For some reason, I thought it was my job to toughen you
up. Figured if I kicked your ass enough, I’d make a man out of my
little brother. Guess I taught you well. Remember that time you
kicked the shit out of Troy Clemons?” Looking at the ground, he
shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. “Shit. You
nearly killed that guy. Nobody was going to mess with you after
that.”

My jaw ticked involuntarily and my fists curled, an
instinctual physical reaction evoked at the mention of Troy’s
name.

Maybe I should’ve killed him.

God knew I wanted to.

Blake cut his narrowed eyes my way. “Of course, it
didn’t matter much. Wasn’t long after that you disappeared.”

I looked to the ground when Blake’s disappointment
covered me like a shroud.

“What happened, Will?” Blake took a step back to
lean against the bedroom wall with his arms crossed over his chest.
“One minute everything was just fine and the next we never see you
again.”

I struggled to find a valid explanation, but there
wasn’t one to give.

Dragging a hand through my hair, I released an
ashamed breath.

“I just...” I glanced up at my brother and wished I
could say something to erase the last six years. I’d been wrong to
take the path I had—maybe just as wrong as she had been. Finally I
said, “I’m sorry,” because I had no excuse for the choice I’d
made.

From across the room, Blake lifted his head and
exhaled toward the ceiling. The sound hung in the air, filled with
questions and dissatisfaction and a sense of letting go. He looked
back at me and jerked his chin in my direction. “How long are you
staying?”

I glanced around the room in discomfort, then looked
back at him. “I’m not really sure. A while...” I shrugged. “I
guess.”

Frowning, Blake studied me, his expression one I
knew well, one of the protective big brother.

No. Some things never changed.

“You and Kristina having trouble?”

I resisted the urge to laugh.

“Something like that,” I said, scratching at the
side of my jaw to mask my unease.
Having trouble
didn’t
begin to describe it.

Blake nodded as if he understood and rubbed his hand
over his chin. “Well, if you decide to stick around here for a
while, Grace and I have a little guesthouse out back. We lost our
renters a couple of months ago. It’s not much”—he gestured around
my old room—“but anything’s gotta be better than this. It’s yours
if you want it.”

“I…uh…” I didn’t know what to say or how to respond.
Six years I’d been gone, without a word, without an explanation,
yet my brother welcomed me back as if I had never committed the
offense.

Blake grinned. “Don’t sweat it, man. Just let me
know what you want to do.” He clapped me once on the back as he
walked by, only to pause and turn around in the doorway with his
hand on the knob. All evidence of the smile had been wiped from his
face. “Just promise me you won’t take off like that this time.”
Something passed across Blake’s face, an emotion I wished I
couldn’t read. “I mean it, Will. I won’t let you do that to Mom
again.”

Guilt rushed up my spine and settled in the back of
my neck. I looked away and palmed the tense muscles, unable to face
Blake and what I’d done. It’d been a bitch to ignore it in
California. Here it was almost unbearable. “I won’t.”

Blake said nothing more, just turned away and pulled
the door shut behind him.

I released a heavy breath through my mouth and
rushed an incessant hand over the back of my head, feeling like a
bastard standing in my own room.

~

Twenty minutes later, I crept out the door and into
the dim hallway, the only light emanating from downstairs.

Mom had just taken the last step onto the
second-floor landing when I emerged from my room. She paused and
offered a guarded smile, as if the satisfaction of my arrival had
waned and worry had set in, a wall of unease and unfamiliarity that
the years of absence had built between mother and son.

“Hi,” she said. Her gaze swept over me. Her eyes
were red but tender, and they softened further when she looked back
up to my face.

“Hey,” I whispered and stepped forward, noticing the
distinct silence that had set in the air. It was a calm, almost
disturbing quiet. “I was just coming to find you.”

She smiled at the words. It appeared as if the
action hurt.

“Blake and the girls left for the night, so I came
up to check on Lara.” She glanced in the direction of Blake’s old
room then back at me, her face suddenly swamped in sadness. “Did
you…want to see her?”

