“And didn’t tell Abigail.”
“For whatever reason.”
Michael thought about that: a teenage girl dies the day after an abortion. There was a lot of emotion wrapped up in that simple scenario, a lot of tension, too. “Was Julian the father?”
“Blood type was inconsistent. I don’t know. Maybe she drowned herself on purpose. She was a kid with religious parents and an unplanned pregnancy. Maybe Julian tried to save her but couldn’t.”
“It would explain the skin under his nails, why he was wet…”
“And why he couldn’t remember anything. It would have been traumatic.”
“Maybe the senator was the father.”
“That could explain why he kept the autopsy records. Hell, maybe the senator killed her.”
Michael lingered over another possibility. “Maybe Salina did.”
“Don’t even joke about that.”
But both men were thinking.
“You said you had a few things to talk about. What else?”
“This is just for you, okay?”
“Okay.”
Jessup glanced away, lips thin and tight.
“What?” Michael asked.
“Fuck it.” Jessup pulled a thin file from beside his seat. “This was in the senator’s safe, too.”
He handed the file over, and Michael opened it. “These are medical records.”
“Abigail’s.”
Michael flipped pages, and Jessup said, “I thought you should know how badly she wanted to bring you boys home.”
The comment made little sense, but then it did. “She had a tubal ligation.”
“Shortly after she married. She never told the senator.”
“But he found out,” Michael said.
“He had the file, yes. I suspect he figured it out right before they moved into separate bedrooms. Whether he confronted her, I don’t know.”
“She told me they were unable to conceive.”
“That’s what she told the world. It’s how she convinced him to adopt.”
Michael closed the file, and Jessup took it from numb fingers.
“She wanted to bring you boys home, Michael. She wanted to make you safe and whole and loved.”
The next time they met, it was just the three of them—Michael and Julian and Abigail—and it was strange how much that corner of shade and grass felt like their special place in the world. They sat at the same table under the same tree, and saw children that looked familiar. Words came easier; responses were less guarded. Yet, a subtle unease persisted, and Michael wondered if the problem was his alone. He glanced at Abigail, who looked rested but not quite at peace. He wanted to tell her that he knew the truth, to offer forgiveness for the way she’d left them and thank her for the things she’d done. Maybe that would afford her a measure of respite, a path to clearer skies. But Abigail made a good mother to Julian, and Julian made a good son. Michael saw respect and love and comfort. Dragging out the truth would help nobody, so he let the truth lie. He enjoyed this moment in the sun, and left Arabella Jax where she belonged, unspoken of and unloved, quietly rotting in the small shack the three of them had once known as children.
They took a brief walk along the shore, and Michael felt healing in his leg. As the day wore on, they returned to the table and had white wine in plastic cups, though a sign at the entrance declared it against the rules. Julian fretted and fussed and worried about cops, all of which made Abigail laugh and Michael smile. When the bottle was nearly empty, Michael caught Abigail’s eye, and said, “I heard about the senator’s will.” She tried to interrupt, but Michael held up a hand. “I have plenty of money. It’s yours.”
She took his hand and smiled. “That’s kind of you, but unnecessary.”
“But the paper said you could only take jewelry and personal effects…”
Abigail laughed, and the sound was pure joy. “Oh, Michael. My jewelry alone appraises at twelve million dollars, and the art Randall gave me is worth twice that. The house in Charlotte is in my name, the house in Aspen.” She shook her head. “Randall was not as bad as the papers made him sound. We were in love once, and that mattered to both of us. He indulged me, made investments in my name. That reminds me. I have something for you boys.”
She fished in the wine basket and came out with two small boxes that were elegantly wrapped. She handed one to Michael, the other to Julian. “Open.”
Michael thumbed off the ribbon and tore the paper. Inside the box was a cigarette lighter made of gold and platinum. His name was engraved on the side. Julian had a similar one. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a keepsake,” Abigail said. “A reminder.”
“Of what?”
“New beginnings.”
Michael looked at Julian, and she smiled because no one understood.
