Chapter Twenty-One #2
Her eyes fell away from his, and uneasily, he got to his feet. Gus crossed the room and looked out over the lights of the city. “Has my entire life been a lie?” he asked, head to the side.
“Who did you talk to?” she asked softly.
“Misha.”
“Of course. Misha. Does she still live on Crooked Lane?”
“Yes.”
“I always liked her. She loved you all so much. I used to think it was because she never had children of her own, but it was deeper than that. I think she was in love with Porter.”
“I’m not here to talk about Misha.”
“I know.”
He turned back as she got to her feet and crossed over to the kitchen. His mother opened a bottle of wine and poured herself a generous glass before holding the bottle aloft. He shook his head because he needed it clear.
Clarice took a couple of sips and then set the glass down on the counter. She tucked a piece of golden hair behind her ear and played with the stem. “She told you about Marshall.”
“She did.”
“What did she tell you exactly?” His mother was curious and scared. He saw the fear shadow her eyes a darker hue.
“I want you to tell me what happened. I’m not putting Misha’s words in your mouth.”
She took a big gulp and then laid her palms flat on the counter. When she spoke, her voice was so low he had to concentrate in order to hear her properly.
“I met Marshall in a pub. He was there celebrating some hockey game win, and I was slugging green beer. It was St. Paddy’s Day.
” She exhaled and shrugged, eyes shiny as she looked at Gus.
“He had an aura about him. This electricity or pull that no one could resist. He was larger than life. Loved to laugh and have fun. And he played the best pranks.” She bit her bottom lip before grabbing up the wine glass.
She walked past Gus and stood at the windows, seemingly lost in thought.
“We had the kind of connection that most folks only dream about, and we fell in love hard and fast. In the beginning it was amazing.” She sounded wistful.
She sounded sad. “But then he decided to enlist. Porter and I didn’t want him to go.
Neither did their father. But he wasn’t the kind of man to listen if he was fixed on something.
We got engaged and I stayed in Fire Lake while he went off to fight his war. ”
“He was reported MIA.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Porter and I were heartbroken. We both loved him so much. It was a terrible time and we kind of fell into a relationship of sorts. When I got pregnant, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. I couldn’t see a life beyond Fire Lake, and I felt some kind of comfort living in the same house that Marshall had grown up in. ”
“Did you love him?”
“Porter?” She slowly nodded. “Yes. But it was different from what I felt for Marshall. It was more . . . comforting, if that makes sense. I felt I would be okay with Porter. Then when Marshall showed up alive and real with a beating heart and his great big arms that gave the best hugs, everything changed. He changed — damaged.”
Gus knew it was common for soldiers to experience PTSD. He also knew how devastating it could be.
“He had trouble coping and was hurt about Porter and me. Angry that the life he’d envisioned was gone and I .
. . I wanted it back, too. I mourned for what could have been.
We had an affair.” She looked away and took a moment.
“But it didn’t last long. I couldn’t live with the guilt and Marshall was clearly unwell.
I begged him to get help, but he refused and stopped coming around.
“I tried to live my life. Tried to be happy, but it’s hard to do when half of your heart is missing.
And it wasn’t just me. Porter felt the same.
He loved his brother so much, and to see him like that was hard.
To know that he was my second choice was harder.
Porter and I fell into our kind of normal.
It was a polite relationship, and for some years, it worked.
It’s easy to let things be when your dreams are all but shattered.
“Then, one afternoon, about six months after Iris was born, Marshall showed up at the house. Drunk or high — take your pick. He had a gun, and the police were called, and when Porter came home, all the secrets and lies were exposed.”
His mother looked away, then walked to the other side of the room.
“His rage was palpable. Instead of jail, Marshall was hauled off to a psychiatric hospital in the city, Bellevue, which was what he needed. The man was clearly ill. I thought maybe we could make things right again, but Porter and I fought more than we talked. It was an exhausting, terrible time. The fights we had. The awful things we said and couldn’t take back.
All of it stemmed from such unhappiness and you kids were caught in the middle.
Porter was convinced that I’d passed off Marshall’s children as his and one night, in a fit of anger or pain or something dark I told him that he was right.
He knew Sunday and Ford were his, because Marshall was gone when they were conceived, but not the rest of you. ”
Her voice dropped to just above a whisper.
“He told me to leave and to take all of you with him. Said he never wanted to see any of us again and that if I stayed in Fire Lake, he’d destroy me.
Take my children from me.” Her voice broke on a sob, but she kept on, eyes fixed on a spot out in the dark.
“He made me choose and I chose to live some kind of life even if it meant giving up the twins. Knowing I would never see Sunday or Ford again, damn near killed me. But I have you, Ollie, Harrison, and Iris to think about. I emptied the accounts in my name so that I could start over and left.”
Gus let all of it sink in, and after a few moments, he looked at his mother. “All of this is the truth?”
“I have no reason to lie now.”
She’d said the affair was brief, which meant that Marshall couldn’t be the father of his younger siblings. But that didn’t mean shit when it came to Gus. “Is Marshall Boone my father?”
She looked up, tears streaming down her face, and whispered. “I don’t know.”
Gus had no reply. In fact, he had nothing. What did a man say when presented with this kind of information from a woman he’d loved and trusted his entire life?
Her pain was obvious, and he was man enough to know that things hadn’t been easy for his mother. More than that, he was human enough to know how easy it was to make mistakes.
“God, I’ve made a mess of things,” she whispered hoarsely. “You must hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Mom. But there are gaps I need filled in. Holes that need to be patched.”
“Ask me anything.”
He pointed to the sofa and once they were both settled, he spoke quietly.
“Tell me about Marshall Boone. I want to know what kind of man he was.”