My gut twisted, and I instinctively looked in the
direction where my aunt lay dying. A dense haze of dread clouded my
mind as I thought of facing what waited behind that door. I looked
back at Mom, swallowing hard. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

She nodded. “I need to warn you, she’s sedated.
She’s not awake much, but when she is, she isn’t making a whole lot
of sense.” Pausing at the closed door, Mom turned back to look at
me, her mouth trembling. “She’s getting near the end.”

I reached for my mother’s hand and squeezed it. I
wished I could give her some form of comfort while knowing I could
offer her none. She pressed her eyes closed in return, a rush of
tears suddenly falling down her face, then opened the door and
stepped back to allow me to pass.

All the breath left me when I saw Aunt Lara lying in
the hospital bed. The head was inclined to keep her propped up, her
hair thin and patchy. I’d always remembered her strong. Now she was
bone thin. Her face was sunken, her cheekbones prominent, her skin
brittle and gray. A single machine sat next to her bed, attached to
an IV administering narcotics to make her comfortable.

I forced myself across the room and sank down onto
one of the two chairs at the side of the bed. I took her cold hand
in mine. Her mouth hung open while she slept. Each breath seemed to
be a struggle as she forced the air in and out of her lungs.

Had I forgotten how much I loved her?

Dropping my head and eyes, I ran my thumb over the
back of her hand, hoping she could feel me and that she somehow
would know I was there. I whispered, “I’m so sorry, Aunt Lara.”

Her grip was weak, but I felt the change in pressure
when she tried to clasp mine. When I looked up, her eyes were
fluttering, unintelligible sounds voiced from her moving lips.

Quickly, I shifted forward and touched the back of
my other hand to her forehead.

“William.” It was raspy, but clear. Her eyes came
into focus when they locked with mine.

I smiled down at her, ran a hand down her stringy
hair, and wished I could take back the last six years. “Hi, Aunt
Lara.”

“I knew you’d come.” Her lips quivered as she
attempted to smile, gurgling audible in her throat as she fought to
suck in air.

“I’m—”

“Don’t.” She coughed, her eyelids fluttering as if
she were being pulled under again, barely hanging onto
consciousness. “I know you’re...sss...sorry. You’re here...now...is
all that matters.” Her hand tightened in mine as her lucidity
faded, the hint of a smile touching the edge of her mouth. Her
breaths came heavy once again and her jaw went slack, her mind
dragged back into oblivion.

I looked up at the white, stained, popcorn ceiling,
fighting the quaking that jackhammered against my ribs.

This was harder than I’d ever believed.

I sat with her for the longest time, longer than I
probably knew. I finally stood and brushed my lips across her
forehead.

When I stepped back out into the hall, Mom was still
there, waiting in a cloak of anxiety, passing time by studying the
pictures lining the wall that detailed mine and Blake’s
childhood.

“How is she?” she asked when I latched the door shut
behind me.

“Resting now. She woke up for a couple of minutes.
She knew I was there.”

I watched her reaction, the small dose of joy mixed
with what I now recognized as suffocating grief. I’d felt it
myself, the helplessness, the impending loss. I could only imagine
how much greater it was for my mother.

“I’m going to sit with her for a while…make sure
she’s comfortable for the night. Can you get yourself settled?” She
drew her brows tight, almost as if she were bracing herself for my
answer. “You are…staying?”

I knew what she was asking. Not whether I was
staying the night. She was well aware my things were in my
room.

She was asking for a commitment, for a promise that
I wouldn’t suddenly disappear from her life, the way I had done six
years before.

My head was tilted down and my hands were stuffed in
my pockets while I looked at my mother beneath the hedge of hair
hanging over my eyes. It was the best I could do to expose myself
and hide all at the same time. “Yeah. I’m staying.”

~

I collapsed facedown onto my old bed in a heap of
exhaustion, my body weary from the long hours of travel, my mind
and soul broken and filled with loss.

I’d wasted so much time.

The sheets were cool against my skin. I pressed my
palm flat on the mattress where
she
had lain the first time
I made love to her. I could almost remember how soft her hair had
been as I wound it between my fingers. Could feel the sting of her
fingertips digging into my back. Could see the love and trust
overflowing in her eyes as she stared back up at me.