Bound for Nirvana: (The Bound Trilogy Book 3) (21 page)

The pain in his face was almost palpable. “Do you remember when I first learned about your past? I said I felt like I’d let you down. Like, somehow, I felt I should have been there to save you from the pain and misery of your childhood?” I nodded, recalling how sad and helpless he’d seemed that day. “Well, now I know that’s because I did let you down. I should have been there to save you—and instead, I abandoned you.”

I knew it!

“Wait a minute, Ethan,” I yelled at him. “You didn’t
abandon
me. You were six years old, for Christ’s sake. You weren’t in a position to save me then.”

“No? Then who was? Because
somebody
should have.”

Just then there was a tap at the door and Veronica and Richard reentered the room.

“Why didn’t we go back for her?” Ethan turned on them instantly.

“Ethan!” I scolded, surprised by the harshness of his tone.

He ignored me and turned to Veronica. “When her mom died, why didn’t we go and get her? We could have taken her to London with us.”

“Ethan, calm down,” she said in a no-nonsense voice. “We couldn’t just take her away from her father, her brothers…”

“Her father and Aaron hated her. Adam… he was next to fucking useless.”

Both Veronica and I recoiled at his words. “I didn’t know—” she whispered, lowering her woeful gaze to the floor.

Suddenly, I felt responsible for this poor woman’s distress. She’d probably been having a perfectly good day until I showed up with my junk and blighted it with gloom.

“It’s not your mom’s fault, E. I wasn’t her responsibility. And I certainly wasn’t yours. You were just a boy,” I said gently, my hand rubbing calming circles into his back.

“No, Angel, he’s right.” Veronica tilted her head back up to look at us, her gaze warming with affection as she glanced from one to the other. “It’s obvious the two of you are very much in love; it simply radiates from you both. And so he’s right to ask questions. You both are. It sounds as if you’ve been kept in the dark for long enough, and if I can help to make things clearer, then I will. Why don’t you tell us your story, Angel? And when you’re done, we’ll do our best to fill in the blanks.”

Veronica and Richard listened attentively as I relayed my story, their expressions a constant varying cycle of sadness and anger and understanding. I told them about my battle with guilt over my mom’s death, and how my father’s determination to blame me had turned into a life-enduring punishment. The form that retribution took—the seclusion, the rejection, the silence, the closet—I left to Ethan. He conveyed those details with the contempt I knew he felt. Finally, I told them that with no photos and no one to talk about her with, I’d had very little chance of keeping any memories of my mom alive.

“What about the accident?” Richard asked when I finished. “What do you remember about that day?”

I glanced at Ethan, recalling the one and only time he’d asked me this question, and the hurt and confusion in his eyes when I’d been unable to answer. Instead, I’d simply handed him the newspaper cutting that had reported my mom’s accident.

“Nothing.” Suddenly a fragment of a memory flashed before my eyes, but it was gone before it could take any real form. I shook my head in exasperation. “Well, nothing solid, anyway.” I paused, watching Ethan’s brow furrow in question. “Obviously, I know what happened—the accident was reported in the newspaper. But… I don’t know if what I recall is a memory or something gleaned from what I’ve read.”

Now all three pairs of eyes were filled with confusion, the same unspoken question lingering on their lips.

Veronica spoke first. “Are you saying that you don’t remember anything about what happened that day?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think so. Everything about the time of the accident is so flimsy, so vague; I can’t decipher what’s real or what I’ve imagined.”

“And your father didn’t explain it to you?”

“No. I remember knowing something bad had happened, but I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t there anymore. I just knew she was gone and that I was to blame. Whenever I asked him—my dad—he just replied with the same answer. ‘You killed her.’ Eventually, he just gave me the clipping from the newspaper report. I remember him reading it to me and saying, ‘Maybe now you’ll stop asking stupid questions.’”

Ethan closed his eyes against his anger while Richard muttered some expletive under his breath. Veronica simply blinked, a solitary tear trickling on to her cheek.

“After that, I quit trying to remember, it seemed easier just to shut it out altogether—or so I thought.” I looked at Ethan. “And then you asked me about it that day, and I felt so ashamed. The last day of my mom’s life and I can’t remember it.”

