The Family You Choose (10 page)

"Hmm?" Richard said, pulling himself back
from sleep.

"Do you think your aunt was jealous of
Alex?"

"Jealous? Oh, I don’t know, probably. My
father thought my grandfather had spoiled her a little."

"No, I mean more than that." She took a deep
breath. "Do you think your aunt was jealous of Alex
because...something was going on with Stephen and Alex?"

Richard’s eyes popped open. And then he
laughed so roughly that she jumped. "No," Richard said, fully awake
now. "Stephen wasn’t gay. Alex isn’t gay."

"Are you alright?"

"I’m sorry darling," Richard said, pulling
her back. "It’s just that Jessie has had this theory for years that
Alex was abusing Michael, but trust me, that’s not it."

"Too bad he’s straight," Zainab said, easing
back onto Richard’s warm body. "That would give Miranda one less
thing to worry about."

"I guess you can’t help who you love
sometimes, even if you should," Richard said, but Zainab had
already begun to doze off. Richard was wide awake now, and he
stared at the ceiling for another hour, thinking about how
different everything might have been if people really were able to
stop and start love at will.

"Are you kidding me?" Miranda said as she
leaped up and hugged Emily. "I didn’t think I would ever get to see
you alone again!"

Emily eased herself into her chair at the
café. "I can have lunch whenever I want to," she said. She was
telling the truth, but she felt like she was lying. Mitch had
gotten a little testy when she told him that she needed to see
Miranda and had crankily told her that he could use the extra time
to study, thank you. He’d apologized when he saw how much his
childishness hurt her, but it still stung Emily that Mitch
begrudged her time with their friend when something was wrong.

Miranda smiled. "Then I’m going to hold you
to that."

Emily smiled back. "I hope so. Now, how was
Israel?"

Miranda told her about her grandfather’s
failing health. His heart was weak still, despite the new medicine
his doctors had prescribed. All of the cousins and aunts and uncles
were taking turns caring for him, and Miranda felt guilty that she
couldn’t be there. So she hoped that she’d be able to get to Israel
for her next co-op, even if she had to make something up about
observing how well Israeli buses stayed on schedule. "Aren’t you a
History major?"

"Don’t worry—I can make it work."

Emily told her a little bit about her
continuing work with Professor Hazlett, but tried not to bore her.
They talked a little about Jessie, whom both of them missed
terribly.

"I’m going to send her a little package next
week—is there anything you want me to put in?" Miranda asked.

"Um, condoms?" They both laughed, but after a
moment, Miranda grew serious. "I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when
Michael came back."

Emily shook her head. "Oh, God, don’t worry,
I understand."

"I didn’t want you to be mad at me," Miranda
said, as if Emily hadn’t said anything. "I know Mitch isn’t the
only one who’s mad at me. He’s just the only one who’ll be mad to
my face. That’s good, Em. You should hold onto him, because so many
other people will lie to you or leave you. But he’s not afraid of
telling you what he’s thinking. I think you can trust him."

Emily smiled uncomfortably. "I do trust him,"
she said, but she knew that wasn’t what they were talking
about.

"That’s good," Miranda said. "Because you two
love each other, and you always have. You shouldn’t let mistakes
get in the way, because those you can fix."

"Honey, have you ever thought about getting
your own place?" Emily blurted out. "I mean, you can certainly
afford it, and you deserve a little independence, don’t you
think?"

"What are you talking about?" Miranda forced
a smile. "No one is more independent than I am—I can and do stay
out until four in the morning if I want to, and now I don’t have to
worry about Michael, and I can be with Alex as much as I want."

"How much are you with Alex?"

"God, Em, what are you asking?"

"I—I don’t know," Emily said. "You just seem
so unhappy, and I know you thought Alex would make you happy...if
you didn’t have Michael to worry about."

"Alex really does love me," Miranda said, but
she looked away. "It’s just so...complicated, you know? What would
people say if the two of us...I’m not his daughter, he’s not my
father, but...how could I not know how it looks? It would be
humiliating for him, like he was some pervert waiting me out until
I was ready for him, you know?"

Emily felt like her cheeks must have turned
purple, but she forced herself not to squirm. "What has he
said?"

"Said? Oh, we never say anything about it, we
don’t have to."

"So how do you know...that he feels the same
way about you?"