“Randall gave me another gift,” she said. “When the orphanage closed, he bought it for me. The buildings, the grounds. All of it.”
“But why?” Michael asked.
“Partly because I wanted to keep Andrew Flint close. Mostly, I wanted to own it in case this day ever came.”
“I still don’t understand.”
She gestured at the lighter Michael held. “Turn it over.”
He did as she asked. The other side was engraved, too.
Iron House
“Burn it.” She reached across the table, took both their hands. “Burn it to the ground, and then let it go.”
Andrew Flint was gone when they got to Iron House. The gate stood wide, the old house empty. When Michael told Julian about Billy Walker, he found his brother strangely silent. He stood by the patched door and gazed up at the third-floor corner room in which they’d lived. “Flint had all your books,” Michael said. “I think he read them to Billy.”
“It’s not why I wrote them.”
“I know it’s not.”
“I wrote them to teach children about evil, not for evil children to read them.”
“I don’t think Billy’s evil anymore.”
A light breeze ruffled the grass, and Julian closed his eyes as dusk gathered in the valley. It was very silent where they stood, just wind and the slow churn of memory. “They’re really dead.”
He meant Ronnie Saints, George Nichols and Chase Johnson. Michael stripped a tall weed from the ground. “Dead and gone.”
Julian opened his eyes and they caught a glint of red sun. “Do you know how they died, Michael?”
Julian was thinking about the boathouse, about the memory fragments still buried in his mind. He saw Abigail kill Ronnie Saints. But was it real or delusion? That’s what he really wanted to know. Michael thought for less than half a second, then rolled his shoulders and said, “I don’t think it really matters.”
And he believed that. Because Michael’s job was still to protect his brother; because what Jessup had said was right.
We can all live with doubts.
It’s the knowing that breaks us.
“I’m sorry I killed Hennessey.”
Michael put his arm around Julian’s neck and said, “Fuck that kid. He was a dick.”
“Yeah?”
Michael squeezed tight and said, “Julian, my brother, I think it’s time to build a very large fire.”
They made their way to the front door. Michael used the key Abigail had given him. “Do you want to see anything first? Our room? Anything?”
“Why?”
Michael liked that answer, because it was damn good. Because it fit the man Julian needed to be. They went to the subbasement so the place would burn from the bottom up. They piled boxes and busted furniture and bundles of rotted cloth. They put on everything they could find, until the pile was so tall they had to throw stuff to get it on top. “That’s what I’m talking about,” Michael said.
The mound rose eight feet and was another ten feet wide at the base. Stepping back, breath short, Julian stared for a long time, then asked, “Do you remember what old man Dredge told me?”
“Sunlight and silver stairs?” Michael asked.
“Doors to better places.”
“I remember.”
Julian struggled for a moment, then asked, “Do you think there are such things?”
“Doors to better places?” Michael flattened his palm and showed the lighter. “I think we’re going to make one right now. Do you have your lighter?”
Julian pulled it warm from his pocket, a scared, delighted grin on his face. “We’re really doing this.”
“You want to go first?” Michael asked.
“Together.”
Michael bent, Julian three feet away. “Wouldn’t it be funny if she forgot to put in lighter fluid?”
Julian laughed, and they lit the fire that would bring Iron House down. Flames licked up piled boxes and they moved for the door as it reached the ceiling. They stood for a full minute, watching as Julian turned the lighter in his fingers, then slipped it into his pocket. “Do you feel anything?” Michael asked.
“I feel warm.”
“Are you being funny?”
“All kinds of warm.”
They watched until it was too hot to stay, then made their way up and out, drove to the high, metal gate, then got out of the car to watch yellow fingers stroke the basement glass. “Soon,” Michael said, and Julian touched the place above his heart.
“Mom should have come.”
But Michael shook his head. “This is for us.”
“Are you happy?” Julian nodded toward Iron House.
“Shhh.” Michael said it gently. “Just watch.”
So they watched as night fell and cool air spilled from the face of the mountain. Michael draped an arm across his brother’s shoulders, and they stood in silence as glass shattered from the heat, as smoke poured out and Iron House burned.
