Loving Siblings: Aidan & Dionne (27 page)

But my heart was steady and secure.

“
Helmut,” I began but paused. Then I
had looked him straight in the eye. “Yes.”

I recall how that simple, single-word answer
had his gray eyes tear up. I can still see the pain flash across
his face as if it were yesterday, and I recall how much I wished I
could take that pain away. But I had just sat there, unable to
speak. Unable to offer a comforting word.

I recall he had nodded and he’d dropped his
eyes. I can still see the tear rolling down his cheek, and I can
still hear them in his trembling voice when he said, “You’re in
love with him. I’ve known it for a while. I’ve seen how you looked
at him for the past six months, and it’s not like you used to look
at him before. I’ve seen the change.”

“
I’m sorry, Helmut,” I recall saying.
And I was. Deeply. He didn’t deserve this. He’d always been such a
sweet and wonderful guy . . . but my heart wasn’t with him. In
retrospect, I can now safely say, it never was.

“
Well,” he had said with a weak smile.
“I guess that’s that. This is it, huh?”

“
Yes,” I recall saying, and I recall
feeling tears rolling down my cheeks, too.

It had surprised me that Helmut had been so
understanding. Considering. But he had told me that if I would ever
need him, he’d be there for me. He had even promised to keep a room
free for me in his small apartment should I change my mind.

I learned much later, that he really did do
this for me—for about two months. Then he met Mindy Reynolds, and
she moved in with him. They married a year later, and I’ve heard
they have six children now, and he’s a prominent and respected
doctor with Loma Linda Hospital.

I haven’t seen him again since that night
when he quietly left my childhood home, and my adult life, and
never looked back.

After that, I sought Aidan out. He returned
to his basement room, and I joined him there. We were alone in the
house. We had talked, made love, had cheese and crackers, and made
love again. And I began working on him, carrying out my plan to
convince him to go to Rice, making him promises I knew I could
never keep . . .

“
Miss?”

I look up, and see the friendly face of the
cashier across me. “What?”

“
Your pin?”

“
Oh. I’m sorry,” I say as I look
around and realized I’d zoned out again.

Agitated people were waiting in line behind
me at the checkout. I sigh, and quickly punch in my pin, 1-8-1-8. I
pause as I look at the numbers on the pin-pad, and smile. 1-8. 18.
I feel my heart soar with happiness. “18” had been Aidan’s old
jersey number . . . and the age he became my lover.

I paid for my groceries and pushed the
shopping cart out of the store toward my old, maroon-colored
Prelude, humming, and I drive home with groceries, knowing I still
had enough time for a nice, refreshing nap. As I drive, old
memories faded back into the foggy recesses of my mind where soon,
they’ll be gone forever . . .

**~~**

Waiting at the stoplight, I see an old,
beat-up blue Prelude drive by. I feel a smile stretching across my
lips as my mind floated back in time when I spotted another
Prelude, but a wine-red one—or maroon, as she calls—driving by just
like that blue one was doing now . . .

Darren and Shawn had invited me to Lake
Arrowhead that blessed Saturday. Damn, but it felt like eons ago.
Shawn’s parents had a cabin up there, and I’ve always liked Lake
Arrowhead. Breathtaking place. I loved it because of the fresh air
and the cute shops. And, back then, it gave me an excuse not to
have to go to my old childhood home.

Those days had been hell for me. It was
impossible for me to be at Mom and Dad’s without tearing up or
suffering pain the likes I hope I’ll never suffer again. It had
been almost five years ago, that day, since Dionne had fooled me to
go to Texas with a promise to transfer to a hospital close to there
to finish her internship. It had been five years since she broke my
heart.

Those were the darkest days of my life.

Not long after I’d gone to Rice University,
Dad and Mom told me on the phone Dionne had moved in with that
blond gorilla. I could barely breathe. All I could think about was
ditching university and coming straight home. But I didn’t. I stuck
it out. My pride won over my compulsion, and I stayed and finished
school.

