Wild with All Regrets, page 22
John put a generous plate of food down in front of Lucas and patted him kindly on the shoulder.
“So relax, let him be an idiot, and wait ’til he comes back to you. If he loves you, he’ll always come back. Now eat up, you know how much I’d like to get a little meat on your bones.” John sat across from Lucas, popping a corner of toast into his mouth.
They ate together quietly after that, and John was good at keeping conversation going when Lucas wasn’t really feeling up to it. He’d only really known Jamie’s father for a couple of years, but each time they interacted, Lucas liked him more and more. John treated him with respect, like an adult, like an equal. Lucas was glad that Jamie’d had such a wonderful Da’ as he was growing up. John could almost make him forget about the fact that Jamie hadn’t come home that night, a feat that was in and of itself astonishing.
They finished eating and John made a move to help with washing the dishes.
“Don’t you start with me, Mr. Murray,” Lucas warned, a smile playing on his lips. “You are not allowed to cook my breakfast and clean up after me. My mother would box my ears if she heard I let you do that.” He wondered if John would like his mother, but suspected she wouldn’t live long enough for them to find out one way or the other.
“All right, all right, I hear you.” John held up his hands in surrender, chuckling softly and picking up the newspaper.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Lucas asked, not meaning to sound rude.
“What, besides checking on my only son and a property that I own?” He laughed, peering at Lucas over his glasses. “I wanted to drop off some new books that I thought you two would enjoy. Plus, it’s always a pleasure to see you, my boy.” He gently patted Lucas on the head and fluffed his hair affectionately. “It’s nice to see Jamie has a friend who cares about him so much.”
Lucas smiled and scrubbed at the plates, satisfied with the answer.
A key turned in the lock and Lucas’s ears perked up. He practically dropped the dish he was holding and ran to the door, swinging it open before Jamie even had a chance to take the key out.
He looked disheveled, hung over, like he needed a bath, and Lucas had never been happier to see him.
“Heya,” Jamie said softly, sheepishly running a hand through his hair. “Sorry I lost you last night.”
Lucas looked at him. He was here, he was whole, oh thank God, thank God he was okay. Lucas wrapped his arms around Jamie’s body and held him close, not even minding the foreign smell of perfume that had sunk into his clothes.
“You didn’t. You never could.”
Jamie’s strong arms returned the embrace, and Lucas’s fingers tightened in the soft fabric of his jacket. “I hate you, you cock.” He muttered, and Jamie chuckled against his ear.
“I love you too, Lucas.”
As Lucas pulled away from the hug, he kept his hands on Jamie’s arms and looked into his eyes. “Now go wash up, you smell like a drunk whore.”
Jamie laughed and gave him that beautiful smile, and all the anger and insecurity melted away from Lucas’s heart. How could he do anything but adore this man?
1923
“Let me give you the grand tour!” Anna Murray beamed at him, showing him around the sweet little cottage. She showed him John’s old study, Fiona’s old room (which had been converted into a nursery—at Fiona’s request), the garden, the kitchen; everything was immaculate, cozy, and well loved. Even the damn furniture matched. It was so fucking sweet how much care this woman put into her home.
Lucas imagined Jamie growing up in a house like this, coming home with dirt on his knees, a smile on his face. Mrs. Murray would catch him by the arm, hold him back, and make him wash up before he tracked mud everywhere. And Jamie would laugh, obey, and chatter cheerfully about what he’d learned at school that day.
Lucas imagined him being tucked into bed by his mother, a handmade quilt up to his chin as he snuggled into the sheets, trying to get comfortable. John would come in and read him a bedtime story, maybe a chapter from the newest adventure book that had captured his fancy. Good.
“And last but not least, Jamie’s room.” Anna paused at the threshold, a look of hesitation on her face. “I kept it just the way Jamie left it. You can go in, but please . . . try not to disturb anything.”
“Mrs. Murray—”
“Anna,” she corrected.