The next days were bittersweet for Michael as Julian’s step grew light and Abigail found increasing joy in the sight of this long-troubled man moving with slow but steady grace into a better life. He would never be a strong man, but the destruction of Iron House gave him a confidence she’d never seen. She and Michael discussed it once over drinks on the terrace.
“Maybe it was the death of those boys,” Michael said.
“Or Victorine Gautreaux.”
Michael watched a boat move on the water. It was far away, but he thought he saw Victorine laugh. “She’s good for him, isn’t she?”
Abigail nodded, but her eyes were cloudy. “I keep looking for signs of her mother,” she said. Michael understood. Family was a powerful force—it could shape you, build you up or ruin you—and it was that force that made Michael’s days so unexpectedly difficult to endure. Abigail and Julian shared a connection built over years, and there was so much history there, so much understanding that Michael felt apart. They were mother and son, for better or worse, and it was hard to watch an intimacy he would never share, hard to know the truth and feel such love in secret.
She was his sister, but only in blood.
They were brothers, but so very far apart.
They all tried, of course, but Michael found, as two days grew to five, that he thought often of Otto Kaitlin. Like Abigail and Julian, they’d walked a bridge built on decades of trust and time and mutual sacrifice. And bridges like that were strong; they felt good under one’s feet. So while Michael would always be welcome, while Abigail and Julian worked day and night to make him
know
that fact, he kept his phone in his pocket at all times. He waited for Elena to call and slept at night dreaming of his own family—a wife and child—the dream that started all this in the first place. Until the day came when he could no longer sit still.
“Where will you go?” Abigail asked.
“I’m not exactly sure.”
“Will we see you again?” Julian’s voice broke when he said it, and every ounce of new confidence melted as he tried very hard not to beg. “We’re just getting started ... We’re just…” He looked from Abigail to Michael. “Come on, man. You can’t just leave.”
“It won’t be like it was. We’ll see each other before you know it.”
“Do you promise?”
“I do.”
The boy came out in Julian’s face, all the fear and need. “Do you swear?”
Michael hugged him fiercely. “I swear.”
They said their good-byes at the house, in private, then Jessup drove Michael to airport in Raleigh. They spoke little, but that was okay. “Where do you want me to drop you?” Jessup asked.
“American Airlines.”
“Abigail said you don’t know where you’re going.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay.” Jessup followed signs to American Airlines, then pulled to the curb and stopped. Through big glass walls they saw a crush of normal people doing normal things. “Here you go,” he said, but Michael made no move to get out.
“Victorine and Julian may get serious,” he said.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“The senator’s dead. I’m leaving.”
“What’s your point?”
Michael turned in his seat. “She may find herself very alone.”
“You mean Abigail.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“She’ll think I’m after her money.” He shook his head sadly. “It’s been twenty-five years…”
“She needs you.”
The line of Jessup’s jaw grew firm. “I’ll always take care of her.”
“It’s not the same and you know it.” Michael opened his door. “You should speak your mind.”
“And you should leave a man to tend his own business.”
Michael stared long enough to see Jessup swallow once, then climbed out and leaned back in to study the older man’s face. He saw strong lines etched by sacrifice and worry; saw want and need and deep, abiding fear. He dug for words of encouragement, but in the end said nothing. Because Jessup was right: a man should tend his own business, especially when it involved the heart. He would find the strength or not; live alone or take her hand. “Thanks for the ride,” Michael said.
“Anytime.”
Michael closed the door and thumped the roof. He went inside—no luggage or ticket—then turned before the crowd could swallow him. He saw Jessup through the glass. Pale and still, he stared a thousand yards into nothing. Michael watched for several minutes, then the man dipped his head once and the car pulled slowly away.
It took Michael another ten minutes to find the man he was looking for. Same clothes, same hat. “Do you remember me?” Michael asked.
“Hey, thousand-dollar man!”
The skycap’s face lit up, teeth big and white. Michael eased a thick wad of cash from his pocket. “How’d you like to make another five?”