Enraptured (24 page)

I knew Alex held onto a thin thread of hope that it would reach Drew wherever he was locked up inside his damaged body. I could practically hear the one-sided conversations now.

There would be denial. “This is just a temporary setback, Old Man. You’re bigger than this thing. Show these doctors what a Fullerton is truly made of and open your eyes.”

There would be anger. “Wake the fuck up, you bastard! Are you really going to leave your family after everything you did to get it?
Are you really going to roll over and play dead, just because of a measly fucking bullet? What kind of Fullerton are you?”

He would go on to bargain with Drew. “I’ll do anything you want. I’ll get out of the business. I’ll get out of L.A. I’ll go back to England and you can have your perfect life. Just open your goddamn eyes already.”

He could finally express his own sadness and loss. “You can’t leave me now, man. Not when I finally got you back. Come back to us. Not just for Rachel and the kids, but for me. I need you. Please don’t leave.”

And as he worked through these stages of grief, I knew he would skip over the most important one: acceptance. Alex was no more prepared to say goodbye than I was. And we would fight anyone to the bitter end who suggested it might be time to let him go.

We didn’t care about the diagnostic tests or the expert opinions. We both believed that Drew would come back for his children.

He had always been ready to do whatever it took for his children.

Finally I was brave enough to face the next set of letters, the ones written while I lived with Alex. And like I expected they were bitter, angry (likely drunken) diatribes of our betrayal. The bastard Drew had come out to play.

Did you really think you could come back to L.A. and stay with him? Gain access to my child? Cut me out of my family completely? I never expected this of you; I had always considered you kind and good and moral. I guess I wasn’t the only one who lied in our relationship.

And of course, he could finally tell the truth about Olivia.

I have officially gone mad. How can I sleep with one of the most beautiful women on the planet and all I see is your face? You have ruined me, Rachel. If I were truly my father, I could easily swap one woman for another, making my decisions based on logic and practically. Instead, I would rather spend two minutes in your arms than be welcomed into Olivia’s bed for a lifetime.

And then, of course, there was a letter the night of the campout.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to kill my brother. Not just for sharing your tent with you, for touching you, or for loving you. Those things I understand. Why wouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t he? But for the first time I was on the outside of the family looking in. I was the one forced to claw my way into the fold and justify my place there. It was a place Alex had lived his whole life, and somehow he had always been able to rise above it. He didn’t play the game. He could always walk away.

In that moment I knew that he was stronger than me. And I truly hated him for it.

Finally I got to the letter he penned on Thanksgiving.

I had waited long, lonely months to take you into my arms again, to feel your soft body around mine. To claim once again what I was so sure I lost. I longed to get drunk on your kiss as I lost myself once again inside the only heaven I have ever known.

But that was not how I wanted it to happen. That’s not how it should ever happen.

I took advantage of your drunken state because it gave me what I thought I wanted most. Now I know what I want most is your love, not your desire. More than that I want to be worthy of your love, in a way I now fear I can never be.

You chose my brother because he allowed you to make that choice. As usual, I had to take all of your choices away simply because I couldn’t guarantee I’d win otherwise.

Winning seemed so important before, though I
honestly can’t remember why. Did I honestly think I could erase those old scars by inflicting a few of my own? I only deepened the cut. I knew that when I saw that strong, beautiful light in your eyes fade the very second you realized the depth of your own betrayal. Not just to Alex, but to all that you believed was right and good.

You hate me now, as well you should.

I hate myself, too.

And then, a glimmer of hope returned in the form of a baby.

You’re pregnant.

I keep repeating these same two words over and over again. They seem quite remarkable and truly unbelievable. In a moment I could have never planned, fate stepped in and made some choices for us. And now I know we were meant to be together.

I had always believed you to be my salvation, dear Rachel.

Now we have proof that it’s true.

Of course, he was still insecure and scared and vulnerable. All these things he confessed in his letters rather than to me.

Every time I see you with Alex, I can’t help but think of you in his arms and in his bed. It’s like a knife in
my gut. You fit together in a way you and I never will. Do you see it too? Do you regret your choice? Do you long for his touch and merely tolerate mine?

I would ask you these questions if I were not afraid of the answer.

These were questions he pondered until the night where we almost lost the babies.

Tonight I saw the transformation into my father complete. I hurt you and I nearly cost us our children. All the way to the hospital I bargained with God. If he saved them, if he saved you, I would do whatever I needed to do to honor this family I have been given… this love I do not deserve.