“Anna, I would never, ever disturb Jamie’s things. You have my word on that.” Lucas bowed his head; this place was sacred to him.
“I know, I just . . . ” She touched the spine of one of the books on the shelf and sighed. “It’s all I have left of him.”
Lucas swallowed and rubbed his fingers over the little button in his pocket. “I know how you feel. I’ll be careful, I promise.”
“Let me at least get you settled first, then you can have at it.” She smiled. “You can stay in the guest room; it has a little bathroom attached. I’ve got towels, some spare clothes, and we can pick up anything else you need in town. What can I make you for dinner?”
Lucas chuckled. “Anything is fine, Anna. Don’t go out of your way for me, I’ll be happy with whatever you make.” He reached into his pocket and got some money out, handing it to her. “Let me help pay for the groceries, at least.”
“Lucas, I won’t hear of it. You’re my guest, start acting like it.” She laughed, shaking her head. “I’ll come check on you later, just relax. You can go into Jamie’s room whenever you want.”
Lucas was grateful for the privilege and took some time to settle down in the guest room before he intruded onto Jamie’s sacred space. He helped Anna prepare their dinner, set the table, and he found it terribly easy to settle into a little domestic routine with her. They got along well, and Anna had no shortage of stories about Jamie, which always left Lucas with a smile on his face.
Gradually he felt comfortable enough to venture into Jamie’s old room. It didn’t smell like him anymore—of course it didn’t—but there were pieces of him here which didn’t exist anywhere else in the world. His old collection of books and toys, his spare clothes, his military uniform . . . Anna had taken such good care of everything.
Lucas carefully lay himself down on the bed and shut his eyes. This was Jamie’s bed, in Jamie’s home, where Jamie had lived and loved and grown into the man Lucas adored with every cell in his body. The smell of Anna’s cooking wafted in from the kitchen, and he wondered how in the world he would ever convince himself to leave this haven. A little paradise that brought him so much peace. Why had he waited this long to get in touch with Mrs. Murray?
Lucas’s self-hatred had dwindled in this cozy nest, but it flared now, and there was his answer. He had robbed Anna of her only son; he had prevented Jamie from living out the rest of his days in peace and happiness . . .
“Lucas? Sweetheart, what’s the matter?” Anna asked at dinner that night, noting the very obvious change in his countenance.
“It’s nothing,” he muttered, then looked into her eyes and sighed. “I just— in a lot of ways, I blame myself for what happened to Jamie. I feel like being here with you has been so wonderful for me. I’m not worthy of being happy with you like this.”
Anna nodded and reached over the table to touch his forearm. “I blame myself a lot for what happened, too, that I wasn’t a stronger figure in his life, that I didn’t try harder to stop him from enlisting . . . ” She shook her head. “But it’s not productive or healthy for me to dwell on the past. Fiona always scolds me for getting lost in how painful everything was. I told you, right? She hates to talk about Jamie, or her father . . . she was so young when we lost them both, and it all happened so suddenly.”
“I know.” Lucas swallowed. “Jamie was so, so broken up when we lost Mr. Murray. I can’t imagine how hard this has been for you.”
“Thank you, Lucas, I appreciate that.” She took a sip of her tea. “After Jamie died, I very seldom left the house. I stayed in his room, I cried, I cuddled up with his jacket and I wished that I’d never loved him as much as I did. That things could be different, or that I could die and be with him again. Fiona had me assessed by a doctor. It wasn’t healthy, the way I was. I drank too much. I won’t touch the stuff anymore.”
Lucas squeezed her hand, moved by how similar their experiences had been. He imagined Anna writing a letter to him, reaching out for a human connection while she reeled with the loss of her only son . . . how awful she must have felt at Lucas’s chilly, impersonal response. He was an ass.
