She shifted into gear and pulled from the curb. “Let’s call it a day, then.”
“What a waste of time,” I complained, grinding the heel of my palm against my head.
Natalya shot me a concerned look. “We’ll visit the Tierneys tomorrow. Tonight, I’m buying dinner. Then I’m giving you a back rub.”
“Just the back?”
She snorted and playfully knocked my shoulder. “Let’s get some food in that belly of yours, then we’ll see what happens.”
It was midmorning when I rang the Tierneys’ doorbell. Natalya stood beside me, our shoulders brushing. I tightly grasped her hand. She rubbed my forearm. I loosened my grip.
“I’m as nervous as you.” She pressed closer.
Light footsteps approached the door and after a moment’s hesitation, the lock flipped and the door opened. A smaller, older version of Aimee greeted us. Blue eyes, bright and wide under a head of chicly spiked salt-and-pepper hair, darted from me to Natalya, then back to me. She stared, blinked several times, then fell back a step and gasped. Her hands cupped her mouth and nose, and her eyes sheened.
“Mrs. Tierney?” I asked.
She lifted her hands away from her face. “James?”
Natalya’s nails dug into my hand. I glanced at her. She’d gone pale.
“Carlos.” I offered my hand.
“Yes, of course . . . Carlos.” She gripped my hand with both of hers. “Carlos,” she repeated, chewing on the name. “You look different than . . . I never thought.” She pressed her lips, her chin quivering, and released my hand. She touched her hair, pushed down the silver cuff she wore on her wrist, and glanced over her shoulder into the depths of the house. She discreetly swiped her tears.
“Oh my,” she murmured. “I’m a bit overwhelmed.”
I imagined finding me on her doorstep was like seeing a ghost. They’d attended James’s funeral and the burial afterward.
Natalya tugged my arm.
“This is Natalya Hayes, my—”
“I’m his sister-in-law,” she said, looking at me. I frowned and she shook her head, then extended her arm. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Catherine.” Mrs. Tierney looked a bit dazed.
“May we come in?” I asked.
“My goodness, where are my manners? Come in, come in.” She opened the door wider.
Natalya went first, and I hesitated. Panic sliced through me. What if I recognize the rooms? What if there are pictures of Aimee and me? What if I suddenly forget who I am and remember everything I was?
Natalya glanced at me over her shoulder and squeezed my hand so I’d know to read her lips. It’s okay, she silently told me. I moved into the entryway and turned a full circle. Aside from an oil painting of an old railroad track I recognized as James’s—it was his artistic style and signature in the corner—I didn’t see anything familiar. I exhaled and smiled reassuringly at Natalya.
Catherine closed the front door, watching us. The way Natalya stood beside me, our hands clasped. The secret glances at each other, which apparently weren’t so secret.
“She’s more than a sister-in-law.”
“I love her.”
Catherine’s mouth curved downward. She nodded. “I can’t imagine what life must be like for you with most of it missing. Everything your family did to you . . .” Her chin quivered. “You’re still welcome here. You’ll always be family to us.” She turned to Natalya. “I’m glad he has you.”
Natalya adjusted the purse strap on her shoulder with a trembling hand. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’m happy you aren’t alone,” Catherine said to me. Tears flooded her eyes, fell in ribbons over weathered cheeks. Her shoulders shook; then she broke into a full-on cry.
“Oh!” Natalya exclaimed. She hugged Catherine as the older woman sobbed on her shoulder.
“Cathy?” A voice boomed through the house.
“In here, Hugh.” Her voice broke through her tears.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the house. A large man appeared around the corner. “Why are you crying?” Hugh asked his wife. I watched with distorted amusement as his expression changed from confusion to shock when he saw me. “Jesus Christ.”
“Not quite, but I guess you could say we’ve both risen from the dead.”
Natalya smacked my chest. “Carlos.”
Catherine grasped my wrist. “Will you stay for Sunday lunch?”
“Cathy, I don’t think—”
“Lunch?” I asked, then noticed the dining room table set for four right before the front door burst open.
“Hello! We’re—here.” Aimee’s voice dropped midsentence, the last word coming out as a thin whisper. She stopped abruptly in the doorway, her blue eyes as deep as the sea, and brunette curls that flowed over her shoulders like a waterfall. She made an odd noise in the back of her throat. “Carlos.”
Ian appeared behind her. “Move aside, honey, or I’m going to drop—” His gaze caught mine. Where Aimee’s face had paled, Ian’s went hard and red. A flash of fear darkened his eyes.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m still Carlos.”
CHAPTER 21
JAMES
Present Day
June 28
Hanalei, Kauai, Hawaii
Wired for an earlier time zone, James wakes before the sun. Rain drums outside, as it did on and off through the night. He changes into the running shorts and shirt he set out the night before and laces up his Nikes. It’s been too many weeks since he left the boys alone. Last winter he just didn’t care. He’d take off for a ninety-minute run and think nothing of leaving a five-year-old with an eleven-year-old who threatened daily he’d hitch a ride to the airport. His mind was damaged and the world he knew had moved on without him. He had to get outside and run, hard and fast until his lungs burned and calves cramped. So he did.
This morning, though, he runs for pure enjoyment, that rush of adrenaline that comes as the miles build. Because this time, his boys are safe, sleeping soundly under their aunt’s roof.
He slips on his iWatch, swipes over a text message from Thomas without bothering to read it, and preps the settings for his run. It will be a good one, and he plans to make it a long one.
He runs toward Kuhio Highway, maintaining a steady pace past homes shrouded under grayness. He knows the trees overhead and lawns yawning outward from the road are as green and bright as an acrylic painting. He saw them yesterday while driving to Natalya’s house. Where Carlos had loved the heat and rustic appeal of Puerto Escondido, its air pregnant with salt and dust, dry like the surrounding hills, James prefers the vintage feel of this beachside community. Hanalei is a 1950s postcard and running past the storefronts, elementary school, and little green Wai’oli Hui’ia Church, is like going back in time. As he eats up the miles, his shoes pounding the rain-drenched asphalt, he lets his mind wander. Back to the hours he pushed himself in football conditioning, running sprints, leading the pack. Then his mind meanders further. Back to the time they lived in New York and everything changed.
James was nine that Thanksgiving weekend when he, Phil, and Phil’s friend Tyler had walked in on his mother with Uncle Grant, Phil’s dad, in the woodshed, their limbs roped around each other and clothes askew. After a stunned moment, Tyler grabbed Phil’s collar and dragged him away. Grant ran after them, pleading for his son to wait.
James’s mother straightened her skirt and gripped his shoulders. “You have to forget what you saw,” she pleaded. “Your father can’t ever know, and you can’t tell Thomas. Promise me.”
How was he supposed to forget this?
His mother shook him when he didn’t answer. “Promise me.”
He did, but it wasn’t through him his father eventually heard about James’s mother and her brother in the woodshed.
Phil had been told at a young age his mother abandoned him, leaving his father to raise him as a single parent. But after the shed incident, Phil went looking for his birth certificate. He’d always thought his mother and aunt had the same name, but after seeing his father and aunt together, the truth of his parentage was there in his aunt’s crisp penmanship, handwriting he recognized now that he was older. Claire Anne Marie Donato. Unfortunately for Phil and the rest of James’s family, Tyler was with Phil when he found the birth certificate. Shortly after Phil learned the truth, so did their friends at school, and eventually their small community, and their church. Soon the corridors and cubicles of Donato Enterprises, which had been headquartered in New York at the time, were buzzing about the Thanksgiving debacle. Because news about Grant Donato and his sister was gossip too shocking not to spread.