I am not my father.

I give my life to you, Rachel.
Every moment of every day. I give you my heart and all that I am, good and bad, weak and strong. And maybe one day I will have made up for my many sins and finally be worthy of the love you so generously shared.

This is my legacy now.

It was the last letter that he wrote.

He didn’t need to write any more because he didn’t need to hide any more. The minute he confessed his love to me, it opened him up to me, to our children and ultimately to Alex as well.

We had freed him from his lonely room.

That night when Alex came to visit, I handed him the book.

“What is this?” he asked.

“When Drew was a kid, he started writing letters to express those things he felt he couldn’t otherwise. They started as letters to your father, but over the years he began addressing them to anyone he didn’t feel he could share these thoughts with face to face.”

He opened up the book, startled by the familiar penmanship of the scanned letters, forgotten remnants of a lost eleven-year-old boy.

“This is your real brother, Alex,” I said softly. “And you deserve to know him.”

Alex spent the next couple of weeks engrossed in the book. Like me, he had to take many breaks when the emotion got too raw. Unlike me, he couldn’t read it alone. Much of the time he read it right in my hospital room, on the chair by the window, as I dozed, read or simply waited nearby.

There were times he would go to Drew’s hospital room, the book tucked under his arm, perhaps to read some of those old letters to his brother as a way to draw him back to us.

Or answer the questions Drew
posed in those books, painful questions that deserved answers.

Alex
finished reading on August 1
st
.

My water broke two days later
.

Because my condition had been so
meticulously monitored for weeks, Dr. Rombach felt confident that I could deliver both babies naturally, rather than a C-section. They both presented head down, and neither shared an amniotic sac. Once the first sac broke, the pain began in earnest. Alex was my coach as the hours passed. He held my hand and helped me breathe through each contraction until my epidural was finally administered that afternoon.

It gave us a chance to talk as we waited for nature to take its course
. “You never did tell me what names you have picked out.”

I laughed. “It’s a secret.”

“The minute your legs go up in stirrups, there are no secrets,” he grinned.

I returned the smile. “Drew picked the names,” I finally confessed. “He wanted something unusual so that our children could break from tradition and carve their own path.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re naming the babies after fruit or something.”

I chuckled as I shook my head. “Remember the comics he used to read?” He nodded. “There were a couple of characters he used to idolize in his youth as strong, uncompromising individuals whose destin
ies were much bigger that they ever believed possible.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on a little baby,” he said softly.

I caressed my vast tummy. “They’re strong. They’re Fullertons.”

He reached over t
o place his hand on my stomach, completing the family circle.

As much as we had stalled labor for months, dilating to deliver seemed to take forever. It was midnight before
we were moved into the operating room.

I was terrified that something might go wrong, but Alex’s voice was soothing in my ear as he kept me focused. “Look in my eyes,” he would say. He sang under his breath, making me wish I had the foresight to ask him to bring his guitar. What a gentle and loving entrance into the world that would have been.

The first baby came quickly, with a loud yowl to announce her arrival. Both Alex and I were reduced to tears when we realized how much like a Fullerton she already looked. She had a shock of black hair and her father’s sharp features, and she had no problem at all running the joint the minute she took her first breath.

I held the warm, squiggly baby to my breast. “
Winter,” I whispered, anointing her with the name her father had chosen for her as I kissed her gently on the forehead.

She was whisked from my arms to be weighed and checked, while Dr.
Rombach delivered the second baby. Raine, as it turned out, was far more reluctant to leave the womb she had called home for long months. Likewise her cry was gentler and quieter. I could tell right away that this smaller baby would be far less demanding. She barely made a peep as she looked into my eyes for the first time. It was like she knew something we didn’t.

Alex fell in love with her from the moment they placed her into his arms.

The babies were small, weighing roughly five pounds each. Winter weighed a little more, Raine weighed a little less, but they were completely healthy otherwise. It made all the time spent in bed for months worthwhile, even if that meant I couldn’t help Alex fight for Jonathan, or exonerate Drew.

These babies had been my purpose.

When I lost Jason years ago, I never thought I would once again hold a baby to my breast. Now I had two. I was overwhelmed by the gift of them, and the miracle of them.

And I couldn’t wait to share them with Drew.

The next day a nurse finally rolled me to Drew’s room as Alex walked alongside, both of us carrying our precious cargo. My heart beat like a galloping horse as we approached his door. It had been two months since I had seen him, the last time being on a Santa Barbara sidewalk all covered in blood.