“After John died, I had to take on most of the family responsibilities, including the finances. It was difficult, I almost lost our home. Fiona’s husband—her boyfriend at the time—helped us both through the worst of it; he’s a good man. I thought I’d finally recovered, but then”—she sniffled—“he almost came home. He almost made it back to us. If he’d just managed to hold out a few more weeks . . . if they’d sent him home after his shoulder injury instead of back out to the front lines.”
Jesus Christ, it was so strange and awful to hear these things out loud after all these years. They were the same. Lucas found himself trembling and was glad that Anna had her head in her hands. “Anna—I—”
“I’m sorry, Lucas,” she said after a moment. “It’s been a long time since I let myself feel these things. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone to talk to about them.”
“Me too,” Lucas admitted. “I can’t talk about Jamie to my family since my brother is in such bad shape. Everyone thinks it’s strange how much time I still devote to missing Jamie.” He looked at her. What was she going to think? What was she going to say? He’d never even admitted this to Angela.
“I loved him, Anna. I loved him with all my heart, and my life is in tatters without him. I don’t know what to do with myself, I never have. He’s been the most important person in my life since I was sixteen years old and. . . Fu—my God, why doesn’t it get easier? I wonder if I can move on—and then I wonder, do I want to?” How can I let go of someone I loved so much? What kind of man would I be?
Anna leaned over the table and hugged Lucas. For a moment the world stood still as they shared in their grief together. Lucas had found a kindred spirit, and he wondered if Anna felt the same way.
They spent the next few days and weeks together in and out of Jamie’s room, reliving the good memories and the bad ones. Lucas was obsessed with knowing the details of Jamie’s life, and Anna was obsessed with knowing the details of Jamie’s death.
“Please, Lucas. Please tell me what happened. None of the officers would tell me the truth,” she begged him one night as they finished a bottle of wine together. He’d been resisting answering her questions, dragging out every detail of Jamie’s childhood before he dared traipse through the bullet-pocked landscape of his last months on earth. “Do you really want to know?” he asked, his eyes dark. “You want to know everything?”
“Yes, Lucas. Please.”
Lucas shut his eyes and nodded.
“Jamie had . . . really, really severe shell shock. He was sent to medical for it once—actually, I . . . I had him sent there. He resented the shit out of me for it, but he seemed better. He got really good at hiding it after that. He was erratic, he was unpredictable, he was sometimes a danger to himself and others. I did everything I could for the better part of a year to keep it hidden, to keep him out of trouble. He was an officer, it . . . it mattered so much to him to stay steady. I could see when he was about to get panicked, I could pull him out of it, I could keep him calm.
“But little by little, I started to lose him. Jamie felt so awful about what happened to his father; he agonized about how he kept surviving when other good men didn’t. His mind was breaking, and I didn’t know what to do. It was so bad that I was worried he would be shot for cowardice if I reported him again, and he didn’t deserve his reputation to be destroyed over something like this. He wasn’t a coward, he was just—traumatized beyond reason.
“The day he was killed . . . He had a fit of panic, a really bad one. I had been injured and he completely flipped his lid; he was terrified, couldn’t be reasoned with, he couldn’t think straight. To the point that he started threatening his own men with a gun.”
Anna covered her mouth, her eyes wide.
“So . . . I wrestled the pistol off him, I took him aside and I held him until he calmed down, like I always did. I almost didn’t get him to calm down that time. I thought he’d finally snapped. They might have court-martialed him, they might have had him executed, but . . . ”
Lucas looked at Anna and wondered if she would still love him if he revealed the truth of what had happened. No one else knew, no one in the world.
“I got him back. He was there, and he was at peace, and we were holding each other and smiling . . . and then . . . he was shot in the heart. He was gone so quickly, he never knew what hit him. It all happened so fast.”
Lucas’s words were tumbling out; he could scarcely stop himself. “His blood was all over my hands and my face, and I held him in my arms until his body went slack and, and I screamed. I tried to kill myself, I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t do anything . . . I don’t remember much after that. They had to sedate me for weeks. His body was buried there. I never saw it again. He hated it there so much— I tried to get him back, I tried to take him home, but they wouldn’t let me. They wouldn’t fucking let me. I left him to rot out there, alone.”