“You can’t beat yourself up about that, honey.” Veronica smiled kindly. “You were so incredibly young, and you clearly had no one to talk it through with. Sometimes the mind has a way of blocking out traumatic, painful memories. Storing them away in the sub-conscious where you don’t have to deal with them. But that doesn’t mean they don’t affect your conscious mind. Suppressed memories can be life crippling.”

She was right, of course. Slaying my demons could well be more complicated than I originally thought. I could turn my back on my family’s finger pointing all I liked, but unless I dealt with my own guilt, I would never be truly free of them. But how could I deal with something I couldn’t even remember? Suddenly a thought occurred to me. “Do you know what happened that day?”

Veronica’s eyes filled with regret as she shook her head. “I’m afraid not. For a long time, we didn’t even know she’d… gone.” She paused, watching my face cloud with confusion.

“I don’t understand. How could you not know?”

“Mine and your mom’s friendship had been under some strain for a while. When we left for London, I hadn’t actually seen her for a few weeks.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Your father was very possessive of her, always had been from the moment they met. But as the years went by, things got progressively worse. He didn’t like her having friends and was particularly threatened by how close we were. It was causing problems in their marriage, so to avoid tension we met mostly in secret at our apartment in Manhattan or Central Park if the weather was good. But those last few weeks she was unusually distant, to the point where you would spend time with us and your mom would stay home. She didn’t want the difficulties with your father depriving you of your friendship with Ethan. It was important to her that you both remained close.

“I tried to arrange to see her before we left for London, sent hand delivered letters, but she never replied and… Well, it wasn’t until two months later that I heard about the accident. It was the holidays. A friend of mine offered me condolences in a Christmas card. She’d heard about it in the newspaper, assumed I knew. I later learned that Flick had died the day before we flew to England and nobody had told me.”

“Oh Jesus!” Ethan’s words scraped through almost palpable incredulity, and I knew that what Veronica had just revealed would lend more weight to the already enormous amount of guilt he felt about leaving me behind.

“Ethan asked earlier why neither of you could remember your friendship. I suspect it’s because when we left, you were engulfed in grief of a different kind. The memories of him must have been swallowed up in that grief, along with the memories of your mom.” Her expression was filled with remorse. “If we’d known—”

I shook my head and held up my hand to halt her.

My mind was caught in a whirlwind of information, but I couldn’t stop there. Because nothing I’d learned really fitted with how I’d imagined things were. I’d always assumed my mother and father had been blissfully happy, that we’d been a conventional, wholesome family, before I’d torn it all apart. But Veronica’s story and the images lying before me told me something completely different.

“Was it his possessiveness that was making her unhappy?” Veronica narrowed her eyes in question. I nodded at the photographs in response. I, more than anyone, knew how a picture could speak louder than any amount of words. “The sparkle went out of her eyes not long after I was born.”

As if suddenly seeing them in a new light, she looked down at the images in the albums. “I think that was when she began to realize he would never share her with anyone—including you. She didn’t say that exactly, just that you and Harley were having trouble bonding, that he didn’t interact with you, and you would close down when he was around. You were becoming more withdrawn and it was troubling her. That’s when you started to spend more time with us, weekends and holidays. It seemed that Ethan was the only person who could draw you out of yourself. What I could never understand though, was that it was your father who persuaded her to get pregnant a second time. She conceded because she thought another child would bind you together as a family—even things up a bit.”

“Oh, I see!” I laughed out loud at the irony. “And then the twins came along and things were more lopsided than ever. I’m assuming he had no problem bonding with them?”

The responding silence gave me my answer. I stood up, feeling suddenly suffocated by this unforeseen knowledge. My father hated me long before my mother’s death. The fact that I killed her just vindicated that hatred, fortified it.

“I need some air.”

Ethan was up on his feet and by my side before I could draw breath. I looked up into his face full of love and concern—my beautiful, dependable man. He lowered his chin and softly kissed the crown of my head. “Then let’s go get you some.”