"How did you know about Mitch? What did he do
that you knew?"

"Isn’t it different?" Emily said, trying to
sound gentle.

"Is it? What did he do, how did you
know?"

Emily smiled in spite of herself. "It was
right here," she said, "the night I met him. Actually, maybe it was
in the car, when he drove me home and we sat outside my mother’s
house for longer than we needed to, and nothing had ever felt
so...right."

Miranda nodded, and Emily felt like she was
slipping into a dangerous but beautiful place. "And how did you
know that he loved you?"

"When he stayed up all night with me and he
didn’t touch me," Emily said immediately.

"I’ve known Alex loved me from the moment I
saw him," Miranda said simply. "And I loved him too." She looked
straight at Emily. "And I know what everyone thinks. I’m not crazy,
I’m not deluding myself, and it’s not seventeen years of built up
wishful thinking. I can tell when he looks at me that he doesn’t
love me as a daughter. I know that’s part of why he sent me away
when I was younger because, yeah, that would be obscene. And I know
it’s love."

Emily turned her head to the side, as if she
were seeing something in front of her for the very first time.
"God, Miranda, you’ve never had a boyfriend, have you?"

"A lover, you mean?" Miranda shook her head.
"No. I’ve never wanted anyone else."

"Not even to kiss them, not even to...not
even to not feel lonely?" She shook her head again. Emily raised
her eyebrow. "And you were never...curious about what you were
missing?"

"I know I’ll have it someday. I can wait. I
want to wait, because the person I want...isn’t available right
now."

"What about him?" Emily leaned in, almost
whispering. "Has he been waiting for you?"

"No, he hasn’t, of course not. He’s never
been faithful to me," Miranda said, unable to stop the tears. "And
he doesn’t hide it at all. He...tells me where he’s going, and how
long he’s going to be gone, and who he’s going to be with. I think
he does it on purpose to taunt me, to hurt me, to see if I’ll do
the same. But then he doesn’t understand. I don’t want anyone else,
and this isn’t going to go away with sex."

Emily’s head told her how sick and crazy this
really was, but in her gut she understood more than she wanted to.
She wanted to make all of it come together, fix it for Miranda, but
she didn’t know how. "Miranda, are you sure he’s in love with you
too?" she asked as gently as she could.

"God, I am not as stupid as I look!" Miranda
hissed, and Emily sat back. "I do know. I do know. And I also know
that he doesn’t want to be. You never have to work to get someone’s
love; you just have to work to keep it." She wiped away her tears,
but more followed. "I thought everything would be different and
better if Michael left, but I didn’t think he ever really would.
But now he is gone, like some kind of miracle, and nothing has
changed. If anything, Alex has even more excuses to be away from
me."

"So then you need to leave too," Emily said
firmly. "You need to be somewhere where he doesn’t get to you so
much."

"Did Mitch get to you any less because he was
in Ireland? Seriously, even though you were with that creep, does
that mean that you loved him any less, that the thought of him
didn’t hurt you maybe even more?"

Emily wanted to say that the guy she had been
with was with a pathologically lying, drug dealing freak and was
too wrapped up in that drama to care about Mitch. But that would
have been a lie. "Maybe it did. But if Mitch weren’t a better
person—if he hadn’t been willing to be a better person—then he
wouldn’t have been worth loving, and sometimes that’s enough to
make love go away."

"Really? Can you just stop loving someone
when you think they’re not good enough?"

"I’ve had to. Otherwise I couldn’t have gone
on. You’d never understand, because it’s just not in you to be so
cold, but I’ve had to more times than I care to admit. Sometimes
it’s the only way to survive."

"Maybe," Miranda said, and Emily was annoyed
to realize that now she was under the microscope. "But what’s left
if you do that?"