Without a word, Anna Murray went into her bedroom and shut the door behind her. She didn’t come out for the rest of the day.
Lucas made her tea and tried to get her to eat, but the food went untouched.
“Mrs. Murray?” he called, knocking gently. “Anna, please come eat something.”
Lucas wasn’t sure what to do. He was good at cultivating grief. He was good at making misery grow and flourish. Helping someone through their grief, being a shoulder to lean on in a time of need . . . no one had needed him for that since Jamie died.
Lucas listened to Anna’s sobs for most of the night, wondering why he always left a trail of bitterness and resentment in his wake. It was another day or so before she finally emerged and met his eyes. Anna was tired and unkempt; she looked like she’d been crying. There was sorrow and hesitation in her eyes, and her lip quivered as Lucas watched her struggle to find the words.
“Lucas . . . I think . . . I think maybe this isn’t going to work,” she said, after a pause. “I care about you, I treasure you as a person, and—and I’m so glad that Jamie had a friend like you. Lucas, I can’t live in the past like this. You loved Jamie so much—but since you’ve been here all I do is think about my son, and how much I loved him, and how much I miss him. I can’t do this, it’s not good for me, and it’s not good for you, either.”
She took his hands and looked into his eyes. “Jamie would have wanted us to live. He would have wanted us to be happy. And I don’t think I can do either of those things if I’m always reliving the parts of my life where Jamie was alive. I have little James now, and I have to be strong for the only family I have left.”
Lucas swallowed and nodded. Of course. Of course, the only person on earth who could possibly understand his grief thought he was too broken, even for her. He was so sick. He was so damaged. Even now, all he could think of was Jamie. He’d be so disappointed in Lucas. “How could you upset my mother like this, you ass? What the hell is wrong with you?” Jesus. Jesus, it hurt. He prayed he could keep it off his face.
“I understand. I’m so sorry, Anna.”
“Please don’t be sorry,” she insisted, cupping his face in her hands. “I know your heart is in the right place, but I don’t think we’re good for each other. We both needed him too much. We both loved him too much. It’s too easy to get trapped in the sticky black grief that’s encasing our hearts. I need to heal. You need to heal. We both need to move on, and we both need to live.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” she continued. “I’ll write you; I promise I will. And maybe one day we can grow as people enough that we can think about Jamie and smile instead of . . . ” She drifted off, her shoulders shaking and her expression dark. “Promise you’ll write me back.”
“Of course I will,” he lied. He couldn’t bear to speak with her or write to her. He was broken, right? She’d already cut him to the quick, tossed him out like the trash he was. A dense miasma of anger and agony was blurring his vision, and he forced himself not to blame her for her choice. Fucking bitch.
No. No, no. She was right. As much as anger and bitterness would have been easier, she was right. Lucas looked into her eyes, those beautiful, perfect eyes that he never thought he’d see again, and forced an empty smile to his face. “I’m glad I knew you,” he managed, and turned on his heel so he could leave her behind.
The rejection was profound and agonizing, and he wondered how he’d explain this to Angie. Even without knowing his secret, Anna had rejected him. Lucas’s heart was in tatters as he walked, and he wondered if it was possible to die of loneliness.
1928
Lucas stood perfectly still in his flat, mind reeling. Jamie was gone. Jamie was gone again, and it was all his fault. He supposed it was only natural for Jamie to figure it out eventually . . . it was only by some miracle of blessed chance that Jamie had managed to avoid remembering the truth of his death for as long as he had. Lucas had vowed to spend the rest of his life in lonely penance, and Jamie had made it quite clear that that wasn’t good enough. Jamie’s was the only opinion that really mattered to Lucas, and Jamie had spurned him, rejected him, cast him aside like the filth he was. His sin was beyond redemption, and it was only fair that his life would be forfeit.