Chapter Ten

The sun was making sporadic appearances, flitting in and out from behind the huge puffs of clouds scattered around the otherwise pale blue sky. As we stepped through the doors onto the patio outside, I gulped in a huge, gratifying lungful of air. It was saturated with the remnants of summer and the promise of fall, creating a perfect fusion of aromas, and as I inhaled, it felt wholesome and fresh. It wasn’t exactly cold, but the late September breeze sent a chill fluttering around my collar and I found myself pulling my blazer around me tightly. Without a word, Ethan placed his arm around me, tucking me into his side, and we began to walk.

Although I didn’t commit any of what I saw, at the time, to memory, I would later realize just how amazing and spacious the grounds were. I would appreciate the sprawling, immaculately-maintained lawns and shrubs, the orchard and the walk-throughs to cozy hidden away corners. But for now, I was simply grateful for the peace.

The silence was a comforting balm against the stark contrast of the commotion taking place inside my cluttered mind, and instead of feeling inundated by the disorder, I felt oddly calm. It was as if the disturbance was taking place on the other side of a window, and I was a mere observer watching it unfold. Looking back, I’d taken an unconscious precaution. I was guarding my psyche against an impending implosion, one which could only result in a complete and utter mind-fuck. At least from the vantage point I’d chosen, I could survey what I’d learned logically, absorb it step by step, and limit any resulting damage.

After walking for an indiscernible amount of time, I seemed to suddenly gain perspective, stirring from my contemplative state and becoming decisively lucid and resolute in the way I felt. Ethan’s fingers were firmly intertwined with mine as we stood gazing out at the house from the shade of a beautiful African thatched pagoda. I turned to look at him, his eyes fixed but unfocused as they stared straight ahead. He looked pale, his features kind of pinched with perplexity and worry, and my heart seemed to swell with a sudden rush of love.

“Hey…” I squeezed his hand “…where are you?”

Stirring, he began to blink rapidly, as if dispelling the thoughts that were hampering his vision. His gaze softened as it refocused on my face, his hand reaching out to trail his thumb along the line of my jaw. “I’m right here, baby.” Hesitating for a beat, as if he was half expecting me to crumble in his arms, he added, “How do you feel?”

Shaking my head, I searched for the right words, failing miserably when I came up with, “Really strange, actually.”

“Do you need to sit down?”

“No, not that kind of strange.” I smiled to reassure him. “I mean, I feel unexpectedly… calm. Sedate almost.” I shrugged, struggling to express myself. “I know you feel freaked out. About finding out that we knew each other before, seeing the pictures of us and everything… But for me… it’s like… I don’t know. It’s like suddenly I’ve discovered that I used to exist, that I used to matter. With no conscious memories, my mom had just become a figment of my imagination. My whole life before she died was nothing more than a vague conception conjured from daydreams. I’ve learned more about my life and my mom today than I ever dreamed I’d know. And from the most unlikely source—your mom.” I grinned, suddenly unable to stop the bubbles of enthusiasm from fizzing inside me.

A ghost of smile played at the edge of Ethan’s mouth as my excitement overflowed, but his eyes were still tainted with sadness.

“You can’t dwell on these irrational feelings that you didn’t save me, E. You’re here now, and I’m more whole than I’ve ever been.”

“How come you’re so strong?” He marveled as he stroked my hair from my face.

“It’s because of you, of course. You’re the one who put me back together again. You gave me a future, and now you’ve given me a past. I feel like I finally belong.”

“You’ve always belonged—to me. My Cinderella.” His eyes began to sparkle again, the cloud finally lifting as he his arms circled me and pulled me toward him. “You and Mom are right. It is romantic. Can you believe we were childhood sweethearts?”

I pushed playfully on his chest. “We were six years old, E.”

“I still fucking loved you. More than anyone in the world. You only need to look at the photos to see that.” Suddenly he lifted me and began to twirl me around the pagoda. “I’ve been carrying a glass slipper around in my pocket all these years, looking for you.”

I threw my head back and squealed with laughter. “Oh, that’s what it was! And there was me thinking you were pleased to see me.”