I had no idea what to expect.

My hands shook as I clutched Winter closer, and they rolled me to the bed.

The Drew I knew and loved did not lie in that bed. This was another man entirely
, an older man, a broken man. His neck arched, his mouth gaped open and skin sunk in around his strong features. Much of his thick, dark hair had either fallen out or been shaved away, and he looked like he had aged twenty years in the two months he’d been unconscious. There was a reassuring drone of the heart monitor nearby, but I saw no sign of life in the rigid figure on the bed. It was as though he was a scientific experiment, half human, half machine.

I couldn’t stop my strangled cry if I wanted to. This agitated
Winter, who immediately let the world know it.

Alex stepped toward the bed. “I brought a surprise,” he said softly to his brother. “You’ve added two beautiful girls to the Fullerton brood. Meet your daughters,
Winter and Raine.”

I couldn’t even speak. All I could do is
stare at the shell of a man I loved. Alex sent me a reassuring glance.

“Rachel’s here too.
Just like I promised.”

The nurse lifted
Winter from my arms and I rolled closer to touch his icy hand. I covered it with both of mine, to will my life into his body. “Drew,” I managed to croak. “I’m here.”

As earnestly as we all watched for any sign of awareness, the monitor beeped on and Drew’s body stayed in its frozen state. Alex nodded to the nurse and they exited to give us time alone.

I took a deep, shaking breath. “I’m sorry it has taken me so long to come,” I said. “But if you could see our girls, you’d know it was worth it. Everything,” I eked, “everything was worth it.”

I thought about our long journey that began with an email a lifetime ago.

“I found your letters,” I confessed. “I read every one. I wish…,” I started, but then shook my head. “It doesn’t matter what I wish. Maybe this was just our journey to walk, exactly the way we have walked it.” I traced his hand with my fingers. “You often wrote of me being your salvation. You were mine, Drew. I was living a half-life before I met you. I thought that’s what I deserved. And you gave me this life that I could have never imagined for myself. All I can possibly hope in return is that I gave you a love you never imagined for yourself. I am proud to be your wife. I am honored to be the mother of your children. And if,” I started, before I was strangled by a wretched sob. “If you come back to me, I’ll spend every single day I have left on this earth giving you all the love you always deserved. No matter what.”

His hand remained limp in mine and I wept silently at his bedside.

I was devastated as they returned me to my hospital room. I wanted to ask Alex why he didn’t warn me for what I was about to see, but I knew it was because I never would have believed it, any more than I believed what the doctors had told me.

I was still stuck in stage one: denial.

When we returned to the mansion a few days later, I was surprised to find that Millicent had returned with Max. They were all waiting, with Cleo and Harrison, with balloons and a big cake and lots of love to patch up my broken heart. They fawned over the babies, especially Max. Now that he was the older cousin, he adopted Jonathan’s caregiver attitude. He was willing to help in any way possible, whether it was feeding the babies or rocking them to sleep.

That night I returned to the bedroom upstairs. It felt like a tomb. I opened his closet and sank to my knees in front of his clothes. They hung silently, waiting for him to return.

But the man who used to wear them might never return.

I knew that now.

I juggled this grief with the wonder of new motherhood. I often cuddled the babies in the bed I had shared with Drew, to breathe life back into that dark room where loss lurked in the shadows. Max would join me, but Alex never would. “It’s his room,” he said quietly. “And you’re his wife.”

Now that the babies had been born, and all the other promises he had made to Drew had crumbled, the only thing he could offer his brother was his honor. And that was what he was determined to give.

Despite our full house and the two babies who demanded my attention, I truly felt lonelier than I ever remember feeling in that house. Whether it was Drew’s unused clothes or Jonathan’s closed bedroom door, I knew that our family was still incomplete, still fractured.

Even Yoda couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm.

I decided I wanted to petition the judge to fight for custody of Jonathan. Drew still lived and therefore he still had a right to his son.

It was our last hope to pull him back from the abyss. And I was ready to fight anyone I had to in order to make it happen.

“If only we could get another judge,” Alex remarked when I told him of my plan.

“Why can’t we?” I asked.

I was a Fullerton now. It was time to act like one. Limitations were for other people, not for us, and I was no longer content to be held hostage to the whims of others.

Inevitably this one small decision would jumpstart a chain of events none of us saw coming… one that would change everything forever.