"What’s left if you don’t?" Emily said.

~~~

That evening, Emily didn’t say anything when
she met Mitch at the library after his classes were over. Mitch
thought she might still be angry with him because of this morning,
and then was annoyed that she was still angry. But then he saw a
tear drip onto the notes she was writing, and he lifted her chin,
silently asking what was wrong. She shook her head and looked down
at the paper again. He cursed that they were in the law library
now, which didn’t have the luxury of the closed doors the general
library had. They’d go there next week, he thought.

She didn’t say anything on the way to the
train station and looked out the window the whole ride home. But
she didn’t move his hand off of her shoulder, which he thought was
a good sign.

She was quiet on the way home, but as soon as
they got inside, she started crying. "I’m sorry, Em," Mitch said,
kissing her on the forehead and then kissing her tears. "I didn’t
mean to be such a jealous ass, I just miss you so much." She cried
harder. He led her to the bed, and she didn’t stop him.

Later, Emily wasn’t sure if she had cried for
herself and the person she used to be, for her crazy, crystal clear
friend and the fact that she couldn’t save her, or because Miranda
had been right about everything.

Miranda considered everything that Emily had
said and implied. It bothered her, but she was relieved. It took
her mind off of Michael, who tormented her more in his absence than
he ever had when they shared a roof. The things he had said to her
over the summer, but more importantly, the way he’d looked at her,
troubled her to no end. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what Michael
was, and she knew what his look meant. He wasn’t the first man to
look at her that way. But did she like it? How could she, after
everything? How could she, if she loved Alex?

And Alex...he seemed to be making a point of
scheduling meetings later and later these days, almost as if he
knew how much Miranda wanted to talk to him. Desperate, Miranda
told Alex that she was going out, knowing that he would probably
schedule some time at home. She left at seven but returned at
seven-thirty, finding him in his study, reading alone.

He jumped when he saw her. "I thought you
were going out!"

"And that’s a problem because?" She looked at
the title of his book. "Stephen Hawking. Such trash," she
teased.

"I—don’t you have some studying you should
catch up on then?"

"Actually," she said, pulling her hair back
over her ear, "I am all caught up. It must be Emily’s
influence."

"I’ll be sure to thank her."

"You do that."

He flushed. "So what can I do for you?"

"I think we need to talk."

"About what?"

"About Michael not being here."

"I thought that would make you happy."

"Not being unhappy isn’t the same as being
happy."

"What would make you happy?"

Before she could answer, Keith ran into the
study. Miranda stood up. In all her years living there, she’d never
seen him look flustered. Alex stood up as well. "Is something
wrong?"

"Richard Hendrickson is on the phone. I think
there’s something wrong with Jessie."

Keith gave the phone to Alex while Miranda
checked her phone. She’d turned it off so they wouldn’t be
interrupted. Sure enough, there were several calls from Zainab,
Richard and Emily.

"Richard, what’s going on?" Miranda couldn’t
hear what Richard said, but she saw Alex turn white. "And where is
Lucy? Of course, of course, we’ll be right over."

Without saying a word, Miranda and Alex ran
to his car. He had turned onto Storrow Drive before Miranda dared
to ask. "What’s wrong with Jessie?"

Alex gripped the steering wheel and looked
straight ahead. "Richard didn’t get into it, but I think Jessie’s
had a nervous breakdown."

"A what?!?" Why? Why now? "What set it off?"
It couldn’t have been school—it was never school, with Jess—and a
guy...it wasn’t like Jess to let someone get to her like that. "Oh
my God, did she have an overdose?"

"I don’t know." Miranda looked at him out of
the corner of her eye as her pulse raced. It terrified her that he
wasn’t telling her everything was going to be okay.

They found Richard in the waiting room on the
Psychiatric Unit sitting down, staring at his hands. Mitch came in
with some coffee and chips for Richard. Miranda ran to Zainab and
Emily, who were both wiping their tears. Alex left to find a doctor
to get an update.

"What happened?" Miranda asked to no one in
particular. Zainab looked at Richard, who was looking at the bag of
chips in his hands. She took a deep breath. "We got a call from
Jessie’s school. They said she’d locked herself in her room and she
wouldn’t let her roommate come in. The floor master wasn’t able to
get in either. She wouldn’t even open up for the headmaster! She
started screaming and barricading herself in. They called
us—Richard—and when we got there—Oh, God!" Zainab cried for a
moment. "She was screaming by then, she didn’t know who we were.
She kept asking…" Zainab’s lip trembled again. "She kept asking for
her mom. She said she didn’t want to go back to her Aunt Lucy’s;
she wanted to find her mom. She wouldn’t calm down until Richard
convinced her he’d take her to her mom. She was hysterical the
whole way here. We couldn’t stop for anything, because we were
afraid she was going to try and jump out of the car."