But my anger and disillusion had worked
against me, and they had kept me away from California. In
retrospect, I needed that anger. It drove me to get my credentials
so I could return and not allow both that German liverworst and
Dionne to see how I hurt, but to show them I was bigger than them
and their lies.

I didn’t even come home for summer breaks. I
rarely saw the family, even when I got my Masters in Architecture
and found a nice apartment in West L.A. with the help of Shawn’s
parents. I told Dad and Mom I wanted to be close to the bureau
where I got my internship as junior architect, but the truth was, I
wanted to be as far away from Loma Linda as I possibly could. I
knew, had I seen HelMUTT with my Dionne, I’d surely punch his
lights out. Not to mention, I had been more than just a little
miffed with Dionne, too.

I wasn’t planning to move out of California
after I’d finished my internship. The thought of even living in the
same state as Dionne while she didn’t want to be with me, was
unbearable. Yeah, I was hurt. Deeply. But I came home anyway,
realizing that not living in the same state as her was a worst
punishment. I’d tried looking for her, but Dad and Mom kept telling
me to leave her alone. She had a life of her own now, they said,
and they wanted me to start on mine.

So, I got an internship in West L.A., an own
apartment, and not enough time to think about the betrayal I’d been
feeling all those years. I was fast becoming a workaholic recluse
when Shawn came over one evening and invited me for a weekend at
Lake Arrowhead.

I wasn’t really up to going. But because I
worked at Bright Horizons Architects, Inc. as a junior architect
back then, and they were really working me to the bone, I needed
some time off. I needed some fresh air from the smog and pollution,
too.

The senior architects at Bright Horizons
piled my ass up with work. It took all my spare time, even all my
weekends. Since I was just starting out there, I still needed to
prove myself to the other, more experienced architects who were all
convinced I only got this job because the CEO of the company was a
woman and she liked my looks.

Pure bullshit, of course, but that’s what
they thought. I had to work to earn their respect, and I ultimately
did. Oh, and the CEO, Angie Borkstein, did have a thing for me. But
that’s a different story, and one I’m not inclined to share here.
Or ever.

Shades of the movie, Disclosure, loomed in
my head.

Anyway, it’s true that in school,
having looks people liked was an advantage. Being popular and
riding high in your peer group was a
dream
. However, in the work force, it was a
liability. Some of those unpopular kids you used to go to school
with could be your colleagues.

If you were
really
unlucky, they could turn out to be your
boss.

Some would see putting you through a wrangle
before hiring you as some kind of retribution for sins you or
someone like you who they used to know in school, might have or not
have, committed. That was kind of how it was in my situation
although I didn’t know the guy, and never went to school with him.
I did learn, much later, he used to have this major crush on
Candace . . .

Anyway, that Saturday, as I drove my
Cherokee Jeep behind Shawn and Darren’s blue Bronco, heading for
San Bernardino on our way to the mountains for the forty-five
minute drive up to Lake Arrowhead, I couldn’t have ever guessed
that boring trip would be the moment my life would change.

We had left early, at around 8:30 a.m., to
beat traffic. We were cruising nicely over the freeway, too. But
then I got the munchies, and I wanted to get something. I called
Shawn on my cell phone to let him know I was going to stop at the
Mobile gas station that had a really nice shop packed with
goodies.

“
Cool thing. We’ll keep on driving,
and see you up at the lake, okay?” Shawn had said.

“
Ok,”

I took the next off ramp into Indigo City to
the Mobile station there.

At the bottom of the off ramp, as I had to
wait for the stoplight, I suddenly spotted a maroon colored
Prelude—a car hardly seen driving around anymore, but what was once
the most popular car in the mid 1980’s. It reminded me of Dionne’s
car . . .

Then I felt as if my heart had stopped. My
eyes had widened as my brain tried to absorb what I was seeing. I
recalled thinking I must’ve been hallucinating, because as I
watched the Prelude pass across my windshield, I saw an all too
familiar profile behind the wheel.

I hadn’t seen her in over five years. Or was
it six? According to Mom and Dad, Dionne had moved in with Helmut
in Loma Linda, which was still a good forty-five minute drive from
where I was now.

What that her? And if it was, what was she
doing in Indigo?

Just to satisfy my curiosity, I decided to
follow the maroon Prelude, and so I did. The drive took me to one
of the newer PUD home communities, one that had a security gate.
Luckily, it stood open so I didn’t need to buzz someone to let me
in, and as the Prelude pulled into the private neighborhood of
apricot-colored two story mini homes with terracotta roof tiles and
perfectly manicured green lawns, I followed.

I had followed the Prelude through the maze
of streets until I slowed to the curb when I saw the car pull up a
steep concrete and brick lined drive in front of one of those
apricot houses.

Sitting dumbfounded, yet knowing I’m just
killing myself again, I sat staring at her as she exited her
Prelude, and I watched, as if everything was happening in slow
motion, how she’d bent and took out two brown bags of
groceries.

“
Fuck me,” I recall muttering. Dear
god, it
was
her! It was
Dionne! And she looked as beautiful as the day I held her in my
arms. Except for the shorter do.

She had trimmed her golden-brown hair
in layers, and her locks seemed straighter as it blew softly back
from her ever beautiful face. She wore a pretty, sleeveless dress
of an India cotton material in a warm red and terracotta design.
She was slim. Slimmer than I’d ever seen her, actually, and a pang
hit me square in the chest thinking, marriage to
Hel
got
Kraus didn’t seem to
agree with her. From where I sat, I could see the sadness all
around her.

Hel
gut
be damned, I thought with irate determination. I
had
to see her.

I had exited the Jeep and closed it off. In
the reflection in the tinted glass of my vehicle, I checked my
hair, and saw the reflection of my lean face sporting black Wayfare
sunglasses. My clothes, although more casual for the trip to Lake
Arrowhead, were crisp, clean, and not that bad. I was wearing a
white, short sleeve shirt, with top button left open, and blue
denims. I looked presentable, although I wished I had worn
something more . . . complimentary of my physique.

Something sexier.

I had taken a deep breath, letting it slip
from me with a gush.

“
Now or never,” I recall muttering.
Then I turned and crossed the street.

I headed up the brick walk to the front
door, all the while feeling my heart slamming in my chest. I had
made it to the shade of the porch, and was about to ring the bell
when I glanced down to my right . . . and suddenly felt an
incredible pain sear through me.

There, against the stucco wall, I saw a
small red and green Tiny Tyke children’s table. Even now, as I
think about those moments when I felt as if my heart would stop
forever, I get physically ill. The pain is still excruciating.

I recall I had to close my eyes as pain tore
through me, and twisted my insides, like a jagged-edged knife.

Dionne . . . was a mother.

That was it. That was the end. It was over
for me. I couldn’t, in good conscience, go to her now she was a
mother. It was then I realized my real reason for finding myself
following her and finding myself at her door, was because I still
hadn’t forgotten her. I still couldn’t give her up. I had come to
her door to ease the throbbing pain I’d been suffering for years,
but all I found was more pain that would last me my lifetime.

The anger, the pain, the disillusion of
being fooled by the one woman I will ever love for the rest of my
life no matter who’ll I’ll ultimately end up with . . . it all came
rushing to the fore after having been repressed all those years. I
was there because I’d never given up wanting her. Even those long,
five years couldn’t diminish my feelings for her. Not even an
iota.

I also realized, I would never be over
her.

I had followed her and come to her
home because something inside me wanted to take her away from
Hel-
mutt
. I was ready to pick
a fight for her, fight
him
for her, because I’d be fighting for us.

But seeing that red and green Tiny Tyke
table changed everything.

I didn’t want to cause any mayhem in her
life. I couldn’t destroy her little family. At that moment, I
believed I loved her more than she loved me. At that moment, I had
realized, that had she wanted to see me, she could’ve contacted Mom
and Dad many times. If she really loved me, she wouldn’t have lied
to me that she would come to me in Texas.